David Paszkiewicz publicly displays his incompetence

At long last, Kearny, NJ U.S. History teacher and Baptist youth minister David Paszkiewicz has spoken out publicly about his teaching (in a letter to his local newspaper), and has publicly displayed his incompetence on early U.S. history in the process.

Paszkiewicz's letter shows that his knowledge of the Founding Fathers and the First Amendment comes from crackpot pseudo-historian David Barton. He misrepresents the views of Jefferson, Washington, and Franklin using out-of-context and fabricated quotations, makes the bogus argument that because the words "separation of church and state" aren't in the U.S. Constitution that the concept isn't there either, and generally shows that he doesn't understand the subject matter he teaches.

Kennesaw State University history professor David Parker shows that Paszkiewicz's alleged Jefferson quotation from an April 21, 1803 letter to Benjamin Rush is not found in that letter. (There's something somewhat similar, but Paszkiewicz's version changes the meaning by dishonestly adding and removing words from what Jefferson actually wrote.) Paszkiewicz misrepresents Jefferson's religious views, failing to recognize that Jefferson did not believe in the divinity or miracles of Jesus, and edited the gospels into "Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth" (sometimes known as the "Jefferson Bible") by removing all of the miracles.

Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars addresses Paszkiewicz's claims in more detail, showing that he doesn't understand the role of the U.S. judicial system.

Mr. Paszkiewicz, already considered a fool, has spoken and removed all doubt.

(Hat tip to Pharyngula.)

UPDATE (January 15, 2007): I've removed the statement that Ed Brayton has shown that Paszkiewicz used a fabricated Washington quotation, though it appears Washington didn't mean what Paszkiewicz thought he did, and Paszkiewicz didn't quote it correctly. The correct quotation, part of Washington's advice for assimilation, is "You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are. Congress will do every thing they can to assist you in this wise intention." He didn't say he believed it, he said to learn it.

An interesting and lengthy examination of the history of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause can be found in Noah Feldman's "The Intellectual Origins of the Establishment Clause" (PDF) from the May 2002 New York University Law Review (vol. 77, pp. 346-428).

CIA and White House block Cunningham investigation

The Duke Cunningham scandal, which reaches into the Central Intelligence Agency due to contracts awarded for intelligence-related contracts, has been stalled due to CIA refusal to cooperate with DoJ prosecutors.

And now the White House has asked San Diego U.S. Attorney Carole Lam to resign.

There's still a lot of federal corruption that needs to be cleaned up, but it looks like the big fish are being protected from the top.

Wikipedia has some good entries on Dusty Foggo of the CIA, his pal and contractor/Cunningham briber Brent Wilkes, California Rep. Jerry Lewis, and former CIA Director Porter Goss.

UPDATE (January 17, 2007): San Diego U.S. Attorney Carole Lam has resigned. And, due to a provision in the USA PATRIOT Act (inserted by Sen. Arlen Specter), the Attorney General has the right to appoint replacement U.S. Attorneys without Senate approval. Previously the AG could only appoint interim U.S. Attorneys that had to be confirmed within 120 days or be subject to replacement by the relevant federal district court.

UPDATE (February 13, 2007): Foggo and Wilkes were both indicted today on charges of money laundering and "honest services wire fraud."

Microsoft UFO to fly in Phoenix?

The second clue in Microsoft's "Vanishing Point" puzzle to launch Microsoft Vista will be unveiled at 4 p.m. Saturday in Phoenix, which they say was chosen for "high visibility and clear skies." Promised is "a stunt that everyone in the Valley [will] be talking about by Saturday night."

Perhaps a UFO flying over South Mountain with the Microsoft logo on it?

UPDATE (January 13, 2007): It was supposed to be simultaneous sky-writing in Phoenix, Los Angeles, Miami, and Sydney, but I'm not sure if it happened in Phoenix as scheduled--today was a very overcast and cold day.

Scientology "Industry of Death" exhibit in Missouri capitol

It looks like Missouri has followed the lead of Arizona lawmakers in helping out Scientology--they've allowed Scientology to set up an "Industry of Death" exhibit attacking psychiatry in the Capitol Rotunda:

The "Industry of Death" exhibit is sponsored by the Church of Scientology and makes a host of outrageous claims about the field of psychiatry. Twenty-five percent of psychiatrists sexually abuse their patients. ... And for the big surprise, psychiatrists were responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks - guilty by association, at least, since psychiatrists are responsible for the existence of terrorists and suicide bombers.

