Without going into a lot of details, let’s just say that teacher, John Freshwater of Mount Vernon, was removed from classroom teaching pending an administrative hearing about insubordination. After a two-year-long administrative hearing process, Freshwater lost his job earlier this year. He and the Mount Vernon school system were also named in a federal discrimination complaint brought by a student’s family; the school district settled out of court and Freshwater, following an unsuccessful appeal, also had to pay damages to the family. Meanwhile, he filed, and later dropped, his own discrimination complaint in federal court against the school system.

So, after all these proceedings which suggest that Freshwater was to some degree culpable, I learn that he has the nerve to play the victim card on David Barton and Rick Green’s WallBuilders Live radio program.

Here’s a partial transcript, courtesy of Right Wing Watch.

Freshwater: When the 2007/2008 school year came along, there was a new principal, a new Superintendent, and three new school board members and what took place that year was they wanted me to removed my Bible from my desk. And I felt I have academic freedoms and I thought I had the right to have my Bible on my desk, so I left it on my desk in 2007/2008 school year and they told me to remove it and that was when they suspended me – April 16, 2008 – they suspended me without pay and I’ve been in litigation since then, the last four years.

Green: What’s their complaint about having a Bible on your desk? I thought teachers were allowed to do that?

Freshwater: You know what? I thought so too, but they said I needed to remove it from my desk. Here is what it comes down to Rick, and it’s this: there is a lot of fear in public school teachers, especially Christian public school teachers. They put fear into them and they keep them ignorant; they don’t teach them, they don’t train them on it, so what a teacher does is they take off their religious beliefs, they take their hat off before they walk into a public school building because they don’t want to lose their job. They really don’t have a good understanding of this whole thing called religious belief and separation of church and state, it has been convoluted, it has been putting fear in the people and it is sad, it’s very sad for a public school teacher in a public school in America today.

Freshwater conveniently omitted the religious posters on his classroom walls, the shelf full of Bibles for students to borrow, his teaching of creationism in class, and comments disparaging Catholics, among others, as not being Christian, which were significant charges that led to his removal from teaching and the federal suit against him and the school system. It is true his principal told him to remove his Bible from his desk, so it was not in plain sight. It is also true that Freshwater refused, and also refused to change any of his other actions that got him and the school in hot water.

As for the malarkey that public school teachers have to leave their religion in the school parking lot, there are no laws that forbid teachers from keeping a Bible in their desk, praying privately or stating their own beliefs in a non-judgmental, non-threatening way to their students. There are laws, however, that forbid them from teaching creationism or Intelligent Design as valid “scientific theories” or using their teacher’s desk as a church pulpit to preach to a captive audience.

i won’t even mention the unprofessional, nay, stupid, practice of using a Tesla coil (technically, a high-voltage, high-frequency vacuum leak tester) to give volunteer students skin burns in the shape of an “x” (or a cross, depending on your viewpoint). These charges were also part of Freshwater’s legal woes, if not the catalyst that brought his other dubious actions to light.

Cry me a river, John Freshwater. You’re not a victim here. You’re the instigator — you made your own bed, now lie in it.

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If any readers are sufficiently curious to read about the Strange and Curious Case of John Freshwater, this link will take you to the Panda’s Thumb, where Richard Hoppe has chronicled in excruciating detail the whole saga.

Michele Bachmann, science ignoramus (CNN photo)

It’s not surprising, because Bachmann (and most of the other candidates for the GOP presidential nomination), are stubbornly in the Science (and History) Ignoramus class. Global warming? Liberal nonsense! Evolution? Atheist nonsense! Separation of Church and State? It was never there!

Intelligent Design is religious belief, Creationism with a different label, and the federal courts — most recently in 2005 — have ruled it cannot be taught in public schools, especially in science class. Period.

Yet, Bachmann and others stubbornly insist ID must be taught in public schools. Don’t they read the newspapers?

Here’s what she told CNN.

