Factcheck.org on bogus Palin claims

Factcheck.org has a section up on "Sliming Palin." Check it before forwarding on emails, and reply to the authors who are spreading falsehoods.

Palin didn't cut Alaska's "special needs" education budget by 62% (she tripled it), she didn't ask for any books to be banned, she was never a member of the Alaskan Independence Party (though her husband was), she didn't endorse Patrick Buchanan for president in 2000 (she wore a Buchanan button as a courtesy when Buchanan visited Wasilla, but worked for Steve Forbes' campaign), and she hasn't tried to put creationism in schools.

UPDATE (September 16, 2008): Apparently one of the books that Palin had inquired about how to challenge and remove from the library was a book by a local Palmer, AK pastor named Rev. Howard Bess titled, Pastor, I am Gay. It does appear that there were some particular books that caught her attention which is why she made the inquiry.

UPDATE (September 16, 2008): Philip Munger of Wasilla says that Palin is definitely a young-earth creationist:

In June 1997, both Palin and I had responsibilities at the graduation ceremony of a small group of Wasilla area home schoolers. I directed the Mat-Su College Community Band, which played music, and she gave the commencement address. It was held at her church, the Wasilla Assembly of God.

Palin had recently become Wasilla mayor, beating her earliest mentor, John Stein, the then-incumbent mayor. A large part of her campaign had been to enlist fundamentalist Christian groups, and invoke evangelical buzzwords into her talks and literature.

As the ceremony concluded, I bumped into her in a hall away from other people. I congratulated her on her victory, and took her aside to ask about her faith. Among other things, she declared that she was a young earth creationist, accepting both that the world was about 6,000-plus years old, and that humans and dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time.

I asked how she felt about the second coming and the end times. She responded that she fully believed that the signs of Jesus returning soon "during MY lifetime," were obvious. "I can see that, maybe you can't - but it guides me every day."

Surely there must be other witnesses besides Munger to her creationist views who can provide confirmation.

Tom Willis suggests labor camps for evolutionists

Tom Willis, the creationist behind the "Lucy's knee joint" claim I debunked in a Talk Origins FAQ, who in June stated that evolutionists should be "violently expelled" from the United States or denied the right to vote, now says that evolutionists should be imprisoned in labor camps.

I think Mr. Willis is either a lunatic or desperate for attention. I think he should get the latter, as a poster boy for creationist rationality.

I discussed Willis and the Lucy's knee joint claim in the fourth ApostAZ podcast.

(Willis is not actually in Kansas, but in Missouri, where he runs "The Berry Patch.")

UPDATE: Ed Brayton has a more detailed take-down of Willis' latest at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

Daniel Radosh's Rapture Ready

Daniel Radosh has a new book out titled Rapture Ready!: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture, which might be entertaining. There's a chapter on creationism that talks about Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis, and possibly the split by Creation Ministries International, since Google Books tells me my name is mentioned on p. 279.

Anybody at Scribner want to send me a review copy?

Based on the reviews at Amazon.com, it sounds like Radosh gives Christian pop culture a sympathetic and even-handed portrayal that also points out its absurdities and self-contradictions, similar to the excellent documentary Hell House.

CMI responds to AiG dispute summary

Creation Ministries International has updated its website to respond to the trove of documents released by Answers in Genesis. The Answers in Genesis site now includes the U.S. judge's order to compel arbitration in the U.S. (PDF). The court's order requires arbitration to occur in the U.S., but does not put a stop to the legal action in Australia, on the grounds that one of the documents at issue (the Deed of Copyright License or DOCL) says that the parties do "not object to the exercise of jurisdiction by [the Australian courts] on any basis" (to quote the judge's quotation from the document). The judge describes his order as granting in part and denying in part the Answers in Genesis petition, though Answers in Genesis describes it merely as granting their petition to compel arbitration.

The CMI update has a lengthy list of "WHAT AIG IS CAREFUL NOT TO TELL YOU" that makes the point that the U.S. and Australian groups were not as separate as AiG has tried to convey, with interesting examples such as that the U.S. group had appointed a CEO/COO to report to Ken Ham as president, and Carl Wieland of the Australian group was given the task of firing this person. Another is that the letter from Wieland to the U.S. board that AiG describes as "unsolicited" was actually specifically requested by the U.S. board in response to Wieland's criticisms that he had previously made to the Australian board (three members of which were also on the U.S. board).

AiG describes its former executive VP, Brandon Vallorani, as a dupe or co-conspirator with Carl Wieland, but doesn't note that when he was terminated he was given a payment in return for being bound to silence, and so is unable to comment on what actually happened without breaching that agreement.

The CMI summary notes (as I mentioned, via Kevin Henke, in my previous post) that the Thallon document contradicts other testimony from Thallon about whether the Australian board was pressured to accept the October 2005 agreement: "Ironically, there is eyewitness testimony of people having heard Thallon himself claim that they acted under duress in signing, and we have in writing (written back at the time) from a leading creation scientist and professor that Thallon personally told him that Ken Ham had threatened to not buy the next issue of the magazine if they failed to sign. So Thallon is either telling the truth to this scientist, or he is telling the truth in these documents–it’s hard to see how both can be the case." It's also interesting to note that the Thallon document alternates between U.S. and Australian spellings of some words (e.g. "organization" and "organisation" are both used in paragraph 22), which probably indicates a document prepared by Thallon (an Australian) and one or more Americans (such as AiG's attorneys) that was not fully reviewed carefully for consistency.

AiG/CMI: judge accepts, then withdraws mediation offer

The judge in the U.S. lawsuit filed by Answers in Genesis against Creation Ministries International said that he intended to rule that the groups go into arbitration in Kentucky, under the rules of the American Arbitration Association. But he rejected AiG's demands to stop the legal proceeding in Australia or to force arbitration by Peacemakers/ICC, the organization they had selected for Christian arbitration.