Crazy.

How William Dembski's blog handles dissent

RBH describes how a Christian neuroscientist was banned from William Dembski's Uncommon Descent blog. Lots more similar examples of banning may be found in the comments.

Bush on sending more troops to Iraq

George W. Bush on sending more troops to Iraq:

Some Americans ask me, if completing the mission is so important, why don’t you send more troops? If our commanders on the ground say we need more troops, I will send them. But our commanders tell me they have the number of troops they need to do their job. Sending more Americans would undermine our strategy of encouraging Iraqis to take the lead in this fight. And sending more Americans would suggest that we intend to stay forever, when we are, in fact, working for the day when Iraq can defend itself and we can leave. As we determine the right force level, our troops can know that I will continue to be guided by the advice that matters: the sober judgment of our military leaders.

That was on June 28, 2005. Video at Think Progress.

Now Bush wants to push a "surge" of troops over the objections of his military leaders.

(Via Donna Woodka's blog.)

Fundies say the darndest things!

This is a treasure trove of mind-bogglingly idiotic statements.

Some examples:

#2: "No, everyone is born Christian. Only later in life do people choose to stray from Jesus and worship satan instead. Atheists have the greatest "cover" of all, they insist they believe in no god yet most polls done and the latest research indicates that they are actually a different sect of Muslims."

#3 (I've seen this one before): "One of the most basic laws in the universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This states that as time goes by, entropy in an environment will increase. Evolution argues differently against a law that is accepted EVERYWHERE BY EVERYONE. Evolution says that we started out simple, and over time became more complex. That just isn't possible: UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy. If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it. [emphasis added]" (FSTDT! Post of the Year for 2005)

#4: "I am a bit troubled. I believe my son has a girlfriend, because she left a dirty magazine with men in it under his bed. My son is only 16 and I really don't think he's ready to date yet. What's worse is that he's sneaking some girl to his room behind my back. I need help, God! I want my son to stop being so secretive!" ("Occam's Razor Disagrees" Award winner)

#9: "There are a lot of things I have concluded to be wrong, without studying them in-depth. Evolution is one of them. The fact that I don't know that much about it does not bother me in the least." (Fundamentalism in a Nutshell Award winner)

(Via Beth Wolzson on the SKEPTIC mailing list.)

Creationist finances: some conclusions

This post is a followup to my series of ten posts about the finances of creationist ministries which were previously reported in Reports of the National Center for Science Education in 2000 in an article by John Cole: Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, Access Research Network, the Creation Evidence Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, Creation Research Society, Creation Worldview Ministries, the Discovery Institute, and, though not reported in Cole's article, I also looked at Walter Brown's Center for Scientific Creation.

As Nick Matzke pointed out in a comment on the last of these, there are other creationist organizations out there of some significance, such as the Foundation for Thought and Ethics (publisher of the creationist/intelligent design textbook, Of Pandas and People), Probe Ministries (Ray Bohlin's group in Texas which authored the annotated bibliography of Josh McDowell's book Reasons Skeptics Should Consider Christianity--the anti-evolution sections of which were ghost authored by an individual who now supports evolution), and Hugh Ross's old-earth creationist group, Reasons To Believe. There are also five groups that were listed in Cole's article which I did not cover--these were the five smallest groups, the Creation Education Society of Tennessee, the Creation Resource Foundation of El Dorado, California, the Creation Science Association for Mid-America of Kansas City, Missouri (originators of the "Lucy's knee joint" argument), the Creation-Science Fellowship of Pittsburgh, and the Genesis Institute of Mead, Washington. And there are still others out there, like the Twin Cities Creation Science Association of Minneapolis/St. Paul, Kent Hovind's organization (which didn't file anything with the IRS, which is part of why he's in jail right now), and various online creationist ministries.

I may, as Nick suggested, take a look at some of these others in the future.

