DNA Sculpture exhibit at UC Berkeley playground turning heads, sparking complaints^1
2

PTA president asks school’s parents to file complaints with the county

By Richard Vernon, P.O.E.
State of Protest
July 27, 2009

EAST BERKELEY – Think of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man . . . zoomed in to an ungodly scale.

The large, plastic and metallic sculpture parked outside UC Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science, is stoking the angry fires of parents of children who attend nearby Claremont Park Elementary School.

“My daughter suggested that it was funny,” said John Copeland, whose 7-year-old daughter attends summer camp there. “She shouldn’t be talking to me about this. Now I’m forced to explain genetics to her, and why the Bible doesn’t say anything about it.”

The genetically correct structure is part of an ongoing exhibit titled “DNA Sculpture,” created by acclaimed artist Ashe Kutchya, which represents “genetic material from an enzyme,” according to Lawrence Hall of Science’s website.

It depicts a DNA double helix — two congruent helices with the same axis, differing by a translation along the axis. The structure is larger than life, and elongated. Its genetic analogy to human life is subtle.

“It’s a piercing piece, quite abstract,” said Francis Pegro, the groundskeeper in charge of maintaining the sculpture as well as other displays in the playground. “It’s honest and natural.”

Pegro said he’s received some complaints, but also praise.

Although DNA Sculpture has been on display in various public parks and playgrounds, Jenny Garrotte, Claremont Park PTA president, said she found it distasteful and verging on obscene, and e-mailed parents Wednesday morning, asking them to file complaints with Pegro and with Alameda County Code Enforcement.

“Everybody is entitled to their own opinion regarding what art is,” said Garrotte. “If this piece weren’t visible to passersby and available for children to play on, I would not have a problem with it.”

Still, Terence Lythma, a teacher in the school’s summer program, said he has not heard any of the children talking about the piece.

“It’s the parents who have been talking about it,” he said. “The children don’t really make an issue of it.”

Kutchya, the creator of DNA Sculpture, could not be reached for comment despite attempts by phone. But it’s not the first time his sculptures have drawn public scrutiny. In 1996, the Oakland City Council made him modify the depiction of DNA so that it matched a dog’s DNA structure rather than a human’s until public pressure and national attention reversed the city officials’ position. He later reverted the structure to depict human DNA.

In 2006, The Ovum, a sculpture of a human unfertilized egg by Sonoma-area artist Nabry Gussom and installed at the Petaluma Community Center, generated complaints over its super-realistic undulations and dampness.

“It’s awful that people react to art in this manner,” said Amy Boswin, director of the Novato Ignacio Art Gallery near Petaluma. “If they opened a biology textbook, they’d see a lot more risqué stuff than that.”

Meanwhile, Copeland said he hopes the owner of the plaza removes the sculpture before school starts next month.

“There are 1000 kids in the school that are going to be exposed to it,” he said. “It’s vile and offensive, and kids have no business seeing what God thought fit to hide from our eyes.”

No word yet from local government officials, who apparently have their hands full with other depictions of human reality in art.³

—

1. No one ever reads the footnotes.
2. Photo by Schnitzel
3. To paraphrase someone who eventually saw what I’m doing here, I’m not exactly satirizing the people who wanted to ban the naked sculpture (it’s not like they’re not easy targets anyway), I’m instead targeting the people who think that banning nudity is okay, but at the same time find the banning of a DNA sculpture to be over the line. I’m ultimately asking what the difference is. What rational standard could exist that would warrant perpetuating the right not to be offended by exposure of human flesh, but would prohibit that right not to be offended with regard to the building blocks that make up that very same flesh? At the same time, I’m chiding the so-called skeptical audience for not holding my article to reasonable skeptical standards that they’d apply, say, on religious, psychic, or other websites. Yes, it reads like news, but even reliable sources have their significant flaws (or, in this case, satirists). See my relevant article for more clarification and to learn how I got spanked by the Poe Monkey, too.

Some call him sick for collecting such things. Some feel he should be locked up. They feel that sick things should be prohibited. What is this really a case about? Sexuality? Pedophilia? Puritanism? Regardless, there has been an uproar in the comic book community, and the point I made last December is being reiterated.⁴ My “underage” stick-figure sex depiction (daring someone to prosecute me) has been, in a variety of ways, repeated.⁵

Where’s the victim? The ink? The paper? Are the prosecutors the type of people who believe that fictional characters have feelings or rights? And why isn’t everyone who has a copy of Nabokov’s Lolita (in book or movie form, or, heck, is there a graphic novel?) currently being prosecuted? Heck, why isn’t the government clamping down on Amazon and Barnes & Noble for selling both artistic and literary depictions of underage sex, rape, and torture? If you think it doesn’t exist, if you think it’s not purchasable by the general public, perhaps you’re the myopic kind of person who would cheer to see Handley thrown in jail while you simultaneously forgive the Catholic Church for harboring men who actually stuck their penises in the mouths and anuses of the innocent boys in their care.

Was that statement too obscene for you? Funny, because it really happened to real children by real priests (and lots of other people who don’t even know what Manga is). Why on earth would a man like Handley, who merely possessed drawings of things you don’t like, be subjected to more years in prison than the men who perform the acts you cannot bear to read upon REAL CHILDREN? That, not Handley, is what is disgusting in this society and world. Perhaps if Handley suddenly found Jesus he would be treated with real justice in a nation that touts its freedom of thought while failing to practice what it preaches.

