The other day I was thinking how awesome it would be if everything revolved around me. Seriously, if I were the center of the universe, then all problems – worldly and otherworldly – would take a back seat to my own. When I moved, I would move the universe. When I shake, I would shake the universe. Each time I would fart, a new brown nebula would be born.

Early humans had a similar desire – to not only matter, but to be VERY IMPORTANT. Indeed, some went so far as to codify our self importance into our religious beliefs. For example, it was a matter of Christian faith for over a thousand years that the Earth stood at the center of God’s universe. We had that special place, because we we mattered to god. Earth was His creation and therefore VERY IMPORTANT, and being His children, we were also VERY IMPORTANT.

But then some uppity know-it-alls had to mess up that pretty picture. They used mathematics, and careful measurement and upset a common assumption that had been in place long before the world was declared round. And that, according to an astounding flyer I recently received in the mail, is where western society began to break down.

Yes, I just got a serious-looking pamphlet about the Geocentric Bible, which claims that scientists have been wrong for 400 years, and that the Earth is really still at the center of the universe. By still, I mean “continues to be” although you could take that to mean “motionless” and that would, um, still be correct.

The change from the geocentric theory to the heliocentric theory damaged our viewpoint of the Bible. Genesis 1:1 is literal, and so is Psalm 50:1 “the Lord … Called the earth from the rising of the sun”. Both the earth and the sun are in the same sentence and it is the sun that is moving around a stationary earth

I think there’s some truth in that quote, but not what the purveyors of the Geocentric Bible claim. By adopting the heliocentric view, our view of the bible changed – and whether this is “damage” remains to be seen. Rather than interpreting the bible literally, most people interpret it allegorically, or thematically. Indeed, the bible is literary work that has profound scope and scale, and interesting characters that lived in ancient times. It may be the source of your faith – but it is clearly not 100% factually accurate.

One of the subjects that the bible fails us is in astronomy, since, if biblical claims of geocentrism were accurate, not only would our understanding of the universe be false, any sort of space program based on such faulty understanding would be impossible. That would mean – no weather or communication satellites, no moon landings, no probes to mars or the other planets. Nothing. All of these technological feats are only made possible in a universe in which planetary bodies move in predictable elliptical orbits, and gravity works as we think it does, and the planets and asteroids are where we expect them to be when our space probes get there. Since our universe has a successful space program, then our universe is incompatible with a literal interpretation of every verse in the ancient text of the Bible. Maybe we need to reconsider the veracity of the text rather than our lying eyes.

The earth has not rotated since the day of creation nor will it rotate until midway through the tribulation period.
The firmament carries the sun around the earth faster than the moon because the moon is closer to the earth, the center of the universe. “If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness” (Job 31:26). The sun never walks, but runs; “…the sun. Which…rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race” (Psalm 19:4,5).

Another small issue with the geocentric theory is that it posits that the entire “firmament” of the universe revolves around the earth once per day. In this quote, from the Geocentric Bible Foundation, we see that celestial objects closer to the earth move more slowly than those that are farther away (the moon walks while the sun runs). What about objects that are farther away than the sun? Since we know that many stars and galaxies are at least 12 billion light years from the earth, they would have to travel at least 74 billion light years per day (assuming a circular orbit around the earth with a radius 12Bly). To accomplish this, these object would have to be traveling just north of 856000 light years per second. That’s around 20 trillion times the speed of light, which according to the known laws of physics, is about 20 trillion times impossible. Somebody’s wrong by … well … an astonishingly colossal margin.

Could it be that the theory that has distant galaxies whizzing about at 20 trillion times the speed of light be wrong? Is that possible? It certainly conflicts with direct observation and established physical principles – of this universe. Yeah – that could the problem right there. Modern physics allows for the possibility of alternate realities – different universes that are similar to our own, yet differ in some critical way. For example, in another universe, this blog has quite a fan base. It’s also possible, that is some corner of the multiverse, there is a universe in which the sun and stars rotate around a stationary Earth. Yes – quite possibly in some other universe. In ours, however, those galaxies don’t revolve around little, old, but still VERY IMPORTANT, us.

The recent murders of an American doctor in his church, and of an American security guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC stand out as two examples, although depending on who you listen to, they’re seen as examples of different things.

