| Volume 11 Number 11 | www.ntskeptics.org | November 1997 |
Not much surprises me anymore at the MIOS (Metroplex Institute for Origin Science) meetings. Turns out that's what it was this time.
Don Patton started it off. He had spent a busy past two weeks, he told me, including attending the Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America in Salt Lake City on October 23 (AKA, Millennium Day). He chided me to the effect, "You accuse creationists of never publishing in refereed journals." He had done just that he said.
This was stunning news. "What refereed journal?" He reminded me this was the GSA. Trying to play dumb (easy sometimes) I repeated the question. Don conceded that Geology is the official journal of the GSA. At this point I was doing an internal check to see if my brain had reset. Could this stuff about Millennium miracles really be true.
While waiting for the evening talk to begin I continued the mental inventory. I went through an exercise I perform out of habit with the creationists, and one point filtered out: Don never said he published in Geology.
After repeating for the audience what he had told me, Don introduced the night's speaker, David Meyers. David is a bright, enthusiastic and energetic biology teacher in the honors program at McArthur High School in Irving. He is surely the best kind of teacher a public school like McArthur High can get, unfortunately for the McArthur High honors students.
David's talk was on "The Consequences of Evolution," and he reminded us he is a creationist who tries to encourage his students to question the bases for evolution and to be ready to examine the alternatives. He even had one in mind.
David has been at McArthur for twenty years, and he became a creationist within the last fifteen. The inability of science to give purpose, he told us, led him to favor "creation" rather than the purely mechanistic processes allowed by evolution. He doesn't use "evolution" in his lectures. Rather he likes the term "change by chance." Also, he uses "intelligent design" instead of "creation."
"Social Darwinism" is another hobgoblin of David's. It's a natural outgrowth of Darwinism, he told us, and it has been used to justify oppression and genocide in recent history. Without evolution there would be no "social Darwinism." This seemed to be a repetition of a theme that runs through creationism as well as a number of other strained belief systems. The consequences are so odious, the news must be wrong.
David is a "young-Earth" creationist. Good thing. Otherwise he would have been a dog in the manger at MIOS. Anyhow, in all his science training he has remained convinced that those bright minds, his teachers, plus the scientists working in the field and in the lab are all either lying or deluded. Radiological dating is wrong. The geological evidence is wrong. The evidence from DNA sequencing is wrong. The archeological evidence of pre-Genesis civilizations is wrong. The evidence from cosmology is wrong. Someone is fooling someone. Or else someone hasn't been doing their homework.
He never got into the details of his classroom lectures, but I don't think he stands up before all his students and tells them that evolution and modern geology are just a lie. He says he encourages them "to examine both sides of the issue."
In an article in the October issue of Scientific American titled "What Are They Thinking?" author Rebecca Zacks discusses why students don't believe in evolution. Harvard University researcher Brian J. Alters and University of Southern California educational psychologist William B. Michael recently surveyed more than 1,200 college freshmen. Forty-five percent reject evolution, and these predominately hold erroneous beliefs about science in general and evolution in particular. Philip M. Sadler, director of science education at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics agrees with Alters that school curricula should meet these misconceptions head on. For children "the process of learning science is a process of abandoning their own previous views" according to Sadler. Without specific evidence "the ideas simply will not change." David Meyers' talk leaves me with the feeling that his students will not get that evidence.
I look forward to more excitement in the future at MIOS. This night Don Patton showed us more of his marvelous photos of petroglyphs by prehistoric Americans showing live dinosaurs. The depiction of the triceratops is especially striking when you use your imagination. How could the Indians have made these drawings if dinosaurs died out 64 million years ago he asks. Additionally, he now has video of mammoths in Nepal, where the beasts account for 200 dead civilians a year (in addition to the toll from tigers and pythons). Don's going to show us the tape as soon as he gets permission.
Finally, I wanted to confirm the remarkable news about Don's publication
in a refereed journal. I chatted with him before leaving. In what issue
of Geology could I find his paper? Well, not exactly in Shame on you, you evil skeptics! You, with your ceaseless reasonable
questions and insatiable requests for scientific evidence! YOU are personally
responsible for poisoning the air, killing children, boiling the oceans,
exterminating animal species, making the ozone layer look like a big slice
of Swiss cheese, and cooking Mother Earth into a big, flaming marshmallow
that will soon be spinning helplessly into the blazing inferno of the sun!!!
Whoops, sorry. I've just been so immersed in the cauldron of overheated
special interest group propaganda and half-baked pseudoscientific hooey
that passes for news here at the End of History, I got caught up in the
popular fervor. Yes, you might have thought that this is football season
or the holiday season, but if you've tuned in to a network newscast recently,
you know that it is, in fact, Open Season on Skeptics.
