David Coppedge vs. JPL (27 Jun 2010)

OUR last post on this topic was David Coppedge vs. JPL (18 Jun 2010). There we reported that after almost two months, Coppedge’s lawyer had managed to get the complaint served on a couple of defendants, apparently in anticipation of a case management conference which the court had scheduled for 24 June.

If you haven’t been following this case, the next few indented paragraphs will provide background information, which most of you can skip:

This is about a suit by a creationist, David Coppedge, who claims he was wrongfully demoted by his employer because he was promoting Intelligent Design (ID) on the job. He works for Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), He also maintains a creationist website: Creation-Evolution Headlines.

This is a big case for the neo-theocrats at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture (a/k/a the Discoveroids). They’re trying to establish some new kind constitutional right — an employee’s “freedom to promote creationism” in the workplace. One of their top legal talents, Discoveroid Casey Luskin, is advising the lawyer for Coppedge — that’s William J. Becker, Jr., who seems to be mostly a personal injury and workers’ comp lawyer.

To promote the issue, the Discoveroids are waging a public relations campaign which we described here: The Coppedge Case: A Study in Tactics and Strategy. They’ve set up a page devoted to this case: which is here.

The official information source for the Coppedge case requires payment of a small fee to the court clerks here: Superior Court of California, Los Angeles. At the box for “Case Number” you need to enter BC435600. Some minimal information is available for free — the names of the parties and their lawyers, a list of what documents have been filed, what proceedings have been held, and what future hearings have been scheduled.

Okay, we’re all up to date. So what’s been happening during the past week — especially regarding that case management conference? We visited the court’s website to see what could be learned from their free information. We still haven’t paid the fee to the court clerk to read the actual documents, because they’re not yet of sufficient importance.

A few more defendants appear to have been served, including Clark A. Burgess (the only one whose name we can determine). He’s described in the Coppedge complaint as Coppedge’s “Group Supervisor” at JPL.

On 15 June (there’s obviously a delay before these things show up at the court’s website) Coppedge’s lawyer filed something called a “Declaration of Diligence.” We’re guessing that this relates his thus-far unsuccessful efforts to get somebody served. Maybe that’s JPL itself, because Coppedge and his lawyer haven’t yet determined whether it’s a corporation or just a part of Caltech.

What about the case management conference? In the court’s listing of Proceedings Held it says:

06/24/2010 at 09:00 am in Department 71, Soussan G. Bruguera, Presiding. Conference-Case Management – Advanced to a Previous Date

“Advanced to a Previous Date” — what is that? Until someone familiar with California litigation procedure informs us, it’s a complete mystery. How can something be “advanced” to a previous date? Does the courthouse have a time machine? And what previous date are they talking about?

The hearing hasn’t been reset to a later date, because in the section titled Future Hearings it says “None” — at least nothing shows up yet at the court’s website. Maybe they have an alternate time-line for listing “previous dates that haven’t come up yet,” but our internet connection doesn’t access that information.

For the moment, we can’t figure out what’s happening. Things seem to be moving forward, albeit slowly. Except when they might be moving backward — by being advanced to a previous date.

And so, dear reader, we must leave you with several questions unresolved. Will the Discoveroids win the imaginary constitutional right of an employee to harangue his workplace colleagues about the joys of creationism? Or will Coppedge lose his case but serve the Discoveroids in another way — by joining that woeful legion of martyred creationists who have been Expelled for daring to question the theory of evolution?

The suspense is building. Stay tuned to this blog!

Update: See Discovery Institute: Comer, Coppedge, & Casey.

Next update: See Coppedge vs. JPL: Caltech’s Answer Filed.

