Yet another example of being a little fast and lose with the truth from a young earth creationist.

The scary part is that this chap has a position of power in Texas (for now).

Don McLeroy wrote an editorial for the Austin American-Statesman that appeared on March 25 and which I missed when it came out. It is clear that he continues to attempt to understand little about evolution. For example, he writes:

Stephen Jay Gould stated: “The great majority of species do not show any appreciable evolutionary change at all. [This is called 'stasis.'] These species appear … without obvious ancestors in the underlying beds, are stable once established and disappear higher up without leaving any descendants.”

“…but stasis is data…

Once we have our observations, we can make a hypothesis. The controversial evolution hypothesis is that all life is descended from a common ancestor by unguided natural processes. How well does this hypothesis explain the data? A new curriculum standard asks Texas students to look into this question. It states: “The student is expected to analyze and evaluate the sufficiency or insufficiency of common ancestry to explain the sudden appearance, stasis, and sequential nature of groups in the fossil record.” It should not raise any objections from those who say evolution has no weaknesses; they claim it is unquestionably true.

And the standard is not religious but does raise a problem for the evolution hypothesis in that stasis is the opposite of evolution, and “stasis is data.”

Gould’s actual quote is this:

“The paleontological literature, particularly in the ’summing up’ articles of dedicated specialists, abounds in testimony for predominant stasis, often viewed as surprising, anomalous, or even a bit embarrassing, because such experts had been trained to expect gradualism, particularly as the reward of diligent study. To choose some examples in just three prominent fossil groups representing the full span of conventional ‘complexity’ in the invertebrate record, most microorganisms seem to show predominant stasis – despite the excellent documentation of a few ‘best cases’ of gradualism in Cenozoic planktonic Foraminifera (see pp. 803-810). For example, MacGillavry (1968, p. 70) wrote from long practical experience: “During my work as an oil paleontologist, I had the opportunity to study sections meeting these rigid requirements [of continuous sedimentation and sufficient span of time]. As an ardent student of evolution, moreover, I was continually on the watch for evidence of evolutionary change … The great majority of species do not show any appreciable evolutionary change at all. These species appear in the section (first occurrence) without obvious ancestors in underlying beds, are stable once established, and disappear higher up without leaving any descendants.“

Aside from the fact that McLeroy completely misquotes Gould, stasis in the evolutionary record simply records the fact that the species was optimally adapted to its surroundings and selection was neither directional nor selective with regard to its traits. Stasis is not the opposite of evolution, as McLeroy states. Such a statement betrays a complete lack of understanding of the theory that he so roundly opposes. Statements that we are betraying our students by teaching them evolution ring hollow when the average student probably knows more about it than McLeroy does.

How the Texas Board of Ed. misrepresented a Nobel Prize winner

Setting aside everything I will lay out from this point forward, it is important to note that, based on Dunbar’s comments and the ICR article, she clearly based her understanding of this scientific matter on a single article in a creationist magazine, and is ignoring the testimony and guidance not only of the AAAS, the NAS, and her own committee of experts, but Texan Nobel Prize-winners. Educational policy should never be made on the basis of creationist publications, especially when those publications make demonstrably false statements. The references to a publication in September alone demonstrate that she is relying on the ICR piece, and various shared misinterpretations confirm this.

Of course the Nobel laureate was ony too happy to confirm that the ICR article was basically made up.

No surprise there then or is this an example of “academic freedom” in action?

From another excellent piece from Gumbythecat;

One of the most perverted quote-mines in recent history comes from the foul, hypocritical mouth of Ben Stein (he of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed infamy). Stein’s quote-mine (also used by William Jennings Bryan in the Scopes Trial in 1925) uses phrases written by Charles Darwin in his book The Descent Of Man to “show” that not only did Darwin support eugenics breeding programs for humans, but also that evolutionary theory inspired Adolph Hitler to use the long-discredited social philosophy of eugenics to justify and perpetrate the Holocaust. Here it is as Stein read it in the movie:

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

At face value, it sure looks like Darwin is advocating selective breeding to create a superior race of humans, doesn’t it? In Expelled, Stein ends his reading of this “quote” by naming Darwin as the author in a way that suggests that Darwin provided a rationale for the totalitarian eugenics activities of the Nazis.

However, here is the passage in its entirety (as before, the quote-mined portion is in bold):

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed. The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.
It sure comes out differently when the real context is revealed, doesn’t it? Darwin is emphasizing human goodness, not a cold and calculated eugenics breeding program. Indeed, Darwin is arguing quite vociferously against such an abhorrent practice in the actual passage from his book. Hitler’s atrocities were all conceived from a twisted interpretation of eugenics and a hatred of Jews; Darwin never really inspired him. Actually, Darwin’s books were among those burned by Hitler’s regime. Ben Stein should be deeply ashamed of himself, but immoral hypocritical creationist liars never are.

Full posting here.

Another regular feature on this blog will be to feature an example of one the creationists’ favourite techniques; “Quote mining”.  

Creationists often present “mined quotes” which, when taken out of context, appear to undercut evolution, or quotes which have been altered so that it appears as though the source of the quotation opposes evolution when this is not true.  Let’s start with a classic.

Darwin on the eye

A typical example of quote mining is taken from The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin in which he considers the evolution of the eye:

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.

– The Origin of Species, 1st Edition, Chapter 6, pp. 186-7

This quote is clearly taken out of context because Darwin continues:

Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound.

In this case, the originally quoted sentence is clearly a rhetorical device: Darwin is first admitting to the ’seeming’ strength of a criticism in order to better refute it. Darwin, in fact, goes on to devote three further pages to this subject, all of them arguing as to why he believes the original objection to be unwarranted. Thus, presenting the original sentence alone gives the reader a false impression of what Darwin thinks about the subject: that he thinks a problem is unsolvable, when in fact in context he was merely admitting that it might seem unsolvable, at first. 

Not all creationists stoop to this level but there is a lot of it about.  We will bring you another quote mine special next time on “Down the Quote Mine”.