With friends named "Boner" who needs enemies?

Do you remember Growing Pains? I loved Growing Pains. No one can deny that the show was largely carried by the talent and undeniable charm of one Kirk Cameron. Mike Seaver was the white Theo Huxtable.

That's why its so painful to watch Kirk Cameron's endeavors now. He and this Ray Comfort character have republished Darwin's Origin and are handing out their copies on college campuses all over the country on the 150 year anniversary of its publication. The problem is that they've added their own introduction trying the tired old (and baseless) strategy of connecting Evolution to eugenics and Hitler and, until they were called out on it, were publishing with 4 essential chapters suspiciously missing.

So I guess he was handing out these copies yesterday and a student decided to take him to task and as much as I hate myself for linking to TMZ, they're the ones with the video. Its a little hard to hear what Kirk says (headphones will help) but its pretty apparent that he doesn't know much about the Theory that he's so opposed to. They clearly think that if they can tarnish the name of Darwin, they're somehow striking a mighty blow against atheism. But no atheist (or any other non religious, critically minded person) believes Darwin to be a prophet or messiah or infallible at all. In fact, he got several things wrong and had ideas about genetics that would have made evolution impossible. But trying to somehow tie him to Hitler doesn't change the fact that he was right about a lot of things and made our understanding of biology today possible. He could've been a child molester, and while that would've certainly changed the way we celebrate him today, it wouldn't have made his ideas less brilliant or pioneering.

Science builds on ideas, like the girl in the video says, and our understanding of Evolution has grown tremendously since Origin was published. If you wanted to learn about Evolution, I don't think you'd even read Origin. Not for sheer understanding anyway. You'd want to read something that has the best and the most information possible so you'd probably read something written recently by a scientist who's currently working in the field.

I wonder what Alan Thicke thinks about Evolution...And by that I mean that I don't wonder what Alan Thicke thinks about Evolution. Not because I don't think he's smart, I'm sure he's a genius, I just mean he's an actor and not exactly a voice of authority on science. I'm not going to ask him to prescribe me medications either.

I still want to like Kirk Cameron even though the general internet consensus seems to be that he's a bit of a douche bag. I heard that even when he's acting he won't kiss any woman but his wife, and while some may think that trivial and stupid, I think its admirable. I'm also sure he loves his six kids and his friends and is probably a nice guy, he's just really, really wrong about Darwin and seems to be unreasonable about science. There are worse things a person can be.

Deuteronomy 25:11-12

So today, I am feeling patriotic again. I just got off the phone with my senator's office and now I want you to pick up your phone and call yours. If you don't know who your senator is then go here and find out. There's a "find my senator" widget at the bottom of the page.

Remember a while back when Rick Perry nominated Don McLeroy, an ultra Conservative dentist, for chairman of the board of education? Well, luckily, he was defeated. But, remember how I said that I was concerned that Perry would just nominate someone worse? Well, its not official yet but its looking like he's going to. Her name is Cynthia Dunbar and she's very open about her disdain for public education, which to me is a giant red flag when you're looking for someone to be chairperson of the Board of Education.

In a book published last year, Dunbar argued the country’s founding fathers created “an emphatically Christian government” and that government should be guided by a “biblical litmus test.” She endorses a belief system that requires “any person desiring to govern have a sincere knowledge and appreciation for the Word of God in order to rightly govern.”

Also in the book, she calls public education a “subtly deceptive tool of perversion.”

The Establishment of public schools is unconstitutional and even “tyrannical,” she wrote, because it threatens the authority of families, granted by God through Scripture, to direct the instruction of their children.

Dunbar home-schooled her own children.

First off, there are few things more annoying than when right wingers imply that our founding fathers were saintly men who wore their devout faith in Christianity on their sleeves. It takes about 10 minutes of research to figure out that most of our founding fathers were Deists, and had quite a bit of disdain for religion. Take the George Washington approved Treaty of Tripoli, for instance. "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion;..."
Here's a quote from Ben Franklin's autobiography, "But I was scarce fifteen, when, after doubting by turns several points as I found them disputed in the different books I read, I began to doubt of the Revelation itself. Some books against Deism fell into my hands; they were said to be the substance of the sermons which had been preached at Boyle’s Lectures. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them. For the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to be much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist."
And then there's Jefferson who called himself a Christian from time to time but only because he got down with the moral philosophy of Jesus. However, he took a pair of scissors to his bible and hacked out all the things he considered to be superstitious, miraculous or mystic. When speaking of god he was known to, more often than not, use the popular Deist term, "Nature's God."

I digress. If you want to get a clear view of our founding fathers religion and skepticism, its pretty easy to find.

The real problem at hand is this Dunbar lady. Can we not, honestly, find someone better for this job? Someone who doesn't already think the very idea of public education is morally wrong? Someone who isn't, very clearly, intending to use the position to push their ideals into the education system?

It doesn't matter if you have kids now or not, because this is a fight that will affect how our nation's future leaders are educated. The biggest, most important thing that parents and schools can teach children is how to think, not what to think.

ps. Here is some more crazy shit Cynthia Dunbar said. Apparently, Obama is plotting with terrorists to attack the U.S. and he's going to institute martial law. Yeah...that sounds reasonable.

A new name for everything

There are a new set of polls going around on Facebook, and I love sharing my worthless opinion with people who care as little for it as I care for theirs, so I joined in.

The first one was simple enough. Do you approve of President Obama?
Yes, I do. I saw that a friend of mine, Jubal, had put that he approved and had come under some fire from people who I can only assume are conservative and more likely, militantly conservative. Jubal had said that Obama's diplomacy, and pledge to end American torture were two of the reasons he approves of the president, and one of his detractors posted something like "I only need one reason to disapprove of Obama and that's his stance on abortion." And then this crusader posted again saying "how about we stop American torture of innocent babies." So of course, I (in all my maturity) commented and said "How about we stop reducing complex issues to bumper sticker slogans?" I just hate that. The world is almost never black and white, as sensationalist talking heads like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reily would like you to believe.

I'm not impressed with the bailouts, but I'm very proud of Obama, largely because of his foreign policy. We voted for change and it seems that that is exactly what he's giving us, particularly in the case of Israel. I don't have anything against Israel that I don't have against Palestine, I just don't understand why we've decided that they're right no matter what. Maybe someone can explain it to me.

The second poll was about another one of my favorite discussions, Evolution vs. Creationism. I know people that say Creationism or Intelligent Design (which is the same thing at the end of the day) are the only way this world could possibly have occurred. I know people that say Evolution is the only way this world could have occurred. I also know people that say maybe God used Evolution to make this world occur. I can understand the last two, but in the year 2009 I don't understand how anyone can still cling to the first one, unless they simply don't care, which is the most viable reason I can think of. Most Christians I know have dropped the idea that the book of Genesis is to be taken literally, since they know that a) the things in it are illogical and impossible and b)science has disproved a lot of it. Anyway, these Facebook polls have room for people to comment after they've voted and in the comments you see the same argument repeating that we had here a few weeks ago. "Evolution is just a theory."

Why doesn't the scientific community come up with a new word for the scientific definition of "theory?" Its confusing that a word can have two almost polar opposite meanings. I remember in my high school biology class the teacher told us it was "just a theory." He didn't understand the difference either and if this is the kind of understanding of the subject matter that our biology teachers have, what hope can the students have of grasping the concept? Hopefully, schools like mine that teach misunderstanding of the topic are the exception and not the rule.