John11 ESV

1Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. 3So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” 4But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

5Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6So, when he heard that Lazarus^a was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. 7Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” 9Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” 11After saying these things, he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” 12The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” 13Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. 14Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died, 15and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16So Thomas, called the Twin,^b said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

I Am the Resurrection and the Life

17Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles^c off, 19and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. 20So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. 21Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” 23Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.^d Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” 27She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

Jesus Weeps

28When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” 29And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. 30Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. 31When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved^e in his spirit and greatly troubled. 34And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35Jesus wept. 36So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?”

Jesus Raises Lazarus

38Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” 40Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” 41So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” 43When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” 44The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

The Plot to Kill Jesus

45Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him, 46but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. 48If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” 49But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. 50Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” 51He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, 52and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. 53So from that day on they made plans to put him to death.

54Jesus therefore no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went from there to the region near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim, and there he stayed with the disciples.

55Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves. 56They were looking for^f Jesus and saying to one another as they stood in the temple, “What do you think? That he will not come to the feast at all?” 57Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should let them know, so that they might arrest him.

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Ecclesiastes 3 ESV

1For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

2a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

3a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

4a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

5a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

6a time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

7a time to tear, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

8a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time for war, and a time for peace.

The God-Given Task

9What gain has the worker from his toil? 10I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 11He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; 13also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.

14I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. 15That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.^a

From Dust to Dust

16Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. 17I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work. 18I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. 19For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity.^b 20All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. 21Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? 22So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him?

Further reason to reconsider the skilled trades.

casualties in christendom's war on common sense.

The tragedy is of course that true Christianity has NEVER required belief in any such nonsense.

John8:50NASB"But I do not deek my glory;there is one who seeks and judges

On the Darwinian thought police.

All Those Darwinian Doubts

David Berlinski
Wichita Eagle
March 9, 2005

The defense of Darwin's theory of evolution has now fallen into the hands of biologists who believe in suppressing criticism when possible and ignoring it when not. It is not a strategy calculated in induce confidence in the scientific method. A paper published recently in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington concluded that the events taking place during the Cambrian era could best be understood in terms of an intelligent design—hardly a position unknown in the history of western science. The paper was, of course, peer-reviewed by three prominent evolutionary biologists. Wise men attend to the publication of every one of the Proceeding's papers, but in the case of Steven Meyer's "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories," the Board of Editors was at once given to understand that they had done a bad thing. Their indecent capitulation followed at once. 

Publication of the paper, they confessed, was a mistake. It would never happen again. It had barely happened at all. And peer review?

The hell with it.

"If scientists do not oppose antievolutionism," Eugenie Scott, the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, remarked, "it will reach more people with the mistaken idea that evolution is scientifically weak." Scott's understanding of "opposition" had nothing to do with reasoned discussion. It had nothing to do with reason at all. Discussing the issue was out of the question. Her advice to her colleagues was considerably more to the point: "Avoid debates." 

Everyone else had better shut up. 

In this country, at least, no one is ever going to shut up, the more so since the case against Darwin's theory retains an almost lunatic vitality. 

Look — The suggestion that Darwin's theory of evolution is like theories in the serious sciences — quantum electrodynamics, say — is grotesque. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to thirteen unyielding decimal places. Darwin's theory makes no tight quantitative predictions at all.

Look — Field studies attempting to measure natural selection inevitably report weak to non-existent selection effects. 

Look — Darwin's theory is open at one end since there are no plausible account for the origins of life.

Look — The astonishing and irreducible complexity of various cellular structures has not yet successfully been described, let alone explained.

Look — A great many species enter the fossil record trailing no obvious ancestors and depart for Valhalla leaving no obvious descendents. 

Look — Where attempts to replicate Darwinian evolution on the computer have been successful, they have not used classical Darwinian principles, and where they have used such principles, they have not been successful. 

Look — Tens of thousands of fruit flies have come and gone in laboratory experiments, and every last one of them has remained a fruit fly to the end, all efforts to see the miracle of speciation unavailing. 

Look — The remarkable similarity in the genome of a great many organisms suggests that there is at bottom only one living system; but how then to account for the astonishing differences between human beings and their near relatives — differences that remain obvious to anyone who has visited a zoo?

But look again — If the differences between organisms are scientifically more interesting than their genomic similarities, of what use is Darwin's theory since its otherwise mysterious operations take place by genetic variations?

