Discoveroids: The Evil of Scientism

As we’ve seen before, creationists — and especially the Discovery Institute — use certain words interchangeably when it suits them: evolutionist, Darwinist, naturalist, humanist, atheist, and perhaps a few others. Lately they’ve been ranting about “scientism” — see, e.g., this one about Discoveroid “fellow” J.P. Moreland and his book on “Bankrupt Scientism”: Yet Another New Discoveroid Book, and see also Beware the Folly of Scientism.

Today at the Discoveroids’ creationist blog we find Scientism is Wrong; Is It Evil, Too?, written by Klinghoffer. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]:

Scientism, the belief that only science can provide knowledge worth having, is emphatically not the same thing as science. In fact there there’s every good reason for someone who cares about science to reject scientism. The idea is puerile, arrogant, and blind to most of the chief qualities that make human life of profound, precious value. It’s a mark of philistinism, vulgarity, and ignorance.

Klinghoffer is thinking about you, dear reader. Then he asks:

But is it evil? At The Stream [a website friendly to Discoveroids], Tom Gilson reviews philosopher and CSC Fellow J.P. Moreland’s very provocative new book, Scientism and Secularism.

Moreland again. Klinghoffer quotes a lot from that website. Here’s a bit of it:

Scientism pits faith against reason, religion against science, as if a person has to choose one or the other. It’s a “dark, hideous, and I dare say, evil” notion, says Moreland, defining it as “roughly, the idea that the hard sciences alone have the intellectual authority to give us knowledge of reality.” That leaves everything else, including moral and spiritual truth, “based on private emotions, blind faith or cultural upbringing.” This view of knowledge pervades everything around us. We live in an expert-driven culture, and “expert” always means scientific expert.

And those scientific experts are all Darwinists. He quotes some more:

But it’s worse than that. Moreland goes so far as to call it evil. [Gasp!] Note carefully that the problem isn’t science. Moreland started out as a scientist himself, and retains his love for it. But there’s all kinds of harm in the scientistic attitude that science is our only source of knowledge. For one thing, it rules out knowing much of the most important truths of the world: that morality is real, for example. By seeking to explain everything in terms of physics and chemistry, scientism reduces human beings to something a lot less than the morally significant persons we are.

Scientists are inherently evil! Okay, enough of those quotes. Klinghoffer continues:

Granted, scientism can aid and abet evil. Its tendency to do so is predictable. In its blindness it harms and humiliates.

You are harming and humiliating creationists, dear reader. And now we come to the end:

When held by a great number of people in positions of authority, it no doubt reflects civilizational decline. [Oh no!] Perhaps having said all of the foregoing justifies call it evil. I am curious to hear what you think.

Klinghoffer wants to know what you think, dear reader. So tell him.

Copyright © 2018. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Ken Ham: Juvenile Dinosaurs on the Ark

This one really had us mystified — at first — but then everything fell into place. It’s at the website of Answers in Genesis (AIG), the creationist ministry of Ken Ham (ol’ Hambo) — the ayatollah of Appalachia, the world’s holiest man who knows more about religion and science than everyone else.

His post is titled Dinosaur Specimen Collected by Cincinnati Museum Center. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]:

A news item from close to home (in Cincinnati, just a few miles away from the Creation Museum) caught my eye. Now, I’m used to seeing articles about recent dinosaur finds or analysis of dinosaur fossils in museum collections. But what stood out in this article was that the dinosaur in question was a juvenile sauropod.

So what? Bear with us, dear reader. He says:

According to the article, the dinosaur is most likely a Diplodocus, (or a closely-related sauropod), and there are only eight skulls of this dinosaur currently known, and most are from adults. This juvenile skull is approximately 10 inches (24 cm) long, making it the smallest such skull ever found.

Here’s the news article he’s talking about: Dinosaur specimen collected by Cincinnati Museum Center examined by international paleontologists. At this point we were still wondering why Hambo was promoting an exhibit at a secular museum. Then he devotes a large paragraph to describing the dinosaur skull and estimates of the size of the juvenile specimen: “[T]his particular juvenile might well be under 15 ft. — about the size of an African Elephant.”