Worth reading is the BoingBoing post about Handley’s unfortunate situation. Also some of the comments are right on target, and I’m going to quote a few of my favorites right here:

-verde-

Thought Police at the door sir:

-Have you ever in your head pictured an infant being raped?

-No.

-Not even now that we brought up the subject?

-Well, mmm I guess so.

-Could you come with us?

—

-spazzm-

And who exactly decides what is artistic or immoral?

Erotica is artistic, porn is immoral, smut is illegal.
Erotica is what excites me, porn is what excites you, smut is what excites them.

—

-anonymous-

One of the questions I have is why the assumption is that such content serves the sole purpose of titillation or arousal for the reader. Yes, its principle intent may be that, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the reader views it that way. I have books of Toshio Saeki’s work that I have brought back from Europe in the last ten years (and not without concern they would be confiscated at customs or worse). His work is *extremely* difficult to look at, and often incorporates children in sexual situations with adults. I do not find this at all arousing, and in fact, I find it shocking and disturbing. But I find his work incredibly beautiful, challenging and it inspires me to ask questions of myself as I look at it. So, where is that part of it? We must be allowed to examine the work of others that we ourselves may not agree with or even like…And I don’t want to live in a world where we’re not allowed to express even the darkest parts of our psyche…which no one is above. Some just keep it to themselves better than others.

Spare the whole “it inspires others to act”. Pete Townsend has a quote about that.

Then there’s that whole problem of suppressing thoughts and artistic expression. You know. That kinda poses ongoing problems. Telling people what they can / can’t think / express / consider doesn’t really work so great.

And, I highly agree with what was said earlier about cultural misunderstandings related to the taboo depiction of pubic hair making these characters appear to be children.

This is tragic. Very scary, very sad that he pled guilty without proper counsel. (I’m a mid-30’s white female, btw).

—

-anonymous-

Wow. I guess I better get ready for prison. I drew a picture of myself having sex with a cartoon girl (…after cutting her cartoon head off). By this standard, I’m guilty of sex crimes against children. I didn’t even get to “play doctor” as a kid.

If we really wanted to protect children, the US Catholic Church should be (temporarily) shut down and have all the clergy FBI checked and registered (fingerprints and DNA, you pervy bastards). Let’s start with the real criminals. Remember the psychologist in Happiness who was a pedophile? He jerked himself off to a male teen magazine in the back of his car (one of my all-time favorite cringe comedy moments). Those are the PEOPLE you should be worried about having pictures fuel their desire. It won’t be the loli.

I am a victim of child sexual abuse in two ways. I was abused as a teen, and my first attempt at intercourse was destroyed by my adult partner’s sobs of physical and psychological pain. She had been raped as a young girl. I carried that crushing guilt with me for several years after that.

Show me comics/drawings of someone’s fantasy/nightmare of raping and killing children, I may enjoy it. I may abhor it. I might fantasize about killing the person who made it. I might masturbate to it and cry afterward. In the privacy of my home and in my mind, I should be able to do anything I want with it.

Should I go to jail for thoughts?

In the meantime, I’m going to be renaming all of my folders “midget porn.”

—

-Redsquares-

In other news, millions arrested for owning copies of Gauguin’s works and early sketches.

I’d hate to see what happens to Scheile collectors.

God dammit, under this sort of law, my paper on Bellmer I wrote for art history is enough to throw most of that class in jail. Dude drew bisected nude girls, in a clearly sexualized nature. Damn good drawings, aesthetically and technically: well done, good composition, and were done to fuck with the Nazis to boot, but still… what does that prove?

It’s obvious you are a sick fuck, no matter what the hell you do. Someone, somewhere, is against it for the pure purpose of being against it, the only question is: can they convince others to be against it too?

—

-blueelm-

What a strange situation. It was my understanding that the posession of photographic child pornography was illegal because it encouraged the assault and mistreatment of the children in the picture. In other words it is documentation of abuse.

It is a strange and tough argument about manga and I don’t know exactly how I feel, but while our children are fetishised to a large degree in the US there is a distinction between a predatory pedophile, your nasty uncle, and people who collect drawings of little girls being split in half by squid with hardware. I’m not sure that the latter influences the former, as the person molesting one’s child is more likely to be a good friend or spouse than a sexually-frustrated comic collector.

I think the Gacey clown of pain model sticks in people’s heads, but remember that he actually interacted with kids… not drawings of them. Secondly while we may be stigmatizing our kids by putting them in beauty pageants and American Apparel ads, the objective of some one who compulsively rapes small children is not to worship the adult-like beauty of a little girl but rather to have sex with her because it fufuls a compulsive need. As far as sympathy for them, I’m not sure about these teach-a-lesson type laws, but I see no problem with confining a serious enough offender from the rest of society, but some one with some drawings? Really?

By the same token it makes me sad that there is probably some one who has actually raped a little girl who will serve less jailtime than this guy will for having some troubling drawings. As far as the drawings, as an artist, I can’t help but think that these things must be tolerated.

—

Okay, that’s enough for now. Check out the BoingBoing comment thread and KOS for a lot more on both sides of the issue.

If you have some extra money, donate it to CBLDF. If you know someone who is about to get in trouble for possessing cartoons (or a book, etc.), refer the person to CBLDF and the ACLU.

