brainwagon

The intertubes are all a-twitter (is Twitter a-twitter?) with the video of what appeared to be a missile launch off the coast of Los Angeles yesterday. It did look pretty weird, but the evidence is mounting that this was not any kind of missile launch, but in fact just the contrails of flight AWE808 from […]

Today’s rant on the subject of Intelligent Design is going to be a little difficult to follow, so try to stick with me. Today, on the blog, Intelligent Design the Future, Jonathan Witt reports on “physicist” David Heddle’s critique of the late astronomer Carl Sagan. Actually, you can’t really call it a critique: it’s basically […]

I don’t know why Wesley Elberry’s weblog hasn’t gotten onto my reading list before, but today I found an interesting article detailing how ID luminary William Dembski decided to call the Department of Homeland Security on a scientists solely on the basis of the rather curious assertion of Forrest Mimms (yeah, the guy who wrote […]

As part of my usual scuffling around, reading about intelligent design, I ran across this article: Typical Objections to Intelligent Design by Bob Murphy which appears to be a sincere attempt by someone who doesn’t follow the issue of intelligent design very closely to make some sense out of the recent hullabaloo regarding it. He […]

The 137 page decision in the Kitzmiller case in Dover Pennsylvania has been handed down: Kitzmiller Decision: Plaintiffs Prevail The proper application of both the endorsement and Lemon tests to the facts of this case makes it abundantly clear that the Board’s ID Policy violates the Establishment Clause. In making this determination, we have addressed […]

Some of you may remember hearing the story about Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin punching some lunatic who was trying to badger him into swearing on the Bible that he really did land on the moon. That was Bart Sibrel, and he’s gonna be on the radio today to sell his brand of bullflop on 97.1 […]

I got a chuckle out of this. Anyone who looks to Kent Hovind as the intellectual juggernaut of Creationism is obviously about as smart as a bag of hammers. I mean really, be serious. Even that bastion of creationist confusion, Answers in Genesis has noted that many of Hovind’s arguments are simply untenable. Oh, and […]

If you can as well, try checking out this Open Letter to the Kansas school board who is struggling with the idea of teaching so-called “Intelligent Design Theory” in their science classes. I am writing you with much concern after I read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design to […]

Okay, okay, it’s not really a gem, except in the sense that it’s interesting to read an early example of utter and complete mumbo jumbo. Occult Chemistry, by Annie Besant and Charles W. Leadbeater is an extensive, detailed, and complete description of chemistry as revealed to the authors through clairvoyance. Published in 1919, the exact […]

Quote of the day: Ministry uses dinosaurs to dispute evolution “I consider Ken Ham the most informed creationist in America.” Jerry Falwell The very definition of damning with faint praise.

I’ll admit it: I love to argue about evolution and creationism. Actually, it’s not so much an argument, as no real rational argument in favor of creationism can be made. It’s really more of a desire to hitch creationism to the bumper of my car, and drag it through the mud. Call it a personal […]

MSNBC – Judge nixes evolution textbook stickers A federal judge Thursday ordered a suburban Atlanta school system to remove stickers from its high school biology textbooks that call evolution “a theory, not a fact,” saying the disclaimers are an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. The complete decision is here. The Judge claimed that the stickers failed […]

I haven’t done a movie review in quite some time, but I did manage to get out with my better half to see White Noise, starring actors Michael Keaton, Chandra West, Debra Unger and Ian McNiece. The film begins with the tragic death of author Anna Rivers under mysterious circumstances. Her husband, Jonathan Rivers, is […]

If you’d like to adopt a new quack persona on the Internet, you could always look at How to be an Internet Woo-Woo. Nobody acts this way except as a joke, right?

There is a saying on USENET: any sufficiently advanced parody is indistinguishable from real stupidity. (You could try looking at Korpela’s Laws of USENET for items in a similar vein.) It’s this basic idea that gives us the (not always so obvious) parody Landover Baptist Church. Or you could read about a brave paleontologist who […]