Ham and Eggheads

Ken Ham is the head of Answers In Genesis, an organization that promotes and perpetuates the Creationist view that the Earth is less than ten thousand years old, that homo sapiens sapien trod the same ground at the same time as dinosaurs, the the story of Noah is literally true, and that evolution is All Wrong. He’s an Australian and a biblical literalist. He built the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, in 2007. Check the link for an overview by an (admittedly) biased source, but for simple clarity is hard to beat. It is a fraud of research, flagrantly anti-science, and laughable in its assertions (in my opinion). Ken Ham is one of the more public figures in our current national spasm of extreme religiosity. He’s attempting to have built another show-piece in Kentucky, a theme park based on Noah and the Flood. The problem with this, however, is that tax dollars are being used in its construction and it is a blatantly religious enterprise. In the meantime, Ken Ham and Answers In Genesis have recently been disinvited from a conference on homeschooling.

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Anti-science increases regarding climate change

Brian Walsh of Time bemoans the increasing anti-science attitudes of Americans and its effect on our conversations regarding climate change.

We like to think of ourselves as rational creatures who select from the choices presented to us for maximum individual utility — indeed, that's the essential principle behind most modern economics. But when you do assume rationality, the politics of climate change get confusing. Why would so many supposedly rational human beings choose to ignore overwhelming scientific authority? Maybe because we're not actually so rational after all, as research is increasingly showing. Emotions and values — not always fully conscious — play an enormous role in how we process information and make choices. We are beset by cognitive biases that throw what would be sound decision-making off-balance.
Walsh mentions "loss aversion" as a driving factor (the fear that actively decreasing CO2 will lose jobs), and group identification . The bottom line is that "no additional data — new findings about CO2 feedback loops or better modeling of ice sheet loss — is likely to change their mind."

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Creation Science 101 and Other Ditties

I spent too much time on YouTube this evening listening to Roy Zimmerman, folk singer. This video, "Creation Science 101" brought me in. I stayed for "Abstain With Me", a jab at "Abstinence Only" Christian Sex Education. As an aside, he likened it to "Just Hold It" potty training. His…

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