Dr. Dino, Alice's hero, sentenced to 10 years

Check it out. Any comments from Alice Benbow on the matter? She's previously mentioned how he was her favorite bullshit artist.

Alice Benbow and Jim R. Schwiesow

This is in response to the latest comment on links adspar likes 7, presumably posted by Alice Benbow. If you don't remember the background with Alice, read that link and the comments, the latest of which is copied and responded to here (the full article is available here).

OF MEN AND APES
By Jim R. Schwiesow
January 15, 2007
NewsWithViews.com

There are those, thanks to our educational hierarchy and many of the educated morons of our scientific community, who believe that the human species has a direct lineal connection to a lovesick amoeba, which oozed from a primordial soup and morphed from its primitive one-cell state into a series of ever ascending species of creatures, until at last it came into that wonderfully bipedal human form of being with a brain of capabilities, which far surpass our most sophisticated computers. The wonder here is how supposedly intelligent people could embrace such an absolutely ignorant supposition, while at the same time rejecting the Biblical account of creation.

Note that Mr. Schwiesow in no way offers any rebuttal of evolution whatsoever. He simply insults it and maybe offers some kind of argument from incredulity. He basically says, "since I can't imagine how complex life like humans evolved from one-celled life, it cannot have happened." Sorry dude, but your scientific ignorance doesn't refute hundreds of thousands of scientific articles that support evolution and the unlimited observations about the natural world that are perfectly explained by evolutionary theory.

And then of course he holds up the Genesis myths as the default winner in his (imaginary) defeat of evolution. Why is it any more believable than the God of Abraham created the world than the Flying Spaghetti Monster? His explanation...

These people seem to be living proof that Darwin’s hypothesis was reversed; it is men who turn into monkeys. That can be the only explanation for such convoluted rationally incomprehensible thinking. Or could it be that the thinking is not irrational at all, and that this is a part of a master plan for the complete subjugation of the people by a new world order?

Ah yes. After Darwin's theory was reversed, there was a master plan to use his work against us. Normally I'd stop reading here, but since Alice is so dear to me I kept reading. For Alice's benefit, I'll note that up to this point, Schwiesow has proven nothing but his own ignorance. He's mocked and insulted and huffed and puffed, but he has not yet offered any argument at all.

That the foundation of this nation was based upon Biblical principles cannot be denied. This contention can be argued against, it can be attacked by demogogues, and the unknowledgeable, misinformed, and uniformed can deny it, but the cold hard fact is that it is supported incontrovertibly. Even a cursery reading of the Declaration of Independence, the preamble to the Constitution, and the Constitution itself contradicts any other argument or conclusion. The great majority of our founding fathers understood God’s Word, and believed in God’s Word. And they put His word to practice in their lives.

Sigh. This is such hackneyed garbage. I'd refer you to Ed Brayton's writing, as he often deals with this kind of claim. As a short response, yes some of the ideas that are dear to this country are in the Bible, but that's because the Bible is a huge book with lots of ideas in it. The Bible also lends support to slavery, murdering disobedient children, and countless other offensive ideas, along with some good ideas too. But this nation was founded on Enlightenment principles, by men who wanted to keep religion out of government. That some of the founders were Christians is in no way evidence that the nation was founded on Biblical principles. So this whole paragraph of Schwiesow's is, at best, meaningless.

We have come to the most critical times in the history of our nation. We are witnessing a carefully planned program of social engineering, which is being carried out by an increasingly despotic government and the interntionalists thereof. The nation is rapidly being immersed in a depraved satanic system. For the government to carry out this program for the total subjugation of a once free people it is necessary to dull the senses of the people and instill in them a totally false system of beliefs. They must be dumbed down and made compliant.

Except for the satanic part, this guy is starting to speak my language. There is definitely some nasty stuff going on in government these days. I wonder how he thinks people are being dumbed down? I say it is with beer and television and Paris Hilton. Let's see what else Mr. Schwiesow has to say about it...

One of the key elements of the program to bring about a slavery to a socialistic system is to destroy the peoples faith and belief in a sovereign God. It is infinitely easier to control one who believes that his existence is the result of a biological mutational accident and that it is the ancestral blood of apes that courses through his veins, than it is to bring under subjection one who has an absolute faith that he was wonderfully created in the image of his creator, Almighty God.