After the hearing, CMI's attorney proposed that the judge himself mediate a one-day attempt to resolve the dispute more quickly, and the judge agreed on the condition that the mediation meeting be limited to Carl Wieland, Ken Ham, and their respective attorneys. CMI agreed, posted a note to that effect on their website, and booked airfare.

AiG, however, objected to the restriction to one person, and requested that an additional person participate, on the grounds that Ken Ham is not a member of the AiG board of directors.

The judge then withdrew the mediation offer, and the case will continue in the U.S., without going to Christian arbitration.

CMI has a new web page up describing the mediation offer and speculating on the next steps. They observe that the judge has made multiple statements to the effect that the only jurisdiction mentioned in the legal documents between the groups is Australia, and point out that they have already filed an appeal on that basis regarding the judge's decision to require arbitration in the United States.

CMI has also updated their main web page on the dispute.

CMI/AiG lawsuit update

Answers in Genesis (AiG) sent out a new letter to supporters dated July 23, 2008, and is distributing copies of court filings in the United States regarding their attempt to force Creation Ministries International (CMI) into arbitration and override the lawsuit CMI filed in Australia. An AiG supporter contacted me in email and sent me one of those documents, a motion that AiG filed in U.S. court arguing for arbitration (PDF). (Is there any significance to the fact that it is dated April 1, 2008?) He didn't sent me the other documents, which include CMI's reply to AiG's motion, AiG's response to CMI's reply, and CMI's argument filed with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office to oppose AiG's attempt to register "Answers in Genesis" as a trademark there. These documents are hosted at http://66.42.196.216:50050/arbitration.htm and each PDF has the password "john17"; my copy of the AiG motion PDF, linked above, has no password.

The AiG filing argues that CMI is the organization that has behaved unreasonably, that CMI has rebuffed attempts at reconciliation, and that Carl Wieland is the one who was trying to take over AiG internationally, not Ken Ham. It argues that the arbitration clauses in the agreement that CMI has issues with--the one signed in October 2005 by the Australian organization's directors who subsequently resigned en masse--are the key applicable clauses. They may have a good legal case, but their overall story seems to me to be at odds with a number of the facts set forth in CMI's detailed chronology of events (PDF). In that chronology, it was CMI that first attempted to argue for arbitration, while AiG ignored their attempts. CMI rejected the specific form and location of arbitration suggested by AiG, as that proposal required keeping the October 2005 agreement in place, when the content and manner in which that agreement was put into place is at the center of the dispute, and required that the arbitration occur in the U.S.

Perhaps most significantly, AiG reneged on the verbal agreement that was reached in Hawaii, saying in writing that it is "off the table." Instead, AiG says the parties agreed to return to Hawaii for another session if no written agreement was reached in a certain period of time--while ignoring the fact that it has made no attempt to reach such written agreement, suggesting that its verbal commitment was not genuine.

CMI has put up a new version of its web page of links to relevant documents, which includes the AiG July 23 letter from Don Landis and their response to it. Their main points of response to the Landis letter are to criticize it for omitting the following:

• AiG’s rejecting or ignoring every one of the straightforward models of Christian arbitration proposed
• That their wanting to have the organisation of their choice arbitrate was only after we had made it plain that if there were no settlement discussions, or Christian arbitration, we had no choice but to launch legal action due to our lawful (hence biblical, cf Romans 13) duties as directors (to have the legal snare their lawyers’ actions had placed around our ministry’s neck removed).
• That our early settlement proposals involved being ready to walk away, with them being allowed to keep the overwhelming bulk of what they had seized. We did not at that stage even request that they do the right thing as far as the magazine subscribers that were deceived in the US were concerned, we just assumed that in due course their consciences would make that happen — it has not happened.
• That by AiG-US seeking to force Christian arbitration to happen in the USA, rather than the countries we offered in the course of the matter (Australia, NZ, Hong Kong, Singapore) it is to their great legal and commercial advantage; including forcing us to spend a great deal more money, despite being the smaller ministry that has suffered the losses in all of this.
• That the jurisdiction their infamous entrapment documents mentions is the courts of Australia, yet they sought to block accountability in those courts and Australian Christian arbitration.
• That the alleged ‘agreement to arbitrate’ they rely upon has nothing to do with their unlawful actions in relation to the magazine.
• Even more importantly, that a settlement agreement was reached at a formal settlement meeting in August 2007, in Hawaii, between all the parties. Though Ken Ham did not appear, although we were told he would, the verbal agreement was reached with formal representatives of both organisations, was sealed with a handshake and a gentleman’s agreement to get it all down on paper urgently and end the matter — but AiG sought to subsequently shift the goalposts and in essence reneged on their commitment. And have since officially stated in writing that the Hawaii agreement is ‘off the table’.
• That they used false pretences to cause our trademark to lapse in Canada, so that theirs could get off the ground, allowing them to immediately use AiG-Canada — see next bullet point about the deceptive confusion this would cause.
• That at the Hawaii meeting, there was general understanding of the reason why the AiG trademark (we have owned that trademark in Australia all along) was important to our safety, which is why they agreed in Hawaii to not use it for several years here and in Canada, for instance. It is not because of wanting to stifle ministry, it is because they had already tried to demand that we hand it over, and had started a widely publicised attempt to get Australian supporters to enlist with them instead. We have NO problem with fair competition, but the law is there to protect against deceptive use of a mark. Our documentation shows how we were forced by AiG to change our name, and if they had then come into Australia or Canada under the old name, people would have been misled into thinking that this was us. I.e. this ministry spent many years building up a reputation under the name AiG. We have said all along that once sufficient time passes, it makes perfect sense to hand over the name rights to AiG, once people realize that these are two different organisations. The same is true for Canada — if we did not act to protect the organisation that used to be called AiG there, their frequently demonstrated desire to destroy that fledgling ministry would have meant that they could do it great harm.
• A major point is that they freely agreed in Hawaii to these temporary restraints on their use of the trademark in those countries.

