While Ben Stein and the producers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed have been busy spending millions of dollars to manufacture stories of individuals suffering personal trauma simply for accepting intelligent design, they (and their audiences) remain blissfully ignorant to the large numbers of people who have truly been harmed for accepting the scientific realities of evolution. Many of these people profess their own profound Christian faith, but have been penalized in their personal, professional and spiritual lives, sometimes for just suggesting that evolutionary theory might be compatible with a strong faith. The list here is long: Steve Bitterman (lost his teaching job for not teaching the story of Adam and Eve as literal truth); Alex Bolynatz (fired from a teaching position for claiming evolution and faith are compatible); Howard Van Till (subjected to four years of investigative inquiry for suggesting that biblical accounts were influenced by the cultures in which they had been written); Nancy Murphy (threatened with dismissal for writing a negative review of Philip Johnson’s book, Darwin on Trial); Gwen Pearson (forced to resign from teaching biology after being assaulted and receiving threats like “May Christians have the strength to slaughter you and end your pitiful, blasphemous life”); Chris Comer (forced to resign for simply forwarding an email announcing a Barbara Forrest public talk); Paul Mirecki (beaten and then forced to step down as department chair for proposing a class “Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies”); Erik Pianka (received death threats for suggesting human overpopulation was a threat to the planet); Judge John E. Jones (received death threats for referring to intelligent design as “breathtaking inanity” in his judgment of the Dover case); University of Colorado biology professors (received threats); Terry Gray (forced to recant after a negative review of Johnson’s book – apparently Philip Johnson can dish out the criticism but it too much of a coward to take it).

And what about Professor Richard Colling, a man of strong faith who claimed that one could still have a strong faith and believe in evolution? Colling has been barred from teaching biology and his book, Random Designer, has been banned from use on campus.  I have been in communication with Richard Colling on and off over the last year. He has devoted his life and professional career to teaching sound science to the students of Olivete Nazarene University while fostering a strong faith that does not have to contradict our observations of the real world in order to be meaningful. His students adore him (several have contacted me with personal stories). He has fought a constant struggle with the administrators and “benefactors” of Olivete Nazarene over his name, his teaching career and his integrity both as a scientist and as a Christian.

He recently sent me several manuscripts recounting this episode, portions of which I may publish here in posts to come. However, I was struck more by his recent email to me. It reflects the exasperation and despair of a man who has been beaten down emotionally by a system of “Christian” morality more concerned with its own self-righteous welfare than with any philosophy Christ may have advocated. If there is a god, and if he is good and just and honest, then he must be taking Richard Colling’s side:

I am deeply saddened that the entire situation has come to this point of misrepresentation and organized attempts to discredit and malign my reputation. My heart has always been to offer a means to students and to the general public by which science and faith can be viewed as compatible. My faculty colleagues and students will attest that I have done this accurately, as well as faithfully and sensitively in the classroom and in my book, Random Designer. Yet sadly the university leadership, without willingness to accept responsibility for questionable actions and misleading communications, has apparently chosen to ignore these facts. I have discovered that some of the most fundamental voices in the Christian church and culture only want war, and seemingly will stop at nothing to discredit/destroy anyone who understands the biology/evolution and makes an intellectually honest attempt to communicate peace between Biology and the Bible. This grieves me deeply.

Expelled has fabricated suffering in order to fulfill an all out war on intellectual and spiritual freedom while the same cheerleaders of this movie ignore the true pain and suffering this theological elitism causes. My thoughts go to Richard.

This is one of the reasons why, despite my general foray around the margins of atheism, I still keep reading those with a more spiritual bent then myself, such as James McGrath: I need to get this book. It is not that my atheism/spirituality is absolute, it that it is complex – I cannot abide by simple black-and-white answers to larger problems. And my beef with theism is not its spirituality, it is that it is far too simplistic (in all its varieties) to be credible. If there is anything out there, it is far more complex and magnificent than any Iron-Age text:

I concur absolutely with Comte-Sponville’s challenge to take the world seriously, and even give the evidence from it priority over sacred texts in important respects. “The world is far more interesting to me than the Bible or the Koran,” Comte-Sponville writes. “It is far more mysterious than they are. It is vaster, since it contains them; more unfathomable; more astonishing; more stimulating, since we can transform it, whereas the holy books are reputed to be untouchable; and, last but not least, it is truer, because it is entirely true, something the Bible and the Koran, with all their inanities and inconsistencies, could never be, except insofar as they are part of the world (there is nothing inconsistent about a human text being inconsistent” (Comte-Sponville, pp.103-104).