1. “Comics and print cartoons (sometimes also called komikku コミック), in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 20th century.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga
2. Here’s a link via Wired of his actual plea agreement. I think he screwed himself.
3. I’m sure that statement will get some unwanted Google hits to my blog.
4. If you missed it, the argument was about Lisa Simpson, the cartoon character, being depicted in sexual situations, and a law in Australia was being applied. My earlier article also referred to the U.S. Protect Act and related laws that have arisen in the Handley case.
5. No, I’m not taking credit for it, but I did post it in December, damnit!

You are a moron, with your liberal anti-Christian views, and you’d better shut your site down, or I’m going to find you and your family and I’m going to crack your skull with a baseball bat and mutilate your family.

Signed,
Hypothetical

Yes, fortunately this is still a hypothetical situation for me, but it’s certainly real enough for a number of rational activists out there, including, fairly recently, PZ Myers, a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris, who blogs at Pharyngula.¹ On July 13, PZ Myers received an email with the subject line: “your short life.” The sender went on to state that if PZ Myers did not cease and desist his job (for the sake of his children), the PZ Myers would get his “brains beat in.”²

I’m not going to bother addressing the fact that someone who purports to follow a higher spiritual code is threatening the life of someone (and his kids) who follows a code of reason. Instead, I’d like to cite a few more examples, and then ask the readers if anyone else has had similar experiences, what have they done in those situations, and what can be done if we ever find ourselves in such a situation.

Before I jump into other examples, I’ll give some closure to the PZ Myers issue. First of all, PZ Myers made it quite clear that he reserved the right to post any emails (in full, with metadata) that contain threats of violence. What, pray tell, must have someone endured to require such a disclaimer! Word got around, and AIGBusted, from Answers in Genesis Busted, sent an email to the threatener’s employer³ (since the email threat was sent from a work address). It turns out that the threatener, Melanie Kroll, who, ironically, worked for 1-800-Flowers, was fired over the matter.⁴ Although it’s unknown how many readers possibly sent similar emails, AIGBusted appropriately feels no guilt over the firing. “I don’t feel guilty about reporting her. I think it is important for atheists to realize that large numbers of us wield a fair amount of power in these situations.”⁵

Apparently that is true. We have shown that we have the ability to do more than just sit idly by, wondering how valid a threat is. But how many of us (and by us, I mean anyone in the non-believing, rational, atheist, etc., community) are actually being threatened, how consistently, and, most importantly, how viable are these threats?

Where to begin? Of course, with the blog post that prompted Melanie Kroll’s threat.

July 12, 2008:
PZ Myers wrote, in a blog entry: “Christian Lunatics Issue Death Threats Over a Cracker… Unlike those nutty Muslims who are always taking offense over cartoons, these people have serious grievances.” And went on to describe and criticize the overreaction by the Catholics, media, and others, to Webster Cook’s forcible removal of The Body of Christ from a church.⁶ Accused of having “kidnapped” the equivalent of Jesus Christ, Cook began receiving death threats shortly after the media exploded the issue beyond repair, and PZ Myers, in turn, received a death threat for reporting about it. (Yes, I’m anxiously anticipating my day in the sniper scope.)

July 17, 2007:

Professors in Colorado Receive Death Threats for Teaching Evolution
Letters from a Christian extremist last week threatened the lives of evolution biology professors at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The letters claimed to be on behalf of a group, but newspapers and at least one blog have reported that an individual, Michael Korn, a Jew-turned-Christian extremist, is likely behind the threats (an image from his web site is at right). CU police spokesman Brad Wiesley told me they haven’t officially named a suspect but the Colorado Daily wrote that others “close to the case” named Korn.⁷

July 7, 2007:
J.K. Rowling announces the end of her beloved Harry Potter series of books, indicating that although it was a wonderful experience for her, there was a darker side to writing something Christians didn’t agree with: “Rowling says her success has been “the experience of a lifetime.” But it also has brought an intense level of pressure, scrutiny and criticism. In the United States, her book tours have attracted thousands of screaming children, but also death threats. Some Christians have called for the books to be banned, claiming they promote witchcraft.”⁸

March 28, 2008:
“Popular video site LiveLeak have been forced to remove the controversial film critical of Islam FITNA [by Geert Wilders⁹] after it received death threats from primitive, violent intolerant muslims.”¹⁰ Both Geert Wilders and some LiveLeak staff received a variety of threats of death and violence.

July, 2008:
Army Spc. Jeremy Hall’s “sudden lack of faith, he said, cost him his military career and put his life at risk. Hall said his life was threatened by other troops and the military assigned a full-time bodyguard to protect him out of fear for his safety.”¹¹

June, 2002:
Michael Newdow, a TIME Person of the Week, received multiple death threats for his attempt to challenge the constitutionality of the “under God” phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance, which was recited every morning at his daughter’s public school. ¹² (As a side note, I met Mr. Newdow during that time period, and heard him discuss his various issues. He has also advocated for the removal of “In God We Trust” from U.S. currency,¹³ and he has won the Freethought Hero Award.¹⁴ )

October, 2006:
Robert Redeker is “a writer and high school philosophy teacher who has been under police protection and in hiding with his family since the newspaper Le Figaro published his op-ed piece about Islam on Sept.19. Entitled “Faced with Islamist intimidations, what should the free world do?”" “Redeker writes that he and his family are being forced to move every two days. “I’m a homeless person,” he complains. “I exercised a constitutional right, and I’m being punished for it right here on the territory of the Republic.” Redeker is only the latest in a lengthening list of Europeans who have been subjected to death threats from Muslims outraged by criticism of their faith and prophet.”¹⁵

1988:
Salman Rushdie had a fatwa issued against him for his publication of The Satanic Verses.¹⁶

November, 2004:
Mohammed Bouyeri shot Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film director and critic of Islam, eight times, killing him, and then nearly decapitated him by cutting his throat. Then Bouyeri stabbed van Gogh in the chest. A few weeks prior to the murder, Imam Fawaz of the as-Sunnah Mosque in The Hague gave a sermon, calling van Gogh a “criminal bastard” and beseeching Allah to inflict an incurable disease upon him. ¹⁷

These examples are frightening and real, and they can all be Googled rather easily. But are the numbers of threats against the rational much higher? Have you ever received a threat of violence, death, or other retaliatory act for something you’ve done or that you’ve believed in? Please share!