“I support intelligent design,” Bachmann told reporters in New Orleans following her speech to the Republican Leadership Conference. “What I support is putting all science on the table and then letting students decide. I don’t think it’s a good idea for government to come down on one side of scientific issue or another, when there is reasonable doubt on both sides.”

WRONG!!

There is no “reasonable doubt” about evolution, at least among sensible people and especially not among scientists. There are no two sides about evolution, any more than there are two sides about Einstein’s theory of gravity, or the atomic theory, or continental drift. They are all accepted scientific theories, supported by piles of evidence.

She’s repeating the worn-out “teach the controversy” ploy of the ID community. It goes like this:

1. Assume that evolution is a belief system, not an empirical theory.
2. Pretend that there is lack of consensus about this belief system.
3. Couch objections to teaching evolution in school in “Big Brother” or “atheistic government” terms.
4. Appeal to the reasonable concept that students should hear all sides of an issue.
5. Insist that Intelligent Design is a suitable scientific explanation for the diversity of life on Earth.
6. Propose that ID and evolution be taught as alternative theories, and let the students decide which is “better science.”

To the layman, this all seems perfectly reasonable. After all, we can discuss socialism and capitalism in history classes, why not creationism — sorry, Intelligent Design — and evolution in biology class?

But science is not the same as political theory. Science depends on observations, experiments, logical deduction and induction, self-consistency, explanatory power, predictability and (most importantly for this discussion) rejection of supernatural causes for natural events.

The underlying premise of ID is that some unseen being/force/architect/mechanic/God created life forms more or less as they appear now, perhaps as early as just a few thousand years ago. We cannot prove such a Designer exists, since he/she/it is undetectable by natural means, so this Designer is supernatural.

In addition, since ID assumes a Designer is looking down (or around, or up, or sideways) at Life on Earth, he/she/it might decide at any time to poof! create something new, or eliminate something altogether. Thus, there is no real predictability to this so-called theory, since we cannot anticipate God’s decisions. — Sorry, did I say God? I meant the Intelligent Designer.

You don’t need to my word for it. US District Judge John Jones, a Republican appointee, ruled in Kitzmiler v. Dover Board of Education (2005), after a lengthy court trial, that ID is nothing but Creationism — religious belief — dressed up as a “science,” and very poor science, at that.

The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory. (Source)

and

ID’s backers have sought to avoid the scientific scrutiny which we have now determined that it cannot withstand by advocating that the controversy, but not ID itself, should be taught in science class. This tactic is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard. The goal of the IDM is not to encourage critical thought, but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with ID. (Source)

Bachmann, incidentally, implies that “government” should allow public schools to “teach the controversy,” which is a polite way of saying the government should require it. (Several states have legislation pending, or have already passed laws, requiring ID or creationism be taught in public schools. Louisiana, where she was speaking, is one of them that passed such a law.)

So, on the one hand, she says the government should stay out of education, while on the other hand, she says it should not. After all, the religious right, of which Bachmann is a member, really, really wants to put religion (their form of it) in the public schools, if they are not trying to eliminate public schooling altogether.

Pay close attention to what Bachmann, and the other GOP candidates, say about science and education. Then ask yourself if that is the kind of thinking that would enable the USA to continue being a leader in science and technology.

And then vote for someone else.

Expelled was the 2008 embarrassment that tried to prove once and for all there was a vast conspiracy to teach evolution while suppressing Intelligent Design and other “explanations” of life on Earth, and putting Hitler in power. Or something like that. The New York Times called it “one of the sleaziest documentaries to arrive in a very long time.”

Narrated and hosted by the riveting Ben Stein, it tanked at the box office, so badly it seems, that its production company, Premise Media, is in bankruptcy court.

