Today's lesson in history comes courtesy of Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything:

"One of Lenin's great achievements, in my opinion, is to create a secular Russia. The power of the Russian Orthodox Church, which was an absolute warren of backwardness and evil and superstition, is probably never going to recover from what he did to it."

Interview with PBS, 2005

Indeed. Some of Lenin's "great achievements" were the executions of 8.000 people who resisted his theft of church relics. To quote the great man himself: "[W]e can (and therefore must) pursue the acquisition of [church] valuables with the most ferocious and merciless energy, stopping at nothing in suppressing all resistance."

You know, before the New Atheists start comparing themselves to civil rights movements, they ought to confront the authoritarian tendencies displayed by some of its prominent spokesmen.

A group of radical creationists placed an explosive device under evolutionary biologist Arthur Rosenbaums car; a faulty fuse was the only reason it didn't go off. Pro-science blogs are roundly condemning this attack, which they claim is impeding scientific progress.

Nah, just kidding. In reality, Dr. Arthur Rosenbaum is a pediatric ophthalmologist using animals in his research at UCLA, and it was radical animal rights activists that placed a deadly explosive under his car. Oh yeah, and the reaction from the self-described "pro-science" blogs has been deafening silence.

It gets worse. A prominent spoksesperson of the violent animal rights-movement is Jerry Vlasak, a 49-year-old trauma surgeon working at several community hospitals. From the article:

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… if by "terrorism" you mean vague threats against no one in particular:

"There were no overt threats to anybody specifically by name," [police commander Brad] Wiesley said. "It basically said anybody who doesn't believe in our religious belief is wrong and should be taken care of."

In case you read this post, expecting to see something about real terrorism, here's a little story, from less than two weeks ago:

Animal-Rights Militants Say They Put Bomb Under UCLA Scientist's Car

In another attempted attack on a UCLA professor by animal-rights extremists, federal and local authorities are investigating the placement of a bomb on Sunday under a car belonging to an eye researcher at the university. The explosive failed to detonate, according to today's Los Angeles Times. The incident resembles one last summer, in which activists claimed to have tried to bomb the residence of another researcher at the University of California at Los Angeles. That explosive also failed to blow up, and it was left at the wrong house in any event.

Several readers have written and alerted me to a statement released by something called the Council of Europe, titled "The dangers of creationism in education". The statement is shock-full of absurd threatiness, which would be amusing, were it not for its condescending attitude towards the same civil rights that the Council think are under attack by creationism. But we'll get to that later. Let's first have a look at how these bureaucrats have managed to get their panties in a bunch.

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Ed Brayton has a post up about front-loading, and I'll mention the good news first. He made me aware of an interesting finding, of obvious relevance to front-loading, that I hadn't noticed myself. Turns out sea sponges contain genes for synapses, which is rather surprising, considering sea sponges don't even have nerve systems.

Considered among the most primitive and ancient of all animals, sea sponges have no nervous system (or internal organs of any kind, for that matter), notes Todd Oakley, assistant professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. But, he adds, they "have most of the genetic components of synapses."…

He, Oakley and the rest of the team listed all the genes known to be operative in synapses in the human nervous system. They then examined the sponge genome. "That was when the surprise hit," said Kosik. "We found a lot of genes to make a nervous system present in the sponge."

So, tell us the bad news, Krauze! The bad news is that Brayton then goes on to criticize front-loading, getting the whole concept wrong and making all the same old mistakes that he should be too intelligent to fall for. The trouble starts with the very title of his post, "Exaptation vs Front Loading: Why Evolution Wins".

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Macht made me do it.

I think we finally know why the ID-friendly astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez was denied tenure at Iowa State University. As an ID critic going by the moniker "Thought Provoker" writes in the comments:

It was either a mistake or a tactical maneuver on Gonzalez's part to list Privileged Planet as part of his tenure request. It sent a clear message that he intended to be controversial. It is the equivalent of a military applicant wearing a "proud to be gay" tee-shirt to the recruiting post.

When astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez was denied tenure at Iowa State University, ID critic Ed Brayton was out in full force against those who dared suggest that the decision was influenced by Gonzalez' support of intelligent design, accusing them of suffering from a "persecution complex" (see my initial response to Brayton herew). Turns out Gonzalez' support for intelligent design did play a role in the denial of tenure. From World Magazine (HT: EN&V):

Curtis Struck, a colleague of Gonzalez in the Physics and Astronomy Department and professor at ISU for 24 years, told WORLD he was not surprised by the decision to deny tenure. "Some of Guillermo's papers any astronomer would be proud to have written. Some others that is not the case," Struck said. "He includes some things in his astronomy resumé that other people regard as taking a coincidence too far."

Specifically, Gonzalez listed The Privileged Planet on his resumé when applying for tenure. Rosenberg admitted that the presence of that text played into the decision-making process. He also explained that the reputation of a professor among others in his field is a significant factor.

The fact that Gonzalez by all accounts was an excelent astronomer was discounted because he had written a book supporting intelligent design. As for his reputation among others, I suspect that suffered quite a blow when a colleague of his publically accused him of working to overthrow democracy and institute a theocracy in the US.

The blogoshere is atwitter over Guillermo Gonzalez, the ID astronomer who was denied tenure at Iowa State University. Gonzalez has an impressive publication record, and his research has been featured on the cover of Scientific American. Nonetheless, his university decided to deny him tenure.

Gonzalez has been open about his sympathies towards intelligent design, and in a press release the Discovery Institute is claiming that the denial of tenure was motivated by anti-ID bias. ID critic Ed Brayton has written a response that's supposed to squash the DI's allegations, but which ends up confirming them.

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David Anderson, who has been blogging about the shenanigans at the British Center for Science Education (not to be confused with their more competent American brethren), believes it is time to say our goodbyes to the organization. Here's from his eulogy:

Yes, the BCSE haven't officially closed their doors yet. And I don't expect they will for a while yet either. But those whose help the BCSE most needed have generally gone away - whether through nausea at the anti-religious prejudice, rampant dishonesty and inflation of credentials, infighting, clashes of egos and/or general inability of militant atheists to get on with anyone other than themselves. They are whittled down to the real hard core. Those who are left are those who simply refuse to believe it has failed: whether because they've invested too much time or reputation for their pride to admit it, or whatever.