Copyright © 2010. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Olivia Judson: Fun with Fungi

Dr. Olivia Judson

ONCE more, dear reader, it is our delight to discuss a column by the splendidly-evolved Olivia Judson — an evolutionary biologist and a research fellow in biology at Imperial College London. This article, part of Dr. Judson’s series in the New York Times, is titled: Bubbles, Bread and Beer. Here are some excerpts, with bold added by us:

Saccharomyces cerevisiae, also known as baker’s yeast, is one of the most useful beings known to humans. We rely on it for making bread and beer; but it is also a denizen of the laboratory, one of the most studied organisms on the planet. Which is why I’m nominating it for Life-form of the Month: June.

Yeast is a “being”? Okay, if Olivia says so. Let’s read on:

But what is it? Yeasts are fungi — so they are related to mushrooms. And fungi are, strangely, quite close relations of ours.

Hey — your Curmudgeon ain’t no kin to no yeast! We continue:

Or at least, they are more closely related to animals than they are to plants. Like animals, they digest their food — though fungi do it not by swallowing, but by releasing chemicals into the environment. The chemicals break down the food — like rotting wood — into smaller molecules, and the fungus then imports these smaller molecules into its cells.

Yuk! Let’s see what else we can learn:

Sometimes this takes on sinister dimensions. For example, if you are nematode worm crawling through the soil, you may get stuck in a sticky web. But in this web there is no spider. The web itself is alive: it is not made of silk, but of the filaments of a fungus. The web itself will digest you.

Come on, Olivia — you’re creeping us out! Give us something we can relate to:

Some species have huge numbers of sexes — the mushroom Schizophyllum commune is estimated to have as many as 20,000. (This doesn’t mean that 20,000 individuals must assemble for some sort of shroomed-out orgy; sexes are a set of genetic rules for which pairs of individuals can swap genes with each other. Members of the same sex do not swap genes.)

Gotta love Olivia, she always tells us about those juicy little details. Here’s more:

Further accomplishments: the first “tree” appears to have been a fungus of some sort — it lived in the Devonian period, around 400 million years ago — and sometimes stood as tall as nine meters (almost 30 feet). And although today’s fungi don’t stretch towards the skies, some of them are massive. Single individuals of the species Armillaria bulbosa have been estimated to cover 15 hectares (37 acres) and weigh 10,000 kilograms (22,000 pounds). Funky.

Bulbosa — it’s well named. One last excerpt:

[H]umans and yeast have many genes in common: about 60 percent of yeast genes are known to have human equivalents, and almost a quarter of human disease-causing genes have equivalents in yeast. Studying yeast genes thus gives us a window into what some of our most essential genes are doing. Indeed, suppose you create a yeast “knock out” — you remove one of the yeast genes. Often, this will have a clear and detrimental impact on how the organism grows. Now, replace the knocked-out gene with the human version — and like as not, you will have restored the yeast to its former frothy self.

We certainly hope the creationists don’t learn about that. It could be detrimental to their delicate hold on reality.

There’s plenty more yeasty information in Olivia’s column. Click over there and read it all. Time devoted to Olivia is always well spent.

Copyright © 2010. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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The Scientific Case Against Darwinian Emancipation

Charles Darwin and Emancipation

ONCE again, dear reader, we beg you to indulge your Curmudgeon as we engage in a bit of parody. Having observed the chicanery of creationists, we have learned that their style of argument can be applied to virtually anything. Behold, our refutation of the theory of Darwinian Emancipation.

1. Charles Darwin, not satisfied with unleashing his theory of evolution on the world, also opposed slavery and advocated universal emancipation — properly called Darwinian Emancipation. See: Hatred of slavery drove Darwin.

2. Darwinian Emancipation is “just a theory.” It has never been proved. Emancipation theory is nothing but an atheistic belief based on arbitrary presuppositions.

3. Darwinian Emancipation isn’t in the Ten Commandments. To the contrary, Exodus 20:17 says:

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s.

4. Not only is slavery not forbidden in the Bible, it is specifically authorized. For example, the King James Version says, in Leviticus 25, verses 44-46:

Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.

Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession.

And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.