According to a document (PDF) filed in the United States Bankruptcy Court of the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division, on May 31, 2011, the trustee of the bankruptcy estate is seeking to auction “[t]hat certain feature-length motion picture (‘Picture’) ‘Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed’ and all collateral, allied, ancillary, subsidiary and merchandising rights therein and thereto, and all properties and things of value pertaining thereto.” The auction is scheduled to take place on-line from June 23 to June 28, 2011.

As awful as the movie was, I reckon somebody will probably bid on it. I hope the winner is a film collector, who will stash it in a vault somewhere, and not some Intelligent Design fanboy, who will try to inflict it on us again.

————————–
POSTSCRIPT: Back in 2008, I did a critique of the Expelled teacher’s guide. The National Center for Science Education also has a more elaborate debunking of the movie.

Amy Myers the Bachmann Slayer (and Scourge of the Right Wing) is not the only high school student making national news. Damon Fowler and Zack Kopplin, both of Louisiana, have made some national waves recently, too.

Fowler is a 2011 graduate of Bastrop High School in Bastrop, La. Earlier this term, he learned that there would be a school-sanctioned official prayer at his graduation ceremony. He objected, and asked that the prayer be scotched. (FYI, the Supreme Court has held that public school-sponsored prayers are verboten under the First Amendment, which Fowler knows but the school apparently didn’t.)

The ACLU followed up with a letter advising the school of the legal requirements and ramifications. School officials agreed to forgo the prayer. As if. In the meantime, the community got wind of Fowler’s objections and the shit hit the fan.

Fowler got threats of violence and death. His fellow students turned on him. One of his teachers publicly berated him. His parents kicked him out of the house, and put his possessions (except his PS3) out on the porch.

The graduation went on without him, since he reckoned attending put him at some risk. And a prayer was said by a student, supposedly against the wishes of the administration but basically within the letter of the law.

On the bright side, Fowler is living with his sister in Texas, and an atheist website has raised more than $30,000 for him to attend college, since his parents cut him off.

Kopplin is a Baton Rouge high school senior who objects to his state’s so-called science education law, which encourages, nay requires teaches in Louisiana to explain that evolution is only one possible explanation for the diversity of life on Earth, creationism/Intelligent Design being another.

He challenged Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) to a debate about creationism. Myers, of New Jersey, also challenged Bachmann to a debate on American history and the Constitution.

Bachmann has so far ignored both challenges.

Kopplin’s letter to Bachmann begins:

I’m a 17 year old from Louisiana, and I’m calling Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s bluff when it comes to creationism and Nobel Laureate scientists.

In 2004, while she was in the Minnesota State Senate, Congresswoman Bachmann tried to pass SF 1714, a bill similar to my state’s creationism law, the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), which I’m fighting to repeal. This misnamed and misguided law creates a way to sneak the teaching of creationism into Louisiana public school science classrooms.

The LSEA is hurting my state and the students in it. And now, as the congresswoman is laying the groundwork to run for President, she is upping the ante for the rest of the country by bringing an anti-science, creationist stance to the national stage. Why is this a junk hand for students? Just look at the lessons from Louisiana. Colleges both at home and across the country may question our science education and withhold admission because of our dubious science background. In addition, Louisiana students may lose out on cutting edge science jobs to kids from countries like China and Britain where they teach accurate science and the theory of evolution.

He demands that Bachmann “show him the money” and say who her anti-evolution experts are.

Kopplin later appeared on MSNBC’s Hardball, and made quite an impression. Interestingly enough, he’s the son of Andy Kopplin, Baton Rouge Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s chief of administration.

While there is an active group of teachers, students, parents and scientists lobbying for the repeal of the act, Kopplin has become the lightning rod for criticism and condemnation. Typical of the reactions is this opinion piece from the Shreveport (La.) Times, whose author demonstrates a poor understanding of both science and Constitutional law.

The Times recently carried a front-page article titled “Group seeks repeal of science education act.” (Baton Rouge) High School senior Zack Kopplin, who is on the front line in this imbecilic group, should wait until he has a little more experience in the real world of ACLU actions in this country.