These are hardly trivial questions. Each suggests a dozen others. These are hardly circumstances that do much to support the view that there are "no valid criticisms of Darwin's theory," as so many recent editorials have suggested.

Serious biologists quite understand all this. They rather regard Darwin's theory as an elderly uncle invited to a family dinner. The old boy has no hair, he has no teeth, he is hard of hearing, and he often drools. Addressing even senior members at table as Sonny, he is inordinately eager to tell the same story over and over again.

But he's family. What can you do?

David Berlinski holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University. He is the author of On Systems Analysis, A Tour of the Calculus, The Advent of the Algorithm, Newton's Gift, The Secrets of the Vaulted Sky, and, most recently, Infinite Ascent: A Short History of Mathematics.

Where some see a canyon..

Keeping an Eye on Evolution: Richard Dawkins, a relentless Darwinian spear carrier, trips over Mount Improbable.

Review of Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins (W. H. Norton & Company, Inc. 1996)
David Berlinski


The theory of evolution is the great white elephant of contemporary thought. It is large, almost entirely useless, and the object of superstitious awe. Richard Dawkins is widely known as the theory's uncompromising champion. Having made his case in The Blind Watchmaker and River out of Eden, Dawkins proposes to make it yet again in Climbing Mount Improbable. He is not a man given to tiring himself by repetition. 

Darwin's theory has a double aspect. The first is the doctrine of descent with modification; the second, the doctrine of random variation and natural selection. Descent with modification provides the pattern; random variation and natural selection, the mechanism. Dawkins' concern is with the mechanism; the pattern he takes for granted. 

Biological structures such as the mammalian eye are complex in the sense that they contain many parts arranged in specific ways. It is unlikely that such structures could have been discovered by chance. No one, the astrophysicist N. C. Wickramasinghe once observed with some asperity, expects a tornado touching on a junkyard to produce a Boeing 747. This may suggest--it has suggested to some physicists--a disturbing gap between what life has accomplished and what the theory of evolution can explain. The suggestion provokes Dawkins to indignation. "It is grindingly, creakingly, crashingly obvious," he writes, mixing three metaphors joyously, that the discovery by chance of a complex object is improbable; but the Darwinian mechanism, he adds, "acts by breaking the improbability up into small manageable parts, smearing out the luck needed, going round the back of Mount Improbable and crawling up the gentle slopes...." 

This is a fine image, one introduced originally by the American bio-mathematician Sewell Wright. Random variation offers the mountaineer an allowance of small changes. Chance is at work. Natural selection freezes the successful changes in place. And this process owes nothing to chance. In time, the successful changes form a connected path, a staircase to complexity. 

The example that Dawkins pursues in greatest detail is the eye. Darwin himself wondered at its complexity, remarking in a letter to an American colleague that "the eye...gives me a cold shudder." That shudder notwithstanding, Darwin resolved his doubts in his own favor; the eye, he concluded, was created by a single-step series of improvements, what he called 'fine gradations.' Where Darwin went, Dawkins follows. 

It is one thing, however, to appeal to a path up Mount Improbable, quite another to demonstrate its existence. Dawkins has persuaded himself that because such a path might exist, further argument is unnecessary. Impediments are simply directed to disappear: "There is no difficulty"; "there is a definite tendency in the right direction"; "It is easy to see that..."; "it is not at all difficult to imagine...." 

In fact, the difficulties are very considerable. A single retinal cell of the human eye consists of a nucleus, a mitochondrial rod, and a rectangular array containing discrete layers of photon-trapping pigment. The evolutionary development of the eye evidently required an increase in such layers. An inferential staircase being required, the thing virtually constructs itself, Dawkins believes, one layer at a time. "The point," he writes, "is that ninety-one membranes are more effective...than ninety, ninety are more effective that eighty-nine, and so on back to one membrane, which is more effective than zero." 

This is a plausible scheme only because Dawkins has considered a single feature of the eye in isolation. The parts of a complex artifact or object typically gain their usefulness as an ensemble. A Dixie Cup consists of a tube joined to a disk. Without the disk, the cup does not hold less water than it might; it cannot hold water at all. And ditto for the tube, the two items, disk and tube, forming an irreducibly complex system. 