There was supposed to be a court hearing in Australia yesterday, August 8--I haven't heard whether that occurred and, if it did, what happened, but I will report here when I do.

UPDATE (August 10, 2008): There are now 25 documents on the Answers in Genesis site, and passwords are no longer required for most documents. I've only begun reviewing the documents beyond the first five.

1. Court Order of August 8 (Granting AiG's petition to compel arbitration)


2. AiG’s memo in support of compelling arbitration
3. CMI’s response to AiG’s Motion
4. AiG’s reply to CMI’s response


5. CMI’s Australian lawsuit against AiG and Ken Ham
6. CMI’s Canadian legal opposition against AiG
   


7. Affidavit of John Thallon Thallon presents a case that Wieland wanted "democratic reform" that would give him more control of the overall organization and that the U.S. group was having issues with complaints from him, Gary Bates, and Jonathan Sarfati. This affidavit strikes me as an honest declaration of Thallon's perceptions of the controversy (though possibly with some self-deception) and is probably a good indication of how AiG-US sees its position. It doesn't comment on issues such as AiG-US's reneging on the verbal agreement in Hawaii, the specific terms of the October 2005 agreement, or the way in which AiG-US was deceptive about the continuing availability of the Australian group's publications to U.S. subscribers. There's a funny account of how Wieland became upset by AiG-US making changes to an Australian-authored article, changing the correctly spelled "toe the line" to the incorrect "tow the line." Thallon describes Wieland's reaction as unreasonable, but I'm sympathetic--it's very annoying when an editor introduces an error into an article, without checking with the author. Thallon claims in this affidavit that he was not pressured into signing the October 2005 agreement, but this is not consistent with the Briese report, which says that (a) "In the presence and hearing of the other Board directors and Paul Salmon, Thallon told Wieland the Board had no choice in the matter. If they didn't sign, he said, they faced a 'hostile separation' from AiG-USA. (The Board was firmly against a separation of the ministries.)" and (b) "Subsequently, Dr John Hartnett, an associate professor and volunteer speaker for CMI, telephoned Thallon to get answers for what had happened. Thallon said words to the following effect: 'We had no choice. If we didn't sign, Ken Ham would not have bought the next issue of the magazine.' (There were approximately 35,000 US subscribers to the magazine and the journal.)" (Thanks to Kevin Henke for identifying this contradiction.)
   
8. Affidavit of John E. Pence This affidavit, like the Thallon one, argues that Wieland was unhappy with Ham's leadership of AiG-US and was asking for changes in the organizational structure that the U.S. group did not want to make. I think this declaration makes a strong case that the U.S. and Australian groups needed to go their separate ways. I like the claim that Creation magazine was seen as becoming "too technical" for U.S. readers. Pence argues that the magazine distribution issue was caused by Wieland refusing to provide proofs until after the U.S. group purchased the next issue, and they refused to do so for fear that there was something in the magazine designed to "harvest" information from U.S. subscribers, which there was--but why would it be unreasonable for them to point U.S. readers to their new website if they wanted to renew subscriptions, since they rightly suspected the U.S. group was going to cut off distribution? In Wieland's response, he points out that he had relented and agreed to provide the proofs before payment was made. This declaration, unlike Looy's (below), enumerates specific statements by CMI that the author considers to be false and defamatory, such as that "AiG forced CMI to sign the MOA and DOCL, and that through such documents AiG took valuable property from CMI and attempted to take control over CMI" and that "AiG discontinued purchasing and distributing Creation magazine in bad faith and for purposes of harming CMI."
   
9. Exhibits 1-8
10. Exhibits 9-11
11. Exhibits 12-15
12. Exhibits 16-18 These exhibits include the report from the mediator in Hawaii, and letters from AiG and CMI's attorneys about the settlement and arbitration process. The impression I get is that CMI, more than AiG, was an obstacle to the settlement.
13. Exhibits 19-23 There are further documents here from AiG's U.S. attorney and from CMI's Australian attorney to AiG's Australian firm--again, these make CMI look like the bigger obstacle to settlement.
14. Affidavit of Mark Looy
    Looy accuses CMI of false and defamatory statements, but fails to identify even one such statement.
15. Affidavit of Walter Donald Landis Landis, chairman of the board of directors of AiG-US and lead pastor of Community Bible Church in Jackson, WY, speaks in generalities about the AiG/CMI disagreement, and makes accusations of falsehoods and defamation with little in the way of particulars to substantiate them. He says he wants to participate in any lawsuit, but due to health considerations (he had a heart bypass and prostate cancer, and has "severe anxiety concerning flying"), he can't travel to Australia. Landis' affidavit gives me the impression that he's a major ass.
    
16. Declaration of Kenneth Duncan MacDonald This declaration is from an Australian attorney who has served on multiple corporate boards as to the legitimacy of the October 2005 documents, the MOA and DOCL. He argues that, given the information he has and a few assumptions he enumerates, that these are validly executed documents.
    
17. Declaration of Simon Fisher Another Australian attorney and law professor, this one hired by CMI. He enumerates deficiencies in the MOA and DOCL, and argues that they result in making several provisions of the MOA unenforceable, and putting the status of the MOA as a whole in doubt. He argues that there were transfers from CMI to AiG in the agreement without remuneration and that the board did not appear to consider "the interests of its members as a whole when entering into the MOA and DOCL." He also responds to specific arguments of MacDonald.
    
18. Declaration of Carl Wieland This document contains point-by-point responses to the declarations of Thallon, Pence, Looy, and Landis. There's an error in paragraph 154 where it says "Don Landis Ham"--I believe it means Landis, not Ham.
    