Woah woah woah. It is "infinitely easier" to control an atheist than a Christian? Wow, I've heard some funny shit from creationists before but this is right up there. What possible basis for this does he have? I'm guessing, based on what I've read so far, that he won't back it up in any way, but let's keep reading.

Certainly one who believes that he owes his very existence to the great God who breathed into him life and that his spirit is of God and by God, and that he was created as a free agent with an ability to chart his own course in life is not easily controlled.

Wha???? Not easily controlled? Let's see if we can more easily get a group of atheists or Christians to load into a hot, boring Church on Sunday, giving up valuable weekend time to recite empty words to an imaginary friend. Wow, I could just keep listing endless ways that theists are controlled by their religious leaders. In the comments are some other good examples. I can't even imagine how someone could possibly claim that atheists are more easily controlled than religious people.

That Satan has succeeded wildly with his platform for disinformation and control is evident when we look at our nation today and assess the extent to which we have been deprived of our liberties and subjugated to a despotic ruling elite. We are being controlled by corporatists, fascists, internationalists and communists, all birds of a feather and brothers under the skin who share to a great extent the same ideology and the same goal, which is a new world order.

Wow, he's starting to speak my language again. And again, the Satan talk is the only exception. He's managed to see through all the government bullshit, but he can't let go of the religious bullshit. Very weird.

The Tower of Babel is well on the way to re-construction, and this time God is not going to come to earth and disrupt the process. We see today in many of the world’s leaders an incarnation of Nimrod. And we are also witnessing much success in the perversion of the human soul by human agents who promote the agenda of the powers and principalities of the air. This success in corrupting the people has to be gratifying to those who lead the way to that new world order. That they have suceeded in dumbing down the people cannot be denied. And that they have corrupted and desenitized the human psyche likewise cannot be denied. The national conscience has been seared.

Uh... ok....

Jay Leno has, with great success and hilarity, pointed up the stupidity of our new generation with his famous man on the street segments, during which he randomly selects individuals of both sexes and asks them relatively simple questions. The answers are uproarious, and at the same time pathetic. The people that he selects cannot answer the most simple of questions, and their improvisations often times cause convulsive laughter, which dissipates into dismay at the ignorance displayed. That the segment is a comedic success for Mr. Leno cannot be questioned, but what it says about the nation is profoundly pathetic.

Wow, pop culture references coming out of nowhere. I didn't see this coming. But I agree with him. It doesn't disprove evolution, demonstrate that our nation is founded on biblical values, show that Satan is commanding our government, or that the Tower of Babel is being rebuilt, but I agree that "man on the street" reveals how pathetic Americans can be.

This domestic ignorance is the product of the social engineering of the one world elites, who occupy stragic positions in our educational heirachy, which enables them to ensure that our youngsters will move into society without the ability to understand even the most basic of concepts. If they cannot reason, they cannot question. They simply take up space and follow blindly the direction provided by the elites who direct them along paths, which lead in the wrong direction. Real knowledge had been replaced by superstition, myth, and occultic tripe. Too many of our young cannot read, they cannot write, and they cannot think. They walk through life like programed zombies contributing only to the collective ignorance of the nation.

It totally blows my mind that this guy is saying this. It is beyond funny that the same guy who laughs at evolution and promotes biblical creationism is criticizing anyone else's reasoning skills. He sees how people blindly follow leaders, and yet he doesn't see how he is blindly following a leader. The level of self-awareness here is disturbing.

What has happened to the soul of this nation? If our values and our morals are a reflection of that soul we have progressed to a most exacrable state of being. Over the course of the last thirty-two years, forty-seven million three hundred thousand babies have been cold-bloodedly murdered. They were delivered into the hands of medical executioners, who murdered many of them in the most heinious of ways. Living babies fully developed with beating hearts were stabbed in the head and their brains were suctioned by mentally diseased sociopaths. How were these murders justified by the women who delivered them up to the executioners? If your answer is that it was done to save a mother’s life you are miles away from the truth.The truth is, as verified, by those who sought a medical abortion of their babies, that these murders were done for expedience or convenience. Seventy-five percent of those who were queried said that a baby would interfere with their work, school, or other responsibilities. If their mothers had felt likewise, these women wouldn’t be around to worry about work or the responsibilities of life.

