A penpal of mine, Scott Goodman, recently asked the following question:

What is the psychology behind contrarian belief systems? Having been involved in this now for some 30 years, I have concluded, as have others, that this phenomenon of latching on to a nonsense belief and defending it to the death against all reason is, at its root, psychologically and emotionally driven. And it certainly isn’t limited to creationism. Across the board, from climate change denial to anti-vaccine hysteria to insisting that elections are rigged, I believe the same thing is at work. Consider the characteristics:

• Impervious to facts or logic. The facts simply must be wrong.
• A desire to focus on the best and most robust scientific (or political) explanations.
• Along with that, attacking the most prominent scientists; Darwin, Einstein, etc.
• And several other characteristics that one might describe.

I throw this out to the group because it might point to finding more effective ways of combatting all of this nonsense. Clearly, facts are water off a duck’s back to creationists and other science deniers. They have a mental force field to keep facts and logic out. To me the question becomes, “What is the emotional payoff for this behaviour?” It appears to be overwhelming and compelling for those who adopt this way of thinking.

Continue Reading

Continue Reading

Photography Contest.

C Joseph Long, Honorable Mention.

Will the Ark Park get a free fire station from the City of Williamstown? Is the Ark going to announce a Tower of Babel ride soon (and get more tax incentives)?

Back on January 8, 2026, the acting Mayor of Williamstown, Kentucky, Dave Henson, had a special meeting/luncheon with Ken Ham and several Answers in Genesis/Ark Encounter officers on the Ark Encounter property. I submitted a Kentucky Open Records Act (KORA) request to Williamstown and received a handful of documents including photographs of the Mayor with Ken Ham and the meeting agenda. The meeting agenda briefly mentions a discussion of a “Fire Department substation” on Eibeck Lane (the employees’ and delivery entrance to the Ark) but nothing specific. Since this wasn’t considered a City Council meeting, nothing appeared to be official.

In early August, I noticed a record in the Grant County News where Ark Development, LLC (an Answers in Genesis shell company) had sold the City of Williamstown an ~1.9 acre property on Eibeck Road for $1. This piqued my curiosity, and I sent a KORA request to the City on August 3, 2026. On August 7, 2026, before the City responded to my open records request, I visited Williamstown in person to look up the exact location and take a photo of the site.

Continue Reading

A report in Retraction Watch, University press removes book about intelligent design for misquoting ID proponent, reported, “New York University Press is pulling all copies of a book about intelligent design after the author falsely quoted another scholar in the work.” The book is Designer Science: A History of Intelligent Design in America, by C.W. Howell. I was slightly taken aback by the word falsely, where inaccurately might have held less baggage. At any rate, Retraction Watch says,

The misquote stemmed from a passage in a court ruling Howell “mistakenly” read as a direct quote from Behe and attributed as such, he told us. Howell writes about the intersection of faith and science, and serves as an academic director for the C.S. Lewis Foundation.

The book has been pulled from the market and does not appear on Amazon. The Press will presumably reissue the book after the error has been corrected. I consider that beyond principled: I consider the the misquotation a minor error (all books have errors, even mine). I would have treated it like an error in a published paper and simply issued an erratum, posted the erratum on the publisher’s and my web pages, and probably tried to get Amazon to follow suit.

Continue Reading