The ACLU, an organization started in communism, convinced our exalted and supposedly intellectual Supreme Court to affirm that the U.S. Constitution means a separation of church and state. It says nothing of the kind. It does say for Congress to keep hands off.

It was not Congress but the Supreme Court, educated beyond its capacity to understand, that gave the ACLU a law to go after anything Christian in the schools and public places. This has led to untold havoc in this nation, helped and abetted by the elements that want to force-feed the theory of evolution to American students. Russia excelled in this.

Evolution is a theory, not factual or scientific. The article says teachers, scientists and college professors (doesn’t say which ones) are backing Sen. Karen Carter Peterson’s bill (Senate Bill 70) in the Senate. They are asking (telling) students that the “big bang” arranged everything in the universe and somehow started life on Earth with a one-celled animal and, surprise, this is where they came from.

They brook no opposition or discussions, which is all the present law advocates. How ignorant can you get?

I ask them to look around and see what has happened in this country since they took God out of schools and everything public. We have an ungodly crowd making laws in this nation.
- Kenny W. Hopkins

Hopkins repeats a lot of fallacies familiar to us who follow the creationism “movement.” Here are the answers.

The First Amendment established separation of church and state in 1787. Even before the ACLU was established, the Supreme Court maintained that government institutions (such as public schools) cannot foster one religion over any other. While it is true the ACLU has participated in many cases involving religion in schools (see above, Damon Fowler), the ACLU itself does not serve as the plaintiff. It advises or represents the plaintiffs.

The Supreme Court cannot give a law. Congress passes bills, and the president signs them into law. The Supreme Court can rule laws are unconstitutional, and then Congress can try again. This is all in the Constitution, by the way. Something about checks and balances.

There is no law banning prayer in schools. Students can lead prayers at public events. Teachers and administrators cannot. Teachers and administrators are free at any time to pray privately. They cannot induce or require students to follow suit. This is not rocket science.

Russia (I suppose he means the former Soviet Union) did not teach Darwinian evolution, but Lamarckianism, which had been discredited as a theory in the “capitalist West” early in the 20th century. Lamarck proposed that offspring inherited characteristics their parents acquired during their lifetimes. Thus giraffes had long necks because they repeatedly stretched to reach the tops of trees, for example.

Evolution is not “force fed” to students, any more than math or English is. It’s a scientific theory, supported by craploads of evidence (aka facts) , and accepted by most of the world’s scientists. In addition, geology and cosmology corroborate the basic assumptions of evolution.

Creationism/intelligent design is not science. It is religious belief, which a public school cannot teach. The ruling in the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover case clearly established that Intelligent Design is just another word for creationism, as in the story of Genesis.

Public school teachers are required to teach science. Public school teachers cannot teach religion. We call that separation of church and state. Those teachers and their students are free to believe whatever they like. No one is forcing anyone to “believe” in evolution. The students just have to know enough to pass their tests, for pete’s sake.

“We have an ungodly crowd making laws in this nation.” That would be the Constitutional Convention, I reckon, since those delegates are the ones who drafted the Constitution, which the states later ratified. Why does Hopkins hate the Founding Fathers?

It’s a little sad in some ways that some high school students know more about science and the law than the majority of adults (including lawmakers).

On the other hand, I’m glad someone has a brain.

For me the highlight was this stalagmite, the “Sacred Needle for Stabilizing the Sea,” which rises 19.2 meters from the cave floor.

Sacred Needle for Stabilizing the Sea

The tour guide rattled off two impressive figures relating to this structure. One is that it is insured for several million dollars. The other is that the Sacred Needle is about two million years old.

This blog has highlighted the sheer silliness of creationism over the last four years, especially the ludicrous claims of Ken Ham’s Creation Museum in northern Kentucky. Ham (among others) figures the world was created in exactly six days about 6,000 years ago.