19. Exhibit 1
20. Exhibit 2
21. Exhibit 3
22. Exhibit 4
23. Exhibit 5
24. Exhibit 6
25. Exhibit 7


26. CMI AiG dispute historical docs This document is a PDF of a PowerPoint presentation that has been given by AiG about the dispute, with a lot of emphasis on Carl Wieland's statements about and impressions of Ken Ham. The presentation seems to have the underlying assumption that Wieland's impressions of Ham couldn't possibly be accurate. It also has a slide that indicates that AiG-US was focused on biblical doctrine while the Australian group was focused on science (p. 32, compare to p. 30). An email shows Wieland chiding Ham for endorsing a book that makes arguments that was on their list of arguments that the groups recommended not be used (p. 36). This confirms my original impression of the schism that it partly involved this issue.
    

Facing the Fire

I've received my copies of the Creation Ministries International DVD, "Facing the Fire," a documentary about the 1988 Gish-Plimer debate in Australia that I was an interview subject for. I don't think I was misrepresented, though the documentary doesn't use everything I said (not that I expected it to).

It is one-sided in that it doesn't critique Gish in any way, even though there is plenty of criticism to be made about Gish's presentation as well as Plimer's.

The documentary ends by pointing you to CMI's website--I'll point you to the Talk.Origins website.

UPDATE: This web page at the Talk.Origins website points out that Plimer was correct in his criticisms of Gish's booklet. The ICR did finally update and correct that booklet around 1994, meaning they continued to sell a booklet which made false claims for nearly a decade after they knew that to be the case.

UPDATE (January 1, 2009): You can see the "Facing the Fire" video yourself here.

Lying for Jesus

Radley Balko points out an article on the Answers in Genesis website (dating to before its split with Creation Ministries International) by CMI head Carl Wieland and Don Batten interviewing Christian "physicist of medicine" Saami Shaibani, and observes that this individual is a phony who has lied about his credentials and academic affiliation when testifying as an expert witness in several trials. He claimed to be a clinical associate professor at Temple University, when he was not.

This is not the first time that creationist organizations have promoted individuals with phony credentials (see Dmitri Kouznetsov), and I'm sure it won't be the last. Will AiG and CMI point out that they've been duped again?

I pointed out issues with Saami Shaibani to CMI in October 2003, to which they responded that they were satisfied that he has the degrees he claimed--though they agreed to some concern about his claiming a false affiliation. I sent them multiple sources including this CourtTV link and three other newspaper links that are now dead links.

Shaibani gets some terrible ratings as a teacher for his alleged repeated assertions that the United States sucks and England is wonderful.

World's largest horseshoe crab promotes creationism through motorcycle jump

Baltimore's Columbus Center Maritime Museum had the world's largest horseshoe crab model built for them--it is 68 feet long, 28 feet long, and has a 13-foot-high domed ceiling (apparently you can go inside it). The museum was in need of revenue, so it sold the giant horseshoe crab to the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum as it was under construction. AiG realized that the crab was too large to fit in their museum, and so they gave it to the Freedom Worship Church in Blanchester, Ohio. That church put the crab into a "scripture garden" and a "fossil courtyard," where it is used to argue for creationism on the grounds that the horseshoe crab has not evolved over time and exhibits evidence of design as "a true gift from God, with its blood being used as a clotting agent for disease in scientific research." And now it is going to be jumped over with a motorcycle for a fundraising event called "Crabfest," by Evel Knievel's former bodyguard, Gene Sullivan.

How could anyone fail to be convinced by that?

(Via the Wilmington News Journal, Ohio.)

Update on CMI-AiG lawsuits

Creation Ministries International has updated its website about its legal battles with Answers in Genesis of Kentucky. The latest addition reports that in April, AiG served CMI with a lawsuit in the United States trying to stop the legal action in Australia--even though one of the two contracts AiG is trying to enforce specifies the law of the Australian state of Victoria as the governing law and forum. CMI will be defending itself in the U.S. against the new action.

Luskin's latest howler

Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute, writing at the Evolution News & Views blog (which accurately describes itself with its motto that begins "The misreporting of the evolution issue is one key reason for this site"), has outdone himself again.

Regarding a paper by Neil Shubin about Tiktaalik, Luskin complains that Shubin makes a comparison to the wrist bones of tetrapods, but never identifies any by name:

When discussing Tiktaalik's "wrist," Shubin says he "invites direct comparisons" between Tiktaalik's fin and a true tetrapod limb. Surely this paper must have a diagram comparing the "wrist"-bones of Tiktaalik to a true tetrapod wrist, showing which bones correspond. So again I searched the paper. And again he provides no such diagram comparing the two. So we are left to decipher his jargon-filled written comparison in the following sentence by sentence analysis:

1. 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.

As P.Z. Myers points out, Luskin apparently doesn't realize what the word "eponymous" means. The wrist bones that the intermedium and ulnare bones of Tiktaalik are homologous to in tetrapods? The bones that are "eponymous," that have been given the same names: the intermedium and the ulnare.

Carl Zimmer points out the same Luskin faux pas.

Guillermo Gonzalez' new school

Guillermo Gonzalez, one of the proclaimed victims of oppression and infringement of his academic freedom in the film "Expelled," has taken a job at Grove City College, a Christian liberal arts college in Pennsylvania. The school has been under censure by the American Association of University Professors since 1963 for its failure to respect academic freedom. A report by the AAUP Investigative Committee concluded "the absence of due process [in the dismissal of professors at Grove City] raises...doubts regarding the academic security of any persons who may hold appointment at Grove City College under existing administrative practice. These doubts are of an order of magnitude which obliges us to report them to the academic profession at large."

