1. The famous paleontologist, Richard Leakey is the author of "
Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human", and was for years was director of Kenya's museums. He has been fighting a battle against creationists in Kenya, in particular Pentecostal evangelicals, who are determined to use "religious toleration" to force Kenya's museums to hide science in order to avoid challenging their faith.
The museum's collections include the most complete skeleton yet found of
homo erectus, a 1.7 million year-old skeleton, and skeletons of the species that first evolved to walk upright, 4 million years ago. Bishop Adoyo, head of the six-million strong Pentecostal congregation "Christ is the Answer Ministries", seemingly without a sense of irony, says, "Leakey and his group want their theories presented as fact".
2. The creationist Kent Hovind, who pleaded guilty to (three times) constructing a building without permission (he wants to build another creationist humans-and-dinosaurs-existing-at-the-sam
e-time themed park). He has now been "arrested and indicted in federal court on fifty-eight charges, including"... tax fraud, tax evasion, evading banking requirements and making threats against IRS investigators. "The grand-jury indictment alleges that Hovind and his wife, Jo, withdrew $430,500 from AmSouth bank between July 20, 2001, and August 9,2002. The withdrawals, most made only days apart, were consistently for amounts just below the $10,000 starting point for federally required cash-transaction reporting.".
He has been stripped of his passport and guns.
Both of these are reported in
Skeptical Inquirer, volume 30, No. 6 (Nov/Dec 2006).
The Skeptical Inquirer is my new 'thing', it is an absolutely awesome resource for discussions on all things anti-science, and has connections to many atheist, humanist and pro-science groups, including Prof. Dawkins (Oxford Uni), Richard Wiseman (Herts Uni), Daniel Dennett, Robert Sheaffer, Elizabeth Loftus (famous psychologist), etc. Just reading it's "Fellows" list made me excited! :-)
Tags: atheism, creationism, fundamentalism, kent hovind, kenya, religion, richard dawkins, richard leakey
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