Again we wondered: So what? Finally he explains:

Now why am I so interested in this particular dinosaur find? Well, we often get asked questions like, “How did Noah fit dinosaurs on the ark?” and people are surprised when we answer that even the largest dinosaurs started out small and that Noah could have likely taken juvenile (not baby!) animals onto the Ark (and God sent the animals to Noah anyway). But even so, we have been scoffed at by skeptics who imagine that even juvenile sauropods would have been impossibly large, eaten too much, and been too hard to manage. [And extinct for 65 million years.] But this study on one of the potentially largest animals Noah would have taken aboard shows that this is just not the case. Assuming the smaller size of 15 ft. this juvenile dinosaur would have been smaller than most full-grown giraffes.

Oh — it was giraffe-sized. A pair of those, and pairs of other dinosaur “kinds”, would be no problem for Noah, right? Then Hambo releases an ark-load of creationism:

Rather than a fairy-tale ark with the head of the giraffe (and dinosaurs) sticking out, we have shown that the reality is vastly different. There was plenty of space (and headroom) for a giraffe or a Diplodocus (even a large adult) on Noah’s ark, and the ark had more than enough space for food for all of the animals.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! See How Horrible Was Life Aboard Noah’s Ark?, in which we compared the Ark — using scriptural dimensions — to a transatlantic slave ship. Hambo’s creation science lesson continues:

In addition, this study also discovered that at least some juvenile sauropods had more diverse teeth (and more teeth in general) than the adults, and that they likely were able to eat a greater variety of plant material. This means that Noah would have been less likely to have to have needed specialized vegetation for these juveniles. It makes sense for the new world after the Flood that God would probably send mostly juveniles of the land animal kinds.

Yes, it makes sense. Having proven his case beyond any rational doubt, Hambo criticizes the fools who challenge his creation science:

Isn’t this what we have said in many of our articles on this subject? And our exhibits at the Ark Encounter highlight the same thing. People have imagined all kinds of “problems” with the Ark — not enough space, no way Noah could have gathered all the specialized food needed, no way his family could have met the needs of the animals. Yet each time a news story like this comes to light, the skeptics either ignore it or don’t consider that it corroborates what little detail is given us about the ark in Scripture.

Feeling foolish, dear reader? That’s certainly understandable. And now we come to the end:

God wanted Noah’s family and the ark animals to replenish the earth, and he gave Noah the knowledge and ability to do what needed to be done for his family and all the animals. Noah demonstrated his faith in God, by reverently believing God and doing what he instructed [scripture reference].

So there you are. Oh, if you haven’t seen it yet, this humble blog’s most popular article (almost 40,000 page-views) is Top Ten Reasons Noah’s Flood is Mythology.

Copyright © 2018. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Discoveroids: Venus and Intelligent Design

This article recently appeared at PhysOrg: NASA wants to send humans to Venus – here’s why that’s a brilliant idea. Two brief excerpts should be sufficient:

As revealed by numerous missions in the last few decades, rather than being a paradise, the planet is a hellish world of infernal temperatures, a corrosive toxic atmosphere and crushing pressures at the surface. Despite this, NASA is currently working on a conceptual manned mission to Venus, named the High Altitude Venus Operational Concept – (HAVOC).

[…]

Luckily, the idea behind NASA’s new mission is not to land people on the inhospitable surface, but to use the dense atmosphere as a base for exploration. No actual date for a HAVOC type mission has been publicly announced yet. This mission is a long term plan and will rely on small test missions to be successful first. Such a mission is actually possible, right now, with current technology. The plan is to use airships which can stay aloft in the upper atmosphere for extended periods of time.

We weren’t going to write about it — but then we spotted this at the Discovery Institute’s creationist blog: Denton: Science on Venus? It was written by Klinghoffer. Fortunately, it’s brief. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]:

What a difference having just the right atmosphere makes. NASA has announced a scheme to fly manned airships in the upper atmosphere of Venus, thus evading the “hellish” conditions (that adjective is often applied to the planet) below.

You’re probably wondering: What can the Discoveroids do with that? Don’t forget, dear reader: everything is evidence of intelligent design. Klinghoffer says:

On a new episode of ID the Future [their pile of creationist podcasts], Sarah Chaffee talks with biologist Michael Denton about his new book, Children of Light.

That again? See Discoveroids: More About Denton’s New Book. Then he tells us:

She asks him about his observation, echoing Carl Sagan, that if there ever could have been life on the surface of Venus, those life forms would be severely impeded in whatever pursuit of science they may have attempted. Why? Because the thick atmosphere impedes the rays of the sun, and all other light, which would mean being forever forbidden from gazing to the stars and trying learn about their place in the cosmos.