More at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

Spread falsehoods about evolution, become a pastor

I just came across Doug LaPointe's "Top Evidences Against the Theory of Evolution" which is noteworthy for being wrong in every point, including the bogus argument about "Lucy"'s knee joint which I refuted in a Talk Origins FAQ. LaPointe wrote his article of nonsense while a student at the Calvary Academy, a Christian school in Lakewood, NJ. It is responded to point-by-point by "A Critical Look at Doug LaPointe's 'Top Evidences Against the Theory of Evolution,'" which includes reference to my FAQ in part 2. (I can't vouch for the rest of the response, as I haven't reviewed it in detail, and I see that it misspells "hominid" repeatedly in part 2, but a quick scan looks like the author has otherwise done a decent job.)

So what is LaPointe up to today? He's a pastor at the First Presbyterian Church of Stuart, FL, and still proudly advertises that he is the author of "Top Evidences Against the Theory of Evolution." A naive person would think that a man of God would correct his mistakes. A cynic would think that a man of God makes a living from spreading falsehoods.

The Amazing Meeting 6 summarized, part four

This is part four of my summary of The Amazing Meeting 6 (intro, part one, part two, part three, part five).

Phil Plait
Astronomer Phil Plait of the Bad Astronomy blog began by saying that the Internet is "a system for rapidly distributing sewage," but also for distributing astronomy. His talk went through the solar system from Mercury to KBO 2004 XR 190 a/k/a "Buffy," with interesting photographs and facts about various planets and moons along the way.

Mercury: The 2004 MESSENGER probe took photographs of the Caloris basin, the single biggest feature on Mercury, originally thought to be 1300 km in diameter but revised upward to 1550 km based on those photos. Because Mercury spins twice for every three times it revolves around the sun, this basin is directly under the sun, every other orbit. It's a gigantic impact crater that's 3.8 to 3.9 billion years old.

Venus: The hottest planet, a hell hole about the size of earth and with about the same amount of carbon and just a little bit closer to the sun, but it suffers from a runaway greenhouse effect. It's been photographed by the Russian Venera probes from 1962 to 1982 and by Magellan in 1990.

Earth: Plait spoke of an HD movie of Earth shrinking into the distance as MESSENGER departed.

Phobos: This moon of Mars has a giant crater--had it been hit by anything bigger, Phobos would have disintegrated. Phobos is apparently a captured asteroid, which orbits backward from other moons in the solar system. Unlike Earth's moon, it is gradually getting closer to Mars, and will collide with it in about the next 50 million years, causing an impact greater than the asteroid that created the Yucatan basin.

Jupiter's acne: The Great Red Spot (Cassini, named after Jean-Dominique Cassini, who first observed it in 1655), a 400-year-old hurricane, has now been joined in 2000 by another little spot. The new spot was white but has now turned red and is known as Oval BA (or Red Jr.)--it is as large as the Earth.

Iapetus: This moon of Saturn has one light hemisphere and one dark, and was recently discovered to have a 20 km high ridge almost perfectly around its equator. (I remarked that it looks like a Death Star.)

Uranus: It's tipped 98 degrees on its side in its orbit, likely as a result of an impact from something very large, perhaps Earth-sized.

Neptune: The other blue planet, it contains lots of methane and emanates 1.6 times the heat it receives from the Sun. It has 2,200 kph winds. Where is that energy coming from?

Pluto: It's not a planet, so we don't care about it.

KBO 2004 XR 190 a/k/a "Buffy": This is an odd trans-Neptunian object--where almost all objects in the solar system have very elliptical orbits, it is an object 8.5 billion km from the Sun--twice the distance from the Sun of Neptune--yet its orbit is circular.

Plait concluded by noting that he hasn't even talked about the Sun, Milleomeda (what the galaxy will be after Andromeda and the Milky Way collide), or countless other things that we don't understand. But this lack of understanding doesn't mean we know nothing. "The universe is cool enough without making up crap about it. That's why I'm a skeptic."

Adam Savage
Adam Savage of "Mythbusters" brought a box of about 1,000 ping pong balls which were used to raise a boat from the bottom of Monterey Bay, and gave them out to members of the audience, and signed his autograph on many of them. He then gave a talk entitled "My Maltese Falcon," about his obsession with recreating a precise replica of one of the two lead sculptures from the movie of the same name. He did extensive research into its measurements, even paying to purchase used auction catalogs from Christie's to examine photographs. Joseph Warner gave one of the two lead ones to Joseph Conrad, one which Humphrey Bogart dropped and put a dent in. He sculpted one based on photographs, sprayed it with 75 coats of auto primer, then buffed and sanded it. He freeze framed every still from the original film in a scene where the statue was rotated. Someone offered to cast it in bronze for him, and he had two made--but the casting process caused it to lose size, and so his bronze model is 3/4" shorter in height at the beak, with the result that he hates it. At a conference he met the man who purchased William Conrad's lead statue, which he hopes to be able to scan and use to make the most accurate replica ever, which he'll report back on next year.

He showed a couple of world premiere viral videos--one in which he and Jamie simultaneously solved Rubik's cubes, one while blindfolded and the other with his feet. The footage was actually reversed--they started with solved cubes and then just messed them up. In a second video, he inhaled some helium and spoke with a high voice, then inhaled some sulfur hexafluoride (which he informed us is very expensive) and spoke with a deep voice, and everyone laughed. He said that someone (a producer?) thought that the cube video was cool, but that the balloon stunt was obviously faked.

He took questions and answers from the audience; a few highlights were that they want to do a full 60 minute show on the JFK assassination, Discovery has said no to "21 grams" (do we lose weight when we die), the Cheney shooting, vinyl vs. CD, and speaker cable vs. coat hanger.

His segment concluded with some footage of "explosion porn" from the show.