What holds for the Dixie Cup holds for the eye as well. Light strikes the eye in the form of photons, but the optic nerve conveys electrical impulses to the brain. Acting as a sophisticated transducer, the eye must mediate between two different physical signals. The retinal cells that figure in Dawkins' account are connected to horizontal cells; these shuttle information laterally between photoreceptors in order to smooth the visual signal. Amacrine cells act to filter the signal. Bipolar cells convey visual information further to ganglion cells, which in turn conduct information to the optic nerve. The system gives every indication of being tightly integrated, its parts mutually dependent. 

The very problem that Darwin's theory was designed to evade now reappears. Like vibrations passing through a spider's web, changes to any part of the eye, if they are to improve vision, must bring about changes throughout the optical system. Without a correlative increase in the size and complexity of the optic nerve, an increase in the number of photoreceptive membranes can have no effect. A change in the optic nerve must in turn induce corresponding neurological changes in the brain. If these changes come about simultaneously, it makes no sense to talk of a gradual ascent of Mount Improbable. If they do not come about simultaneously, it is not clear why they should come about at all. 

The same problem reappears at the level of biochemistry. Dawkins has framed his discussion in terms of gross anatomy. Each anatomical change that he describes requires a number of coordinate biochemical steps. "[T]he anatomical steps and structures that Darwin thought were so simple," the biochemist Mike Behe remarks in a provocative new book (Darwin's Black Box), "actually involve staggeringly complicated biochemical processes." A number of separate biochemical events are required simply to begin the process of curving a layer of proteins to form a lens. What initiates the sequence? How is it coordinated? And how controlled? On these absolutely fundamental matters, Dawkins has nothing whatsoever to say. 

In addition to the eye, Dawkins discusses spiders and their webs, the origin of flight, and the nature of seashells. The natural history is charming. 

Dawkins is a capable if somewhat dry prose stylist, although such expressions as 'designoid' and 'wince-makingly' are themselves wince-making. The science throughout is primitive. Difficulties are resolved by sleight-of-hand. "In real life," Dawkins remarks in a representative passage, "there may be formidable complications of detail." Yes? What of them, those formidable complications? "These emerge simply and without fuss." 

Is the elephant's large nose truly the result of an evolutionary progression? Then some demonstration is required showing that intermediate-sized noses are valuable as well. None is forthcoming. "If a medium sized trunk were always less efficient," Dawkins writes, "than either a small nose or a big trunk, the big trunk would never have evolved." Indeed. The emergence of powered flight is treated as an engaging fable, one in which either arboreal animals glided downward from the tree tops or a primitive dinosaur hopped upward toward the sky. "The beauty of this theory," Dawkins affirms, commending the hopping scenario, "is that the same nervous circuits that were used to control the center of gravity in the jumping ancestor would, rather effortlessly, have lent themselves to controlling the flight surfaces later in the evolutionary story." It is the phrase "rather effortlessly" that gives to this preposterous assertion its antic charm. 

A final note. In a book whose examples are chosen from natural history, it is important to get the details right. Hawks may soar or sail, but they cannot hover like helicopters. Not all organisms share precisely the same genetic code. And Gary Kasparov was defeated by IBM's Big Blue, and not a program entitled Genius 2. 

On teaching Darwinism:more education less indoctrination

How Should We Teach Evolution?

Casey Luskin March 16, 2015 3:38 AM 

In recent posts (here, here, and here), I've considered some of the misinformation directed at students from Darwin-lobbying groups like the National Center for Science Education. Having answered false claims by evolution advocates in the context of science education, it's fair to ask now: How should evolution be taught? Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture has made its position clear on many occasions in the past, but since media and advocacy groups continue to advance misunderstandings and distortions, it can't hurt to say it once more.

Darwinian evolution should be fully and completely taught in public schools, and schools need to teach more about evolution, not less. Unfortunately, most biology classrooms teach a one-sided, pro-Darwin-only curriculum that censors serious any scientific critique of neo-Darwinism. This makes for bad science education. It doesn't teach students how to think, just what to think. Instead, schools should teach about both the strengths and weaknesses of neo-Darwinian and chemical evolutionary theories and let students critically evaluate the arguments and evidence in this debate.

