I received an email the other day from Dan Ryder, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, notifying me about a debate/blog back-and-forth he’s been having with notable Australian young-Earth creationist John Mackay (from creationresearch.net). It’s actually a wonderful example of how such debates, if you were thinking of partaking in one in the future, are likely to go: Mackay behaves in a fairly typical way, denying large chunks of established scientific knowledge when it suits him, refusing to rigorously define his terms [...]
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Strangely enough, it is, along with the Institute for Creation Research and Creation Ministries International, meaning that three of the most influential young Earth creationist websites have each been classified as a “scholarly source” in the world’s biggest search engine. Come again? Yes, for whatever reason, Google Scholar thinks that these sites are publishing scholarly literature. If you’re outraged by this, a petition has been set up asking for them to be delisted from Google Scholar. The preamble is as [...] » Continue reading “Did you know that Answers in Genesis is listed as a source on Google Scholar?” I tend to shy away from young-earth creationists on this blog (at least in the moderately recent past), mostly because I want to focus on intelligent design proponents, which I see as a much greater threat to evolutionary biology and the teaching and practice of science in general. However, when something priceless comes up, it’s impossible to resist. Check out this marvelous quote from Answers in Genesis, one of the world’s premier creationist organisations, on the existence of unicorns (via this article on the upcoming “Ark [...] » Continue reading “Absence of unicorns is not unicorns of absence… or something” Over at the Young Australian Skeptics, Hanster7705 has written a post about their recent experience with creationism at their semi-private high school, where young-earth creationist Mark Harwood (from Creation Ministries) gave a talk during a regular chapel service. Because, you know, his Ph.D in satellite engineering qualifies him to speak to school children about evolutionary biology. Of course. Oh yes, creationism is alive and well in Australia, and even though it’s not as widespread as in the US, it’s still a serious problem. [...] » Continue reading “A first-hand account of creationism in an Australian high school” Creationists on the University of Melbourne campus! Today! Handing out Ray Comfort’s “Special Edition” of On the Origin of Species! I first knew something was up when, while waiting for a lecture to start, I saw a student holding a copy of the book. I asked her where she’d got it, and she said that people were handing them out near the university tram stop. Yep, it had to be them – Ray Comfort clones, doing what they do best – spreading ignorance through the medium of semi-persuasive [...] » Continue reading “Stepping into a new (Ray) Comfort zone” The chance to have email debates with creationists is one of the reasons I write this blog – I’m a debate junkie, actually. Nothing’s better than sinking your teeth into a few new arguments that you’ve never heard of, or at least taking the time to explain the problems with some of the classics, hence I jumped at the chance to debate Micah. He first contacted me asking if I wanted to have a discussion with him about evolutionary theory and creationism. How could I refuse? The following is the [...] » Continue reading “References preferred when overturning modern biology” Back in May, a blogger named Dan (or facilis on this site) posted a response to one of my rare articles on religion and atheism on his blog, Dante’s Inferno. I, of course, being the argumentative person that I am, had to respond. Dan, after much thinking/real life work, presumably, has returned fire, addressing all of my main points in some description. What else can I do besides respond again? For those who didn’t read the first post, this is a debate about five arguments a [...] » Continue reading “More Dialogue with Dan from Dante’s Inferno” I’m not going to put up the Creationist Breakdown image, because this “article” hardly warrants it. Like its title aptly suggests, it’s a list of ten things that Darwinists should think about before eating their godless breakfasts, written in response to the fact that it’s Darwin’s two-hundredth birthday this year. Of course, it’s meant as a piece of Christian apologetics, and it will be treated as such. The audience that the author intended it to be for, in my opinion, would be either theistic evolutionists (Christians/people of other religious faiths [...] » Continue reading “Ten Thoughts Darwinists Ought to Ponder Before Breakfast (Or Not)” I love debates and arguing. Not sure why, perhaps it’s just the cynical skeptic in me who wants to lash out at things I don’t agree with and pull them down a peg or two. And by “lash out”, I mean in an intellectual way… Oh, why do I even need to qualify that? The violent atheist stereotype should be long dissolved by now, the operative word there being “should”, of course. Pity it’s not. This post is kind of about that. Well, not really, it’s more about sharing ideas [...] » Continue reading “Dialogue with Dan from Dante’s Inferno” This is a post refuting part of the CreationWiki response to Talk.Origins’s “Index to Creationist Claims”. Click here for an introduction to this project. Quotes from CreationWiki are in red, while quotes from Talk.Origins are in blue. The eye is too complex to have evolved. » Continue reading “CB301: “The eye is too complex to have evolved”” |
Homologous Legs is the personal blog of Jack Scanlan, an Australian science communicator and biology student. Topics of interest here include the intelligent design/evolution "war", biology, philosophy, religion, music, and mostly coherent thoughts from a scattered brain. 
 
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