The sanctity of human life means nothing to the social engineers who are guiding our destiny in the most depraved way. Their perspective on a human being is strictly from a biological viewpoint. They have no more regard for a human life than they have for the life of an animal. In fact it has been proven time and time again that they exhibit more compassion for animals than they do for human beings. To them a human being is just another primate of limited value. If a person’s parts are showing some wear get rid of the person to make way for another. This kind of thinking has had a profound affect on medical ethics in our nation. A new breed of cats called bioethicists has come upon our national scene. They have undermined the Hippocratic oath and have re-defined life and death. They have made great strides in making forced euthanasia a part of our new national culture. Their guiding light is Darwinism. They embrace this half-baked hypothesis in the same manner that Hitler embraced it, to justify the killing of the infirm and the disabled.

Even if you don't like abortion (abortion make me sad), and even if you think abortion should be illegal (the prospect of banning abortions makes me sadder), and even if you somehow buy into his link between abortion and Darwinism and Hitler (which is profoundly ignorant), this doesn't disprove evolution. It just artificially links a few things you don't like.

Also, who has made "forced euthanasia" a part of our culture? Who has redefined life and death? As usual he doesn't back up any of his absurd claims.

And their methods are most horrible to contemplate. They kill their victims slowly and with great suffering and pain. Their work was highlighted nationally with the recent legal medical murder of Terri Schiavo. If a dog were to be put to death by starvation and dehydration, the perpetrator of that act would be prosecuted and incarcerated. When a human being is put to death in such a horrifying manner it is with the approval of the courts and with the blessing of the system. The fact that medical practitioners can be found to carry out so inhumanely the taking of a helpless human life is a commentary on the depths to which this nation has fallen.

What the flying fuck is this guy talking about. Who intentionally kills people with great suffering and pain? What is he talking about? More unfounded bullshit.

If the putrescence that we are witnessing today in society is just a small sample of things to come in a new world order, we have to contemplate the future of our children and grandchildren with great anguish. But, such is the future that we build for them with our complacence and failure to deal with those who lead us down the path to destruction.

I’m through, and I‘m sick.

© 2007 - Jim R. Schwiesow - All Rights Reserved
Jim Schwiesow is a retired sheriff with 46 years of law enforcement service. He served with the Unites States Army with the occupation forces in post war Berlin, Germany, and has a total of nine years of military service, which includes six years in the U.S. Army Reserve.
His law enforcement service includes: three years in the military police, fifteen years as an Iowa municipal police officer, and twenty-eight years as the duly elected sheriff of Sioux County, Iowa.
Jim has written a number of articles, which have been published in various professional law enforcement journals.

Wow. I have to wonder what is going on with Alice Benbow that she thought it would be helpful to send this to me. Maybe she just wanted to take up an hour of my time. This is some worthless bullshit.

(I should also note that his original is peppered with numerous spelling errors. They weren't my mistake. )

my very own creationist

Check out the comments on links adspar likes 7. I made fun of someone named Alice Benbow who said dumb things about evolution, and now someone claiming to be Alice is saying more dumb things about evolution. She's probably a nice lady, but I have no tolerance for lies and ignorance, so I'm taking a harsh tone.

ps - while I'm gone, feel free to respond to her weird ideas

links adspar likes 7

I'm getting more and more pissed off everyday. Here are a few things that piss me off. I'm not bothering with my standard introduction or wrap-up any more because I'm too pissed off.


Legislating Violations of the Constitution
by Erwin Chemerinsky
(link might require registration after a few days, bust just use BugMeNot.com)

adspar's quick summary:
The House of Representatives quietly passed legislation that wouldn't allow plaintiffs who successfully sue for Church/State violations to recover attorney's fees, effectively making it far more difficult to legally challenge something like prayer in schools.

why you should read it:
The author argues that since the Republican majority knows they can't amend the Constitution, the sole intention of this legislation is to make it harder to enforce the establishment clause. I'd like to hear any other possible explanation for this passing, because I can't think of one.