If you’ve received a threat, did you take it seriously? How did you react to it? (did you reply, post the message, contact the authorities?) Regardless of whether you’ve received a threat, do you have any advice or suggestions for those who do?

Is this a trend we should be worried about?

1. Pharyngula, “Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal.” http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/
2. http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/mail_dump.php
3. Did I Get a Woman Fired? Answers in Genesis Busted. http://aigbusted.blogspot.com/2008/07/did-i-get-woman-fired.html
4. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/071608-woman-fired-over-death-threat.html
5. http://aigbusted.blogspot.com/2008/07/did-i-get-woman-fired.html
6. Christian Lunatics Issue Death Threats Over a Cracker, AlterNet. http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/91269/
7. Professors in Colorado Receive Death Threats for Teaching Evolution, Wired.com. http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/07/professors-in-c.html
8. Rowling bids her boy wizard goodbye, USATODAY.com. http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2007-07-19-rowling-potter_N.htm
9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geert_Wilders
10. LiveLeak Remove “Fitna” After Death Threats, GBG Atheist News. http://godbegone.blogspot.com/2008/03/liveleak-remove-fitna-after-death.html
11. Atheist soldier sues Army for ‘unconstitutional’ discrimination, CNN.com. http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/07/08/atheist.soldier/index.html
12. Person of the Week: Michael Newdow. http://www.time.com/time/pow/article/0,8599,266658,00.html
13. Michael Newdow’s “In God We Trust” Lawsuit Dismissed, Austin’s Atheism Blog. http://atheism.about.com/b/2006/06/13/michael-newdows-in-god-we-trust-lawsuit-dismissed.htm
14. Freethought Hero Award, Freedom From Religion Foundation. http://ffrf.org/awards/special/2004_newdow.php
15. Did a Critic of Islam Go Too Far?, TIME.com. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1541776,00.html?cnn=yes
16. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salman_Rushdie
17. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_van_Gogh_%28film_director%29

I live in Ann Arbor, a nice quiet college town where liberals are outspoken and reasonable people can comfortably discuss any and all controversial thoughts in public without fear of retribution. Bush supporters might disagree with me, but I think they like to feel persecuted when their mindless rotted brains see anything but highest praise for their fearful leader. I digress. I was quite pleased, though not surprised, to see one of our local events rags, Current, do a fun story for the December Issue on the pagan origins of Christmas. The free publication also highlighted several non-Christian events surrounding the Solstice.

The January edition, not surprisingly, had one of those hilariously over-the-top letters to the editor in outraged reaction. It must be rough for someone with a martyr complex and a remote stuck on Fox news to find a reason to freak out. I like to imagine the steam coming out of their ears and the one thought rattling around in those vacant heads of theirs as they wrote the following:

“BRING JESUS BACK!

We have seen in your advertising that you do not use the word “Christmas” and instead refer to some non-descript “Holiday”, even though 96 percent of all U.S. adults celebrate Christmas, and even 84 percent of those who claim to be non-Christians celebrate this religious holiday (Gallup Poll, December 2005). You use the word “Holiday” but superimpose images of Christmastime with it; you’re not fooling anyone into thinking that you’re not actually referring to Christmas. Your taking of a sacred holiday and ripping Christ’s name out of it, turning it into nothing more than a secular, pagan, materialistic occasion where the almighty dollar reigns supreme, is highly offensive. Your hatred of Christ and Christians is evident in your refusal to use His name, and we clearly see your bigotry.

We have not yet been a customer of yours, however due to your prejudicial, anti-Christian business practices, we refuse to patronize your business until you reverse your decision to discriminate against Christians.

-Allan and Jodi Fredrickson, Adrian Michigan.”

Oh, my how I laughed. That is so cute! I love it when they get all furious and illogical. I don’t know what’s funnier, their ignorance of the obvious etymology of the word “Holiday” (Holy Day, duh), the robotic obedience to sputtering windbag Bill O’Reilly, or their hyperbolic characterization of this cute lil’ townie mag as “Christ-hating”.

The editor’s response was fabulous, by the way:

“EDITOR’S NOTE: Thanks for your comments, Mr. and Mrs. Fredrickson. Hope you had a happy holiday.”

The only thing that surprises me is that a quick internet search didn’t turn up a word-for-word template of this idiotic screed. Something about the vagueness of the letter tells me that Allan And Jodi sent this letter to everyone on this list, too.

***********************************************************************

Next, here’s a nice post I ran across on LiberalAtheist: [reposted with permission] ¹ The other day I came across this page with a HUGE list of reasons a person may be a “fundy atheist”. I found it to be humorously ignorant starting with “fundy atheist”. An atheist simply lacks a belief in a god or gods. We have no set of principles we deem necessary to follow.Anyway I picked some of them from the Origins section which argues science and responded below in bold…You may be a fundy atheist if….

