One has to wonder how creationists can maintain their beliefs during a pandemic where the virus is clearly evolving to improve its ability to infect people and avoid immune system responses. It’s like watching Darwin in action every day. What sort of cognitive dissonance is necessary to believe in creationism
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Scripturient: Are Creationists Gaining More Sway?
A recent survey by Research Co. and Glacier Media shows a deeply disturbing trend in Canadians: we seem to be getting increasingly stupid. While this survey didn’t get the media coverage that other current events received (and hasn’t even been hinted at in local media, but no surprises there), I
Continue readingScripturient: The Talibangelist Conspiracy to Rule America and the West
Talibangelists (aka (aka the pseudo-Christian, far right) would love to force everyone believe in and obey their highly-adulterated pseudo-religion, and to punish those who don’t. Or won’t. Punishment is big on their agenda: unbelievers, those who stray, followers of a real faith, scientists, intellectuals, people of colour, gays, people with
Continue readingScripturient: The day that reason died
I’m not a believer in alien visitations and UFOs, but I’ll bet if an alien did swing by, after an hour or two observing us, checking out Facebook or Twitter, they’d lock their doors, hang a detour sign around our planet, and race off. They’d tell their friends not to
Continue readingScripturient: You’re going to die. Again.
Yeah, I know: we’re ALL going to die sooner or later. No one gets out of here alive. But that doesn’t stop people from saying the end is nearer than we expect. Right around the corner, in fact. The latest Magical Event being touted online (which event is absolutely not
Continue readingScripturient: Natural selection simplified
I was startled by the simplicity of the forumla. Stephen Jay Gould, the late eminent paleontologist, biologist and historian of science, summed up Darwin’s basic theory of natural selection so eloquently and so succinctly that it rocked me back on my heels. It was something even a diehard creationist could
Continue readingScripturient: One Million B.C.(E.)
You can’t help but chuckle when Tumak runs down the rocky slope to battle the baby Triceratops (about the size of a Sheltie) and ends up rolling in the dirt with the all-too-obvious rubber model. I half-expected it to squeak like a dog toy. It’s just one of the many
Continue readingScripturient: Why the panic over Julie Payette?
Governor General Julie Payette made comments in a speech to the Canadian Science Policy Conference on Nov. 1 in which she encouraged her audience at a science convention to ignore misinformation, fantasy and conspiracy theory and support facts and science, and to engage in “learned debate.” That has the right
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The DWR Sunday Religious Disservice – But I have this book!
Filed under: Religion Tagged: Creationism, Religion, The DWR Sunday Religious Disservice
Continue readingScripturient: Hoax: Five-meter giant skeletons
Once again, the internet is being circulated with fake news that grabs the gullible by their grey matter. This time’s it’s a regurgitation of a 2014 hoax – then recycled in 2015- claiming the skeleton of a five-meter tall giant was unearthed in Australia. Accompanying the reports are risibly Photoshopped
Continue readingScripturient: The 10 Worst?
Skeptoid just published its top-ten worst anti-science websites and I’m sure you won’t be surprised at the awardees, especially not the regulars like Mercola, Dr. Oz, Deepak Chopra and Food Babe (aka the Worst Assault on Science on the Internet). Predatory quacks, crackpots and fakirs you will easily recognize. Surprisingly,
Continue readingScripturient: Fake Ark, Fake Religion
Well, it finally opened: the $100 million-dollar Noah’s Ark theme park in Kentucky that features an allegedly life-size model of the mythological boat described in the Bible. It’s 510 feet (155.4m) long, 85 feet (26m) wide, more than three …
Continue readingScripturient: The Rational Gods of Iceland
While 61% of Icelanders say they believe in God, according to a recent poll, absolutely none under the age of 25 believe that their personal hairy thunderer created the world: Less than half of Icelanders claim they are religious and more than 40% of…
Continue readingScripturient: What Would $101 Million Buy?
The answer to that question could be very long. I’ll bet among all the things you thought of buying with that much, you weren’t even once thinking it could buy a 510-foot replica of the mythological Noah’s ark. But that’s what …
Continue readingTerahertz: Lunney unleashed
Citing media “intolerance and bigotry”, anti-science Canadian MP James Lunney has quit the government caucus to sit as an independent. Among Lunney’s claim to the crown as Canada’s least scientifically literate MP are: He doesn’t believe in evolution He’s a chiropractor He’s claimed there’s a link between vaccines and autism
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Extraordinary Claims
As the poster for the Centre for Inquiry notes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It’s a popular catchphrase for the skeptical movement, but should be an intellectual policy for everyone. Regardless of what is being claimed, it requires evidence at the same level of the claim. Anecdote is not evidence,
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Bad News For Balderdash
A recent story on New Scientist gives a glimmer of hope for those of us who bemoan the swelling tsunami of claptrap and codswallop that fills the internet: THE internet is stuffed with garbage. Anti-vaccination websites make the front page of Google, and fact-free “news” stories spread like wildfire. Google
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Evolutionary Dead-Ends
Some people seem genetically inclined – perhaps I should write doomed? – to believe in nonsense: believe in conspiracy theories, in myths, legends, superstitions and supernatural, in magic, in pseudoscience and pseudomedicine. Nothing – no amount of fact, truth, education, reason or contrary evidence will change their minds. The harder you
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The DWR Sunday Religious Disservice – Aron Ra on the First Foundational Falsehood of Creationism
Aron Ra begins his series with a nice set up about how the extreme religious tend to frame evolution as being exclusively atheistic. I suppose anything that can be used to flog/frighten people to the cause is fair game for the radically religious. Filed under: Religion Tagged: Aron Ra,
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Those Crazy Creationists
I know, I know, it’s the proverbial fish in a barrel when you critique creationists. They are just so easy to mock. But how can you help yourself when someone like Ken Ham opens his mouth in public? The media just love to pounce all over him. He must take his lessons in
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