At this point, however, I wanted to see if any conclusions can be drawn from the data in the Form 990s of the groups I've covered so far. I took a look at one section of each of the Form 990s which gives income data for previous years, and totaled those amounts up for each year across all the groups for which I had data. In some cases, I had to use other sources which were not quite comparable (such as the revenue figures from John Cole's article), but are probably good enough for approximation to look at the size of the creationist market each year. (The main difference between the income figures I used versus the revenue figures is that the income figures show money coming in for purchases without subtracting the cost of goods sold, while the revenue numbers deduct the cost of goods sold.) The Discovery Institute's totals were used, even though the DI does more than creationism, so that may have contributed to an overestimate, while the omission of all of the other groups above would have contributed to an underestimate. Since the DI brings in considerably more revenue than the other groups, it would take quite a few creationist groups making less than $100,000 a year to make up the difference. So this can't be considered definitive.

Given this total size of the creationist market for each year, I then looked at each group's percentage of that marketplace, and how it has changed over time. Here are the numbers, rounded to the closest $1 million:

1998:
$13 million market
Institute for Creation Research: 45%
Answers in Genesis: 28%
Discovery Institute: 15%
Creation Evidence Museum: 3%
Creation Moments: 2%
Creation Illustrated Ministries: 3%
Creation Research Society: no data
All others: less than 1% each

1999:
$13 million market
Institute for Creation Research: 41%
Answers in Genesis: 30%
Discovery Institute: 13%
Creation Evidence Museum: 7%
Creation Moments: 2%
Creation Illustrated Ministries: 2%
Creation Research Society: 2%
All others: less than 1% each

2000:
$16 million market
Answers in Genesis: 46%
Institute for Creation Research: 34%
Discovery Institute: 10%
Creation Evidence Museum: 4%
Creation Illustrated Ministries: 2%
Creation Moments: 1%
Creation Research Society: 1%
All others: less than 1% each

2001:
$20 million market
Answers in Genesis: 46%
Institute for Creation Research: 30%
Discovery Institute: 15%
Creation Evidence Museum: 3%
Creation Research Society: 1%
Creation Illustrated Ministries: 1%
Creation Moments: 1%
All others: less than 1% each

2002:
$19 million market
Answers in Genesis: 49%
Institute for Creation Research: 31%
Discovery Institute: 12%
Creation Evidence Museum: 3%
Creation Illustrated Ministries: 2%
Creation Research Society: 2%
Creation Moments: 1%
All others: less than 1% each

2003:
$21 million market
Answers in Genesis: 52%
Institute for Creation Research: 28%
Discovery Institute: 15%
Creation Evidence Museum: 2%
Creation Illustrated Ministries: 2%
Creation Moments: 1%
Creation Research Society: 1%
All others: less than 1% each

2004:
$22 million market
Answers in Genesis: 59%
Institute for Creation Research: 20%
Discovery Institute: 16%
Creation Research Society: 1%
Creation Moments: 1%
Creation Evidence Museum: no data
Creation Illustrated Ministries: no data

Even with these approximations and limitations, there are a few things that stand out clearly:

1. The marketplace for creationism has been growing.
2. Answers in Genesis' market share has grown and dominates the market.
3. The Institute for Creation Research has had a declining market share.
4. The Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture has had a fairly static market share (overrepresented here, as well, since their numbers include other branches of the DI).
5. Other creationist groups have tended to lose market share in the face of Answers in Genesis's dominance, even if their overall revenue has grown.