# You believe that planes, computers, calculators, compasses, etc, were “all obviously designed,” yet the human body, being intricately more complex was “obviously a product of biological evolution.” It seems the more complex the apparatus, the more obvious the “fact” that it was not designed.

You’re kidding right? Man-made non-living objects like the ones you mention here are incapable of cellular replication and incapable of sexual reproduction and therefore incapable of evolving. There’s no basis of comparison. You know how when someone makes an ignorant argument and you say “You’re comparing apples to oranges”? Well you’re not even doing that…you’re comparing apples to tennis balls.

# You claim that evolution and the big bang are two entirely separate theories that explain different aspects of the universe, yet, in what school of learning can you find any real separation or distinction between the two?

They ARE separate theories. The “Big Bang” is what is known as abiogenesis. That involves the study of cosmology and chemistry. Evolution involves the study of biology. You guys mistake that because you assume that chicken came before the egg and therefore you can’t understand the concept of the egg without the chicken.

# As a member of the Skeptic’s Society you pride yourself on being skeptical of extraordinary claims. You also pride yourself on silencing everyone who is skeptical of the extraordinary claims of evolution.

We don’t try to silence you. You can shout your ignorance from rooftops for all we care. You’re the one that looks foolish. Evolution isn’t an “extraordinary claim”. It’s an accepted scientific theory and fact. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a scientific theory is “a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.” No amount of validation changes a theory into a law, which is a descriptive generalization about nature. So when scientists talk about the theory of evolution–or the atomic theory or the theory of relativity, for that matter–they are not expressing reservations about its truth.

In addition to the theory of evolution, meaning the idea of descent with modification, one may also speak of the fact of evolution. The NAS defines a fact as “an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as ‘true.’” The fossil record and abundant other evidence testify that organisms have evolved through time. Although no one observed those transformations, the indirect evidence is clear, unambiguous and compelling.

# Isaac Newton does not count as an example of a great scientist who believed in the Bible since he died before the Origin of Species was published.

Why should we care if he believed in ancient fairytales of a supernatural power or not? He’s a great scientist simply because he is credited with the discovering the theory of gravity. We don’t make any claims that he had anything to do with the theory of evolution or abiogenesis although gravity itself is related to abiogenesis. Newton just wasn’t aware of that because those theories weren’t presented til after his death.

# When you watch a punt returner run a 93 yard touchdown, you marvel at what evolution has done for the human race. But when someone gets cancer, you blame God for it.

Go look up “atheist” in a dictionary. Atheists do NOT believe in any god or gods. We can’t blame something on a supernatural being that we don’t even believe exists in the first place. We know that cancers are caused by such things as chemical carcinogens, ionizing radiation, infectious diseases, hormonal imbalances, immune system dysfunction, and hereditary.

# You descended from apes.(Think about it.)

For someone who criticizes evolution you sure don’t know much about it. I’ll have the Scientific American field this one for me: “This surprisingly common argument reflects several levels of ignorance about evolution. The first mistake is that evolution does not teach that humans descended from monkeys; it states that both have a common ancestor.

The deeper error is that this objection is tantamount to asking, “If children descended from adults, why are there still adults?” New species evolve by splintering off from established ones, when populations of organisms become isolated from the main branch of their family and acquire sufficient differences to remain forever distinct. The parent species may survive indefinitely thereafter, or it may become extinct.”

If you research the subject from respected scientific sources you’d know this stuff. We share genetic markers in our DNA with every living organism on the planet. Apes and other primates are simply our closest “cousins”.

# You think that humans are products of chance but when it comes to human reason we can believe in logic! (Think about it !)

More ignorance about evolution. Humans are not products of “chance”… it’s Natural Selection. No scientist would claim we are products of chance.

# You love to castigate Christians for being “anti-science” if they deny evolution from goo to you via the zoo, and to preach that they should adapt their thinking to the “science” of our day. But you also castigate the Church of 400 years ago for being anti-science, when it DID adapt its thinking to the science of ITS day, i.e. Ptolemaic cosmology, then joined with the Aristotelian scientists of the universities in rejecting Galileo!

Wow you sure like wearing your ignorance as a badge of honor don’t you? Ptolemy and Aristotle were mainly philosophers who liked to dabble in science. Galileo who actually WAS a scientist was condemned by the church and imprisoned because he believed the earth is round and it revolved around the sun. Science has proven his theory correct. Now over 300 years later you are trying to hinder scientific advancement by denying the evidence of evolution. Why is it the church is always dragged kicking and screaming into scientific advancement?

# You think that some guy named “Dr Dino” with no scientific credentials represents mainstream Evangelical thinking and scholarship about evolution and creation, and thus by spending inordinate amounts of time attacking him you are somehow dismantling the arguments of scholarly dissenters from evolution, creationists with earned Ph. D.s in science, and of advocates of intelligent design.

Who cares if he’s your front runner or just another ignorant moron? No creationist regardless of their scientific background or education will ever be taken seriously in the scientific community because their outrageous claims based on ancient texts disagree with modern scientific facts. You may as well be arguing that the world is flat.

# You claim poker-faced that “social Darwinism” and its spawn of eugenics have absolutely no connection to the biological theories propounded by Charles Darwin in “On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life”

Eugenics is not related to natural selection. To think otherwise is just another example of ignorance. Forced breeding isn’t natural and even if it creates a stronger offspring than natural breeding there’s no telling what the ethical consequences of the practice would do in the future of the evolutionary process. It could very well be similar to inbreeding which is known to cause weaker offspring. Hitler tried to enforce this very practice with the support of the church during the Holocaust and create a “Master Race”. Such practices hinder evolutionary progress.

