Sunday, September 9, 2012

#352: Jay Seegert and the cssmwi


John Scudamore, the guy who runs (and apparently believes everything written on) whale.to is British (Herefordshire), so unfortunately he has to be disqualified.

CSSMWI and its leader Jay Seegert are Milwaukee-based, however. CSSMWI stands for “Creation Science Society of Milwaukee”. Their website is here. Now, societies like cssmwi exist throughout the US and there is probably nothing particular about this one. This entry should thus stand as a representative for all such pockets of denialist lunacy anywhere.

In any case, CSSMWI is your typical Reversia stronghold where the idea of science is literal interpretation of the Bible and rejecting all evidence that cannot fit smoothly with the reading of the Bible that Seegert and his crew think best fit their preconceptions. They have helpful subsites on “Evolution is Religion, not science”, “Genomes project data indicate a young human race”, “radioisotope dating” (they have absolutely no clue) and the standard canards and fallacies generally promulgated on sites like this.

Jay Seegert is their ringleader; he is the President & Principal Lecturer for the Creation Education Center, as well as a national speaker for Creation Ministries International (the world’s largest creation organization). Yes, it’s all about lectures and reaching out to the children; the “research” part of science seems to have been lost on them: their website has a lot on Seegert’s background as a minister; none on his research work, rather unsurprisingly.

Their other speakers include:
- Keith A. Robinson, who’s written a novel about the origin of life and the universe as he sees it and is therefore a qualified researcher.
- Kitty Foth-Regner, whose scientific data for creationism comprise revelation, wishful thinking and appeal to emotion.
- Ken Bahr, high school teacher “prepared to teach your kids in church and at school”.
- Russ Hanson, who has a bachelor’s degree in science.
- Gary Locklair, a professor of Computer Science at Concordia University and probably the most dangerous of the lot.
- Jerry Frye, who is president of an employee benefit brokerage firm.
- Nathan Jastram, head of the Theology Department at Concordia University who has worked on the Dead Sea Scrolls, which “demonstrate the extreme accuracy of the copying of Biblical manuscripts, contrary to the assumptions of evolutionary scholars and others.” Yes, those dastardly evolutionary scholars; they always threaten to oppose Jastram’s firm confirmation bias.

Diagnosis: Overall, these people are actually really dangerous, and do a lot of harm by spreading denialism, ignorance and lies. There’s really nothing cute about them, despite their rather helpless take on reality.

4 comments:

  1. So Atheists, who believe Molecules to man evolution , do you guys believe that the faces on Mt Rushmore are the result of natural erosion with no intelligent input or do you guys just the believe the actual men brains bodies minds and all whose faces are displayed on Mt Rushmore are from totally natural causes with no intelligent input ?

    Have you guys ever actually thought about how absurd macro evolution is?

    How do you get truth without God? is like asking
    How do you breathe without air?

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    1. Well, your brain clearly has no intelligent input.

      Your Mount Rushmore analogy is just as retarded as the classic tornado in a junkyard bullshit.

      But I have a question for you: if evolution do NOT, in fact, take place, and your creation myth is in fact accurate, then why did your supposed god deliberately fabricate evidence to make it look like it did? Ie, why would he make creatures have anatomical and genetic similarities that make them look like they share a common ancestry? Why did he put in useless vestigial organs (like human tailbones, when humans don't have tails) that are shared with their presumed evolutionary ancestors? Why did he deliberately put in evidence (ie, radioactive decay, the speed of light, etc) that make the earth seem older than the bible says it is? Furthermore, if you intend to claim that your creation myth IS accurate, then you'll have to pick one, because Genesis 1 and 2 explicitly contradict each other.

      Interestingly, you're using Kent "Fucktard" Hovind's false micro- vs macro- evolution dichotomy, which basically amounts to claiming that while the former has been observed in laboratory conditions, the latter has not, and therefore isn't real (of course, your god claims haven't been observed, but I guess that doesn't matter when it's god, right?). This ignores two very important facts: one, this alleged "microevolution" is entirely consistent with the theory of evolution, and two, the only thing separating the two categories is the amount of time involved, which you lto hAve arbitrarily decided areally too long. So now I ask you: have you guys ever actually thought about how absurd an invisible wizard making a man out of dirt is?

      Oh and as for your comment about air... I think you'll find that millions of species of fish, mollusks, crustaceans, and assorted aquatic invertebrates manage to breathe just fine without ever poking their heads (for those species that have them) above the water's surface.

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  2. This entry is merely an awkward tantrum. If the writer truly knew much about physics, biochemistry, mathematics, probability statistics, & genetics it would clarify the fact: the theory that life accidentally generated from inanimate matter..then randomly mutated over time into the complex order of flora, fauna, and humans is as ridiculous as the old theory of Spontaneous Generation. Wake up.

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    1. I don't think *I* am the one who needs to read up on things.

      "then randomly mutated over time into the complex order of flora, fauna, and humans is as ridiculous as the old theory of Spontaneous Generation"

      But no one believes anything remotely resembling that, bstwc. The theory of evolution, for instance, says pretty much the opposite. You are not even trying to understand the theories you are rejecting, are you?

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