Atheist Watch Archives - Creation and Science Chronicle

Reports of the National Center for Science Education, Fall 2020

Tue, 10 Nov 2020 11:30:02 +0000

NCSE Report, Fall 2020, Vol. 40 No. 4

Editor: Paul Oh

15 Years Later the Fight for Science Continues. Cover.
Dear NSCE members / Ann Reid. p. 2
Kitzmiller v. Dover: The Last Gasp of “Balancing” Evolution / Eugenie Scott. p. 3
Encouraging News About Evolution Education From a New NCSE/Penn State Survey / Glenn Branch. p. 4
The Legal Basis of Kitzmiller V. Dover / Glenn Branch. p. 6
Random Samples with Edward J. Larson / Paul Oh. p. 5
Updates. p. 8
News from the Membership / Glenn Branch. p. 10
What We’re Up Against : The Answer to Lack of Preparation is False Balance? / Glenn Branch. p. 10
Supporting Teachers : Science Is a Way of Knowing / Paul Ph. p. 11
Breaking Down Barriers : Grants Fuel Science Outreach by NCSE Fellows / Kate Carter. p. 12
Place & Time : Madrid 1995: A Sentence to Change the World / Spencer Weart. p. 13
The RNCSE Review : We Believe in Dinosaurs directed by Clayton Brown and Monica Long Ross / Jason Rosenhouse. p. 14

Free pdf

Reports of the National Center for Science Education, Vol. 40, No. 4, Fall 2020, quarterly, free, membership $45 per year, 16 pages. ISSN: 1064-2358.

National Center for Science Education, 1904 Franklin Street, Suite 600, Oakland, CA 94612-2922.

Creation/evolution organizations with electronic copies of their official publications.

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Reports of the National Center for Science Education, Summer 2019

Wed, 07 Aug 2019 17:47:13 +0000

Science Outreach That Isn’t Just Kids’ Stuff. Cover.
Dear NSCE members / Ann Reid. p. 2
Science Outreach That Isn’t Just Kids’ Stuff / Ashleigh Papp. p. 3
Random Samples with Bruce Alberts / Paul Oh. p. 5
News from the Membership / Glenn Branch. p. 6
NCSE Welcomes Two New Board Members: Michael E. Mann and Michael B. Lubic. p. 7
Updates. p. 8
Supporting Teachers : Ready, Set, GO! & Teacher Ambassadors: A Year in the Life / Brad Hoge. p. 10
Place & Time : The Butler Act / Randy Moore. p. 10
Breaking Down Barriers : Story and Fun at the Forefront / Kate Carter. p. 12
The RNCSE Review : Darwin Devolves: The New Science About DNA That Challenges Evolution by Michael J. Behe / Mark Terry. p. 14
What We’re Up Against : Creationism Published “In Error” / Glenn Branch. p. 15

Editor: Paul Oh

Current issue

Reports of the National Center for Science Education, Vol. 39, No. 3, Summer 2019, quarterly, free, membership $45 per year, 16 pages. ISSN: 1064-2358.

National Center for Science Education, 1904 Franklin Street, Suite 600, Oakland, CA 94612-2922.

Creation/evolution organizations with electronic copies of their official publications.

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Simon Brown, Assistant Director of Communications at Americans United

Thu, 24 Mar 2016 18:13:33 +0000

One would think that someone working as Assistant Director of Communications at Americans United for Separation of Church and State would do a modicum of research before publishing an article! Especially with such an impressive resume as this:

Before joining Americans United, Simon was a reporter for Tax Notes, where he covered tax issues for nonprofits and wrote numerous stories on church politicking. Earlier in his career, Simon was a sports writer and he covered a range of sports from professional baseball to professional squash. Simon has a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University. He is from Richmond, Virginia.

Simon is the author of a blog hit piece published on the AU website: Museum Misadventure: Ky. Elementary School Takes Students To Ken Ham’s Creationist Exhibition. He’s totally outraged over an event, that occurred in 2012, he only found out about while trolling the Nasty Atheist’s blog. One wonders why the Nasty Atheist only found out last week about this four year old school field trip to the Creation Museum. After all, he writes more about Ken Ham and the Creation Museum than about atheism! Over 247 blog posts about Ken Ham alone. Can anyone spell “stalker”?

But, getting back to his partner in crime, Simon Brown… Like many AU employees and supporters, fact checking is too much work. Don’t bother coming to the Creation Museum, just make up stuff. Obviously Simon Brown considers Kentucky “fly-over country” and flunked geography. He says:

“Perfect” belongs in quotes, here, because Lee County Elementary in Petersburg, Ky., has a rather flexible definition of perfection: students could miss one day of school and still qualify for flawless attendance.

