Stupid Creationist Quote of the Week: Ben Carson on Evolution

This quote is rather shocking. It comes from Ben Carson and, as you can see from the wiki page, Carson is a top notch neurosurgeon. You would think that that would make him do a little research before talking about evolution in general and human evolution in particular. However:

Creationists and the Grand Canyon

I thought this video from Steve Newton of the NCSE was quite interesting:

A Response to Joseph Kuhn’s Dissecting Darwinism

I was alerted to creationist article published in the Proceedings of the Baylor University Medical Center via Why Evolution Is True. The author of the paper is Joseph Kuhn, MD who claims that “…surgeons are uniquely capable of gathering information, making observations, and reaching conclusions about scientific discoveries.” For the most part it is your standard ID mumbo jumbo and has been ably dissected elsewhere. One part, however, caught my eye:

The transitional species from primitive primates to man have been illustrated in textbooks for over 100 years. These drawings form the visual imagery that supports Darwinian evolution for high school students, university students, medical students, and the public. However, honest dissent exists in the accuracy of most of the transitional prehominoids, with many found to be frauds or animal species. Reconstructions based on fragmentary and scattered bones, surface bones, and gross morphologic features are limited. Anomalous findings of stone tools, bones, and hundreds of other artifacts have suggested that Homo sapiens were actually present 2 to 7 million years ago (at the same time as early proposed transitional species)…(reference omitted – afarensis) Certainly, there has been no additional transitional mutant or species change from the first generally accepted Homo sapiens over 200,000 years ago.

Lucy’s Pelvis and Creationists

A while back I wrote this post pointing readers to an interesting look at the way creationists misuse Owen Lovejoy’s reconstruction of Lucy’s pelvis to try and cast doubt on human evolution. Unfortunately the piece I linked has vanished – as has the entire website the piece was on. Fortunately, Chris O’Brien has covered the same ground in a post at Northstate Science.

Of Monkeys and Ancestors

William Meikle and Eugenie Scott have an article in Evolution: Education and Outreach that looks at the frequently heard creationist question “If we evolved from monkeys, how come there are still monkeys?” The paper is short, coming in at three pages. In it the suggest that one answer the question by comparing human evolution to human genealogy – a pretty common tactic if one reads blogs.

Rickets, Neanderthals, And Lubenow: Part Two

In the previous post in this series I looked at vitamin D metabolism and the effects of vitamin D deficiency on the skeleton. So, lets talk about Lubenow and Neanderthals. Lubenows discussion of Neanderthals and rickets occurs in chapter 14. He begins the chapter by invoking the Genesis flood to explain the ice ages, which only lasted, according to Lubenow, for 700 years (give or take).

Rickets, Neanderthals, And Lubenow: Part One

I have mentioned previously that I was reading Lubenow’s Bones of Contention. In this post I would like to focus on Lubenow’s understanding of rickets and Neanderthal morphology. In order to discuss that I first need to discuss vitamin D deficiency

Martin Lubenow Doesn’t Understand Evolution…Or Paleoanthropology

After reading a large number of posts by Jim Foley that mention Lubenow’s book Bones of Contention I finally went out and found a good used copy of the first edition. I was going to review it when I am finished reading it, but I have encountered a couple of items that I just couldn’t resist blogging about.

Missouri Becomes Second State To Introduce Creationism Bill In 2010

Sigh. Missouri has become the second state to introduce creationist legislation in 2010. Unlike the Mississippi bill, which specifically singles out human evolution, the Missouri bill is one of those “academic freedom” bills.

Kent Hovind’s Dissertion: Incomplete

Wikileaks has managed to get a copy of Kent Hovind’s Ph.D dissertion. However, it seems to me to be an incomplete copy. Hovind mentions that there is sixteen chapters in the dissertion, yet the pdf from Wikileaks stops, as near as I can tell, at the fourth chapter on the age of the earth. Presumably there are chapters on the big bang, geologic column, radiocarbon dating, cave men, archaopteryx, OOL research, scientists who were creationists, etc… See pages 6-7 for a complete listing of the dissertion chapters. So, where is the rest of it? I think Skip Evans clears the mystery up.