To bolster their claims that the Bible accurately describes the creation of Life, the Universe and Everything, Ham and Co. try all kinds of hand-waving arguments to counter reams of contradictory evidence from astronomy, geology, paleontology and biology, like

• The flood in the story of Noah created the Grand Canyon, aided in the dispersion of humans across the planet, and buried all known dinosaur fossils at about the same time, 2348 BC.
• Radioisotope dating is flawed, because in ancient times radioactive minerals decayed at faster rates than they do now.

Consider this stalagmite. [Mnemonic device: stalacTites are on Top, stalagMites are on the bottoM.] It has been formed over many years by the slow drop drip drip of water through the limestone above the cave. Each drop of water contains dissolved minerals, which are left behind as the water slowly evaporates (very slowly — caves are usually humid and cool). Each drop deposits yet another microscopically thin layer of minerals on the stalagmite. Over eons, these layers can build up to form a spike 19.2 meters tall.

[For the Sacred Needle, the growth rate is about 0.01 mm/yr, using the tour guide's information for its age. That's pretty typical for stalagmite growth, I found.]

Creationist handwaving cannot help explain away the antiquity of the Sacred Needle. Rapid water flow, such as one might find in a Noachian flood, cannot form stalagmites or stalactites. It takes a slow — a really slow — drip drip drip of water to deposit the layers of minerals so they form a column and not a puddle. Just walking around the cave confirms the drip rate. For the stalactites I could easily see, the drips were probably coming one a minute or more. Not bad enougha yet to fix the faucet, in other words.

It bewilders me how anyone in the 21st century can still insist the world is just a few thousand years old, and that it took only six days to make it.

Maybe these people should get out a little more. They don’t need to visit China. Skip the Creation Museum and visit Big Bone Lick State Park or Mammoth Cave instead. The evidence for the real age of the Earth is there; it doesn’t lie. The Creation Museum does.

The Charles Darwin Bible is a copy of the New Testament, with annotations referring to Christian and creationist beliefs. It’s the latest attempt by creationists to wiggle their religious non-science into the public schools.

There is also a creationist edition of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species available. Since the original text of 150 years ago is not copyrighted, evangelist Ray Comfort slapped a 50-page “special introduction” onto the work and is selling it for a mere 99 cents. Comfort’s plan is for fellow believers to hand the bastardized copies of Origin of Species to their teacher and professor friends.

The Charles Darwin Bible is another brainchild of Comfort’s. It’s being distributed by Holman Bible Outreach, which is selling the curiously named book for $3.99 (or $1.75 by the case). Someone ponied up the money to hand a thousand of them out to NEA members.

The NEA is one of two professional organizations that represent public school teachers. Its annual convention began June 26 and runs through Friday.

Here’s a description of the CDB:

Released in response to “Darwin Day” on Feb. 12th – observed worldwide by a growing number of people – this publication by best-selling author Ray Comfort is designed to help “pull the plug on the rising tide of atheism.” With both the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth in February and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species in October, 2009 promises to be a battleground year for evolution – and Christians need to be equipped to refute it.

Countless people have been deceived into dismissing God, believing that evolution is a proven scientific fact and that the Book of Genesis has been shown to be a fable. Even many churches have neglected the truths of Scripture for the claims of fallible man. This book will give Christians an effective tool to share with evolutionists in our schools, neighborhoods, workplaces, and churches–explaining the vital facts about our origins and the truth of our great Creator.

Covers why there is suffering, who made God, the Big Bang, the origin of life, DNA, irreducible complexity, mutations, transitional forms, the Cambrian Explosion, peppered moths, vestigial organs, “mistakes” in the Bible, and more.

Includes:

* Presentation Page
* In-text study notes written for atheists
* Plan of Salvation
* Concise Topical Concordance

Back cover copy:
“Merely having an open mind is nothing; the object of opening a mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.” ~ G. K. Chesterton

Darwinian evolution and the biblical account of creation are incompatible. Either God made man in His own image as morally accountable beings, male and female, reproducing after their own kind, or He didn’t. If the theory of evolution is a scientific fact, then the Bible should be discarded as mere mythology. But if the Bible is right, Charles Darwin single-handedly propagated a fantasy that has hoodwinked millions.