Matthew Chapman
Matthew Chapman, great-great grandson of Charles Darwin, screenwriter ("The Runaway Jury" and nine other films), and author (Trials of the Monkey and 40 Days and 40 Nights, the latter of which, about the Dover trial, I am currently reading), spoke about three things: Science Debate 2008, his love of America, and "Darwin, creationism, etc." He began with his love of America, noting that he had grown up in the 1950s and 1960s, raised by parents who read the New Yorker and were fans of Woody Allen, Mort Sahl, and Lenny Bruce, and so he always wanted to be an American. He moved to the U.S. to get into the film business, and went to L.A. A woman he knew to be educated asked him what his sign was--he thought she was kidding, but she was not. Ever since he has been fascinated with Americans' fondness for pseudoscience. He was invited to a "shack" (of the $5 million variety) in Malibu to see someone channel "Basha," and he couldn't help but laugh out loud. A woman present asked the channeler, "I have a potential development deal at Warner Brothers. What is Basha's advice?"

When he expressed indignation at such expressions of irrationality, he was told, "Oh, you're so rational" or "you're so British." He felt alone until he came across the Skeptical Inquirer magazine, and he promptly purchased and read every back issue. (I had a similar experience in my life--I read Skeptical Inquirer while still a religious believer, and also ended up purchasing and reading every back issue from cover to cover.) He became enraged by Scientology, UFOs, spontaneous human combustion, crystals, telepathy, Shirley MacLaine (who he's met), Nostradamus, pyramid power, etc. etc. While in an elevator with James Randi at an event in UCLA, he asked Randi if he'd heard of some Brazilian paranormalist (a psychic surgeon?), and Randi responded by pulling a pen out of his ear.

Despite the far more voluminous "loony bullshit" in the U.S. than in Europe, he still loves it here, and became an American citizen.

He next spoke about creationism. His book Trials of the Monkey was about his visit to Dayton, Tennessee to learn about the Scopes Trial, and he found that the people there today are much the same as they were back then. His newer book, 40 Days and 40 Nights, was written during and after his observation of the entirety of the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, which he witnessed from the jury box (where the press sat, since it was a non-jury trial). Through the Dover trial, he learned that it is possible to make science interesting to non-scientists.

Finally, he talked about Science Debate 2008. As the political debate season began, he watched all the debates, expecting to see questions about ozone, ocean health, climate change, etc., but only saw questions about lapel pins, religion, etc. There were more questions about UFOs than about global warming. He suggested the idea of a debate on science at the Atheist Alliance confernece, and Chris Mooney, who he had met earlier, got on board, along with his fellow Intersection Science Blogger Sheril Kirshenbaum. Soon thereafter, John Rennie of Scientific American became a backer, and Lawrence Krauss of The Physics of Star Trek (Chapman inadvertently said "Star Wars") also joined. They ended up starting an organization and collecting over 50,000 signatures, including the support of 51 colleges, 5 museums, 10 magazines, 112 science organizations, 14 Congresspeople, 7 presidential science advisors, 143 CEOs of science and technology companies, 28 Nobelists, 102 college and university presidents, PBS, Nova, the Franklin Institute, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and even Newt Gingrich. A Harris poll says that 85% of voters would like to see a science debate.

But so far, all of the candidates have said no or failed to respond at all. Chapman said that McCain was the most polite in saying no, and seemed to leave the door open.

They've now developed 14 questions and are preparing a new invitation to be sent to Obama and McCain.

Chapman then took questions, and someone asked if there was any opposition from scientists on the grounds that this is politicizing science. Chapman said he's had negative reactions from about three scientists, one of whom was present at this conference.

After Chapman's talk, I had a chance to speak with him briefly (he noticed the NCSE Grand Canyon trip T-shirt I was wearing, and commented on what great people Genie Scott and Nick Matzke are), as well as with his wife, Denise, who was also present at the conference. Denise Chapman, a Brazilian who has acted in television and film (including "Kiss of the Spider Woman" and Woody Allen's "Radio Days"), is the daughter of composer and musician Humberto Teixeira, started Baiao music and was the composer of the popular Brazilian song "Asa Branca" ("White Wing"). She was pleased to hear that some friends of mine named their African grey parrot "Asa Cinza" ("Grey Wing") in honor of that song. She has been working on a documentary film about her father that will be premiering later this month at MoMA.

Richard Wiseman
British psychologist Richard Wiseman spoke a little bit about his book Quirkology, presented a few optical illusions, and commented about his obtaining a videotape of Indian "God-man" Sai Baba in which he was caught engaging in sleight of hand, which he then showed to us. (Sai Baba was debunked well in a book by Dale Beyerstein titled Sai Baba's Miracles: An Overview, which describes some other instances of Sai Baba being caught in trickery.

He then showed his now-famous viral video of the "colour changing card trick," and followed it up showing a video of how it was made (it took many takes to get it right; he showed some amusing failures). This video, which has had over 2.5 million views, demonstrates the phenomena of "change blindness," and they've used eye-tracking to study viewers of the video to see if they are not looking in the right place or simply failing to register the changes, and it seems to be the latter. This video has apparently now inspired a routine in Penn & Teller's show.

This was followed up by a spoon-bending lesson from an expert--Teller. Teller explained that there is a method, the trick that deceives the eye, and there is misdirection, the trick that deceives the mind. The spoon-bending trick is based on a pre-stressed spoon, but to allay suspicion he only does the trick about once every five times he creates a pre-stressed spoon, because he waits for an opportunity to swap the spoon with a neighbor, and then only does the trick if the conversation happens to turn in a direction that makes it seem appropriate. He told the story of how Danny Hillis (of Connection Machine and Long Now Foundation fame) was invited to a posh party at the home of Courtney Ross (widow of Steve Ross, CEO of Time Warner). At dinner, the conversation turned to Rupert Sheldrake. Hillis had pre-stressed his neighbor's spoon, and put his own spoon on a plate so that the waiter took it away. Hillis borrowed his neighbor's spoon and did the trick, bending and breaking the spoon and dropping it into his wine. His hostess said, "I can't believe you did that." He made a comment to the effect that it was a trick, and she said, "No, I can't believe you did that." She was horrified that he had destroyed one of a fixed number of identical place settings by some famous designer which she had painstakingly collected over the years. And that, said Teller, made it funny.