One camp says that these are tragic examples of crazed and depraved lone gunmen. In this line of argument, the murders are acts of violence that could not have been prevented since there’s no way to fathom the depths of the mind of someone bent on murder. In this view, the killings were isolated instances, each occurring because of the design of a single perpetrator, in the absence of any broader social or political context save for that which each of these murderers made up to justify their horrific acts.

The other camp claims that these are tragic examples of domestic terrorism. In this line of argument, the murders are acts of politically-motivated violence that could possibly have been prevented since the social forces that allow some fringe groups to justify murder are reasonably well understood. In this view, the killings are connected to a broader social context in which the election of the nations first African American president, and a broader acceptance of more socially liberal policies and norms is threatening to some of our American brothers and sisters – and with adequate provocation – some of them will act out in order to make a political statement.

I wonder if just one of these lines of argument is correct, or even if there are alternative ways to view these violent acts. More than that, I wonder if our description of them would be different if these were not examples of American on American violence, or if we didn’t have a double standard when it comes to blaming the victim. If James von Brunn, the white supremacist who is accused of murdering Stephen Tyrone Johns at the Holocaust Museum had been a Saudi, Iranian, or Palestinian, headlines across the country would have been splashed with the word “Terrorism” in bold type and accompanying exclamation points. It doesn’t matter that Scott Roeder believed that his murder of Dr. George Tiller was justified because doctor Tiller performed abortions – because Roeder’s goal wasn’t just to kill Tiller – it was to send a message to all Americans that people like him will try to kill you if you have the misfortune to require or provide legal abortions – so you better stop.

Daniel D. Novotny said, “An act is terrorist if and only if (1) it is committed by an individual or group of individuals privately, i.e. without the legitimate authority of a recognized state; (2) it is directed indiscriminately against non-combatants; (3) the goal of it is to achieve something politically relevant; (4) this goal is pursued by means of fear-provoking violence.”

I think we have to look very closely at ourselves in the mirror – because I suspect some of us will see terrorists staring back.

Some links from the youtube post are here for support:

Assault on free speech in the Netherlands

Islam can no longer be criticised at the UN Human Rights Council

Novelist could face hate crime charge for despising Islamism

You can download an audio version of this video at http://patcondell.libsyn.com/

HT to Les at StupidEvilBastard.com

So I ask how dumb dead matter and dumb dead light arrived at the system called vision without the input of intelligence.[sic] My answer (and the answer of most people) is: They didn’t. Darwinian evolutionists do not like that answer. But they cannot disprove it …” [emphasis added]

Another recent letter claimed that:

First of all, the last time I checked, evolution was still listed as a theory. Certain people in the scientific community seem to think that it has been proven as a fact.

Quotes like these from well-meaning (and likely reasonably well educated) people highlight the importance of improving science education. In every expressed opinion in favor of intelligent design, the authors demonstrate a clear and fundamental misunderstanding of science and what the words “Theory” and “Fact” mean within a scientific context.

There have also been a number of recent “pro-science” letters and opinion pieces. While well-meaning, these too have missed the mark with respect to the key misconceptions about science that lay people clearly demonstrate in their “pro intelligent design” tirades. Recently, the most cogent discussion to appear locally concerning some of the problems with the intelligent design movement appear in Dr. Albert Gapud’s piece (Don’t be distracted by intelligent design, May 25). To his credit, Dr. Gapud recounted the famous Dover trial (Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District et al.), but I don’t think he went quite far enough.

In the Kitzmiller opinion, the court concluded that it was unconstitutional to require teaching intelligent design in the public schools, saying:

The proper application of both the endorsement and Lemon tests to the facts of this case makes it abundantly clear that the Board’s ID [Intelligent Design] Policy violates the Establishment Clause [of the US Constitution]. In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.

To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.

The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.

While this court decision makes it equally difficult for fundamentalist Christians as well as radical Moslems to impose their religious ideals upon our children within public schools, citing it doesn’t do anything to educate the many ID supporters who mistakenly contend that scientists “believe” in evolution, or that ID stands as a viable scientific alternative to Evolution, or that science is or should be democratic. Let’s examine each of these misconceptions.