Now THAT’s spirituality…

Intelligent Design proponents misappropriating archaeological method and theory as support for their own positions is not the only problem professional archaeology faces today with regard to the creationist crowd. Unfortunately, the issue that Eric Cline has raised regarding the impact of “faux archaeologists” claiming archaeological expertise where none exists should be equally of concern to those of us managing public lands archaeology. Federal archaeologists have done a wonderful job of providing opportunities for the public to volunteer alongside professional archaeologists, but I’m afraid that archaeology’s greatest public benefit may also be one of its greatest weaknesses. I see two problems here: the first is a tendency among “Christian” volunteers on archaeological excavations in the Middle East to return to the United States and then use this limited experience as justification for speaking to public audiences about the nature of archaeological research.  This is not just about the “high profile” faux archaeologists like Cornuke. It’s about a lot of “creation research” faux archaeologists who go to the Holy Land, work on a couple of excavations, and then list these experiences in their online resumes as proof of their professional credentials. The second problem, I believe is more egregious: national antiquity agencies, specifically the Israeli Antiquities Authority, are either turning a blind eye to this problem or is actively providing opportunities for non-professionals (specifically pro-Zionist Christian professionals…there, I said it) to gain a measure of professional respectability that is undeserved.

I had to clarify to my audience on Friday that I did not mean to cast dispersions on archaeology volunteer programs in general , only that the potential problems with volunteers starting to portray themselves as professionals in the field is starting to be a problem here, on public land, and we should begin to think about it. I DID NOT say, although in retrospect I probably should have, that I believe this problem stems solely from the way the Israeli Antiquities Authority appears to conduct business, and does not appear to be a problem with volunteer archaeology projects in general.

Some excerpts from my paper:

[I started writing this in the airport yesterday, but then got to experience all the joys of flight cancellation everyone else in the country has had to put up with over the last few months - it was a long trip back to northern California].

Discussions around the bar last night in the aftermath of my paper were all positive. What surprised me the most were the number of archaeologists who expressed the idea that “it was about time” we got involved in this debate. Several said it was long overdue. The current SCA president also attended the symposium, heard my paper, and liked the message.  Unfortunately several agreed that there are probably more intelligent design proponents within the crowd than we realize – I knew of at least one in the audience yesterday, just based on casual conversations I have had with this person over the years.

I am at the Society for California Archaeology meetings in sunny Burbank, CA this week. As I posted previously, I was working on something to be unveiled today, coinciding with the opening of Expelled. I gave folks a hint in the last post, by referring to the program for the SCA meetings. Anyone looking at that might have noted the following paper being presented in the symposium entitled Public Lands Archaeology: 35 Years of Cultural Resources Management on Bureau of Land Management and US Forest Service Public Lands:

Of Turkeys, Timber Sales and Intelligent Design: Is Federal Archaeology More than CRM? Christopher O’Brien, Lassen National Forest

I gave that paper this afternoon, noting during the presentation the irony of it being given on the same day Expelled is set to open. I even showed the Expelled movie poster for a moment, but then switched to a slide of the Expelled Exposed website, suggesting that the audience would not want to look at Ben Stein’s face for too long. The main thrust of the paper was to suggest to my federal archaeology colleagues that we must do more than just “flag and avoid” archaeological sites. And while I talked about turkey historical ecology in California, the lack of knowledge most of the public has with regard to historical processes, and that federal archaeologists should take a more active role in public education regarding science education, the highlight was my assessment of archaeology’s role in the debate over Intelligent Design. Some excerpts from today’s paper:

I apologize for the blogging being a little light of late, but I’m trying to put the finishing touches on something that will be unveiled, coincidently, on the same day Expelled is supposed to premier across America (this Friday). I wish I could take credit for planning it that way, but it was just the nature of the scheduling.