They Cry, Pray to Bush and Wash out the Devil - Welcome to Jesus Camp
by Dan Glaister

adspar's quick summary:
A new documentary follows kids through Jesus camp.

why you should read it:
You've probably heard of this by now. It should be a crime to brainwash kids like this.


How would ID have contributed?
by PZ Myers

adspar's quick summary:
I'm posting this mostly because I liked the comment by Qrazy Qat, about half a dozen comments down the page. The rest of the discussion, about breakthroughs in using genetic studies to understand human evolution and the distortion of that science by ID clowns, is interesting too if you follow the links and read them and their links.

why you should read it:
The comment I like makes the simple point that it takes longer to refute a nonsense claim than to generate one, something that bullshit artists have known since the beginning of time. In fact this cuts to the very core of what science is all about. It is much easier to generate a plausible-sounding hypothesis that it is to rigorously test it. This is why it takes a lot of education and training to really understand basic science ideas, and decades of education to master a tiny area of expertise. Our brains are really good at coming up with simple theories that might explain things, but going through the pain of proving something is decidedly un-natural. If people woke up and realized that, lots of good things would happen, like good science would be respected again.


Ann Coulter on Newsnight (youtube video)

adspar's quick summary:
Speaking of bullshit artists, Ann Coulter is interviewed by A BBC anchor, and she says things that are so ridiculous that he stops bothering to challenge them.

why you should read it:
The British are way more sensible than Americans. His whole attitude from the introduction seemed to say "how can you possibly sell books?"


"... So Help Me God"
by The Republican Party of Texas

adspar's quick summary:
Anti-atheist bigotry is explicitly part of the Texas GOP's platform.

why you should read it:
Because it is so hard and yet so easy to believe this shit. These are actual politicians running for actual public positions. Fuck these ignorant assholes.


Intelligent Design is Scientific
from the Detroit Free Press

adspar's quick summary:
Let's keep rolling with the ignorant assholes. In the midst of a heated Michigan election that includes a debate over teaching ID in public school, here is a flood of ignorance in the 'letters to the editor' section.

why you should read it:
Presumably these people write in to the paper because they are politically active, which means these are the people that are voting. My favorite is towards the end:

My 4-year-old son said, regarding evolution: "Momma, that is the funniest thing I have ever heard."

Out of the mouths of babes.

Alice Benbow

Rochester Hills

Alice Benbow writes to the editor and votes in Rochester Hills, and not only is she ignorant, she is militantly ignorant. And her son is most likely going to grow up to be ignorant too, thanks to her terrible ignorant parenting. Do these people expect that all scientific phenomena are going to be able to be understood by a 4 year old? Do they themselves ever get beyond a 4-year old level of thinking? NOT EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE EASY! SOME IDEAS ARE GOING TO TAKE MORE THAN 3 SENTENCES TO EXPRESS! TURN OFF YOUR FUCKING SOAP OPERAS, PUT DOWN YOUR BAG OF BITE SIZE SNICKERS BARS AND READ A BOOK, ALICE BENBOW OF ROCHESTER HILLS! And please, for the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, stop reproducing.

science, education, generalizations

I recently linked to an article from the University of Maryland's student newspaper where the author describes a strange encounter between elite scientists and a creationist, and uses that encounter to make the generalization that scientists are out of touch with the general public. He goes on to defend science in general and suggest that scientists should more actively do the same.

I agree with the author that "Everyone who considers himself a rationalist should take just a few hours out of his life to learn the responses to the most common attacks on science." His point that the public is often more likely to be moved by an eloquent speaker than sound logic is an important one.

The Monitors chimed in with a great response that I want to highlight:

Although this isn't the best outlet to reach the masses, I have to say that, as both an "insider" and an "outsider" in the science world, there are many misconceptions about science and education.

The first of which is that scientists are not interested in education. Scientists train graduate, doctoral, and post-doctoral students at a large rate. 26,000 Ph.D.'s were awarded in 2004 to science and engineering fields, this doesn't include medical doctors, psychiatrists, educators, etc who make up another 15,000. Do these students come out of the woodwork? No. They are trained from the fourth year of undergraduate until they finish their studies.