First, scientists don’t believe in evolution, certainly not the way that religious people have faith in God. This gets back to those words I mentioned earlier, “Fact” and “Theory”, and what they mean in a scientific context. To the lay person, facts are irrefutable truths that can be proven. The situation in science is similar, with the exception that in science, facts are simply data. They are the pieces of information that are collected through careful observation and measurement. For example, it is a fact the half-life of Carbon-14 isotope is 5,730 (plus or minus 40) years. It’s also a fact that many species that existed in earlier times are now extinct. Given enough facts (or data), scientists will attempt to organize them into a conceptual framework that describes them, and explains how they came about. These conceptual frameworks are known as theories.

Theories in science are as good as science gets. Interestingly, theories are also incapable of being “proven” in any way (google : falsifiability for the roots of this). What sets a scientific theory apart from a non-scientific explanation of things (like ID) is that real scientific theories (like Darwin’s Theory of Evolution) are capable of being proven wrong.

Since Evolution makes testable predictions, and is capable of being proven wrong, you would think this is something that should cause creationists and other “evolution deniers” to rejoice. Science provides this very elegant mechanism to get rid of bad scientific theories. Instead, however, we only hear wailing and gnashing of teeth, since creationists don’t use the only vehicle by which Evolution could be properly rejected: amass a body of independently verifiable facts that refute evolution and provide a compelling, falsifiable alternative theory. Rather than searching for a scientific alternative for Evolution fundamentalist Christians (as well as fundamentalist Muslims) use political and religious arguments and stunts that waste your taxes in their attempts to refute the Theory of Evolution.

This brings us to the second point, that ID is not a viable alternative to Evolution. There are several reasons for this, but I’ll mention just two. First, as we have seen, ID isn’t really a scientific theory since it makes no testable predictions and is therefore not capable of being proven wrong. The second main reason that ID can’t possibly replace Evolution is that it simply has no explanatory power. This is due to the fact that the central claim of ID is that we cannot know how the diversity of life came about, because the development of species on Earth was the result of an intelligent designer (but not God, someone else) that worked in some mysterious ways (but not God’s way) to bring it all about.

Theory construction in science requires that your alternative to an existing theory must account for all (or at least a large proportion of) the data that supports the theory it’s intended to replace. The classic example in Physics occurred when Quantum Mechanics replaced Classical Newtonian Mechanics. Quantum Mechanics explains everything that Isaac Newton did, but it also explains phenomena that Newton could never have considered, like what happens to matter at subatomic scales. ID doesn’t even come close to explaining anything that Evolution explains without the need to appeal to supernatural intervention. Indeed, where ID absolutely needs to provide an alternative to the mechanism of natural selection, it instead offers an empty box labelled “a miracle happened here.” It’s your prerogative to believe in miracles. Just don’t teach your special brand of miracles as science in biology classes on the Federal dime.

Finally, there’s this mistaken notion that we should teach ID because it offers a counterpoint to Evolution, as if these were two great political parties engaged in some sort democratic contest for truth. Central to this mistake is the idea that it’s somehow unfair to present only one side of a story. In this case, the side of scientists who provisionally accept Evolution is presented without any sort of rebuttal by the other side. There are a couple of problems with this way of thinking about science. First of all, it is common to present competing theories in the classroom, but with respect to Evolution, there simply isn’t any scientific competition, and there hasn’t been any for almost 150 years. There are some details that scientists argue over, but there aren’t any viable alternatives waiting in the wings. Also, this argument is also typically raised by Evolution deniers who have political rather than scientific motives, and who foist the false dichotomy of Evolution versus ID upon us in an attempt to get more fundamentalist Christianity in our public schools. Science progresses by replacing old theories that fail to account for the facts with newer ones that do. In this sense, science itself uses a sort of Natural Selection to weed out bad theories to make room for better ones.

Someday, a scientist or team of scientists may come up with an alternative to Evolution. That alternative, however, won’t be any form of ID, no matter what you call the God-Designer. It will instead be some other similarly naturalistic framework that will also cause much consternation among those who want to teach about Allah, or Yahweh, or Jesus in our public science classes. Until that alternative shows up, however, we should be teaching Evolution in publicly funded science classes, and leave religious instruction to our children’s parents and clergy.

In the movie Expelled, Ben Stein gives a compelling argument for Intelligent Design.

Having not seen the film yet, I can’t really comment on how compelling his argument actually was, but I suspect that it wasn’t a compelling scientific argument. If you follow the Intelligent Design controversy at all, then you’re probably well aware that ID lacks all the hallmark features of a true scientific theory. The two most critical components that ID lacks are the requirement that the theory be potentially falsifiable (ID is not), and that it leads to testable hypotheses (ID doesn’t make any).

