When I was 18, I interviewed for a job at Disneyland. At one point, the HR person looked at me and asked, “Do you
like people?” Something made me say no. (That wasn't even true.)
They spun me out the door. But I don’t hold it against them. Vickie Chang of the OC Weekly, on the other hand (
here), seems to hate Disneyland. Today, she reveals some of Disney's customary deceptions: "That smell of freshly made waffle cones wafting out from the Gibson Girl ice cream store on Main Street? Totally fake. It's a faux scent pumped out through vents. Same goes for the pine tree smell during Christmas."
Also at the OC Weekly blog,
Gustavo Arellano notes that
Calvary Chapel will hold a
“Darwin Was Wrong Conference” this weekend.
You know about Calvary. According to its
website, “Calvary Chapel is a non-denominational church movement focused on the inerrancy of the Bible and the expository teaching from Genesis to Revelation.”
OK, so they’re Creationists.
In a
press release, the conference is explained as follows:
While many people continue to believe in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, a group of scientists will present overwhelming scientific evidence against Darwin's speculations.
"If Charles Darwin knew 150 years ago what we know today, he likely would not have published Origin of the Species," said John Baumgardner, Ph.D., whose organization, Logos Research Associates, will lead the two-day "Darwin Was Wrong" conference Nov. 13-14 at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa.
Turns out Logos Research Associates (LRA) is closely tied to Calvary Chapel. I found the
LRA website, where we are immediately told that the organization is “in fellowship with Calvary Chapel.”
It gets better. We’re also told about their special mission:
The unique mission of LRA is to build a professional community of researchers who operate with a high view of Scripture and a high view of science, in the classical sense of these terms. As an international community that unashamedly affirms the sovereignty of God on matters of Creation, the Fall, the Flood, the Atonement, and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, Logos researchers are especially qualified to foster high-caliber research that builds upon and confirms these cornerstones of faith. Logos seeks to return science to a search for truth, as originally intended by its founders prior to the Enlightenment era.
Gosh, I always thought that real science is evidence-based. I'm pretty sure about that. This means (as I often tell my students) that scientists do not start with “the truth” and then assemble evidence to support that truth.
No. They let the evidence guide them to the truth.
The evidence is everything.
Not
belief.
But these clever “Logos” innovators do indeed start with the “truth,” for they “foster…research that builds upon and confirms” their beliefs about Creation, the Flood, and the Second Coming.
That’s right: they start with the Truth—which is exactly and precisely anything and everything that the Bible says (but how do they know
that?)—and then they say what they gotta say and scrape up whatever they gotta scrape up to make it all
fit.
That ain't science. It's dishonest horseshit.