Determining which is true could impact your eternity. Take time to examine the evidence to make sure your beliefs – and your future – are based on something solid. This brief publication will help you to consider:

* Charles Darwin’s history and beliefs about God
* Why evolution versus creation is so important
* Evidence for evolution from top scientists
* “Contradictions” in the Book of Genesis
* Evolution’s difficult questions
* How to know God exists
* Commentary by best-selling author Ray Comfort

Reading this compact New Testament with an open heart will help you know for certain whether evolution is true and whether God is real.

Creationists have a particularly narrow interpretation of Scripture. Believers have to take every single word literally, and take the entire Bible in toto that way. They cannot consider Genesis, for example, as allegorical while also accepting 1 Kings as historical. So, in the creationist mind, it’s an either-or thing: either the Bible is all literally true, or none of it is.

[Needless to say, many Christian sects outgrew literalism centuries ago, partly out of necessity. Taking the Song of Songs literally, for example, turns it into an erotic poem. Making the woman a metaphor for belief in God or for the Church makes the poem more religious, however.]

We have these two telltale sentences in the above blurb.

If the theory of evolution is a scientific fact, then the Bible should be discarded as mere mythology. But if the Bible is right, Charles Darwin single-handedly propagated a fantasy that has hoodwinked millions.

False dichotomy. False science.

There are plenty of people, including scientists and the Roman Catholic Church, who can simultaneously accept evolution as valid and still believe in God and read the Bible. Many believers can simultaneously be Christians and accept Genesis as an ancient creation myth or allegory.

Additionally, the blurb reveals a notable lack of understanding (no surprise there!) about how science works.

First of all, evolution is a theory, and technically not a fact. (Actually, it would be more accurate to call it a collection of facts, but that would still miss the boat.) A scientific theory attempts to provide some order on and understanding of a multitude of observations. Scientists constantly test the theory with the observations, including new ones. If it stands the test of time, a theory is considered valid.

Valid does not necessarily mean accurate, or factual, though. All of science is an approximation of “reality.” Theories are constantly being refined as new evidence accumulates; sometimes they are completely discarded in favor of new, more accurate theories. You cannot refine facts. A fact is a fact. It is hard to refine the fact the sun rises in the east. It does or it doesn’t. You can, however, refine the explanation for why the sun rises in the east.

It’s the constant testing of scientific theories that makes the second sentence I highlighted complete nonsense. Darwin could not have possibly “hoodwinked” millions with a “fantasy.” [That prize should go to the creationists, I suggest.] If there was sufficient evidence against his theory, science would have thrown Darwin’s theory of evolution on the dustheap with the phlogiston theory and geocentrism ages ago. But there is no evidence that contradicts evolution. In fact, discoveries since Origin of Species was first published in 1859 have only corroborated Darwin’s theory.

Now, science teachers should be aware of such nuances, or at least I hope they are. (There is evidence to the contrary, I am sorry to say.) Whether teachers of other subjects are similarly aware of how science works is more doubtful. So, handing them copies of a New Testament with creationist folderol inside might sufficiently confuse some NEA members into wondering whether creationism might actually be true, or at least be a decent “competitor” for the theory of evolution. That’s the foot in the door that the creationists want. Introduce doubt in the scientific explanations, then replace doubt with religious certainty.

Mwua-hahahahaha!

Incidentally, the creationists use “evolution” as a catch-all phrase for any science that contradicts Genesis. So, to them, most of geology, paleontology, astronomy and cosmology are bogus, too, since all four also suggest the universe and the Earth are billions of years old, and constantly changing, not a few thousand years old and essentially static (except for occasional divine temper tantrums).

