{"id":27481,"date":"2009-11-03T10:10:38","date_gmt":"2009-11-03T10:10:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/2009\/11\/03\/messing-up-darwins-origin\/"},"modified":"2009-11-03T10:10:38","modified_gmt":"2009-11-03T10:10:38","slug":"messing-up-darwins-origin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/03\/messing-up-darwins-origin\/","title":{"rendered":"Messing Up Darwin’s Origin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Please do me a favor. Start collecting those bogus-ized copies of Darwin’s Origin<\/em> being distributed by Ray Comfort. We’re low on firewood up at the cabin. Oh, and if you see Ray, puke on his shoes for me, OK?<\/p>\n

It’s not that I like burning books. But this is not burning books. When Ray Comfort distributes a faked-up copy of The Origin, he’s committing a kind of intellectual violence. Tossing the books into the wood stove is a parry.<\/p>\n

If you want to reduce the effects of global warming, you could always bury them in your garden thus sequestering the carbon they are made from.<\/p>\n

Here are the details from the National Center for Science Education<\/a>:
\n
\nNCSE challenges creationist’s “special” edition of Darwin’s Origin<\/strong><\/p>\n

OAKLAND, CA November 2, 2009<\/em><\/p>\n

Executive Director Eugenie Scott takes aim at creationist Ray Comfort’s distorted views on evolution in a debate taking place on the U.S. News & World Report site. The debate centers on Comfort’s 54 page introduction to a “special” edition of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species that will be given away on college campuses across America starting November 19th.<\/p>\n

In her post responding to Comfort, “How Creationist ‘Origin’ Distorts Darwin<\/a>“, Dr. Scott urges students to take the free copy of Origin that Comfort is offering, but to not waste time reading Comfort’s introduction–especially the middle section.<\/p>\n

“[It’s] a hopeless mess of long-ago-refuted creationist arguments,” says Dr. Scott, “Teeming with misinformation about the science of evolution, populated by legions of strawmen, and exhibiting what can be charitably described as muddled thinking.”<\/p>\n

For example, says Dr. Scott, Comfort’s treatment of the human fossil record is painfully superficial, out of date, and erroneous.<\/p>\n

“Piltdown Man and Nebraska Man–one a forgery, the other a misidentification, both rejected by science more than 50 years ago–are trotted out for scorn, as if they somehow negate the remaining huge volume of human fossils,” says Dr. Scott. “There are more specimens of “Ardi” (the newly described Ardipithecus ramidus) than there are of Tyrannosaurus–and any 8-year-old aspiring paleontologist will be delighted to tell you how much we know about the T. rex!”<\/p>\n

It’s no surprise that creationists are trying to piggyback on the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin, says Dr. Scott. “But I have faith that college students are sharp enough to realize that Comfort’s take on Darwin and evolution is simply bananas.”<\/p>\n

And … speaking of bananas, here’s Ray’s banana theory:<\/p>\n

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Please do me a favor. Start collecting those bogus-ized copies of Darwin’s Origin being distributed by Ray Comfort. We’re low on firewood up at the cabin. Oh, and if you see Ray, puke on his shoes for me, OK? It’s not that I like burning books. But this is not burning books. When Ray Comfort … Continue reading Messing Up Darwin’s Origin<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[207,55,156,2486],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5fhV1-79f","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27481"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}