Teaching students in such a balanced, objective manner turns classroom instruction away from indoctrination and toward genuine education. Critically analyzing Darwinian evolution teaches students more about the facts of biology and produces scientifically minded students with good critical thinking skills. As Charles Darwin himself wrote in the Origin of Species: "a fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question."¹

Modern biology textbooks have a chronic habit of papering over scientific evidence that dissents from the standard lines of evidence --or "icons" -- that are used to support Darwinian evolution. For example, textbooks often present examples of small-scale "microevolution" and over-extrapolate from this evidence to make unwarranted claims about "macroevolution." They discuss minute changes in the sizes of beaks on the Galápagos finches or small changes in the colors of peppered moths to claim that fundamentally new types of organisms can evolve via Darwinian processes.²

But evolutionary biologist Robert L. Carroll asks: "Can changes in individual characters, such as the relative frequency of genes for light and dark wing color in moths adapting to industrial pollution, simply be multiplied over time to account for the origin of moths and butterflies within insects, the origin of insects from primitive arthropods, or the origin of arthropods from among primitive multicellular organisms?"³ Many scientists feel the answer is no. However, biology textbooks never inform students of this fact. Students need to have access to all of the evidence regarding Darwinian evolution so they can make up their own minds.

Science education theorists agree that students learn science best when they learn about arguments for and against a particular concept. A 2010 paper in the journal Science observes that "[c]ritique is not, therefore, some peripheral feature of science, but rather it is core to its practice." The paper found that students learn science best when they are asked "to discriminate between evidence that supports ... or does not support"⁴ a given scientific concept.

Science education is about teaching students the facts of biology, but also about teaching them how to think like scientists. When students are told that Darwinian evolution is a "settled theory" or that there "is no controversy over evolution," that not only misinforms them about debates taking place among scientists, but it fails to teach students how to use critical thinking on these important scientific questions. When evolution advocates demand that students should not learn about scientific weaknesses in evolution, the real losers are the students who are denied opportunities to learn about all of the evidence and are prevented from studying different legitimate scientific viewpoints regarding Darwinism.

There is a vibrant debate over Darwinian evolution taking place in the scientific community, and the scientists who have signed the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism List invite you to investigate it. As the 900 signers to the list agree: "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."

References:

[1.] Charles Darwin, Introduction, The Origin of Species (1859), Literature.org, accessed March 14, 2012, http://literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species-6th-edition/introduction.html.

[2.] See Jonathan Wells, "Second Thoughts about Peppered Moths," The Scientist, Vol. 13(11):13 (1999).

[3.] Robert Carroll, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, pp. 8-10 (Cambridge University Press, 1997).

[4.] Jonathan Osborne, "Arguing to Learn in Science: The Role of Collaborative, Critical Discourse,"Science, Vol. 328: 463-466 (April 23, 2010).

We know.It's not what it looks like.

Minister Creflo Dollar asks for $60 million in donations for a new jet

Creflo Dollar is hoping a few folks will see fit to bless him.

The minister, known for being a prosperity preacher at his Atlanta-area World Changers Church International, is seeking "200,000 people committed to sow $300 or more (to) help achieve our goal to purchase the G650 airplane."

The figures were presented Friday in a nearly six-minute video on the Creflo Dollar Ministries website (the video was not viewable Friday night) and total more than $60 million needed to buy the Gulfstream G650, which goes for a reported $65 million.

The Gulfstream G650 can fly eight passengers and four crew members some 8,000 statue miles at a cruising speed of Mach 0.85, according to specs posted on gulfstream.com.

The project isn't limited to member donations, as the site states that "we are asking members, partners and supporters of this ministry to assist us in acquiring a Gulfstream G650."

The request goes on to detail that the luxury jet will transport Pastors Creflo and Taffi Dollar and member of the Dollars' church around the globe to help them spread the gospel.

Prosperity gospel is a theology that promises wealth and health to those who tithe 10% of their income to the church.

The video includes parishioners, a pilot, a project manager and even the President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, advocating on behalf of the pastor.

On the video, the pastor chronicles incidents involving his current jet, which has been in service for more than three decades: The right engine went out en route to Australia, but the plane was able to safely land at its destination thanks to the experience of the pilot and crew. During another trip, mechanical failure caused the jet to skid off a runway in London while Taffi Dollar and their three daughters were aboard.