Handing out these “Bibles” is a clever ruse, but ruses are essentially dishonest behavior. I guess I missed those lessons that taught Christians it is OK to trick people into Christianity.

The creationist outfit, Bridge Logos Foundation, of Alachua, Florida, has published an abridged 150th anniversary edition of Origin of Species, complete with a 50-page introduction calling into question practically every conclusion Darwin makes in the rest of the book. Living Waters Publications, is peddling the book as a way to undermine the teaching of evolution in schools and universities.

Both organizations are masterminded by Ray Comfort, a noted anti-evolution, fundamentalist writer.

Here is the squib describing the book:

This special 280-page edition not only contains an abridged Origin of Species but also has a 50-page Introduction that reveals the dangerous fruit of evolution, Hitler’s undeniable connections to the theory, Darwin’s racism, and his disdain for women. It counters the claim that creationists are “anti-science” by citing numerous scientists who believed that God created the universe—scientists such as Einstein, Newton, Copernicus, Bacon, Faraday, Pasteur, and Kepler. It has many original graphics and (as it says on the back cover) is designed for use in schools, colleges, and prestigious learning institutions. The back cover lists the above information as well as saying the book contains “Information on Intelligent Design vs Evolution.” We want to get one million copies into the hands of students and professors in colleges and universities throughout the U.S. Let’s see if they try to ban Darwin’s Origin of Species. That would be interesting.

The front cover of the book is suitably nondescript, camouflaging the creationist nonsense contained in the introduction, which Comfort himself wrote. The unwary would never suspect the book is actually anti-Darwin.

Isn’t there a commandment about not bearing false witness?

The introduction (available here) starts off innocently enough with a straightforward and — as near as I can tell — unbiased biography of Darwin. A timeline marks the important events of his life.

Then the introduction devolves into creationist mumbo-jumbo, some of which Comfort has recycled from his blog posts and other screeds, as I discovered using SeeSources.com,. Here is an example, about the synthesis of DNA (which, I might add, Darwin knew nothing about 150 years ago).

Consider for a moment whether you could ever believe this publication happened by accident. Here’s the argument: there was nothing. Then paper appeared, and ink fell from nowhere onto the flat sheets and shaped itself into perfectly formed letters of the English alphabet. Initially, the letters said something like this: “fgsn&k cn1clxc dumbh cckvkduh vstupidm ncncx.” As you can see, random letters rarely produce words that make sense. But in time, mindless chance formed them into the order of meaningful words with spaces between them. Periods, commas, capitals, italics, quotes, paragraphs, margins, etc., also came into being in the correct placements. The sentences then grouped themselves to relate to each other, giving them coherence. Page numbers fell in sequence at the right places, and headers, footers, and footnotes appeared from nowhere on the pages, matching the portions of text to which they related. The paper trimmed itself and bound itself into a Bible. The ink for the cover fell from different directions, being careful not to incorrectly mingle with the other colors, forming itself into the graphics and title. There are multiple copies of this publication, so it then developed the ability to replicate itself thousands of times over. With this thought in mind, notice that in the following description of DNA, it is likened to a book:

If you think of your genome (all of your chromosomes) as the book that makes you, then the genes are the words that make up the story. … The letters that make up the words are called DNA bases, and there are only four of them: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (t). It’s hard to believe that an alphabet with only four letters can make something as wonderful and complex as a person!

The quote about the four DNA bases, incidentally, used to be on the GlaxoSmithKline website, and is archived here. It was clearly intended for children, and simplifies genetics using terms children can understand: letters, words, books.

Comfort’s feeble attempt to show how DNA could not have possibly developed without Divine Guidance is likewise childish. DNA did not just appear — poof! — one sunny day billions of years ago. It took at least millions of years for DNA to develop from simpler molecules, and the processes by which it developed were not random, as creationists love to allege. There is nothing random about chemical bonding; some elements prefer other elements, kinda like people.

The preceding argument against unguided synthesis of DNA, incidentally, is word-for-word copied from one of Comfort’s own blog posts.