Another misconception is that scientists do not care about K-12 education and public outreach. First of all, it is not necessarily a scientist's ambition, nor place, to take part in such activities. After all, when's the last time your friendly neighborhood investment banker came and gave a kid-friendly lecture series at the local elementary school? Sometimes the subject matter isn't so appropriate, or the person isn't so qualified. However, many professional scientists do indeed take part in such activities, and they have as much passion as any teacher would. Scientists need students, they cannot function without them. They need their time, they need their insight, and they need the additional funding they bring with them. But undergrads don't just pop out of thin air, either, they come form high schools. Every physicist, chemist, astronomer, biologist, whoever, that I have spoken with, and I've spoken with hundreds, understands this, and many do their part for outreach. The Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute spends over $6M/year on public outreach. Countless programs system-wide incorporate public outreach components.

Another misconception is that kids don't know science because scientists don't want to teach them. A child is more likely to learn physics from an English or history major than a person with training in physical sciences. Conversely, a student is far less likely to learn English or history from a physical scientist than from an English/history major. This suggests a very powerful notion: there is a belief that scientists are not as capable of teaching English/history as an English/history major is of teaching physical sciences. Not only does this help explain the public disconnect with science, it also depicts a K-12 educational system that has lost its interest in teaching science. Further, you cannot expect one trained in English or history to be able to communicate the archaics of physical sciences.

So why is it such a surprise that there is a resurgence of anti-evolutionism? It's a relatively simple linear trend, just look at the time between now and the Renaissance. As scientific literacy increased, people became less and less reliant upon religious myths to explain events. For instance, the Chief Seismologist of Turkey is trying to assuage public fears that an earthquake is imminent due to the coming total solar eclipse at the end of March. Turkey is a far less scientifically cognizant society. Charles Darwin waited to publish his theory of evolution until his death, and was buried in an unmarked grave to avoid the desecration of his body. And then there's Scopes, etc. Until the age of invention, most advances in mechanics or chemistry, aside from items used for warfare of course, were basically considered witchcraft.

I'm rambling, but if we want to avoid ridiculous assertions like "intelligent design," which is only semantically different from creationism, then we had better dispel the idea of the scientist from the 1920's with crazy hair and in a white lab coat who's cross-breeding nuclear weapons and puppies. The problem lies at the root of society, and that's where the education has to begin.

A lot of good stuff there. I very strongly agree with the last sentence, and that is why I'm considering going back to school with a career goal of encouraging people to think and act more rationally.

I'm not sure how out of touch the science world is with the public, but I agree that a huge part of that community is very concerned about education and the popular perception of science. I'd guess that the 1920's style weirdos with the crazy hair that the Diamondback commentator encountered are the exception, not the rule.

What a joke

I first read about this issue here.

The Justice Department opened an investigation because Michael L. Dini, an associate professor of biology at Texas Tech University, insists on the following (from here) from anyone requesting a letter of recommendation to graduate school or medical school:

Criterion 3

If you set up an appointment to discuss the writing of a letter of recommendation, I will ask you: "How do you account for the scientific origin of the human species?" If you will not give a scientific answer to this question, then you should not seek my recommendation.

Why do I ask this question? Let’s consider the situation of one wishing to enter medical school. Whereas medicine is historically rooted first in the practice of magic and later in religion, modern medicine is an endeavor that springs from the sciences, biology prominent among these. The central, unifying principle of biology is the theory of evolution, which includes both micro- and macro-evolution, and which extends to ALL species. Someone who ignores the most important theory in biology cannot expect to properly practice in a field that is now so heavily based on biology. It is easy to imagine how physicians who ignore or neglect the Darwinian aspects of medicine or the evolutionary origin of humans can make poor clinical decisions. The current crisis in antibiotic resistance may partly be the result of such decisions. For others, please read the citations below.

Good medicine, like good biology, is based on the collection and evaluation of physical evidence. So much physical evidence supports the evolution of humans from non-human ancestors that one can validly refer to the "fact" of human evolution, even if all of the details are not yet known; just as one can refer to the "fact" of gravity, even if all of the details of gravitational theory are not yet known. One can ignore this evidence only at the risk of calling into question one’s understanding of science and the scientific method. Scientists do not ignore logical conclusions based on abundant scientific evidence and experimentation because these conclusions do not conform to expectations or beliefs. Modern medicine relies heavily on the method of science. In my opinion, modern physicians do best when their practice is scientifically based.