Self-Published Genius #121: The Great Deception

Today we have a new addition to our series about Self-Published Geniuses. This is where we bring you news of authors with a vanity press book in which the author claims to have made paradigm-shattering discoveries, and announces his work by hiring a press release service.

The title of the press release is Author Daniel Snuffer’s newly released “Evolution: The Great Deception” is an intensive examination of the theory of evolution. Like so many others in our collection, it was issued by Cision PRWeb, which says it’s “the leader in online news distribution and publicity.” Here are some excerpts from the press release, with bold font added by us for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]:

“Evolution: The Great Deception”: a potent consideration. [Great title!] “Evolution: The Great Deception” is the creation of published author, Daniel Snuffer [Hee hee!], an avid reader who overcame dyslexia and veteran of the US Marines.

Snuffer sounds like a great guy! Then the press release quotes the brilliant author:

Snuffer writes, “Man is driven to find the GOD he lost in the garden of Eden [Yes!], and now you know the truth! [Huh?] Some men are so desperate that they look to cold dumb rocks for the majesty of creation, and that pursuit leads them to another creator, another god, and the greatest lie ever told — evolution.”

Wowie — evolution is the greatest lie ever told! The quote from the author continues:

Perhaps some people just didn’t get the GOD gene [There’s a god gene?] or perhaps they got it, but the gene is just flawed. How else could evolution end up leading to the worship of strange gods?

What strange gods is the author talking about? He tells us:

It is all just rocks, fake pictures, and the dirt shoveled out of the way trying to bury GOD with a lie. You can seek the popular opinion and ignore the GOD coursing through your veins, but it will be at your loss and truly sad. The fire will still be in your heart, but it will burn for a strange god and one that lies.

It sounds like a truly horrible fate. The press release then says:

Published by Christian Faith Publishing [Aha!], Daniel Snuffer’s new book is an impassioned plea born from the author’s faith-based study.

We’ve seen that publisher’s name several times before. Here’s their website: Christian Faith Publishing. It leaves no doubt — they’re a vanity publisher. They even let authors pay their fees on a monthly installment plan. With that, and the press release, we know the book qualifies for our collection.

After that essential information, we searched for the book at Amazon — and we found it! Wowie — it has 188 pages and it costs only $14.17 in paperback. What a deal! And yes, Amazon has a “Look inside” feature. Hey — there are no reviews yet. You can be the first!

Near the end of the press release it says you can view a synopsis of the book on YouTube. We haven’t looked, but you can’t resist, can you?

Okay, dear reader, that’s all we know. So go ahead and buy the thing — and tell ’em the Curmudgeon sent ya!

Copyright © 2021. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

Specified Complexity — It’s Back!

We have a treat for you today, dear reader. At the Discovery Institute’s’ creationist blog we found Answering an Objection: “You Can’t Measure Intelligent Design”, and it was written by Casey Luskin. When he recently returned to the Discoveroids, we wrote Casey Is Back — O the Joy! Casey was given the grandiose title of Associate Director of their Center for Science and Culture — i.e., their creationism operations. Here are some excerpts from his post, with bold font added by us for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]:

Former director of the anti-ID National Center for Science Education Eugenie Scott used to say that without a hypothetical device she called a “theo-meter,” she did not know how to detect if God was at work. Even some scientists who are sympathetic to design arguments have wondered how we can detect design if we can’t “measure design like we measure the amount of some substance in a test tube.”

Ah yes, the design detector. That used to be a hot topic at the Discoveroids’ blog, and then it sort of faded. Perhaps that fading was helped by an old post of ours: The Curmudgeon’s Design Detector. Anyway, Casey is back on that topic. He says:

The answer to these objections is that we test intelligent design in the same way that we test all historical scientific theories: by looking in nature for known effects of the cause in question (in this case, intelligent agency), and showing that this cause (again, intelligent agency) is the best explanation for the observed data. [Ooooooooooooh! Their magic Designer is the best explanation!] If that answer seemed a little bit technical or unclear [Hee hee!], let me explain so that it makes more sense. We’ll see how precise quantitative measurements can in fact help us to detect design.

Casey has a method of precise quantitative measurement of Oogity Boogity? This should be good! He tells us:

Historical scientists who study fields like geology, evolutionary biology, cosmology, or intelligent design can’t put history into a test tube. They can’t measure what happened in the past like we might directly chemically measure the amount of some substance in a solution in the present. That doesn’t mean we can’t use scientific methods to study the past. It just means we have to use different methods in the historical sciences (which study what happened in the past) than we use in the empirical sciences (which study how things operate in the present). To claim that intelligent design isn’t science because we can’t directly “measure it in a test tube” is to misunderstand how historical sciences work, and to apply an unfair standard to intelligent design.

Yeah, yeah — but we’re still waiting to see how we can measure Oogity Boogity. Casey continues:

Historical sciences (like Darwinian evolution and intelligent design) rely on the principle of uniformitarianism, which holds that “the present is the key to the past.” Under this methodology, scientists study causes at work in the present-day world in order, as the famous early geologist Charles Lyell put it, to explain “the former changes of the Earth’s surface” by reference “to causes now in operation.”

Casey keeps including intelligent design in his lists of actual sciences — but that doesn’t actually make it a science. Let’s read on:

The theory of intelligent design employs scientific methods commonly used by other historical sciences to conclude that certain features of the universe and living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. [Groan!]