Dollar attributed his family's safe arrival to "a grace working on that airplane, that brought my girls back home to me, you understand what I am saying?" he said from the pulpit to thunderous applause.

Dollar said that after those incidents, he "knew that it was time to begin to believe God for a new airplane."

The Gulfstream G650 would comfortably allow the ministry make its way around the world. It seats up to 14 passengers with berthing for six, according to gulfstream.com. The jet comes with two Rolls-Royce engines, high-speed Internet and two multichannel satellites and allows for a 2½-hour commute from New York to Los Angeles.

"The G650 is the biggest, fastest, most luxurious, longest range and most technologically advanced jet -- by far," according to the site.

In soliciting the donations, Dollar's site states, "We need your help to continue reaching a lost and dying world for the Lord Jesus Christ. Your love gift of any amount will be greatly appreciated."

Attempts to contact Dollar's ministry for comment were unsuccessful.

On Darwinian apologists' doublespeak.

Evolutionary Advocacy as a Confidence Game

David Klinghoffer March 13, 2015 12:12 PM 

Darwin advocacy often gives the appearance of a racket, a confidence scam, a game of Three-card Monte. Go read or listen to John Stonestreet's excellent Breakpoint commentary reflecting on the current cover story in National Geographic, "The War on Science." The magazine links and absurdly lampoons a number of skeptical views, as if they were all of a piece. The cover text reads, giving examples "anti-science":

Climate Change Does Not Exist.

Evolution Never Happened.

The Moon Landing Was Faked.

Vaccinations Can Lead to Autism.

Genetically Modified Food Is Evil.

Now read the brief and informative Wikipedia article on confidence tricks, including the classic "stages of the con," the carefully ordered succession of interactions among con man, shill (accomplice), and mark (victim). Tell me if that doesn't ring a bell. In the context of evolution, it goes something like this:

Con: "You're pro-science, am I right?"

Mark: "Oh, sure I love science. Can't get enough of it."

Con: "So you're not anti-science, correct?"

Mark: "I don't know what that means exactly, but like I said, I love science."

Con: "Well, for example, you agree that the United States landed on the Moon, right? Because there are some loons who doubt that."

Mark: "What? You're kidding. That's ridiculous."

Con: "OK, just wondering. I mean, you said you're pro-science. So you're not one of those anti-vaxxers, right?"

Mark: "Definitely not. I mean, I have some Facebook friends who are pretty voluble about that. They think it causes autism. But we absolutely vaccinate our kids. It's the responsible thing to do."

Con: "Good, good. That's fine, because those guys are nuts. And, just curious, you're not one of those 'climate skeptic' crazies, right?"

Mark: "What do you mean, 'crazies'? I know there are some climatologists and other thoughtful people who think global warming has been hyped."

Con: "What! I thought you said you're pro-science!"

Mark: "I am."

Con: "Don't you know the scientific consensus believes in human-induced catastrophic global warming?"

Mark: "Alright, alright, you win."

Con: "Finally, evolution. You're not a 'Darwin skeptic' are you?"

Mark: "Doesn't that depend on what you mean by evolution? 'Evolution' in what sense?"

Con: "Never mind."

Mark: "Well I know from my reading that the word can mean various things. Microevolution, macroevolution, universal common descent, the sole sufficiency of the Darwinian mechanism for explaining the development of complex life forms."

Con: "I said never mind. You sound like a creationist. You said you're pro-science. So, you think the whole universe is less than 10,000 years old? You think cavemen rode around on dinosaurs?"

Mark: "No, of course not!"

Con: "Alright, then. So you're pro-science, and you believe evolution happened. Good for you."

Mark: "But aren't there are a bunch of very different questions here that you're wrapping up into one overstuffed burrito as if they were all the same? I mean, Moon landing, vaccinations, global warming, age of the universe, evolution in its several different meanings. Shouldn't separate questions be considered separately?"

Shill: "Oh hey guys, I don't mean to interrupt your conversation, but the latest issue of National Geographic just came in the mail, a very distinguished popular scientific journal with a long and storied publication history. It says here some people think 'evolution never happened.' I guess those are the same ones who think climate change doesn't exist and the Moon landing was faked."

Con: "See? I told you. Now do you believe in evolution or not?"