Lee County Elementary is in Lee County, Kentucky. It’s actually called Southside Elementary–there are two elementary schools in Lee County. And, the Creation Museum is in Petersburg in Boone County, Kentucky. Southside Elementary is located 150 miles away. Hey, Brown, I guess “perfection” can be rather flexible by atheist & AU standards when you’re lying for Darwin.

One thing we can be absolutely certainly of: Simon Brown, Americans United, and the Nasty Atheist are very concerned with the education of Lee County school children!

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Atheist Bloggers Attack Kentucky Governor

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 12:18:48 +0000

The howling and wailing by atheist bloggers has begun! And they are hopping mad with Kentucky Democratic governor Steve Beshear for scheduling a press conference with Answers in Genesis about the opening of a job creating theme park, Ark Encounter, in the Northern Kentucky region. Not unexpectedly, Pharyngula’s PZ Myers and Friendly Atheist’s (sic) Hemant Mehta, are taking the lead in calling for an Internet attack on the Kentucky governor. Both bloggers posted shortly after midnight as news began to spread throughout the United States. (International coverage will probably begin in the next 24 news cycle.)

Oddly enough, Kentucky’s atheist lawyer and long time Creation Museum opponent, Ed Kagin, was quoted in the Louisville Courier-Journal paper as “defending” Answers in Genesis:

Edwin Kagin, a Northern Kentucky attorney who is also the national legal director for the group American Atheists, said it doesn’t appear to him to violate the law. If other projects with religious themes could qualify for the tax incentives, the law doesn’t discriminate.

“It might not be discrimination, but it might not be a good idea,” Kagin said.

We suspect that Answers in Genesis is very pleased with how our atheist friends are helping to spread the word about the Ark Encounter project!

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Atheist Scott Hatfield and the Scopes Monkey Trial

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 18:10:40 +0000

Scott Hatfield is an atheist who runs a blog called Monkey Trials – Evolution, Creation and ‘All That Jazz’. Scott purports to be a “High school biology teacher, advocate for science education, part-time musician, full-time troublemaker and baseball fan.” Perhaps to save embarrassing himself, he should leave out the part about being a “high school biology teacher.”

You see, Scott put up a post on January 23rd titled, WE NEED A WISE CRYPTOZOOLOGIST FOR THIS CONSPIRACY!. (All caps are his.) Scott used the post to make a rather rambling rant against creationist Kurt Wise, Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum, Kentucky, and Texas. Now, this is nothing out of the ordinary for the typical atheist high school biology teacher pajama blogger, but Scott somehow has come to the conclusion that the 1925 Scopes Trial took place in Dayton, Kentucky. He even shows us a nice image of the ‘real‘ location of the 1925 Scopes Trial, with a paragraph of explanation in case you don’t get it:

“In case you don’t know, Dayton, Kentucky is where the original ‘monkey trial’ showdown of Darrow and Bryan took place, with a chilling effect on science education. To cap it off, the most famous ‘creation scientist’ of Kentucky origins is none other than former Bryan College (Dayton) professor (and Answers in Genesis consultant) Kurt Wise…”

Of course, Scott assumes Bryan College is in Dayton, Kentucky and thus, that Kurt Wise is also from Kentucky.

Note to Scott: Next time READ the articles you link to in your posts. Than you can at least get some of the basic stuff correct!

Let’s hope you are more careful in your Fresno, California high school biology class than you are with geography or history…

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The Guardian On Clarence Darrow

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:48:58 +0000

Despite some exaggeration, the UK’s Guardian G2 magazine insert featured a rather nice piece on Clarence Darrow. The occasion was the 85th Anniversary of Darrow’s defense of the notorious Leopold and Loeb. Like many other liberal views of their crime and Darrow’s defense, the UK applauds Darrow for his emotional appeal to spare their lives and his tirade against capital punishment.

See www.ScopesTrial.org for a critique of the movie, Inherit the Wind.

Defender of the Damned
G2 (The Guardian), UK
by Donald McRae
June 11, 2009

Eighty-five years ago, on 2 June 1924, during a blistering early summer in Chicago, a ravaged courtroom bruiser stepped into the future. Clarence Darrow, with his seamed face and stooped shoulders making him look every one of his 67 years, was America’s greatest and most controversial defender of the lost and the damned. But, as he hunched over his desk to write to the secret love of his life, Mary Field Parton, the old lawyer felt breathless.