# You have recently stuck a Darwin fish on your car in the hopes the people with the Jesus fish on theirs will be offended.

We couldn’t care less if you are offended by us making our own statements, but if you are it’s actually funny because we aren’t offended by your Jesus fish… we just pity your ignorance.

# You also claim that not only is there no connection between Darwin’s theories and the doctrines of social Darwinism and eugenics (despite the fact that the term eugenics was coined and advocated by Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton, who acknowledged his debt to Origin), but that none of these philosophical positions have any connection to the modern fields of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology.

So someone’s cousin cashing in on his notoriety is evidence of a connection? Comparing eugenics to natural selection is like comparing rape to consensual sex. That’s about the only connection it shares.

# You can claim with as straight face on sites like Talk Origins that “Evolution does not have moral consequences” despite the fact that prominent evolutionary advocates like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett vehemently assert that evolution does transcend biology in a way that has a profound effects upon ethics.

Evolution itself doesn’t have moral consequences, but scientific advancements in genetics and biology could have scientists themselves doing research that has ethical concerns and also governments using scientific knowledge to do things that have ethical concerns with such ideas like eugenics for example. Those situations would have moral and ethical concerns, but not natural evolution left on it’s own.

# When the Pope says that God may have used evolution, he is an enlightened religious leader whom Christians should listen to. When the Pope preaches on the sanctity of human life from conception, and thus denounces abortion, he’s just a senile religious bigot who should keep his opinions to himself.

While I wouldn’t personally word it the way you just did here are you suggesting that we’re supposed to agree with everything the pope says? You’ve never disagreed with someone on one issue but agreed with them on another?

# Concerning the origins of life, you feel that though the chances of life forming without an intelligent creator are small it DID indeed happen that way. And yet you don’t believe me when a rock, coming from my direction, hits you in the back of the head and I tell you, “I didn’t throw it. There was a sudden shift in the earth’s gravitational pull and the rock levitated into your head…Sure the chances are small but it DID happen that way.”

Wow your ignorance knows no bounds does it? First of all there is absolutely NO scientific evidence supporting Intelligent Design… there’s PLENTY of scientific evidence supporting evolution. Your little rock example further shows your ignorance because such a gravitational shift could only be caused by something like the earth being knocked out of orbit or the speed of the earth’s rotation on it’s own axis changed. If the rock was affected every other living and non-living thing on the planet would also be affected and move it the same way.

# When you’re shown that your view of origins is silly, you can only respond, “Well…at least it’s better than believing in some invisible SKY DADDY!”

No one has shown me my views are silly. Evolution has been proven. Abiogenesis on the other hand is still a mystery although science has some ideas. Giving up on scientific research just to assume that a supernatural “God” was responsible would be scientifically irresponsible and would hinder scientific progress.

# When a Christian points out the impossibility of a biological system (or feature) forming by pure chance you accuse them of invoking a “God of the gaps”. YET, when you are asked how a particular feature could come about solely by chance you invoke “Evolution of the gaps” (i.e., we don’t know HOW but we do know that Evolution MUST have done it!)

And your point is??? Evolution has been scientifically proven. While we may not have found the “B” that links “A” and “C” together we DO know that the link is evolutionary and we aren’t giving up til we find the link. You creationists want to label it with “God” and forget about it without any further research or investigation. If you could prove it to be God without pointing to a 2000 year old bible and back it up with scientific evidence that would be different.

# You claim antibiotic-resistant bacteria is proof protozoa evolved into a person.

Science has discovered that some bacteria has evolved from a strain that isn’t resistant to a new strain that is. This is proof of microevolution. There’s a huge evolutionary gap between a protozoa and a human being, but it’s simply millions if not billions of years of microevolutionary changes creating a more complex and environmentally adaptable species and that species evolving and adapting into another and so on until a human being evolved. Because the process took millions or billions of years it would be impossible to recreate it in a laboratory environment within one human lifetime, but we can observe the evidence in biology and in studying fossils… among other things. While we are unable to show the exact evolutionary path of a protozoa evolving into a human we can reach that conclusion based on the facts we already know about evolution.

# You insist that science is completely partial to all ideas, is not dogmatic and researches all possibilities — except creationism and/or intelligent design.

As Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace said to Napoléon Bonaparte when asked about where God fit into his equations of celestial mechanics, “Sire I have no need of that hypothesis.”

I’ll have the Scientific American field this one for me, too.

In contrast, intelligent-design theorists invoke shadowy entities that conveniently have whatever unconstrained abilities are needed to solve the mystery at hand. Rather than expanding scientific inquiry, such answers shut it down. (How does one disprove the existence of omnipotent intelligences?)

Intelligent design offers few answers. For instance, when and how did a designing intelligence intervene in life’s history? By creating the first DNA? The first cell? The first human? Was every species designed, or just a few early ones? Proponents of intelligent-design theory frequently decline to be pinned down on these points. They do not even make real attempts to reconcile their disparate ideas about intelligent design. Instead they pursue argument by exclusion–that is, they belittle evolutionary explanations as far-fetched or incomplete and then imply that only design-based alternatives remain.