5. There are also pro-slavery passages in the New Testament. For example, in the New International Version, Ephesians 6:5-6:

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.

6. Throughout history, slaves were sometimes set free on an individual basis. Such events are known as micro-emancipation. Until Darwin, no society ever committed or even conceived of macro-emancipation — widespread, universal emancipation. Darwinian Emancipation is a product of the Godless, materialist Enlightenment and the naturalistic worldview it encouraged.

7. Before Darwin and the Enlightenment, all great scientists recognized the merit of slavery. Aristotle believed that slavery was both natural and rational. In Politics, Book 1 he wrote:

But is there any one thus intended by nature to be a slave, and for whom such a condition is expedient and right, or rather is not all slavery a violation of nature?

There is no difficulty in answering this question, on grounds both of reason and of fact. For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule.

8. There is no scientific evidence that Darwinian Emancipation has improved society. To the contrary, before the Enlightenment and Darwin there were no world wars or any of the other horrors of the last century.

9. Darwinian Emancipation requires the use of petroleum-powered agricultural machinery, which contributes to global warming.

10. Darwinian Emancipation is destructive of family values. It upsets the natural order and leads to a purposeless, chaotic world where people are free to wander at random and disrupt society. The result has been sexual promiscuity, homosexuality, divorce, and other forms of amoral behavior.

11. Darwinian Emancipation causes unemployment and poverty. No Darwin, no Great Depression.

12. Darwinian Emancipation violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

13. Many respected scientists are not only questioning evolution, they are increasingly questioning emancipation. But but they don’t speak out publicly for fear of being Expelled.

14. It takes more faith to believe in Darwinian Emancipation than it does to believe in the Tooth Fairy.

15. Darwinian Emancipation is a theory in crisis! More and more scientists are abandoning emancipation because they know it isn’t supported by evidence. In ever-increasing numbers they are rejecting Darwin and turning to BBT — Biblical Bondage Theory.

Darwinian Emancipation or the Bible?
Teach the controversy!

Postscript: There’s a risk that some readers won’t understand what we’re saying here, because this isn’t one of our familiar parodies that uses creationist apologetics to argue against the Wright Brothers or for Rodan. In this one we’re not merely mocking creationist methods, we’re describing their actual goals. It’s worth the risk.

[For previous posts in this series, see: The Scientific Case Against Craterism, and then The Scientific Case Against Powered Flight, and then The Scientific Case Against Atom Bombism, and we'll toss in Two Plus Two Equals Three.]

Copyright © 2010. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Australian Creationism: New South Wales

New South Wales, Australia

Our last post about The Controversy between evolution and creationism on the underside of the earth was Australian Creationism: Queensland To Teach ID? Now we have some news about the situation in New South Wales.

In The Australian, that nation’s biggest-selling national newspaper, of Surry Hills, New South Wales, we read Creationism creeps into NSW schools. Here are some excerpts, with bold added by us:

STUDENTS at one NSW school were told by an untrained scripture teacher they would “burn in hell” if they didn’t believe in Jesus.

And, elsewhere in the state, children at other schools were given creationism showbags. A survey by Sydney’s Macquarie University also found 70 per cent of scripture teachers think children should be taught the Bible as historical fact and 80 per cent believe students should not be exposed to non-Christian beliefs.

It’s a creationist’s dream come true! Let’s read on:

The survey found a group of scripture volunteers were distributing kits called “Creation For Kids” containing colouring books, calendars and DVDs deriding evolution and claiming that the universe was only 6000 years old.

That’s to be expected in an upside-down country. We continue:

[Researcher Cathy Byrne, of the university's Centre for Research and Social Inclusion] said NSW schools were required to offer access to religious groups to teach children for an hour a week but there were no requirements for professional training or control of content.

There’s more in the article, but none of it is good. If you’re a creationist, however, it sounds perfect down there. Go, Australia!

Copyright © 2010. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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