[…]

For example, mathematician and philosopher William Dembski observes that “[t]he principal characteristic of intelligent agency is directed contingency, or what we call choice.” According to Dembski, when an intelligent agent acts, “it chooses from a range of competing possibilities” to create some complex and specified event. Thus, the type of information that reliably indicates intelligent design is called “specified complexity” or “complex and specified information,” “CSI” for short.

Groan. Casey is repeating stuff from the Discoveroids’ ancient past — like this from nine years ago: Casey Defines “Complex and Specified Information”. Because it’s all repetitious blather, we’ll skip it and go to his final paragraph:

So it’s true we don’t directly “measure” intelligent design in a test tube. But we can use measurements and calculations to detect design. [Yeah, right!] If we calculate and measure that a structure contains more CSI than can arise by the relevant probabilistic resources available for a naturalistic origin of the structure, and we know from experience that intelligent agency produces precisely such CSI-rich features, then we can detect design.

If that didn’t make you throw up, it’s only because we omitted an ark-load of Casey’s earlier text. If you think that he just might have something worth your serious consideration, then click over there and read it all. Carefully. Then get back here and give us your opinion. We’ll keep an open mind.

Copyright © 2021. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

Creative Challenge #66: Evidence of Creationism?

We haven’t had one of these for a while. Today’s challenge was inspired by an article we found at PhysOrg: Just 7% of our DNA is unique to modern humans, study shows. Briefly, PhysOrg says, with bold font added by us for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]:

What makes humans unique? Scientists have taken another step toward solving an enduring mystery with a new tool that may allow for more precise comparisons between the DNA of modern humans and that of our extinct ancestors. Just 7% of our genome is uniquely shared with other humans, and not shared by other early ancestors, according to a study published Friday in the journal Science Advances.

“That’s a pretty small percentage,” said Nathan Schaefer, a University of California computational biologist and co-author of the new paper. “This kind of finding is why scientists are turning away from thinking that we humans are so vastly different from Neanderthals.”

Here’s a link to the article if you want to read it: An ancestral recombination graph of human, Neanderthal, and Denisovan genomes. You can read it on-line without a subscription, but we’ll stay with PhysOrg. They say:

The research draws upon DNA extracted from fossil remains of now-extinct Neanderthals and Denisovans dating back to around 40,000 or 50,000 years ago, as well as from 279 modern people from around the world. Scientists already know that modern people share some DNA with Neanderthals, but different people share different parts of the genome. One goal of the new research was to identify the genes that are exclusive to modern humans.

We’re skipping a lot until we get to this interesting tidbit:

The researchers also found that an even smaller fraction of our genome — just 1.5% — is both unique to our species and shared among all people alive today. Those slivers of DNA may hold the most significant clues as to what truly distinguishes modern human beings.

That’s enough. If you’re interested, you’ll read it all. Now then, everyone is wondering: What can the creationists do with this? So far, we haven’t seen anything at the usual websites we review, but you know they’re thinking about it. What will they come up with?

The form of today’s challenge is that you must tell us, with reasonable brevity:

How can this be used by creationists to “disprove” the theory of evolution?

You know the rules: You may enter the contest as many times as you wish, but you must avoid profanity, vulgarity, childish anatomical analogies, etc. Also, avoid slanderous statements about individuals. Feel free to comment on the entries submitted by others — with praise, criticism, or whatever — but you must do so tastefully.

There may not be a winner of this contest, but if there is, your Curmudgeon will decide, and whenever we get around to it we’ll announce who the winner is. There is no tangible prize — as always in life’s great challenges, the accomplishment is its own reward. We now throw open the comments section, dear reader. Go for it!

Copyright © 2021. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

Hambo’s Creationist Planetarium Show

We bring you an important announcement from Ken Ham (ol’ Hambo) — the ayatollah of Appalachia, the world’s holiest man who knows more about religion and science than everyone else. His new post at the website of Answers in Genesis (AIG), his creationist ministry, is titled Our Most Popular Planetarium Show Now in 4K. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]:

Over the years, we’ve had a variety of planetarium shows in our Stargazer Planetarium [Link omitted!] here at the Creation Museum. Guests always rave about the program, but the most popular show is Created Cosmos, a journey through the vastness of the universe.

Wowie — a journey through the created universe! It probably focuses on the Firmament, and declares that The Earth Does Not Move! Hambo says:

Well, we completely upgraded our planetarium last year with a new laser projector, tilted dome, new seats, a totally new look, and more — and now Created Cosmos has been completely upgraded to 4K resolution, so it really “pops” with the new technology. It’s like watching a whole new program!

What the [*Bleep*] is 4K resolution? A few years ago he was raving about 4D, and we wrote Hambo Masters the Fourth Dimension. Oh — Wikipedia has an article on 4K resolution, so maybe Hambo’s planetarium displays pretty pictures. OK, moving along, he tells us:

The script and narration for Created Cosmos are the same, but the animations are brand new — and they are spectacular. Our talented AV department did a remarkable job updating this classic show, and with the laser projectors and new software, it looks stunning!

Sounds like a wonderful creationist experience! He continues:

I’m excited for guests to experience the new Created Cosmos. [We’re excited too!] It’s a marvelous testimony to the handiwork of God, seen throughout his awe-inspiring universe.

The excitement is almost more than we can endure. Here’s our last excerpt:

It’s the most spectacular creationist planetarium show available anywhere. [How many others are there?] Don’t miss it on your next visit to the Creation Museum.

Okay, dear reader. If you’ve been wanting to see the world’s best creationist planetarium show — who hasn’t? — now you know where to go. And when you get there, tell ’em the Curmudgeon sent ya!

Copyright © 2021. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.