The annual meetings for the Society for California Archaeology begin this Thursday (April 17) in Burbank, California. I’ll be flying down to attend. If you’re interested in the program for this year, you can download it at the SCA homepage. I’ll be blogging from the meetings.

Just about any argument against homosexuality can be considered theocratic in nature if not direct substance. The only reason for opposition to someone’s personal adult sexual preference is because of a religious stance on the issue. If you wish to live by your personal religious preferences, that’s fine, but your religion is no excuse for affecting the lives of others. Consider, for example, the latest flap over a lawmaker being allowed to take her lesbian spouse on a taxpayer-funded trip on a military flight:

A conservative group is calling on the Pentagon to apologize for its decision to permit a liberal lawmaker to take her homosexual partner on a taxpayer-funded trip overseas.

Politico.com reports Defense Secretary Bob Gates granted Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) a special exception to House rules so she could allow Lauren Azar, the same-sex partner of Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin), on a military flight for a congressional fact-finding trip to Europe. Baldwin and Azar reportedly “confirmed their commitment to each other” in 1998, and one news service says Azar is registered with the House as Baldwin’s spouse.

Peter LaBarbera, president of the group Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, is condemning the Pentagon’s accommodation of Baldwin. He says it is “outrageous” that the Pentagon gave in to Pelosi and the “homosexual agenda.”

LaBarbera’s tantrum no doubt results from his personal religious views, which have no place in dictating policy to the rest of us. (By the way, I remember Tammy Baldwin when she was just starting her political career in Wisconsin in the late 80s/early 90s when I was a graduate student there).

I’ll tell you how to solve this: ABSOLUTELY NO SPOUSES, heterosexual or otherwise, on tax-payer funded overseas trips.

Through Blog of The Airtightnoodle I came across this excellent post on the threat of creationism and intelligent design, not to science, but to faith. The author clearly understands the threat that the creationist/intelligent design fairytale poses to a child’s faith in the long run:

Those who are teaching their children using creationist curriculum are in particular danger of setting their children up for this fall. To see why, I’d like to offer a challenge. Take your child’s creationist materials and look at whatever footnotes and references are provided. Now take an evening and look up the names of the authors cited. Odds are excellent that virtually all of the authors are creationist scientists. Now, take the names of any mainstream scientists who are quoted or whose work is referenced and attempt to track down their work. Specifically, see if you can find the particular quotes used in your child’s materials. Google books can be a great way of doing this. Now, read through whatever you can find with an eye towards evaluating the accuracy of the quotes provided (ie are words changed, relevant sections replaced by “. . .”). Also try and honestly evaluate if the author of your child’s materials has accurately conveyed the substance of what the author is saying.

 If you drink, you may want to keep some strong drink nearby to sustain yourself during this process, because I promise you, you will not be happy with what you find. Unfortunately, the only way creationist materials are able to create the appearance of validity is by only referring to the work of “creation scientists” (who don’t do research, BTW. Their work is limited to analyzing the work of others to look for potential holes which might be able to be seen as supporting a creationist perspective. This is not science.). When creationist materials do refer to the work of mainstream scientists, conducting actual research, they almost uniformly misquote and misrepresent them. If you do not believe me, then take a weekend or two and do the research yourself. The internet is a wonderful tool.

 I posted this some time ago on my old blog, but I don’t think too many folks saw it. Basically, the argument is that Intelligent Design offers nothing in the way of research that would allow us to address issues of consequence in the modern world. If you are going to use intelligent design as your theoretical basis, then anything is possible and no real world applications of science can be generated. Natural resource management would come to a standstill if we did not have evolutionary theory upon which to hang management practices.

 Blogging will be light for the first part of this week. I’m going turkey hunting – the hunt will actually be filmed for an outdoor show and I’ll be interviewed about the research I’m doing on the historical ecology of wild turkeys in California.

More soon….