I said I’d do this a while back.

Below is a summary of a lecture last year by Jobe Martin for this university’s Intelligent Design Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Club. I’m not going to counter any of his arguments here, because refutations are available at talk.origins; I’ll simply report what was said in case it’s useful to anyone preparing to debate or question Martin.

Background:
Jobe Martin is a dentist with a Masters in Theology and an undergraduate degree majoring in Biology and Music. His website decries multiculturalism and sex education, and he also narrates creationist videos.
He began his talk by describing his conversion to Christianity. About 50 people were present, including about 15 from IDEA, six other students and 20 teenagers from military academy. Throughout the meeting several IDEA club members prayed at the back of the room.
Publicity for the event depicted a bombardier beetle, with the text:
“Amazing Creatures That Defy Evolution
Dr Martin’s research into bombardier beetles and other amazing creatures conclusively proves the existence of a Creator.”

Argument from Biblical Authority:
Martin claimed evolution was faith-based, and equated it entirely with atheism:
“A basic assumption of evolution is that God does not exist.”
“If you’re a Marxist or a Shi’a Muslim or a secular humanist, you’ll choose evolution. If you’re a Christian you should be a creationist,”
“I don’t think the real issue is science, I think it is God.”
“Belief in evolution precludes happiness, loyalty and respect for life.”
One student asked whether she could be Christian without being creationist. He said no. Furthermore she should interpret the ‘days’ in Genesis literally because “day” in the Old Testament always meant a single 24 hour day.
“Jonah wasn’t in a whale’s belly for three billion years, was he?”
Many slides bore Bible verses. Not one bore a citation of a scientific paper.

Argument from Design:
Martin presented these examples of Amazing Creatures:
1. Interactions between orchids and pollinators, including mimicry;
2. mimicry of minnows by freshwater mollusks;
3. cuttlefish camouflage;
4. camels being suited to arid conditions.
He concluded that these adaptations could not have evolved because:
a. “Only God can do that. In my opinion only God can do that.”
b. (wrt Creatures 1. and 2.) “It’s the size of a pinhead.”
Bombardier beetles were not mentioned, making preparatory reading useless.

Conspiracism:
“Evolutionists suppress knowledge of these creatures because they are self-evidently designed.”
Several times, Martin referred to an organism by Latin name and asked if anyone had heard of it. If no hands went up, he continued,
“See? Nobody works on this.”
He also assured us that, according to an anonymous planetary geologist, estimates of the age of the moon were falsified.

God of the Gaps:
Martin asserted that the failure of scientists to recreate life showed that evolution was impossible, and that amino acids produced by abiotic processes are an equal mixture of L and D stereoisomers. Someone pointed out to him that this is not true for all reaction conditions. He responded:
“In the original experiment an equal amount of each was made. That’s not building blocks of life, that’s poison.”

“Information theory”:
“Not one mutation has been observed that adds information to the genome.”
“In the hundreds of years from wolf to poodle, information has only been lost.”
“Poodles and wolves will not hybridise because information has dropped out."
Martin allowed that speciation occurred because he said things were “free to vary within their kind”. As well as stating that DNA polymerase “fixes more than 60 different things” to keep kinds constant, he invoked sexual stabilizing selection:
“When two moose are fighting for a female, the most moosish moose will win.”
He ended the talk with this:
“Language comes from intelligence; DNA is language; therefore, DNA was intelligently designed. Can anyone spot anything wrong with that?”
He at first refused to define his terms but eventually said language was “a system that communicates information”.

Argument from Gross Misunderstanding:
“Why don’t we see chickenducks and cowhorses?”
“Evolution is random.”
“How do you get personality with slime plus time?”
“Can chimps sing in three-part harmony?”
“Can an explosion produce order?”

Young Earth
Martin claimed rock can only hold oil for 10000 years, and concrete stalactites are evidence that all stalactites formed recently. He mentioned a Dr von Gardner, whom he claimed was a respected geologist supporting his position.
Martin argued that the rate of human population growth has been constant since Noah’s Ark 4500 years ago and I can’t keep this detached reportage thing up any longer. At a respected university, in 2005, he was showing us a diagram of Noah’s Ark. That’s the scientific, evidence-based ID movement. For fuck’s sake.

Parliamentary democracy was fun while it lasted

And if it hadn't been for eclectech, I may never have noticed its passing.

Just so as not to be completely eclectech's bitch, let me also fawn over I Blame The Patriarchy. I've been spending far, far too long reading the archives. In particular, this article from last year whizzed me up into a patriarchy-blaming smoothie of rage and triumph.

Eclectech rocks.

Hot on the heels of her fantastic Nine to Five Game, she's once again blended the happy with the harrowing to produce a superb animation for a song Doghorse recorded. The lyrics are mine:


(A Beautiful Day In) Guantanamo Bay

No. 6 in a series

if I count aright: yup, time for another Nice Thing About America, this time to do with the education system.

Writing this feels traitorous, because I went through the Scottish system, which every Scot knows is the best education in THE WURRULD. It's also, as far as I can tell, one of the most specialised. You decide whether you're a sciency person or an artsy one at 16, you can start university at 17, and the four-year degree has a narrow focus. If you're lucky, there's room for an "outside course" or two: I managed astrophysics, palaeontology, and philosophy of science, and only took the last one because I failed biochemistry, so it was probably a broader curriculum than average. Everything else was biology, and by third year pretty much everything was genetics.

I adored it. But I accept that I'm a weirdo.

Things are very, very different over here. Yes, a PhD takes longer and includes taught courses, but on the other hand people get a chance during their undergraduate degree to dabble, change their minds, see how the other half thinks, and perhaps find a calling in an unlikely place. My friend Anthea Smut - N.B. this is a Science Pun and in no way a comment on her moral rectitude - started out studying Arabic and French surrealist poetry before settling on ecology.

When in conversation with American grad students, I often feel blinkered and ignorant. Those in the sciences know some history and music and politics and literature. Better still, those in the arts and humanities have a grasp of science, rather than - as is depressingly common back home - priding themelves on knowing bugger all backwards.

I am, to say the least,

not an aficionado of fashion, and have a healthy mistrust of anyone who cares about it too much or has the impertinence to tell other people What Not To Wear.
And yet, and yet...
...this is rather jolly.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist....

to harangue NASA astronomers about the Big Bang, it seems.
Physicists are - rightly - getting very angry. We biologists have had so much of this nonsense, it's tempting just to shrug wearily and be relieved that it's someone else's turn. But that would be wrong, mkay? This is an opportunity to put up a united front. So write to your MP or elected representative of your choice and ask what they will do to protect scientific research and science eduation from the recent surge of lunacy.
I did, and I got a prompt, if vague, reply which I have accidentally deleted. Bother.

Blogger's working again

so here's those recipes, once more and faster:

Fish kebabs. Cut 750g firm white fish into 2cm cubes, marinate for 1hr in: finely-chopped onion (1 small) and garlic (2 cloves); 1 tsp paprika, 1 tsp cumin, 1 tbs olive oil, 2 tbs lemon juice, 1/2 tsp salt. Grill, serve with couscous, sliced lemon and chopped parsley/coriander.

Panna cotta. Soak 1tsp gelatine in 2tbs cold water, bring 300ml cream to boil, whisk in 2tbs sugar, 1/4tsp vanilla and the gelatine (thoroughly), pour into cups or ramekins to set. Sauce: 100g raspberries, 2tbs water, warmed, slightly sweetened and sieved.