Earlier that day, Darrow had agreed to represent Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two teenage lovers and the sons of Chicago millionaires, after they confessed to the world’s first ‘thrill-killing’ of a 14-year-old boy with whom Loeb had sometimes played tennis. Darrow, the Ohio-born son of an abolitionist father and suffrage-supporting mother, was himself a leading civil libertarian and vehement opponent of the death penalty. In this case, however, he confronted seemingly insurmountable odds; his disturbing and disturbed young clients faced certain execution in what newspapers would soon call the trial of the century.

read more…

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UK Atheists Can Now Whine Together in UK Schools

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 00:34:59 +0000

It’s nice to see that atheists, humanists, secularists, free thinkers, and rationalists can now get together in UK schools and whine about how much it bothers them that God is mentioned in the public square. But does the world really need another club that is opposed to free speech?

First the buses. Now atheists get a student society
by Jessica Shepherd
The Guardian (United Kingdom), p. 14.
February 19, 2009

Ads on London buses encouraged atheist students to find their voice

Every religion on campus has its student society, from the Christian Union to the Jedi Knights. Now the non-religionists will have theirs too when the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies launches today to mobilise non-believers.

The “anti-God squad”, as it is happy to be called, says it will fight for the voices of what it believes to be the majority of students to be heard on campus and further afield. It is planning campaigns and events across the country to protest against religious privilege and promote the understanding of science.

Affiliated to the British Humanist Association, it has the support of some leading critics of religion: scientist Richard Dawkins, philosopher AC Grayling and Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee.

Canadian Atheists Lose Fight To Advertise On Ottawa Buses

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 00:10:03 +0000

Canadian atheists certainly have a taste for the absurd when they don’t get their way. Having been turned down by the Ottawa transit authority for their silly bus ad campaign, they staged a photo-op with their mouths taped shut as a protest against the decision. How ironic considering they are the usually the first ones to try and shut down any displays of Christianity in the culture.

Atheist ads have no place on buses, Ottawa transit rules
The News, New Glasgow (Canada), p. 8.
February 18, 2009

There will be no atheist advertisements on Ottawa city buses.

The national capital’s transit committee voted Wednesday to support OC Transpo’s decision to reject the ads.

Members of the Humanist Association of Ottawa are disappointed with the decision and call the city’s ad policy discriminatory.

Group member David Burton said he and others were shocked when they learned the city refused to allow the ads, sponsored by the Freethought Association of Canada.

The ads, which have been accepted for display on buses in Toronto and Calgary, say, “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

Atheist Ad Campaign Strikes Grand Junction, Colorado

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 21:58:55 +0000

United States atheists are following their foreign atheist compatriots’ bus ads ( in England, Spain, Italy, and Canada) with a billboard ad campaign in Colorodo tauting life without God. Grand Junction is one of two major east-west routes (via highway 70) in the U.S.A. and borders Utah, home to some of the most beautiful and geological interesting land in our western National Parks: Bryce, Zion, Capital Reef, Arches, Canyonlands, and driving access to Grand Canyon’s North Rim.

Grand Junction is also the home to the creationist organization Alpha and Omega Institute, which is celebrating it’s 25th anniversary this year!

Finding joy with and without God
By Jonathan Buck
The Peterborough Examiner, p. C3.
February 14, 2009

2009 has certainly started off with a bang. We’ve got a new American president being hailed as a saviour, an Airbus ditching in the Hudson River hailed as a miracle, while atheists in several countries, including Canada, are mounting ad campaigns on the sides of transit buses claiming God doesn’t exist.

I got to thinking, then, putting all three of these events together, what would go through your mind if, by chance, you are on Flight 1549 on Jan. 15 as it takes off from LaGuardia Airport, rises to 3,000 feet and then, wham, the plane shudders and both engines go silent and there you are gliding without any power over the skyscrapers of New York?

But not to worry, because you look up and there on the plane’s TV screen is a news report on the atheist bus ad campaign in London, England, showing a red doubledecker bus with a large poster on its side declaring “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

Sir David Attenborough Blames Christianity for Environmental Damage

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:01:59 +0000

Genesis? It can go forth and multiply
by Steve Connor
The Independent (UK), p. 3.
January 31, 2009

Bible to blame for devastation of the planet, says Attenborough

HE HAS romped with gorillas, turned his back on grizzly bears and found himself knee-deep in suffocating bat dung. After decades of getting to know the furthest-flung corners of the world – and its inhabitants – Sir David Attenborough has vented his ire on the Bible for promoting the belief that man has complete dominion over the Earth.

Sir David, probably the best-loved broadcaster and certainly the most distinguished television naturalist, has blamed the Book of Genesis for many environmental problems, from the burning down of tropical rainforests to the extinction of species.

On the eve of a BBC1 documentary on the life of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution, Sir David has criticised the centuries-old idea running through the Judaeo-Christian tradition which assumes God gave the Earth to man to exploit and use in whatever way he saw fit in order to populate the world.