If you’re a long-time reader of the site, you might remember a guy by the name of John Freshwater. I wrote about him in 2009 after he was facing dismissal for 1) teaching creationism in his science class, 2) telling his students gays are evil sinners, and 3) burning crosses in the arms of some of his students. A shittier science teacher, there is not.

Well, it finally looks like the lengthy process of firing him is almost over. After a bunch of appeals and sporadic hearings, a report issued by the state has recommended Freshwater should be fired:

“(Freshwater) persisted in his attempts to make eighth grade science what he thought it should be – an examination of accepted scientific curriculum with the discerning eye of Christian doctrine,” Shepherd wrote. “He used his classroom as a means of sowing the seeds of doubt and confusion in the minds of impressionable students as they searched for meaning in the subject of science.”

Freshwater had for years asked the school board to consider allowing a curriculum that includes arguments against evolution. Shepherd wrote that after no changes were made, Freshwater took it upon himself to hand out Christian materials and push creationism.

I can see removing shitty teachers who push their ridiculous dogma on others is going to be an uphill battle if each one takes almost 2 years to dismiss. What does a person need to do to get the boot right away if burning a cross with a electrical laboratory instrument doesn’t do it?

Hey America, how do you know whether or not your public education system is failing? How about the fact almost half of your adult population is convinced the Earth is about as old as the Agrarian Revolution (when we went from hunters to farmers). Nice, huh? If you’re wondering what other Western country has such abysmally ignorant people, the answer is Turkey, a similarly religious country that also has a significant portion of its population swearing fealty to an anthropomorphic God.

The rest is divided into two categories: about 38% think that God directed evolution (proving only these folks know slightly less than nothing about the process). The good news (yes, there’s a slight sliver of hope) is the percentage of Americans who think Evolution has only a secular explanation went from 9% to 16%, demonstrating the hard work of smart people is starting to pay off. While it would be impossible to shift that 40% anytime soon, if we can convince the remaining 38% who aren’t completely retarded that God is merely an invention of our deluded minds and has no business in science, we’d actually be a slight majority.

Until that fucking “miracle” happens, however, you can feel proud no first world country would boast this kind of pathetically low score when it comes to scientific awareness. So if you want to be #1 at something, America, you can always take the prize of “Most Ignorant Modern Country in the World”. Congrats, y’all!

I’m so sick and tired of the argument that because Earth sits in a “Goldilocks” zone, this must somehow mean something significant. What are the odds, some like to speculate, all of this could be the product of chance? The answer, I would argue, is the same as every single hand you’ve ever been dealt in poker. If you try and work backwards to calculate the odds of whatever arbitrary hand you have being dealt in the same order, you would discover the odds are impossibly small. Does that mean you were never playing poker to begin with?

There’s a tendency for human beings to believe our existence means something special. We still think, for some fucking reason, the Universe was tailor made for us, rather than the other way around. I expect this type of fallacy from self centered apes, and yet every time I hear some new crackpot idea about the origin of the Universe involving us in some way, I generally feel embarrassed for humanity. If there is intelligent life out there in the Universe, I don’t want them thinking we all think the Cosmos revolves around our existence.

A recent article in The Huffington Post had me fuming this morning. It was written by Robert Lanza, who pioneered a theory called Biocentrism. If you aren’t familiar with it, in a nutshell, the idea is our consciousness creates the physical reality we see around us. Without someone to observe the Universe, it simply doesn’t exist. What’s used to prove this fucking nonsense? Why, it’s quantum mechanics, of course!

Here’s the deal: if your wacky theory is based on the strangeness of Quantum physics, you’ve already lost the debate. This is a metaphysical black hole where crackpot theories go to die in obscurity. In the tiny world of atoms, subatomic particles often act in surprising, and sometimes counter-intuitive ways. Electrons, for instance, don’t orbit around the nucleus of an atom the same way a planet orbits around a star (that’s just a model we use to visualize it); instead, it exists in a kind of “probability wave”, which collapses whenever it encounters an “observer” (when we try to measure its position and momentum we end up determining both).

This strange and wonderful quality of quantum physics makes the theory open to every would-be theorist. Enter Biocentrism: since we are technically observers, then it must mean the simple act of being conscious “creates” the reality around us. The basic principles are as follows:

1. Reality is the product of our consciousness.
2. Time doesn’t exist outside our own perception
3. The structure of the universe can only be understood through “biocentrism”. The Universe is fine-tuned for our existence, ergo it must have been created through our perception.

Like any good bullshit theory, it offers nothing in the way of falsifiability. Why should it? According to it’s founder, Robert Lanza, it’s far more irrational to think that our existence, and that of the Universe, is due to simple “chance”.

A. africanus, A. garhi, A. sediba, A. aethiopicus, A. robustus, A. boisei, Homo habilis, H. georgicus, and H. erectus — among other hominid species — all went extinct. Even the Neanderthals went extinct. But alas, not us! Indeed, we happen to be the only species of Hominina that made it… The story of evolution reads just like “The Story of the Three Bears,” In the nursery tale, a little girl named Goldilocks enters a home occupied by three bears and tries different bowls of porridge; some are too hot, some are too cold. She also tries different chairs and beds, and every time, the third is “just right.” For 13.7 billion years we, too, have had chronic good luck. Virtually everything has been “just right.”

Well, I don’t think 99% of all the species who have ever existed and got bitch-slapped by evolution would agree with you there Robby. And sure, most other Hominid species have gone extinct, but what’s to say we won’t either? Will anyone care about your dumb ideas when this hairless ape eventually goes the way of the dodo? Will the Universe end because we aren’t in it anymore? I feel like a fucking moron even asking these pointless questions!