Logically, this is misleading: even if one naturalistic explanation is flawed, it does not mean that all are. Moreover, it does not make one intelligent-design theory more reasonable than another. Listeners are essentially left to fill in the blanks for themselves, and some will undoubtedly do so by substituting their religious beliefs for scientific ideas.

Time and again, science has shown that methodological naturalism can push back ignorance, finding increasingly detailed and informative answers to mysteries that once seemed impenetrable: the nature of light, the causes of disease, how the brain works. Evolution is doing the same with the riddle of how the living world took shape. Creationism, by any name, adds nothing of intellectual value to the effort.

# You claim Creationists don’t research on evolution websites before debating against it. Luckily you caught this useful weapon against Christians at the evolution site you learned all about creation doctrine from.

I’ve been to creationist websites. They’re really good for when you need a good laugh. Like for instance the creationist claim that dinosaurs lived among humans and were plant eaters… Yet T-Rex had 6 inch razor sharp teeth. I’m sure he really needed those for eating grass and leaves. Modern plant eating animals don’t have the teeth of predator. Every animal that preys on another for food does have sharp teeth. Another silly creationist idea is that the earth is only about 10,000 years old which disagrees with modern science. But the toughest thing to swallow is that everything can be explained by a supernatural “God”, yet failing to explain where the god itself came from. Creationism will never be taken seriously as science by the scientific community because it hinders scientific advancement. You may as well be claiming the earth is flat.

# You think that every scientist who believes in Creationism and doesn’t mindlessly accept evolution as a fact is a “kook,” but you believe that Francis Crick (Nobel Prize winning co-discoverer of DNA), who reached into his nether regions and pulled out the “theory” of Directed Panspermia (which states with absolutely no support that aliens seeded the earth with life – see the movie “Mission to Mars”), is a great evolutionist scientist.

He’s a great evolutionary scientist because he is credited with the discovery of DNA. Directed Panspermia is not a widely accepted scientific theory, but it IS more logical than the idea of a supernatural god creating life. If there is life on this planet it’s logically possible that there is life on another planet. Scientists aren’t actively pursuing that hypothesis of Directed Panspermia for the same reasons they aren’t pursuing your creationist theory, because there is currently no evidence of alien life just like there’s no evidence of your god.

# When a creationist points out problems with the evolutionist model you claim that the whole point of science is to answer problems like these. But if you can point out even one problem in the creationist model it should instantly be abandoned as absurd.

Because unlike creationism, evolution actually has evidence to back it up that isn’t found in an ancient text. Modern science can’t take it seriously because during the time period your bible was written humans lacked the modern technology and scientific knowledge that humans have today. Studying creationism would be like asking your great-grandfather who has been blind from birth how to search for and download music onto an MP3 player or set up and run a DVD player. Creationism is about as satisfying as a starving child would be if you handed him a plate with a sheet of paper on it that has the word “food” written on it.

# You won’t bet $10 on the football game because a 50/50 chance isn’t good enough, but you have no problem gambling with your life on the nearly impossible odds of a cell randomly generating from nothing.²

More creationist ignorance. Science doesn’t think that cells randomly generated from nothing. Science believes that life started by a chemical reaction.

# Engaging the “slippery slope” fallacy, you think you can invalidate the whole bible by discrediting Genesis, since ‘the whole bible either stands together or falls apart’. However, when a Creationist tries to invalidate the whole doctrine of naturalistic evolution by exposing the sheer improbability and lack of evidence of abiogenesis, you note this point as ‘irrelevant’.

This is because even tho we don’t know all the answers we desire to find them rather than give up and assume that God is the answer. Theology hinders the advancement of science. Beyond that you believe your bible to be the infallible omniscient word of your god. It’s a little frightening to have modern science shake the foundations of your indoctrinated religious beliefs isn’t it? If science proves their hypothesis of abiogenesis and macroevolution it would completely render your beliefs and theology obsolete. Pushing your creationist agenda isn’t about science and progress… it’s about fear. So you are all trying to discredit science to save your religion.

# You ignore “Time Magazine’s” poll, which states that only 28% of Americans believe in evolution. But of course, “Time Magazine” must been run by creationists.

The collective ignorance of the American public is hardly scientific proof of creationism. 75% of Americans are Christians and were indoctrinated from birth about the creationist fantasy. The poll doesn’t reflect the opinions of the educated scientific community. That poll would have much drastically different numbers. 99% of earth and life scientists agree with the theory of evolution.

# You think that if schools teach the Intelligent Design theory of creation,they should also teach the “stork theory” of where babies come from.

That’s called sarcasm.

# You demand that Christians study advanced evolutionary biology before making claims about natural selection. You then claim that their theological ideas, which you have never examined before, are pure nonsense.

Theology isn’t science.

***********************************************************************

And finally, have some peer pressure with cheese:Holy Crap

1. StOP made minor grammatical and layout edits
2. Ed’s note: Since when is a football game ever a 50/50 chance? Here, try an experiment: record a football game. Say, the Super Bowl. Find out which team won. Then review your recording of the game and try to spot all the “chances.” In other words, find every substantial, verifiable instance in which there was an exact 50/50 chance of something happening or not happening. If you approach it scientifically, you’ll probably find none. The reason? Factors. A field goal kick equation may start off looking like Kicker (K) plus Ball (B) equals (or does not equal) Goal (G). However, it’s easy to start adding to that equation with variables, or factors that influence the outcome. Wind direction and speed, moisture/condensation, turf/grass grip, brand of Kicker’s shoes, what Kicker had to drink the night before, whether Kicker had a cold, and the condition of the holder and the ball. Those are only a handful of the variables in a field goal kick, which is only a small part of a football game. How could anyone possibly believe there’s a 50/50 chance? Heck, even the flip of a coin, how simple it may appear, is never exactly 50/50 (especially in the hands of an expert). -Procrustes