The chief witch-hunter hunter is, of course, America's #1 pollution-hating
tobacco farmer, Al Gore. After several years of haranguing the president
with factoids gleaned from such shaky prognosticators as Paul Ehrlich and
Jeremy Rifkin, Gore seems to have convinced Bill Clinton that global warming
is not merely a possibility but is already happening, despite the fact
that U.S. weather satellites have recorded a drop in temperature of about
half a degree Fahrenheit over the past 20 years. (Sorry! There I go again,
yielding to my evil skeptical tendencies and dragging facts into a discussion
of global warming. I'll try to control myself.)
Anyhoo, Al and his fellow global warmers have borrowed a page from Joseph
Goebbels, to wit: "If you can just get the media to repeat something often
enough, even if it's a load of absolute drivel, people will start to believe
it." Thus, he sponsored that surreal White House global warming conference
for TV weathermen (good luck telling them apart from the politicians),
in the hope that their viewers would be gullible enough to believe that
someone who can't tell them if it's going to rain next weekend can accurately
predict what the temperature will be in 2015.
By a bad stroke of luck, a handful of the weather forecasters actually
knew something about the weather, and Al's global warming pitch met with
a cool front from them. However, there was no such resistance from general
news reporters, and now, every story on the environment that comes from
ABC News (America's number one news source, God help us) begins with an
intro. something along the lines of, "With most scientists now in full
agreement that global warming is a reality..." They've also birthed a new
cliché: "2500 scientists, including many Nobel Prize winners, have
signed on to a UN report confirming the existence of global warming." This
assertion is total poppycock, but it has been repeated so often, virtually
verbatim, that it has now been drilled into the heads of the public like
a mantra, and vast numbers of Americans seriously believe we're all about
to shrivel up from global warming, just as we were all about to shiver
to death from the new ice age back in the early 1970s.
Of course, any campaign to rouse the populace to action or sacrifice
must consist of two elements. Propaganda is only half the equation. You
must also come up with a scapegoat, and I am honored to inform you that
it is (drum-roll)...us! That's right, fellow skeptics: just as I pointed
out in the first paragraph, we are to blame. From Al Gore's Earth In
The Balance to Ross Gelbspan's operatically overblown bestseller Zealots like Gore and Gelbspan have attacked skeptics by name, urged
that they be ignored or silenced, barred highly-credentialed skeptical
scientists from participating in conferences on global warming, and in
some cases, baldly accused skeptics of being paid corporate stooges and
agents of death and destruction. Maybe they should just build concentration
camps for us. After all, we're the only people left who know how to concentrate.
If you think I'm overstating the level of hatred that has been stirred
up against skeptics, then you obviously missed a recent episode of ABC's
"Politically Incorrect." Host Bill Maher is a very witty comedian, but
sadly, he seems to get all his information on the environment straight
from Al Gore, just as he gets all his information on wildlife and Native
American history from Disney cartoons. His guests on this show included
actor/writer/lawyer Ben Stein and environmentalist/ex-"Baywatch" actress
Alexandra Paul.
The subject was doomsday environmentalism, and Maher and Paul were full
of it, in every sense of that term. Stein, obviously a very well-read man,
was appalled at the nonsense he was hearing, but he answered the charges
calmly and rationally, citing facts that backed him up about air quality,
total forest acreage, etc. Well, nothing upsets a fanatic like a fact expressed
calmly, and Paul and Maher began screaming like hyenas. At one point, Maher
angrily yelled at Stein that yes, he DOES believe global warming is going
on right now, the planet is dying, we're running out of resources, he's
going to die from breathing the air, "and it's all the fault of people
like YOU!" That is, people who answer hysteria with facts. You know: skeptics.
Three of my favorite exchanges from the show: When Stein followed Maher's
outburst by asking him, "Bill, do you REALLY believe you're going to die
from breathing air?" Yes, Maher firmly replied, he does. (He should STOP
breathing it and see how long he lives)...When Maher answered one of Stein's
arguments by shouting, "That's not true! Where are you getting this crap?!"
and Stein deadpanned, "From the Statistical Abstract of the United States"...And
one of the all-time classic TV moments, when an arm-waving Alexandra Paul
defended the high-minded population control methods of the Chinese government
("Crunch!" go the tank treads) by declaring, "There are a billion Chinese!
If they increase their population just one percent a year, that's 100 million
people!" Stein stared at her for a second, dumbfounded, then said, "That's
ten percent." Guess the auditions for "Baywatch" didn't involve a math
quiz.
