Darwin Beats Bunkum in Ohio and Kansas

Ronald Bailey | November 8, 2006

Vocal anti-evolution Ohio school board member Deborah Owens Fink lost to pro-evolution candidate Tom Sawyer. According to the Columbus Dispatch, two other pro-science candidates were also elected to the school board.

 And there's more good news. The Kansas City Star reports that Kansans elected a pro-science majority to that state's school board as well.

Comments

|11.8.06 @ 3:10PM|#

... pro-evolution candidate Tom Sawyer ...

No his mind is not for rent
To any god or government
Always hopeful, yet discontent
He knows changes aren't permanent
But change is

|11.8.06 @ 3:26PM|#

[10 minute Neal Peart drum solo]

Jeff P|11.8.06 @ 3:28PM|#

I expect someone to protest Sawyer's election because he contains racial slurs...

|11.8.06 @ 3:29PM|#

Wasn't Tom Sawyer the mayor of Akron? I have vague childhood memories of 'Tom Sawyer, Democrat for Mayor' sloganeering when I lived in Ohio.

Is this a step up or a step down from mayor?

|11.8.06 @ 3:36PM|#

Do I have to lavel myself "pro-evolution" now? Great. I guess I'm "pro-gravity" and "pro-germ theory of disease," too.

It shouldn't be a political statement to know something about science.

|11.8.06 @ 3:39PM|#

Knowledge is good.

|11.8.06 @ 3:39PM|#

Is that pro science or pro anti human secularist. It's so hard to tel the difference these days.

|11.8.06 @ 4:08PM|#

Well, joe, you might be wrong on that other stuff, but at least you don't side with those heliocentric heathens.

|11.8.06 @ 4:10PM|#

Damnit, Tom Sawyer! You tricked me into painting this fence for you!

|11.8.06 @ 4:25PM|#

...pro anti human secularist....

So, to be in favor of science you have to hate people? Man, that's harsh! That explains why they call them secular humanists.

|11.8.06 @ 4:36PM|#

Rimfax
Its funny how that is. Science being used to downtrodden mankind. It does make you wonder why they call themselves secular humanistskinda like the way socialists and elitists call themselves liberals.

edna|11.8.06 @ 4:36PM|#

or secular determinants.

har, har, love those linear algebra jokes!

|11.8.06 @ 4:37PM|#

Is it just me, or does Santorum's wife look like she's really jonesing for a Highball?

|11.8.06 @ 4:37PM|#

Oh, wrong thread.

|11.8.06 @ 4:38PM|#

Maybe defeated creationists will gravitate toward vitamin supplements and holistic healing. They need something that will exercise their minds.

|11.8.06 @ 4:42PM|#

So if say I'm pro evolution I'm for science and if I don't really think there is any justification based on the evidence I have seen, then I am anti science.
Glad to see you libertarians aren't using a litmus test for reasoning.
That would really exclude about 500 years of scientific progress.

|11.8.06 @ 4:43PM|#

Art:

You don't even know what "secular humanist" means. do you?

I mean, besides the definition that the Christards throw around.

|11.8.06 @ 4:49PM|#

gee, whiz Art, what evidence have you seen for evolution? Kent Hovind's "documentaries"? a Watchtower pamphlet?

I hate to bring down the level of discourse around here, but you're an idiot.

|11.8.06 @ 4:50PM|#

So if say I'm pro evolution I'm for science and if I don't really think there is any justification based on the evidence I have seen, then I am anti science.

Considering that the evidence supports evolution and there is no evidence to support a 5000 year-old campfire story spun by a bunch of ignorant Canaanite goat-herders...

...yes, I'd say you're "anti-science."

|11.8.06 @ 5:01PM|#

Yes, let's stone Art. He's clearly a heretic. How dare he question the lack of evidence for evolution?

|11.8.06 @ 5:04PM|#

Todd, if there were a lack of evidence, you and Art would have a point. there's no lack of evidence, therefore you and Art lack a point. don't try to play your ignorance off as "a lack of evidence for evolution", when it is a lack of education on your parts.