Hubbard’s father was in the Navy, which allowed the family to travel often. Hubbard loved to share the stories of his travels, particularly of his time spent in the Far East between 1927 and 1929. His followers would later repeat, “Among other wonders, Ron told of watching monks meditate for weeks on end, contemplating higher truths … he befriended … a thoroughly insightful Beijing magician … Old Mayo was well versed in China’s ancient wisdom that had been handed down from generation to generation. Ron passed many evenings in the company of such wise men, eagerly absorbing their words … he closely examined the surrounding culture. … he spent time with nomadic bandits originally from Mongolia … [t]hese sojourns in Asia and the Pacific islands had a profound effect, giving Ron a subjective understanding of Eastern philosophy … the world itself was his classroom, and he studied in it voraciously, recording what he saw and learned in his ever-present diaries…”¹

These stories paint a picture of an open-minded young man, eagerly absorbing culture and philosophy, but his “ever-present diaries” tell a very different story. They make no mention of Old Mayo the Beijing magician or nomad bandits, and they contain no reflection on Eastern philosophy. Instead, there are entries such as: “As a Chinaman can not live up to a thing, he always drags it down.” and “They smell of all the baths they didnt [sic] take. The trouble with China is, there are too many chinks here.” He described the Tibetan Buddhist temples as “very odd and heathenish … miserably cold and very shabby … The people worshiping have voices like bull-frogs and beat a drum and play a brass horn to accompany their singing…”²

In 1933, Hubbard married Margaret “Polly” Grub, with whom he fathered two children. It was around this time that he began his career in writing, quickly becoming well-known in the science fiction, fantasy, and pulp fiction genres. In 1938, he wrote a letter to Polly reading, “I have high hopes of smashing my name into history so violently that it will take a legendary form, even if all the books are destroyed. That goal is the real goal as far as I am concerned.” After serving in the U.S. Navy in World War II, during which he was the subject of several negative reports,³ Hubbard abandoned his wife and children and married Sara Northrup. This was an act of bigamy, as he did not divorce his first wife for more than a year after he had remarried.⁴ Both women claim Hubbard physically abused them. When Sara filed for divorce in 1950, she accused Hubbard of kidnapping their baby daughter Alexis, and of “systematic torture, beatings, strangulations and scientific torture experiments.”⁵ Hubbard later disowned Alexis, claiming she was the child of his friend, Jack Parsons.

Jack Parsons was an aeronautics professor and an associate of British occultist Aleister Crowley. Hubbard and Parsons allegedly attempted to summon a goddess or “moonchild” in 1946 by practicing sex magic rituals called the Babalon Working. Hubbard later claimed he was on a mission to end Parsons’ practices in ritual magick and to “rescue” a girl being used in the rituals, who happened to be Sara Northrup, Hubbard’s second wife. Crowley’s notes at this time indicate that he considered Hubbard a “lout” who made off with Parsons’ money and girlfriend in an “ordinary confidence trick.”⁶

After his second divorce, Hubbard threw himself into his writings and in 1952, the same year he expanded Dianetics into Scientology, he married Mary Sue Whipp. They had four children together and remained married until Hubbard’s death in 1986, although they separated in the early 1970s. As Scientology grew in both numbers and controversy, Hubbard began to distance himself from the unwanted attention. In 1967, he resigned as executive director of the church and declared himself “Commodore” of a small fleet of ships, appointing a crew of Scientologists known as the “Sea Org.” He spent the next eight years sailing the Mediterranean Sea and being attended by teenage girls dressed in white hot pants, known as the “Commodore’s Messengers.” He was said to have had frequent screaming tantrums, and errant crew members were punished brutally through incarceration in the ship’s chain-locker for weeks at a time or through “overboarding,” in which they would be bound, blindfolded, and thrown into the sea. In a letter home to Mary Sue, he wrote, “I’m drinking lots of rum and popping pinks and greys…”⁷

After returning home and being weaned off a diet consisting almost entirely of drugs, he began to run into many legal difficulties, including accusations of espionage, conspiracy against the U.S. Federal government, and fraud through skimming millions of dollars from church accounts. In the mid-1970s Hubbard decided to end his life at sea, but covertly returned to the United States. He later retired to a ranch in California, where he began writing science fiction again in the 1980s. He died on his ranch at age 74, reportedly from a stroke. The official announcement of the Church of Scientology was that Hubbard had deliberately discarded his body to do “higher level spiritual research,” and was now living “on a planet a galaxy away.”⁸

-Laura

1. 1923-1929: On the road to discovery, L. Ron Hubbard: Shaping the 21st Century with Solutions for a Better World 1-2.
2. Miller, Russell. Bare-faced messiah: The true story of L. Ron Hubbard, 1987
3. Sappell, Joel; Welkos, Robert W.. “The Mind Behind The Religion“, Los Angeles Times
4. Atack, Jon (1990). A Piece of Blue Sky. New York, NY: Carol Publishing Group
5. Lattin, Don. “Scientology Founder’s Family Life Far From What He Preached”, San Francisco Chronicle, 2001
6. Scientology: A new light on Crowley, Sunday Times, December 28, 1969
7. L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman? Corydon
8. “The Making of L. Ron Hubbard,” Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1990