None of this is to say that there is nothing to global warming. There
might be, and there might not be. It certainly merits further study, but
that's not what the alarmists want: they want total control, right now,
and they want to convince you that there's no time to think about it. Sorry,
I don't accept that tactic from car salesmen, and I won't accept it from
them. It's in these manufactured "crisis" situations that it's most vital
to ask tough questions and demand answers based on real science. If questioning
our leaders be treason, then let us make the most of it.
Well, at least when the brown-shirted eco-warriors come to drag you
away for being too logical, you can't say I didn't warn you. In the meantime,
I'll suggest a little light reading, to prove that not all scientists swallow
the global warming line.
On June 17, the New York If you'd like to read those articles, they can be found on AOL in the
NY Times archives, or you can come up to my remote mountain hideout,
where I'll be safely locked up with my canned pemmican and my skeptical
reading material, waiting for the end of Dark Ages II.
Speaking of menacing the populace with imaginary hobgoblins, Washington
Post columnist James Glassman had an excellent column recently on
how easy it is to manipulate scientifically illiterate people. It concerned
Nathan Zohner, 14, of Idaho Falls, Idaho. For his junior high science project
last spring, Nathan passed around a petition to ban "Dihydrogen Monoxide:
The Unrecognized Killer." The petition claimed that DHMO causes the deaths
of thousands of Americans each year through accidental ingestion, causes
severe burns in gaseous form, is so corrosive it destroys metal, is a major
component of acid rain, has been found in cancerous tumors, causes excessive
sweating and urination, and for people who have developed a dependency
on it, complete withdrawal causes certain death.
Nathan told his fellow students that they could discuss this with their
teachers before signing, but 86 percent of them thought Dihydrogen Monoxide
sounded so dangerous, they signed the petition to ban it without even bothering
to ask the chemistry professor what it was. If they had, they would have
learned that it is water. Nathan's science project was called "How Gullible
Are We?" and it won the grand prize. Sorry, I don't know if Al Gore presented
it to him.
As the eminent toxicologist Kelly Preston (Mrs. Travolta) explained
it, all the drugs you've ever taken are locked in your fat cells, and you
remove them through a combination of vitamins and saunas. Especially entertaining
were her mimicry of an anesthetized dental patient as she described how
her mouth suddenly went numb when she "sweated out" Novocain she'd gotten
years ago, and her wide-eyed declaration that this is all on the level,
because it was developed with the assistance of "doctors and stuff."
Bell has developed a 10-point checklist to determine the level of stigma
on a property, including "media attention," "death and injuries on site,"
"event takes on a name" (so far, it's looking bad), "lingering physical
reminders of the incident" (Bell says the blood stains are out of the carpet,
and I assume that all the Nike boxes have been carted away), and "public
perception that the situation could reoccur." He lucked out on that last
one, since thanks to the castration ritual, it's extremely doubtful that
there will be a "Heaven's Gate: The Next Generation."
So if you have $1.6 mil, I say, "Go for it." You know it isn't haunted,
because they all went to the spaceship. If they do ever decide to come
back, there are plenty of spare bedrooms and the tennis court will make
a perfect landing pad for the UFO. And besides, if you reject every house
that ever held a group of wacko cultists, you'll never be able to live
in Southern California.
Editor's note: This op-ed column originally ran in the Arkansas Oscar Wilde once quipped about journalism: "In giving us the opinions
of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community."
Never has this been more true than with recent reporting about the launch
of the Cassini satellite and its plutonium power supply.
We were led to believe, by media totally uncritical of the anti-nuclear
activists, that there was a danger to millions of people in Florida from
a "tragedy" during launch. The culprit was the 72 pounds of plutonium used
to generate electrical power during the five-year voyage.
First, they would have the rocket explode, ejecting the power supply
and scattering the battery-sized stainless steel canisters in which the
offending material is welded. By some hitherto unknown physical process,
the canisters would rupture, and plutonium slugs would change to dust and
find their way into the bodies of millions of people. Wholesale death by
plutonium would then ensue.
OK, let's grant the anti-Cassinoids their argument about dispersal of
plutonium over Florida. It doesn't really matter. What few people outside
the nuclear industry know is that plutonium is not particularly dangerous.
What? Didn't the Plutonium, the 94th element to be discovered and the first which was
man-made, was named in honor of a recent (at that time) planetary discovery,
as had been Neptunium and Uranium before it. The 11th most toxic heavy
metal, it falls between lead arsenate (plutonium is one-10th as toxic)
and caffeine (plutonium is 10 times as toxic). This "scourge of humanity"
is one-trillionth as toxic as botulinus toxin in the bloodstream. Toxicity,
incidentally, is measured by comparing the weights of doses which will
kill 50 percent of the same type of mammal.