Andrew|11.8.06 @ 5:07PM|#

Todd:
Here are some evidences for evolution. If you disbelieve the evidence, please give a reason why. However, saying "there is no evidence for evolution" is an erroneous statement.

|11.8.06 @ 5:18PM|#

joe, are you pro-Newtonian gravity, pro-Einsteinian gravity, pro-quantum gravity, or pro-Milgromian gravity? :)

|11.8.06 @ 5:19PM|#

I'm glad to see you guys got right to the "I'm to ignorant to know what's good for me so you need to tell me what to believe because I'm an idiot arguement."
When you grow up become a libertarian. For know stick to the Huffington Post.

|11.8.06 @ 5:22PM|#

do you have strongly held opinions on quantum theory? the Bohr model of the atom? tell us all about your opinion on complex subjects you think you know something about, but probably have no formal training in.

every jerk thinks he understands evolution. evolutionary biologists are pretty sure we don't understand it, but that it happened and is happening.

|11.8.06 @ 5:25PM|#

Yes, let's stone Art. He's clearly a heretic. How dare he question the lack of evidence for evolution?

Art is free to "question" whatever the hell he wants. However, his faith-based denial or reality doesn't make him right or make him look less moronic.

As for the "lack of evidence." You mean to tell me that the the last two centuries and the trillions we've spent on scientific research doesn't show that we live in a universe that's billions of years old and that our species came into being via natural processes rather than supernatural command? You mean not only is biology is wrong, but so is astronomy, physics, geology, paleontology, archeology (those human civilizations dated PRIOR to 6000 BCE never existed, right?), anthropology, and other disciplines are also bunkum?

Man we've been ripped off! I feel just as bad as I did when I discovered that the Moon landing was a hoax.

Timothy|11.8.06 @ 5:26PM|#

biologist: For the record, I don't believe in the Bohr model of the atom. Obviously the atom is solid like a billiard ball! You heathen Bohrists are cheapening mankind!

|11.8.06 @ 5:33PM|#

Timothy: ha!

for the record, I have no strongly held opinion on the Bohr model. I'm a biologist, not a physical scientist, dammit! I take their word that it is the most accurate model for the behavior of atomic particles.

that's why there's no need to force scientists to submit to any type of orthodoxy examination or thought police - the evidence is convincing or not. I just don't believe Art and Todd are very familiar with the evidence, they're probably only familiar with the contrary evidence, areas where evolutionary theory doesn't adequately explain the observations. there are some, after all. just like Newtonian gravitational theory isn't universally true, and therefore is only an approximation of the real way gravity works.

|11.8.06 @ 5:39PM|#

I'm glad to see you guys got right to the "I'm to ignorant to know what's good for me so you need to tell me what to believe because I'm an idiot arguement."

When you grow up become a libertarian. For know stick to the Huffington Post.

Well, you are certainly too ignorant to know or understand basic English grammar.

(Ok, Ok, I mess up too from time to time myself. But at least I try to proofread and spell check. I can't speak for Art.)

There are two types of ignorance, Art: Ignorance due to the lack of knowledge, and willful ignorance (e.g "I don't want to know."). The first can be easily fixed through education. The second, which you seem to suffer from, is incurable as long as you keep your head up your ass in the name of your God.

I'm still trying to find out why pointing out that Jesus-creeps tend to be morons on science matters somehow makes one less "libertarian?"

Timothy|11.8.06 @ 5:40PM|#

biologist: Well, they've probably been reading Behe and Dembski, who are two very sophisticated intelligent liars.

|11.8.06 @ 5:44PM|#

every jerk thinks he understands evolution.

Well, despite my layman status I like to think I have some idea of the science I'm defending.

|11.8.06 @ 5:54PM|#

Timothy:

...they've probably been reading Behe...

Ick! Behe lost any and all credibility the nanosecond he admitted on the stand at the Dover hearings that his definition of a scientific theory would include astrology.

I repeat... FUCKING ASTROLOGY!

|11.8.06 @ 5:56PM|#

Akira:

that wasn't directed at you, but at the thousands, nay millions of naysayers that "know" that evolution isn't true because their preacher taught them about evolution, and he has a doctorate (of divinity)

I know you don't have the problem of excessive faith in your religious leader:)

|11.8.06 @ 5:58PM|#

Timothy, they are very sophisticated liars, but the funny thing is, Behe doesn't deny Darwinian evolution as an intermediate mechanism, only that before a certain point, it can't be responsible for creation of those famous "irreducibly complex" structures.

I think he's wrong about that part of course...but he doesn't deny evolution/ natural selection takes place.

|11.8.06 @ 6:06PM|#

I know you don't have the problem of excessive faith in your religious leader:)

Trouble is, if I ever did find a religious leader, that's means I'd have become religious again. I promised myself, after 25' years of Catholicism, if I ever went back to anyone's God/Gods, I'd put a bullet in my brainpan (squish!).