Shill: "Why are you asking him that? Don't tell me you're one of those Intelligent Design Creationists! I thought after centuries of study the question of whether nature gives scientific evidence of design was finally settled by a judge in Pennsylvania back in '05. I heard the judge was even appointed by President George W. Bush, so he should know. You always seemed like a smart guy. Are you one of those anti-science dummies?"

Con: "Tell me, yes or no. Do you think evolution never happened?"

Mark: "No, no, it's just... Oh forget it. Yes, I believe in 'evolution'!"

Am I exaggerating? Not by much, if at all. This morning, Casey Luskin gave a very concrete illustration of an evolution scam -- the bait-and-switch technique, deployed to cast doubt on the (accurate) contention that Darwinian theory is controversial among mainstream scientists.

Understand what I'm saying. Evolutionary biology is not a scam, but some Darwin defenders employ classic tricks from the arsenal of professional hustlers. If the science were as ironclad as we're supposed to believe, why don't they debate us on the science?

A line in the sand IX

Bombing over show about jewelry is just latest blow to free speech in India

New Delhi (CNN)Thankfully, no one was wounded after crude bombs were hurled at a Tamil news station in India on Thursday. But the loud explosions injured a vital part of the world's largest democracy: free speech.

Last week, when India's government and a British documentarian faced off over a film featuring a man imprisoned for a 2012 gang rape in South Delhi, a little-known channel hundreds of miles away in southern India was waging its own battle. Hardline Hindu groups were angry with broadcaster Puthiya Thalaimurai for filming a show about the relevance of a traditional necklace -- called mangalsutra in Hindi and thaali in Tamil -- worn by married Indian women. For them, the contents, as shown in the promos, were offensive to Hindu culture.

The station planned to release the program Sunday, International Women's Day. But it canceled the telecast after demonstrations took place outside its office. Protesters allegedly attacked one of its cameramen.

Four days later, the channel came under fire again, when four men on two motorbikes threw bombs into its compound in a predawn attack, authorities say. Six people involved in the bombing have been arrested, said S. George, the commissioner of the southern Indian city of Chennai. Their leader turned himself in separately, claiming responsibility for the attack, police said.

"The show wanted to give women a platform. We welcome all opinions and thoughts. But you cannot strangle freedom of free expression by violent means and threats," said Shyam Kumar, the CEO of New Generation Media Corp., which runs Puthiya Thalaimurai. "We condemn the attack in the strongest possible terms," he told CNN.

'India's Daughter,' the film banned by India: What did it show?

But India is no stranger to censorship imposed legally or forced by rowdy protesters.

The country's constitution guarantees freedom of expression, but not without restrictions. Communities or people claiming their religious sentiments were hurt by anyone else's opinion can file a lawsuit.

Authorities can seek restraining orders from local courts -- as they did to ban the recent BBC documentary "India's Daughter" -- by citing potential disorder.

Earlier last year, Penguin India withdrew "The Hindus: An Alternative History," a book by American academic Wendy Doniger, after a local advocacy group accused the writer of denigrating Hinduism.

In December, a Bollywood movie, "PK," came under attack over similar accusations when mobs tore apart its posters in parts of India. A satire on religious rituals, "PK" became a roaring success by being one of the country's highest-grossing movies.

But India, home to one of the world's largest film industries, has blocked several movies from screening.

At least two films were not allowed last year. One of them featured the lives of the Sikh assassins of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and the other centered on the violence in Sri Lanka in the closing months of its civil war.

Hounded by protests over his novel, Perumal Murugan, a Tamil author, announced quitting writing in a dramatic post on Facebook in January.

"Perumal Murugan, the writer is dead. As he is no God, he is not going to resurrect himself. He has no faith in rebirth. As an ordinary teacher, he will live as P Murugan. Leave him alone," he said on Facebook two months ago. Religious and caste-based organizations had slammed his novel "Madhorubhagan," which depicted a childless wife taking part in an ancient festival allowing consensual sex between strangers.

Just last week, India blocked the BBC from airing "India's Daughter" because it included comments from one of the men convicted of raping a young student in a moving bus in New Delhi in 2012. The reason: The inmate's views could create unrest.

"There's a growing intolerance towards different shades of opinion. It's a medieval mindset. What India needs is a concerted effort to move beyond it and embrace free expression in totality," said Kumar, the New Generation Media chief executive.