Then Comfort babbles on about the supposed lack of “transitional fossils” showing the evolution of reptiles into birds, for example. He ignores legitimate transitional fossils, of which there are many, focusing only on the fake ones, of which there are few.

Creationists love to “quotemine,” to pull quotes from pro-evolution sources and use them out of context to support anti-evolution arguments. For example, Comfort pulls a “quote” by Washington Post writer Boyce Rensberger that appears to refute the fossil evidence for the evolution of the horse.

The quote from the introduction:

The popularly told example of horse evolution, suggesting a gradual sequence of changes from four-toed, fox-sized creatures, living nearly 50 million years ago, to today’s much larger one-toed horse, has long been known to be wrong. Instead of gradual change, fossils of each intermediate species appear fully distinct, persist unchanged, and then become extinct. Transitional forms are unknown. (emphasis added by Comfort)

In fact, Rensberger was reporting on a four-day conference on evolution in Chicago, and was merely summarizing (not very clearly) a scholarly discussion of punctuated equilibria. Creationists repeat Rensberger over and over again out of context, as TalkOrigins.org describes here.

Rensberger, incidentally, in one of his own articles clearly states there is sufficient fossil evidence for the gradual evolution of the horse.

A little further on (p. 31), we have this rant sermonette:

If you find it hard to believe that there was an Intelligent Designer, give this some thought. Man, with all his genius, can’t make a grain of sand from nothing. He can’t make a rock, a leaf, a flower, a living singing bird, a croaking frog, or even a grain of dead sand, from nothing. We can recreate, but we can’t create anything material from nothing, living or dead. Not a thing. Did you realize that if we could simply make one blade of grass without using existing materials, we could solve the world’s hunger problem? If we could make a blade of grass, we could then create a lot more grass, feed the green material through a machine that does what the common cow does, and have pure white full cream milk, then smooth cream, delicious yoghurt, tasty cheese, and smooth butter. But we can’t make even one blade of grass from nothing, let alone giving it the ability to reproduce after its own kind, as regular grass does. We have no idea where to begin when it comes to creating. If that’s true, how intellectually dishonest is it to say that this entire incredible creation in which we live, came into existence with no Intelligent Designer? Still, if you are set on believing that some sort of unknown creative force (made up of chaos and probability) brought all this incredible order into being, you will stay with that belief. You will also be offended by the simplicity of Genesis — that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and everything therein. You will also more than likely have a problem with where Cain obtained his wife. But I may have an answer that you could be willing to believe? How about he randomly mutated into a woman, split, and married her?

Or how about this explanation? The story of Cain is myth, not history, and his wife probably came from some other group of people with a different God and creation myth. And what the f*** does Cain’s wife have to do with Darwin’s Origin of Species, anyway?

Around page 33, Comfort veers into crazyland by alleging Adolf Hitler was a “student” of Darwin, repeating the creationist conflation of social darwinism and evolution. The intro includes several quotes from Mein Kampf relating to Hitler’s misappropriation of evolutionary principles to societal rules and politics.

The intro ends with a long discussion of sin, death, the afterlife and the best religion to choose if you want a happy eternity after leaving this mortal plane. Predictably, Comfort appeals to the reader to become Christians. In a science book. Sneaky, huh?

By the way, I saw no citations in the introduction from “Newton, Copernicus, Bacon, Faraday, Pasteur, and Kepler,” as promised in the squib. Only Einstein is actually quoted; the others are merely mentioned as believers in a Creator.

My hope is that any teacher receiving this book as a gift from some well-meaning Creationist friend will rip out the 50-page special introduction, and keep the rest, which I assume (not having seen it) is just an abridgment of Darwin’s work. Or better yet, throw out the whole thing and buy a real copy of Origin of Species. This edition is nothing more than a dishonest effort to sneak religion into science classrooms (yet again) by someone who has no understanding of science, evolution or for that matter decency.