Timothy|11.8.06 @ 6:12PM|#

Biologist: True enough, but he doesn't exactly discourage others from believing that either. Not to mention that whole flagella or blood clotting cascade thing.

Dembski is by far my least favorite, because he uses greek letters and statistical jargon to make people freeze and go "GADZOOKS! MATH! He must be correct!"

|11.8.06 @ 6:23PM|#

you are correct, Timothy. a pox on them both! neither has advanced science, both have made it more difficult for science to advance because scientists have had to waste time debunking their arguments, which are largely unoriginal and untrue, as well as disingenuous.

|11.8.06 @ 6:25PM|#

It has nothing to do with libertarianism, and everything to do with not being an idiot.

Evolution via natural selection isn't a speculation, isn't a guess, isn't open to fundamental questioning. It's the way things are. The specifics of the mechanics are open to question, and there's a whole lot of stuff that isn't yet well-understood, but macroevolution is as settled as gravitation. It exists, it's happening all the time, and we're doing a lot of science to figure out the nitty gritty details.

If you decide, for whatever bizarro reason (faith-based or otherwise), to disagree, then welcome to the Flat Earth Society; that's about the level of credibility you've just acquired.

However, to return this to libertarianism: Feel free to believe whatever you like; there's plenty of room for you among the turtles-all-the-way-down wing of the LP. But don't mistake that permissiveness for any sanction of your kooky irrational weirdness, or a desire to see your fruitcake beliefs taught as science with public funds.

|11.8.06 @ 7:43PM|#

Does it seem to anyone else that we've had a lot of "You Libertarians are X" posts today, where "X" is something completely off the point and having nothing to do with political philosophy? Are there new links to Reason up someplace where there are a lot of 14-year-olds?

thoreau|11.8.06 @ 10:08PM|#

Do I have to lavel myself "pro-evolution" now? Great. I guess I'm "pro-gravity" and "pro-germ theory of disease," too.

It shouldn't be a political statement to know something about science.

I am objectively pro-optics.

|11.9.06 @ 12:19AM|#

for those keeping score, I looked it up:

the journal Evolution, published by The Society for the Study of Evolution, began publication in 1946. currently, it is published monthly. curious that they can fill an entire issue of a journal every month when there is such a lack of evidence regarding evolution.

|11.9.06 @ 2:05AM|#

The word is "buncombe". Don't you people read H. L. Mencken anymore?

-jcr

|11.9.06 @ 3:30AM|#

Art, you're a blithering idiot, and if you want to do Libertarians everywhere a big favor, then become a socialist.

-jcr

edna|11.9.06 @ 9:02AM|#

For the record, I don't believe in the Bohr model of the atom.

no-one else does either, not since schroedinger and heisenberg. makes a pretty picture in a textbook, though...

|11.9.06 @ 12:02PM|#

John:
I just don't want Libertarians to buy into socialist dogma.
For the rest of you, you completely missed my point. Just saying your pro evolution does not make you pro science. As far as the evidence, anytime something becomes part of a dogma is when it really needs to be questioned.
Happy hunting.

|11.10.06 @ 1:30PM|#

I just don't want Libertarians to buy into socialist dogma.

A strawman argument if ever their was one. Evolution has as much to do with "socialism" as the Newton's Theories of Motion have anything to do with capitalism, or any other political viewpoint for that matter. Sciene exists outside of human political concerns, and our ideological biases don't change its conclusions.

As far as the evidence, anytime something becomes part of a dogma is when it really needs to be questioned.

You mean like the "dogma" that light travels through a vacuum at 300,000 k/sec and is the speed limit for any object with mass?

You mean like the "dogma" that E=MC^2?

You mean like the "dogma" that a water molecule is composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom?

In science, there is no "dogma." You are supposed to work under the assumption that you could be wrong, and that your results can be falsifiable. Yet, there comes a point when the data, facts, and figures do tend to point to certain conclusions. Unless you have the data, facts, and figures to show that these conclusions are wrong, you have to accept them.

The evidence backs up evolution, and so far the only thing Art and Todd have been able to come up with are Strawman arguments gleaned from televangelists and Ann Coluter.

If evolution is wrong, if all life on earth did not descend from common ancestors, then show us your evidence. Spare us the bullshit "evolution-equals-communism" plagiarisms from Rapture Ready.

|11.10.06 @ 7:09PM|#

BTW, I highly recommend "Why Darwin Matters" by Michael Shermer. It's an excellent defense of evolution as well as a detailed refutation of Creationist/ID arguments.

Just the thing to combat stupidity from the likes of Art and Todd.