Creationist finances: Center for Scientific Creation

This is the tenth and final in a series of posts about the finances of the creationist ministries which were previously reported in Reports of the National Center for Science Education in 2000 in an article by John Cole: Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, Access Research Network, the Creation Evidence Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, Creation Research Society, Creation Worldview Ministries, the Discovery Institute, and now we finally reach Walter Brown's Center for Scientific Creation to complete the series. Although Brown's organization was not included in Cole's article, I include this one because it is a Phoenix-based organization and one that I've personally interacted with. Walter Brown holds a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from MIT. He is a retired Air Force colonel who has taught at the U.S. Air Force Academy, a hotbed of Christian evangelism. He bills himself as a life-long evolutionist who converted to creationism after extensive scientific study. He has worked as a creationism evangelist, mainly teaching seminars in churches, since his retirement from the Air Force in 1980. He is the author of a book listing specific arguments for a young earth and against evolution titled In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, which he now makes available online on his website, creationscience.com. Part of his book is an argument for his specific theory of flood geology called hydroplate theory (which Robert Schadewald referred to as a theory of "continental zip"), which is not taken seriously by most of his fellow young-earth creationists. Brown hasn't submitted his theory for peer-reviewed publication, even though there are creationist journals open to him, such as the Creation Research Society Quarterly and the Journal of Creation (formerly the Ex Nihilo Technical Journal). Brown has advocated a number of very bad arguments for a young earth which have been refuted even by his own fellow creationists, including the moon dust argument, the shrinking sun argument, and an argument from missing time based on a misunderstanding of leap seconds, which Brown ended up removing from later editions of his book. Brown has made the erroneous arguments that Lucy's knee joint was found away from the rest of the skeleton and that Archaeopteryx is a hoax. His book's assessment of human evolution has been critiqued in detail by Jim Foley on the talkorigins.org website. Brown is well-known for his debate challenge, in which he asks for a Ph.D.-credentialed evolutionist to engage him in a written debate. I engaged in a written debate with Brown in the pages of the Creation/Evolution journal, which appeared in three successive issues in 1989-1990. In 1998, Walter Brown was appointed to the committee to review Arizona's state science standards by a creationist member of the state Board of Education, but he was unable to have any significant influence. Other members of the committee included ASU philosophy of science professor Jane Maienschein (appointed by ASU President Lattie Coor) and ASU biology professor Steve Rissing (appointed by Arizona State Superintendent of Public Education Lisa Graham Keegan). The final standards produced by the group were strongly supportive of teaching evolutionary science and were approved by the Board of Education in a 6-3 vote. Brown apparently originally moved to Phoenix to study geology with ASU geology professor Robert S. Dietz (b. 1914, d. 1995), who was a major figure in the development of the theory of seafloor spreading and continental drift. Dietz was a strong opponent of creationism (and was the faculty advisor to the Phoenix Skeptics group which I initially created as a student organization at ASU). Unfortunately, Dietz engaged in some ill-considered public debates late in his life in which he performed rather poorly, including a public debate with Brown at ASU. Although Brown and Dietz disagreed with each other on science and religion, they apparently considered each other to be friends. The financial data for the Center for Scientific Creation from GuideStar.org: 2003: Revenue: $61,020.23 ($12,915.95 donations, $47,052.66 from goods sold) Expenses: $116,996.55 Net assets at end of year: $108,858.55 Salaries: $97,500 Dr. Walter T. Brown, Jr., president and director: $55,000 Mrs. Margaret H. Brown, secretary and treasurer: $35,000 2004: Revenue: $57,274.67 ($15,216.01 donations, $41,846.93 from goods sold) Expenses: $69,671.71 Net assets at end of year: $96,461.51 Salaries: $52,500 Dr. Walter T. Brown, Jr., president and director: $32,083 Mrs. Margaret H. Brown, secretary and treasurer: $20,417 2005: Revenue: $61,152.11 ($16,554.36 in donations, $44,427.29 from goods sold) Expenses: $101,505.78 Net assets at end of year: $56,107.84 Salaries: $82,500 Dr. Walter T. Brown, Jr., president and director: $50,417 Mrs. Margaret H. Brown, secretary and treasurer: $32,083 Earlier year donations and gross merchandise sales (i.e., not profit, from 2003 Form 990--the CSC cost of goods sold appears to generally be about 1/3 of the sales price): 1999: Donations: $11,208.30 Merchandise sales: $74,053.17 2000: Donations: $10,842.00 Merchandise sales: $38,195.67 2001: Donations: $52,709.18 Merchandise sales: $103,724.03 2002: Donations: $11,437.15 Merchandise sales: $94,476.13 CSC's merchandise sales bring more of its revenue than donations. Those appear to have peaked in 2001, and may be continuing a decline in recent years (though 2005 was better than 2004). The organization has spent more than it has taken in for the last three years of available reports, with its net assets dropping by almost half from 2003 to 2005, from $108,858.55 to $56,107.84. It's not clear whether CSC has any plans for succession after Brown is gone. I've been told that Brown's son rejects creationism and his father's religious views. You can find CSC's 2003 Form 990 here, 2004 Form 990 here, and their 2005 Form 990 here.