Interestingly, I see many who mistakenly claim (as I’ve heard Stein claim in the Expelled trailers) that the “scientific community” (interestingly, not individuals, but the community as a whole) have an almost religious belief in Evolution, which is absurd for anyone wanting to call themselves a real scientist. Indeed, this would be equivalent to saying that the religious community has faith because of the results of careful experimentation.

No, as I’ve written before, scientists don’t believe in Evolution – they accept it provisionally as good theory. If Evolution were really such bad science, maybe as some in the ID community would like it to be, then it would not withstand the internal pressure of real scientists who really test it. So far, the testable hypotheses that Evolution has made have supported it. One of the implications of Evolution, unknown even in Darwin’s time, was that the Earth has to be much older than Darwin originally believed. We now have confirmation from multiple independent sources that point to a very old earth, unless you would prefer to reject several distinct branches of science. Evolution also predicts the relative orderliness in the fossil record – and the discovery of just one counter example would completely destroy the theory. Interestingly, Evolution also predicts the genetic differences found between humans and other major primates. The recent discovery that the human chromosome 2 is a fusion of two distinct chromosomes found in the great ape species not only accounts for the the observation that humans have 23 chromosome pairs and the apes have 24, but also supports the notion of a common ancestor. If the genetics worked out any other way – then it would be reason enough to toss the theory in the bin.

The principle issue I have with ID is that, since it isn’t really science, members of the ID community have attempted to get it into our public school science classes through the tactic of redefining science itself. I think scientists take issue with that, and rightly so. Again, the equally absurd tactic would be to force churches to teach Evolution in sunday school classes by successfully redefining what the tenants of christianity are.

Nope – the Expelled hype aside, it all comes down to this: Evolution isn’t “special” in a scientific sense. It makes predictions that can be tested, and if those tests fail, then the theory will be discarded for something better. I can guarantee, however, that ID isn’t a viable alternative, since, well, it isn’t really a theory in the scientific sense of the word. And THAT’S what matters to scientists.

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board is considering an application by the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) to grant online master’s degrees in science education. And an advisory panel to the board has recommended that Texas should accept the application.

The ICR accepts the Bible as literal truth on all topics. According to its website, the palaeoclimatology class covers “climates before and after the Genesis Flood”. Anatomy lab includes “limited discussion of embryology and accompanying histology, specifically in regards to evolutionary theory and its alternative — the creation of fully functional major groups of animals”.

The ICR has been around since 1972, and is very firmly in the biblical literalist camp – meaning that members believe not only in the literal interpretation of the bible, but that it is without error. After failing to have online masters degree courses accredited by the State of California, the group has apparently moved to what it considers greener pastures in Dallas, Texas.

I suspect there’s a reason that these courses were not accredited by California, and I’d be willing to wager that this had something to do with these facts:

• Science courses taught from a biblical perspective are actually a form of religious indoctrination
• Biblical inerrancy is a myth, so anyone claiming it on their course accreditation petition likely has motives outside the realm of education
• The high quality and impeccable reputation of other online masters degree programs would be tarnished by the inclusion of the ICR offerings
• Creationist researchers don’t actually do research.

Moreover, it could be argued that any authentic bible school ought to have a sacrificial lamb as their football mascot. If that prospect was a too limp-wristed for latte-drinking, same-sex-marrying California, what does it say for burley, rock ‘em sock ‘em Texas?

So the real question is whether Texans are dumber than Californians as the ICR is betting. Texas may well be in the Bible Belt – but one would hope that the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board gives the ICR an old fashioned Texas ass-kicking.

A week ago, a hacker group calling themselves Anonymous posted their Declaration of War against the “Church” of Scientology, shortly after they were able to bring down one of the church’s websites. Then afterwards, Anonymous posted a second vid clarifying who they are, what their goals are, and that Scientologists should, “Be very wary of the 10th of February”, which most analysts believe refers to a planned DDOS attack against Scientologist websites.

Then, a rival group of hackers calling itself The Regime gained an administrator password to 711chan.org, a site popular with “Anonymous”, and brought their own site down.