Wiseman then came back and said that we would now make the world's largest spoonbending video for YouTube. We were given one run-through of the simple script, and then did it on video, all 900 of us (though there were only 800 pre-stressed spoons, so the 100 in the back had to mime). The video will make its debut at www.spoonscience.com (which as of this moment still says "coming soon").

Panel discussion on the limits of skepticism
Goldacre, Daniel Loxton, Radford, Savage, Novella, Hrab, Randi, Banachek, and Saunders assembled on stage for this panel discussion, which I don't recall actually addressing a subject that I'd characterize as the limits of skepticism. Instead, it seemed to be pretty much a free-for-all Q&A about skepticism.

At one point, someone spoke of "winning the war" against irrationality, and Banachek said he preferred to think in terms of making a mark rather than winning a war.

Randi commented on the famous quotation attributed to him by Dennis Rawlins' "sTARBABY" that "I always have an out," suggesting that his then-$10,000 and now $1 million reward for the successful demonstration of a paranormal event is not fair. He stated that this quotation was out-of-context, and that what he actually said was "I always have an out--I'm right." Dennis Rawlins, however, says that this is untrue, and that Randi has only recently started appending "I'm right" to this quotation. In 2000, when Matt Kriebel made his "sTARBABY mini-FAQ," Randi had a different explanation, stating that the "out" was about his stage act rather than his challenge.

Adam Savage observed that at the last TAM he mentioned that he was an atheist, and now that's appeared on his Wiki page.

In answer to a question about what's the worst thing you've ever been called, Richard Saunders said he had been accused of being "a mouseketeer of evil."

Savage made the statement that "You might think the world has color before critical thinking, but when you start thinking critically, it goes to HD."

It was mentioned that skeptical materials are appearing in other languages--"Mythbusters" is now in 145 countries and 9 languages, and Benjamin Radford is editor of the Spanish-language skeptical magazine, Pensar, along with the Skeptical Inquirer.

Sunday conference papers
The final session of the conference, Sunday morning until noon, was for presentation of conference papers.

John Janks on the Marfa Lights: I regret that I missed this, since I published two papers on the Marfa lights in The Arizona Skeptic when I was editor, but I made the mistake of assuming the session would begin at 9 a.m. like previous days--nope, it was 8:30 a.m.

Don Nyberg on "What Every Student Needs to Hear from Every Science Teacher": Nyberg, a physics professor who apparently plays a mean game of poker, said that he attacks pseudoscience, and especially "religious pseudoscience," in his classroom. Unfortunately, his talk didn't bother to define what he meant by this term, and his talk was a series of arguments by assertion, arguments from authority, and ad hominem that I thought was embarrassingly badly argued. He seemed to be arguing that anyone with a degree in science who expressed support for religion should have their degrees revoked, which prompted the moderator Ray Hall to ask Nyberg whether he thought that biologist Kenneth Miller, whose testimony helped produce the proper outcome in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case, should have his degrees revoked. Nyberg responded that yes, he should, if he's promoting his religious beliefs in the science classroom (a qualifier which hadn't been included in his earlier statement). I'd like to obtain a copy of Nyberg's actual materials to review, to see how they compare to his talk.

Steve Cuno: The head of an "evidence-based marketing company," he gave an excellent talk about myths in marketing. Such myths include:

• We control your mind.
• Creativity is magi.
• No one reads long ads.
• Awareness creates sales.
• Focus groups are predictive.
• Sales went up because of ads.

He gave some examples associated with each of these, and described some of the tests that his company had performed to test marketing campaigns to find what causes responses to direct mailings and what leads to conversions to sales. He suggested the classic book Tested Advertising Methods, and pointed out that he has his own book coming out in December, with an intro by Michael Shermer, titled Prove It Before You Promote It.

One of the questions asked was "is Seth Godin full of shit?" Cuno tactfully said that no doubt some of what Godin says is speculative.

Tracy King: She gave a talk on "The Most Popular Science Video in the World - How to Make Your Message Famous." She talked about Wiseman's "colour changing card trick" video, which got 80,000 views in the first two weeks and 2 million views by 18 weeks, and has now been seen by 80 million people on South American Globo TV, used in classrooms, and recreated by students.

She looked at other science videos that have been viral hits, such as the Diet Coke and Mentos videos, the first of which was uploaded in 2006 by Fritz Grobe, a juggler, and Stephen Voltz, a lawyer. They chose Diet Coke for its strong brand, and when it became a viral hit they received funding from Mentos to make more, and ultimately got a sponsorship deal from Coca Cola.

King pointed out that a lot of viral techniques are now illegal in the UK--you must be explicit about being paid to produce videos, for example.

She talked about the bogus popcorn/mobile phone video, which is one that would be in violation of the UK law today. It was created in multiple versions--English (where they're drinking orange juice), French (where they're drinking beer), and Japanese (where they have miso soup). These videos were made for Cardo Systems, a bluetooth headset manufacturer, and are clearly designed to encourage the idea that cell phones are dangerous to hold near your head. (Someone should make a viral video about bluetooth headsets.)

So what makes a successful viral video? There is no formula, but there are common themes--humor, surprise, fear/scaremongering, emotion, skill, embarrassment. One thing she didn't mention which I think was a factor in the success of the "colour changing card trick" video is that there were already multiple videos spreading widely with the exact same name, where the focus really was on that card trick. The Wiseman video was an interesting twist on what was already spreading virally, with the element of surprise and humor at the end. In essence, that video caught the wave of the other card trick videos, and then took it much farther. When I first saw the Wiseman video, I thought I was just seeing another version of that same trick.