Creationist finances: the Discovery Institute

This is the ninth in a series of posts about the finances of the creationist ministries which were previously reported in Reports of the National Center for Science Education in 2000 in an article by John Cole: the Access Research Network, Answers in Genesis, the Creation Evidences Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, the Creation Research Society, Creation Worldview Ministries, the Institute for Creation Research, the Discovery Institute, and I'll add Walter Brown's Center for Scientific Creation to the list. I've already commented on Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, Access Research Network, the Creation Evidence Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, Creation Research Society, and Creation Worldview Ministries. Now, the Discovery Institute. The Discovery Institute is a Seattle-based think tank founded by Bruce Chapman, former secretary of state for the State of Washington and former deputy assistant to Ronald Reagan. He founded DI in 1990, initially focused on regional issues such as transportation and communication. The DI's transportation arm, called the Cascadia Project, received several million dollars in funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 1996, Chapman and political scientist John G. West secured funding from C. Davis Weyerhauser's Stewardship Foundation, Howard Ahmanson, and others to create an organization within DI called the Center for Renewal of Science and Culture "seek[ing] nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its damning cultural legacies" and promoting "intelligent design." The initial DI research fellows were Steven Meyer, William Dembski, Michael Behe, Jonathan Wells, and Paul Nelson, with Meyer and West as co-directors of CRSC and Phillip Johnson as an advisor. The name of the center was subsequently shortened to the Center for Science and Culture (CSC). In 1999 the DI's "Wedge document" was leaked to the public, the circumstances of which became known in a 2006 story in the Seattle Weekly. You can find much more about the Discovery Institute at The Panda's Thumb blog. The financial figures below are for the Discovery Institute as a whole, not the CSC specifically. As usual, the baseline financial information (1997) is from John R. Cole's "Money Floods Anti-Evolutionists' Coffers" in Reports of the National Center for Science Education 20(1-2, 2000):64-65: 1997: Revenue: $1,832,398 Expenses: $1,323,899 And the last three years available through GuideStar.org: 2002: Revenue: $2,386,072 ($2,293,047 donations, $13,277 from goods sold) Expenses: $2,404,242 Net expenses at end of year: $1,819,294 Salaries: $238,035 executives/directors, $756,659 other salaries Individual salaries not listed, Form 990 states they are "available at office." 2003: Revenue: $4,233,814 ($4,141,679 donations, $10,466 from goods sold) Expenses: $2,499,077 Net assets at end of year: $3,554,031 Salaries: $338,977 executives/directors, $627,285 other salaries Executives/directors: Douglas Bilderback, treasurer: $23,397 Steven Buri, executive director: $72,621 Bruce Chapman, president: $131,696 Eric Garcia, treasurer: $16,430 Jay Richards, vice president: $56,750 Marshall Sana, secretary: $38,083 Employees: Bruce Agnew: $92,500 Steven Meyer: $90,000 John Drescher: $75,000 Teresa Gonzales: $55,000 2004: Revenue: $3,504,062 ($3,260,859 in donations, $18,572 from goods sold) Expenses: $3,539,228 Net assets at end of year: $3,518,865 Salaries: $354,000 executives/directors, $947,479 other salaries Steven Buri, executive director: $80,000 Bruce Chapman, president: $132,000 Eric Garcia, treasurer: $39,000 Jay Richards, vice president: $63,000 Marshall Sana, secretary: $40,000 Steven Meyer, vice president: $102,500 Employees: Bruce Agnew, program policy director: $105,000 Tom Till, program director: $105,000 John Drescher, program director: $85,000 Teresa Gonzales, program manager: $60,000 The Discovery Institute is an organization with considerable revenue, allowing it to pay extremely lucrative salaries to its senior management and employees. It has shown growth over the years, though revenue dipped in 2004. It has been influential in media coverage of intelligent design, though it has yet to fulfill its promises of scientific research supporting intelligent design and has suffered major defeats in the legal arena. Despite its high revenue, it is still smaller than Answers in Genesis or the Institute for Creation Research, which appear to me to continue to have better grassroots support than the Discovery Institute. You can find DI's 2002 Form 990 here, 2003 Form 990 here, and their 2004 Form 990 here.