Piltdown Superman

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen This article is an unexpected sequel of sorts to " The Pandemic of Unchallenged Darwinism " . Although Charles Darwin has been taking a dirt nap for over 136 years, his speculations still have a tremendous influence today. That is not because the science behind his work is so powerful that it is irrefutable. On the contrary, as scientific knowledge has grown over the years, the paucity of evidence for universal common ancestor evolution has become increasingly apparent. Why is evolution still holding such a lofty position with both the public and the scientific establishment? Background image furnished by Why?Outreach , then modified The primary reason that Darwin is still on his throne in the minds of many is that accepting evolution is a spiritual matter. If the origins controversy and the age of the earth were strictly about scientific evidence, most people would be biblical creationists, and Darwin would be just a footnote in history. Ev

We frequently see the fallacy of reification , where something abstract is given traits belonging to a person or entity. This sort of thing is done frequently and often for humorous purposes, like when Basement Cat gives me an evil look. No, she can't do that. Or saying that the beach is calling for me. No, ain't happening, sorry. Science says...no, it doesn't, but maybe some scientists say. See? Figures of speech using reification abound in stories and casual talk, but when used in an argument or scientific paper, reification is a fallacy. Proponents of scum-to-skeptic evolution are using the fallacy more and more frequently, indicating that evolution chooses, selects, decides, and so on. It's not infrequent to see an evolutionist making evolution into a puny god.  Pantheon of gods in  The Triumph of Civilization by Jacques Réattu, 1793 Evolution has always been a religious idea from way back, including Greek and Hindu religions. What we have now is mo

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen I've previously written on the way people label other people . Sometimes it's a means of reference, but quite often it's a way of pigeonholing them to avoid listening to what they have to say, or even as a means of trying to control their speech. Labeling can also be a means of demonizing and manipulation. There's another approach that is similar to labeling that is quite popular: playing the card. Assembled using graphics from Openclipart and modified with Paint.Net There are several cards to "play" that, in the mind of the user, trump all other considerations . In the United States, it's common to hear someone "refute" a criticism, complaint, or even an observation regarding someone of a minority ethnic heritage and say, "You're a racist!" That's the race card. (Reading that a black leftist called a black conservative a racist may cause Cranial Keyboard Embedment Syndrome.) Don't want wome

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen A large difficulty in researching and writing this article is that of definitions. It is important to have precise definitions when people can understand words and concepts in different ways 1 , and this article involves words with various meanings and connotations. There has been a noticeable increase in vitriol from the so-called "new" atheists (often followers of Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, Hitchens, Shermer, Nye, Krauss and others) and from evolutionists toward Christians and creationists. (I am making distinctions here because not all evolutionists are atheists, and not all Christians are creationists.) Some of us speculate that adherents of the religion of atheism 2 ,which has evolution as one of its cornerstones, feel threatened because evolution's flaws are exposed by Intelligent Design and creation science. This battle is not simply intellectual, but also spiritual. From a biblical Christian perspective, atheists realize that God e