And why do we pass on viral videos?

• Reflected glory.
• Being the first to know.
• Being part of a crowd with similar tastes.
• Being part of a shared cultural experience.
• (Participating in the formation of) the language of your generation.

She mentioned Ray Comfort's "The Atheist's Nightmare" as something which has effectively spread virally, but didn't exactly get the desired message across.

She ended by encouraging everyone to make videos promoting skepticism and critical thinking, and offered the following suggestions:

• Identify what your message is--don't be preachy or superior, which is a turnoff.
• Determine what your objectives are--to build website traffic, tell friend, etc.? If you don't have a call to action, your message may be lost.
• Find a creative concept--it may be explicit, subtle, or obscure.
• Make the video.
• Promote the video--it's not going to circulate itself, and professional seeding (e.g., making use of a company like hers that has relationships with bloggers, forum participants, etc. to promote things in a subtle, unobtrusive, and unspammy way).
• And finally, she explicitly listed: don't spam.

She ended by saying that while she can't recommend or encourage a "Jackass" approach to skepticism, it's something she'd certainly like to see.

On to TAM6 summary, part five.

Summer sale on Teach the Controversy shirts

We've purchased a few of these designs, at 25% off... I didn't get them in time for TAM6, but I wore the element one this weekend. Kat and I each have one of the "because we know that dinosaur bones were really planted by beelzebub" shirts, and I've got the "because we know that the earth sits on giant elephants which in turn ride on an even gianter turtle" one along with the "because we know that the real periodic table of elements only numbers five" shirt.

Creationism's latest strategy

Barbara Forrest has an excellent article describing the passage of the recent "academic freedom" stealth creationism bill in Louisiana that's was just signed into law by Gov. Bobby Jindal and will no doubt serve as a model for other states. She discusses the Louisiana Family Forum, which is behind the bill, as well as the involvement of the Discovery Institute.

ApostAZ podcast #4

The fourth episode of the ApostAZ podcast is now out, and this time I contributed a segment on "Lucy"'s knee joint.

Episode 004: Atheism and Freethought in Phoenix- Squared by Greydon Square. Happy Freuder's Day. Inappropriate Teachers and the Children They Burn. Philly Coalition of Reason creates the Sign of the Times, wow. Science and Skepticism Segment by Jim Lippard, "Lucy's Knee Joint". Fleshing Out the Humanity of Godlessness.

Check it out.

(BTW, correction to the podcast: there's a reference to Kenneth Starr that should be a reference to Ken Lay of Enron--but he died of a heart attack, not a suicide or fake suicide like Samuel Israel III. And the quotation about "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" is from Theodosius Dobzhansky. ApostAZ talks about EquallyYoked.com, which this blog has discussed here.)

Creationist wants to "violently expel" evolutionists from U.S.

Tom Willis, the creationist responsible for the bogus claim that Donald Johanson found "Lucy"'s knee joint at a great distance from the rest of the skeleton (CC003 in Mark Isaak's Index to Creationist Claims), says that evolutionists should be "violently expelled" from the United States--or at least denied the right to vote:

The arrogance displayed by the evolutionist class is totally unwarrented. The facts warrent the violent expulsion of all evolutionists from civilized society. I am quite serious that their danger to society is so great that, in a sane society, they would be, at a minimum, denied a vote in the administration of the society, as well as any job where they might influence immature humans, e.g., scout, or youth, leader, teacher and, obviously, professor. Oh, by the way… What is the chance evolutionists will vote or teach in the Kingdom of God?

But, of course, I myself, am not deluded. "Kingdom Now" theology notwithstanding, I have no expectations that such a proposal will ever be implemented, for the simple reason that delusion is ordained by God to reign until Christ returns. (2 Thess 2:10)

Tom Willis is a fascist as well as a dishonest idiot.

Willis was also behind the Kansas science standards that removed evolution and cosmology from the curriculum in 1999. He is the president of the Creation Science Association of Mid-America.

UPDATE (June 13, 2008): Ed Brayton has awarded Tom Willis a Robert O'Brien award, and quotes more extensively from his nonsense.

UPDATE (August 24, 2008): Wes Elsberry comments on this Willis essay. In comments at Wes's blog, Jim Downard makes this observation:

FYI I majored in Civil War history in college (BA history 1974) and couldn’t resist emailing Willis asking him to specify his claim that slavery advocates used evolutionary justifications (I knew of no such instances in all my study of the issues). Willis promptly replied that while he could do so, he declined to on the grounds that his discussion would grow to book length to cover it properly. He then switched gears and went on for several pages about the Marxism/Nazism/evolution connection and even longer defending the noble qualities of Biblical servitude laws. It is often quite illuminating to ask a straightforward question of someone who can’t think clearly; their replies will usually clarify just why they can’t think clearly.

In light of Willis' more recent remarks, suggesting that evolutionists need to be put into labor camps, I think he's a nut.

16% of U.S. science teachers are creationists

New Scientist reports that a poll of 2000 high school teachers in 2007 with 939 respondents found that 2% did not cover evolution at all, the majority spent 3-10 classroom hours on evolution, about a quarter reported spending some time on creationism or intelligent design, and of those, 48% (12.5% of the respondents) taught it as a "valid, scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species."

16% of high school science teachers in the sample said that they believed human beings were created in their current form by God within the last 10,000 years. Teachers who believed in young-earth creationism spent 35% fewer hours teaching evolution than other teachers.

The study in question, from PLoS Biology, may be found online.

Further summary may be found at Pharyngula.

Intelligent design = creationism, NCSE video

The National Center for Science Education has a new YouTube video about how they proved in the Dover trial that the "intelligent design" in the book Of Pandas and People was simply old-school creationism under a different name.