Creationists Silence Critics with DMCA

Gothmog of A writes "As Richard Dawkins' offcial site reports, an organization called Creation Science Evangelism Ministries has been submitting DMCA copyright requests to YouTube. This has resulted in the Rational Response Squad (RRS) being banned after they protested against videos being taken down and accounts being closed. The RRS videoes attack creationism (AKA intelligent design) and promote the atheist viewpoint. According to the RRS, the copyright requests are without merit since the material in question is covered by fair use or has been declared to be in the public domain. Behind Creation Science Evangelism Ministries is the infamous Kent Hovind (AKA Dr. Dino) who is currently serving jail time for tax evasion."

Comments

Panda's Thumb

[Anonymous Coward]

The Panda's Thumb also has a story about this, along with a video of "Dr." Hovind. Up until a few days ago CSE's website had this disclaimer: "None of the materials produced by Creation Science Evangelism are copyrighted, so feel free to copy those and distribute them freely.", now that disclaimer is gone. Is Hovind trying to retroactively copyright stuff that has been in the public domain for years?

Hovind is currently serving 10 years in prison for tax evasion. One would think that his time would be better spent raising money to appeal his conviction, or getting his sentence reduced; rather than filing fraudulent DMCA takedown notices. Unless Hovind's son is running the ministry now while mum and dad sit in the pen. If that's the case then Hovind's son doesn't appear to be anymore aware of the law than his father was.

Well, that's easily remedied

[Tau Neutrino]

I am not aware of any known observations of macroevolution (new species created via mutation). Just read these examples of observed speciation. See? Now you are aware!

Re:religion

[Alsee]

I am not aware of...

Thank you.

Most evolution critics are not familiar with any evolution science and simply ASSERT that evidence supporting evolution does not exist. They know nothing therefore they assume and positively assert that nothing exists.

There's nothing wrong with not being familiar with some particular field of science. Most people are not aware of the specific experiments and observations supporting quantum mechanics. Most people are not aware of the specific experiments and observations supporting relativity. Nothing wrong with that.

If someone with no degree and no special study in quantum mechanics or relativity were to assert that the experts in the field were all wrong and claim that there didn't exist any evidence to back up that field, that person would be ridiculed and insulted. For some reason it is only in the field of biology that some people violate that common sense rule, and are shocked and play the persecuted victim when they get insulted and ridiculed for it.

I am not lumping you in that group, at least not yet (grin). You directly mention that you are not familiar enough with the subject, and I take your wording and your post as an honest request "heay, does this stuff exist?". I am merely saying that there is a huge problem with people uninformed attacks on evolution and making (incorrect) positive assertions that evolution supporting information and facts *don't exist*, and that they are the reason evolution critics so often get treated so harshly.

I'm not going to spend much time on your point (1), it will pretty well be resolved as I address point your (2). I'll just say two quick things and move on. There is no such thing as "macroevolution" within the science of evolution... it's like referring to "macrogravity" or "macroelectricity"... the science of evolution only involves and only requires so-called "micro" variation accumulating over time and simply species splitting. There are countless documented cases of speciation if you look up "speciation" on Wikipedia or Google.

I'd like to go into much more depth on "2) To date, no direct ancestral chains have been established... It would also seem a step of faith that the missing transitional forms also exists". Not only can I answer this, I can do so with a single block of evidence that all by itself constitutes an iron clad case for evolution as a whole.

Most of the fossil record is indeed quite spotty. However there is one substantial chuck of the fossil record that is a scientist's wet-dream of evidence. A chuck of the fossil record that proves evolution true, beyond any reasonable doubt. That chuck is phylum foraminifera. (Note: A phylum is the biggest broadest division of life before you start lumping all animals into one group and all plants into another group, a phylum is a higher level grouping than "all mammals".)

Foraminifera are (usually tiny) animals that live in the sea. They grow intricate mineral skeletons. As they die, millions of these fossil skeletons rain down onto the sea floor every day. The sea floor builds up a continuous rain of sediment, including foraminifera fossils, day by day year by year over hundreds of millions of years.

All you have to do is go out on a boat and drop a pipe into the seabed and you can pull up a limitless supply of sediment cores and a limitless supply of foraminifera fossils. The supply of foraminifera fossils is *so* overabundant that scientists have been developing automated computer image analysis systems to sort and analyze foraminifera fossils thousands and tens of thousands per batch. A limitless supply of fossils. A perfectly continuous day by day year by year fossil record from bottom to top in the sea floor sediment.

This fossil record is perfect and continuous. It covers virtually an entire phylum of life. It documents in exqisit detail how one species can and does evolve over time into an entire family tree of diverse descendant species. Not only does it document each and every

Re:Oh Shit

[fyngyrz]

I tolerate your atheism; why won't you tolerate my beliefs as well?

I can't speak for the fellow you replied to, but I can tell you why I have a problem with religionists in the USA. It is because they have employed the legal and political systems to impose their beliefs, and behaviors based upon their beliefs, and symbols based upon their beliefs, and declarations based upon their beliefs, upon those who do not share them — one of whom, of course, is me.

For instance, I can't purchase liquor on Sunday; heck, in some places, I can't even shop. My money declares my (completely non-existent) trust in your deity. The country's very oath invokes the Christian god. The pledge of allegiance, something I don't otherwise have a problem with, is now layered with Christian sentiments that literally poison my otherwise highly patriotic willingness to give of myself. The expectation in the courtroom is that I swear to god; if I don't, I am literally putting my future at risk. My own taxes are being directly funneled into "faith-based initiatives." I have to bear the tax burden for religions I find abhorrent, intolerable or simply ridiculous, while they get a (nearly) free ride for property taxes (believe me, I'm in a position to know the facts on this one all too well, I bought an ex-church to live in, the first year we paid the (delayed) assessment for the church, which was $500; the second year, we paid almost five times that as "regular" folks.) There is more, but by now you should be getting the flavor of why I think the legal and political system has been co-opted by Christians.

Now, speaking generally, the problem goes much further. I am offended by all of this because I am not religious, and I am constantly compelled to deal with these religious things. But it isn't just me. Muslims aren't likely to be delighted with finding Christianity in their face all the time, either. Nor are Jews. Nor a whole list of other folks.

What I advocate is a religious and political system that is absolutely free of religious rules, religious oaths, religious slogans, religious tax breaks, religious marriage rationales (for government-sanctioned marriages... churches and religions and their adherents can do anything they like, of course) and so on. Under these conditions, no one would ever be asked in court to make a religious statement and be put in the position of having to state a religious denial or difference from the jury; marriage would be a state of co-ownership and co-obligation instead of one of a puritan sexual measure and an arbitrary enumeration of two; property taxes would be based on property ownership, not religious claims and the lack of them; non-government stores and service providers could stay open any hours they decided made sense for them, for any reason(s) the owner(s) found sufficient; money would simply be money; a pledge of national allegiance would be just that, not a declaration that the country exists under someone's favorite diety; no religious statue or platitude would look upon me from the halls (or lawns) of justice... and so on.

And frankly, I'm all for your religious scientists pursuing ID and any other idea they might have as to how all this stuff got here. I think they're almost certainly wrong, but the only way to know that is to pursue every question to its ultimate limit of supporting evidence and/or contrary indications. However, I think it is very important that such questions be asked without requiring the rest of us to agree either that the question itself is sensible or that the proposed answers are sensible.

So if I seem not very tolerant of your beliefs from time to time, keep in mind I may have just tried to buy a quart of scotch to lubricate an evening of movie-watching at home and found the liquor store closed for the day. Or something along those lines. I run into these things much more often than you might imagine. And they piss me off mightily.