The Awful Poo Lady strikes again

Gillian McKeith (or someone tweeting as her) went bananas.

In other news, the unaccredited correspondence school she got her PhD from has closed. (Has anybody else's irony meter suddenly evaporated on reading criticism of quackery in the Huffington Post?)

Update: David Naylor sums up the moral from this on how to use social media.

Calling Texans for Science

Texas Freedom Network on a depressing attack on science education.

The New York Times has some background.

Sam Ogden of Skepchick has a lot of detail and plans of what to do.

Storey time

Mervyn Storey is getting all hot under the collar about an exhibition about evolution:

However, North Antrim MLA Mervyn Storey has called for a creationist exhibition to be run alongside which explains the origin of life according to a literal reading of the Genesis account in the Bible.

“All I’m saying is that there should be a balance because there are other views out there,” Mr Storey said.

“There are people who have a different view to Darwin on creation.”

There are indeed other views, such as the traditional creation myth of the Igluik to pick just one:

Long ago a great catastrophe caused the world's supporting pillars to collapse and destroy the earth. Two men emerged full-grown from hummocks of earth. They married each other, and one became heavy with child. The other man sang a magic song, which caused the pregnant man's penis to divide, he then became a woman and gave birth to a girl child.

Hang on, that probably won't make Mervyn happy as:

1. It features two men marrying.
   
2. One of them has a sex change (performed by the other).
   
3. Magic is used.
   
4. The now woman gives birth (which probably confuses the hell out of Mervyn).
   

Oh my, 'tis enough to give the poor wee lamb a case of the fantods!

All of this would be too racy for Mervyn, who is a member of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, founded by none other than Ian Paisley.

I haven't asked either Mervyn or Ian, but I suspect they would give a resounding "No!!!" to an exhibition featuring that!

Of course, he wants to promote a literal interpretation of Genesis only.

But more of Mervyns' objections:

Mr Storey, himself a proponent of creationism, said that he was entitled to express his views on the subject.

“I believe in creationism and intelligent design, I don’t believe in the theory of evolution”, he said.

Mr Storey also said that a failure by the museum to reflect the views of “other people” could raise the possibility that a legal challenge may be launched under equality legislation.

He's certainly entitled to his views and to express them, but he wants to make the museum run an exhibition promoting his literalist interpretation of Genesis, which is taking it too far.

What's stopping him running his own exhibition in a hall?

He's done this kind of thing before with the Causeway Creation Campaign.

Sadly, he's a chairman of an educational committee.

Some sites to see

Leah Ceccarelli wrote an excellent piece on manufactroversy at Science Progress.

Over at Doc. Bushwell's Chimpanzee Refuge, there is disheartening news about the Texas State Board of Education. Those responsible can only say one thing.

Carnival of the Elitist Bastards most recently hosted by Submitted to a Candid World.

Chiropractors versus Simon Singh

Simon Singh is being sued for libel over an article (with references added by gimpy) he wrote for the Guardian. (The original article has been removed from the Guardian website - a cached copy can be found here thanks to Svetlana. Unity at Ministry of Truth has provided even more annotation in Can you libel Woo?)

Jack of Kent is following it from a legal angle. Holford Watch has an incredibly comprehensive list article with links to bloggers covering it.

Hopefully the lawsuit will fail and Simon will be vindicated.