Forever forbidden? Not necessarily. The hypothetical Venusians could have experimented with balloons. Then they could rise high enough to make observations We didn’t know much about the universe either, until we developed telescopes and other instruments. Anyway, Klinghoffer continues:

Download the podcast or listen to it here.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! We’re omitting the link. Let’s read on:

They go on to discuss the wondrous confluence of properties and processes — light, the nature of Earth’s atmosphere, photosynthesis — that make it possible for “light-eaters” like us to live on Earth where we could not on Venus.

Ooooooooooooh! It’s wondrous! And now we come to the end:

Yes, Denton concedes, he regards that confluence as the result of “divine” intent.

Divine intent? Perhaps. What do you think, dear reader?

Copyright © 2018. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Self-Published Genius #82: Mysterious Mastermind

This is a fascinating addition to our series about Self-Published Geniuses, 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 press release is titled David M. True’s Newly Released “Why God?” Is a Scintillating Argument for Truth Amidst the Ongoing Cultural Battle for Who Gets to Define That Truth — religion or Science. It was issued by PR Web, which describes itself as “the leader in online news distribution and publicity.” It says, with some bold font added by us for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]:

“Why God?”: a vital book [It’s vital!] for empowering people to choose the uncomfortable truth. “Why God?” is the creation of published author, David M. True, a truth seeker [Ooooooooooooh!] born and raised in a Christian household who, like all truth seekers, set out to challenge and thus strengthen his faith by addressing his doubts and finding his answers at the end of a hard road of bad decisions.

We know you’re interested, dear reader. The author is a truth seeker, and we all want to know The Truth™. Let’s read on:

True shares, “Imagine that it is a cool, early morning. The sun hasn’t risen quite yet, but you can see its light just skimming the horizon. You find yourself sitting at a pier overlooking a body of water. Dense fog is rising from the water, and all you can see is a small patch of the water itself right in front of you. As you look at the water, you see some ripples. You cannot see ripples anywhere else because of the thick fog. The question is, what happened?”

This is exciting! Then the brilliant author says:

“You couldn’t see what caused the ripples only that they are there. This leaves you with four questions.“

Ooooooooooooh! What are those four questions? Mr. True tells us:

“How did it happen? When did it happen? Where did it happen? What caused it to happen? This is what we have to work with, in essence, in order to prove the origin.”

The mind boggles! David True is indeed a genius. He continues:

“The water represents the universe. The ripples represent the evidence that has been discovered. The cause of the ripples is our origin story. There can be any number of theories to explain this occurrence, but there is not enough physical evidence in nature to assure which is correct.”

Ooooooooooooh! That’s where the quote from the author ends. It was quite a teaser! Presumably the book reveals the answers. Let’s read on:

Published by Christian Faith Publishing …

We must interrupt. Christian Faith Publishing is a name we keep running into. 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. Okay, with that, and the press release, we know the book qualifies for our collection. Let’s return to that part of the press release:

Published by Christian Faith Publishing, David M. True’s new book deftly tackles the biggest arguments in circulation today, including naturalism vs. creationism, young earth vs. old earth, as well as evidence for and against Christianity as opposed to other religions, providing a balanced picture that ultimately will convince those with ears to hear and eyes to see the truth.

Ooooooooooooh! The book will convince you of The Truth™! So we looked for the book at Amazon — and we found it! Here it is. It’s 156 pages long, and the cost is only $13.42 in paperback. How can you resist?

They also have a “Look inside” feature. We looked, and we were amazed! Amazon also says this:

For more than 150 years, a cold war has engulfed the world. Two feuding factions contend, not for military dominance, but for cultural sovereignty. Those caught in the middle are forced to choose sides. It is only a matter of time until this cold war escalates into a violent conflict. The victorious will have supreme rule over the world. The defeated will be utterly eradicated. Whose side will you choose?

Ooooooooooooh! What a book! Surprisingly, neither Amazon nor the press release tells us anything about the author. It doesn’t matter — he’s obviously the most brilliant man who ever lived. You gotta get this book, dear reader. Tell ’em the Curmudgeon sent ya.

Copyright © 2018. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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