But what about "searing radiation"? Utter twaddle! Plutonium is primarily
an alpha emitter as it radioactively decays. Funny thing about alpha radiation:
in most circumstances, it is harmless. The rays are stopped by a few inches
of air or a thin sheet of paper. You could carry a chunk around in your
pocket or purse for years with less effect on your body than the background
radiation received in your living room.
Surely, you say, there must be SOME basis for the alleged dangers of
plutonium. That's true. It has long been thought that inhaling plutonium
in a fine dust would cause lung cancer, since the weak alpha radiation
would adversely affect lung tissue, being virtually embedded in it. Because
of this, a standard was set limiting the amount of plutonium dust that
workers can inhale.
In 1945, an accident in the Hartford plutonium plant subjected 26 workers
to lung burdens 25 times that deemed permissible. According to Dr. John
Gofman, the anti-Cassini scientific spokesman on So how does the good doctor's opinion square with reality? Not so good.
After 40 years, all but three "victims" were still living. One had died
in a car crash and two from unrelated heart disease. None had developed
cancer, and their death rate was less than half the expected number for
their age group.
A prudent man might well consider the risk of cancer from inhaling plutonium
dust to be somewhat exaggerated.
What, then, is the Cassini uproar all about? Quite simple. The anti-technologists,
who would destroy modern technology that we might toil endlessly to eke
out an existence and then die young in a pristine environment, see this
as a great propaganda opportunity. They can take advantage of media attention
to demonize plutonium and, along with it, everything nuclear.
Interestingly, this seems to be happening in concert with the global-warming
baloney being exuded from the White House. Anyone who suggests changing
to nuclear-based power, you see, will be hooted down as a politically incorrect
heretic. The modern-day Luddites can then reinforce the idea in the public
mind that technology is bad, dangerous and inhumane.
Will they be successful in tricking the American people into believing
that plutonium, along with alar, asbestos, dioxin and PCBs, is a significant
danger? Absolutely. It has already been done. Ask your neighbor if he would
rather have an ounce of plutonium or an alligator under his bed.
(Ed Hiserodt is an aerospace engineer and an electrical control manufacturer's
representative. He has no connection with the nuclear power industry.)
As we go to press there comes some good news for a change. However,
allow me to look a bit on the dark side of it.
The Dallas Morning News carries the headline "Education board
gives Texas' schoolbook purchase tentative OK." What they are saying in
a story by Terrence Stutz is that the State Board of Education has approved
the purchase of a biology text that is favorable to the theory of evolution.
The short side is that of 14 members, five of them voted against the purchase
because of this favorable treatment. Let me repeat that: Five supposedly
educated and responsible members of society whom the people of Texas have
chosen to represent their interests, still believe that supernatural forces
were responsible for the creation of our own species.
According to The News, board member Richard Watson led the opposition.
He maintained the book violated State law because it did not point out
weaknesses in the theory of evolution. He is quoted as saying "The Darwinian
hypothesis is on very shaky ground to begin with," and he also read a list
of inaccuracies in the book. The book's author, Kenneth Miller from Brown
University, rejected each complaint and pointed out that Watson's list
"was from an old newsletter commenting on another biology book." Further,
the board noted that passages from the book represented evolution to be
theory, despite Mr. Watson's statements to the contrary.
One disheartening aspect of the whole affair was the politicization
of the issue. All of the board members belong to either the Republican
or the Democratic parties, and the voting showed a distinct political bias.
While three Republicans voted for the text along with the Democratic members,
all of those opposed were members of the Republican Party. We can only
hope that, in the future, facts of science will not be determined by political
allegiance.
Creationist biology teacher David Meyers, speaking at the MIOS meeting
this month (see the related story in this issue), told of his disappointment
with the outcome of the approval process. Meyers was on the review committee
(which provides recommendations to the Board), and his viewpoint obviously
lost this round. In previous years NTS member Ron Hastings participated
in the review process. Ron has a Ph.D. in physics from Texas A&M University
and teaches science in Waxahachie. His support was beneficial in making
sure that evolution was included in the current texts.
John Blanton (Secretary)
Keith Blanton (editor)
The NTS Web Site
McQueen, David R.*, Patton, Don , Swift, Dennis : CATASTROPHIC DEPOSITIONAL
EVENTS WITHIN THE UPPER EOCENE (LATE UINTAN?) PARACAS FORMATION OF COASTAL
PERU [50598]
This is a subject Don has aired previously at the MIOS meetings, and it's
a story in itself. For those interested I have the abstract and URLs to
the GSA Web pages.
The third eye
By Pat Reeder
...
...
Plutonium Twaddle
by Ed Hiserodt
Good News, Almost
by John Blanton
Contacting the NTS
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