The Church of Scientology responded to the Anonymous Declaration of War by sending an armada of space aliens commanded by Xenu himself to attempt to disrupt a Florida Graphic Design firm called the Anonymous Creative Group. Sadly for Xenu, Anonymous isn’t the Anonymous they were after, so the space aliens left with without a shot being fired. This threat, apparently, prompted Anonymous Creative group – not Anonymous Hacker group – to post the following Vid:

Oh – the humanity.

Teaching Evolution shouldn’t be controversial, because of the vast scientific consensus that Evolution indeed occurred, and is still occurring. Idolatrous biblical lieralists, however, are keen to point out that they don’t believe the facts of Evolution, but have instead engaged in some nifty mental gymnastics to shoehorn the geological, biological, and paleontological data into the narrow confines of their Holy Writ.

So given the controversy manufactured by evangelicals, as well as the admission last May by three of the GOP candidates that they didn’t believe in Evolution, I wondered where the remaining candidates stood regarding Evolution. It turns out that I wasn’t alone, and since the Physics Today Blog started looking at the candidate’s positions on Evolution and other science-related issues, I thought I could summarize here.

On the Democratic side, there are just two candidates that fall into the “no quibbling” category. Those are Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama. There’s no definitive statement from Dennis Kucinich. And John Edwards is something of a quibbler – wanting to believe that evolution is real, but that it’s perfectly consistent with his Southern Baptist version of Christianity.

On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee, the former Baptist Minister who raised his hand in last May’s debate to deny Evolution, later refined his denial, saying, “If you want to believe that you and your family came from apes, I’ll accept that….I believe there was a creative process.” Here, Huckabee mistakenly equates Evolution with misplaced faith, as if an evolutionary biologist’s acceptance of the results of her studies were akin to testifying at Sunday service or speaking in tongues.

Interestingly, Ron Paul, the more libertarian GOP candidate has a somewhat convoluted anti-evolution position:

“Well, at first I thought it was a very inappropriate question, you know, for the presidency to be decided on a scientific matter, and I think it’s a theory, a theory of evolution, and I don’t accept it, you know, as a theory, but I think [ it probably doesn't bother me. It's not the most important issue for me to make the difference in my life to understand the exact origin. I think ] the creator that I know created us, everyone of us, and created the universe, and the precise time and manner, I just don’t think we’re at the point where anybody has absolute proof on either side.

Also on the GOP side we have Giuliani taking a reasonably pro-evolution stand, while John McCain and Mitt Romney are apparently in John Edwards’ “quibbler” camp.

McCain said:

“I believe in evolution,” Sen. John McCain said. “But I also believe, when I hike the Grand Canyon and see it at sunset, that the hand of God is there also.”

While Slick Mitt has a bit of a loopy view of the relationship between science and religion:

“True science and true religion are on exactly the same page,” he said. “they may come from different angles, but they reach the same conclusion. I’ve never found a conflict between the science of evolution and the belief that God created the universe. He uses scientific tools to do his work.”

You may wonder whether it makes any difference what the various candidates position is on the Teaching of Evolution. I think it does for the simple reason that we live in a world that is driven by science and technology, and any President that is not a knowledgeable consumer of scientific information or cannot adequately evaluate scientific information when making policy decision is guaranteed to be a bad one. Indeed, MSNBC’s Alan Boyle quotes Science’s editor-in-chief, Donald Kennedy, who said:

“We need to know the candidates’ qualifications for understanding and judging science, and for speaking intelligently about science and technology to the leaders of other nations in planning our collective global future. I don’t need them to describe their faith; that’s their business and not mine. But I do care about their scientific knowledge and how it will inform their leadership.”

I completely agree. I don’t really care if a candidate believes in Noah’s sons riding flying dinosaurs, but I don’t want him or her driving the bus if they can’t speak intelligently and accurately about scientific matters without quibbling.

In this debate on what are arguably two of the most important questions in the culture wars today — Is Religion a Force for Good or Evil? and Can you be Good without God? — the conservative Christian author and cultural scholar Dinesh D’Souza and the libertarian skeptic writer and social scientist Michael Shermer, square off to resolve these and related issues, such as the relationship between science and religion and the nature and existence of God. This event was one of the liveliest ever hosted by the Skeptics Society at Caltech, mixing science, religion, politics, and culture.

You can watch the debate here.

Also, if you’re so inclined – you can subscribe to eSkeptic by sending an email to join-skeptics@wood.lyris.net.