
The website allaboutscience.org is a Creationist fraud.
Beneath its cunningly deceptive, scientific-looking home page lies a wealth of highly-polished stealth Creationism.
Worse yet, the group responsible for allaboutscience.org must have a LOT of money for internet technology, or at least a very good I.T. person… they have succeeded in placing their creationist/intelligent design propaganda VERY high in internet search engine results.
Let’s try an experiment… go to the AllAboutScience homepage, and explore some of the content there. Dig a little deeper if you are so inclined… the standard unscientific arguments for Creationism & Intelligent Design will be very easy to spot.
Next, do a google or yahoo search on the keywords “big bang theory“. Chances are THIS will be your #2 search result:
creationism/intelligent design
Look familiar? Similar material to that of allaboutsciece.org, different domain name/web address, though. Let’s try another… do a search with the keywords “theory of evolution“.
THIS is my #3 search result: here and THIS is the #6 result: here.
Once again, the content of those two links look suspiciously like the pages one would find poking around the original stealth creationist website.
For good measure, let’s do a few more web searches… try googling “darwin’s theory“. The #1 search result should be THIS: more creationism
Now, try searching with the keywords “evolution of man“…
THIS is my #1 google search result: even more creationism
And THIS is my #2 result: creationism again
Had enough? This very successful stab at stealth creationism seems to be the brainchild of one Randall Niles … he owns this religious site, this creationist site, and “lord knows” how many dot-coms-with-the-slashes that all basically disseminate the same information.
Unfortunately, the information being disseminated here is RELIGION UNDER A SUPERFICIAL GLOSS OF SCIENCE.
For many, this will be readily apparent- those who can “smell a whiff of Creationism from a mile away” will avoid the deceptive web of these unscientific frauds ”like the plague”.
But what about those who are NOT so scientifically inclined, yet still use the internet as their main tool for research? Is learning “unscientific science” from Randall Niles and his creationist/ID website really in their (or anyone else’s) best interest? I think it best that they be exposed for what they really are- peddlers of religious ideas that have no foundation in science.
Mark Tiborsky
The Cleveland Freethinkers
*************************************************************
UPDATE: Closer inspection reveals that those responsible for this creationist/intelligent design website are also responsible for allaboutgod.com.
Poke around in the latter website… they really have quite the “tangled web” going on here. Perhaps Randall Niles is but one of the tools in a larger scheme- further research on this is required.
Apparently, most of the pages in the all about god/all about science web empire have been translated & published in at least 8 languages. These people are VERY serious about spreading the “good” word, by deception or not!
MT
*************************************************************
UPDATE!! Commenter Coryat has provided this important info:
“…allaboutscience and allaboutgod are owned by one ‘Greg Outlaw’, a pastor who runs an outreach ministry- he even boasts of his ability to pump up his site’s position on search engines.”
Score one for the “good guys”! Check out the “outlaw” below:
Thanks, Coryat!
MT
Those sneaky creationists.
By: awfrick on May 4, 2009
at 12:05 am
At least Ken Ham & the people at Answers in Genesis, nutty though they are, make no secret of hammering science & history into conformity with the bible.
By: sponyak on May 4, 2009
at 12:17 am
Very nice blog, awfrick! We linked to you in our blogroll…
By: sponyak on May 4, 2009
at 1:30 am
Thanks, much obliged! I’ll do the same for you once I get my blogroll posted later this week.
By: awfrick on May 4, 2009
at 1:41 am
This seems to be the Christian equivalent of the Harun Yahya web sites. Lots of those about and the funding for them and the “Atlas of Creation” is completely opaque.
By: Colin Walls on May 5, 2009
at 10:47 am
Hi! I got here via Richard Dawkins’ site and I only have a suggestion… Except for this illustrative purpose, nobody should place the words “evolution of man” or “big bang theory” near the links for these creationist sites, since that’s exactly what Google picks up — rather, the links pointing to these creationist scam websites should have the text “creationism”, “anti-scientific fraud” or the like.
By: PabloDF on May 5, 2009
at 10:47 am
I agree with PabloDF — by linking to these sites you are actually unintentionally boosting them in Google. However, there is something you can do when you post to prevent this from happening while still allowing your skeptical readers to click the links.
I wrote a whole blog post explaining this called Not just for spam anymore: NOFOLLOW for skepticism. I recommend you mark up the links as advised in that article, and you will avoid boosting the bad sites.
Christian Walters and I have submitted a paper proposal for TAM 7 this year that deals with this very same thing (search engine optimization) from the skeptical/freethinker side. If it is accepted, we should have some good advice for skeptic sites on how to combat this in July.
By: Tim Farley on May 5, 2009
at 2:37 pm
Thank you for the advice, PabloDF & Tim! I edited the post accordingly… I certainly wouldn’t want to unwittingly assist the “war on science”!
I’m relatively new at this- suggestions are much appreciated.
By: sponyak on May 5, 2009
at 6:45 pm
And your are helping them get such high rankings in Google. Look at all the links to their site that you’ve put in this web page, each of them will help increase their position in a google search.
When you have to put in a link to creationist crap then make sure you use the “rel=nofollow” html attribute to prevent google from including them in its statistics.
More here:
http://skeptools.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/not-just-for-spam-anymore-nofollow-for-skepticism/
By: AtheistRamblings on May 6, 2009
at 2:11 am
[...] of pimping of the new, and totally unbiased website called, All About Science. Well, according to The Cleveland Freethinkers, the site is a creationist [...]
By: AllAboutScience.org is a Creationist Fraud on May 6, 2009
at 8:01 am
Pablo DF, Tim, AtheistRamblings,
Thanks for the constructive criticism… I’ve re-edited the post as prescribed. Hope the editor at the Dawkins site has already done the same.
I stumbled upon the allaboutcreationism when my friend (a biologist at CWRU) mentioned a documentary he’d heard of… he told me that the film explores (nonreligious) alternative cosmology, but he could not remember its title. I started doing a bit of research & was appalled by the high placement of allaboutcreationism in my search results.
It turns out my friend was talking about this:
http://www.nfi.no/english/norwegianfilms/show.html?id=465
By: sponyak on May 6, 2009
at 1:55 pm
I reported those pages to google. I suggest more people do the same and hope google does something about it.
By: Kim on May 7, 2009
at 2:02 am
Good idea, Kim! It certainly can’t hurt…
Unfortunately, the tactics used by the folks responsible for websites like “allaboutthelordcreator”, though dishonest and cheesy & sleazy, are perfectly legal.
They’re actually quite brilliant in a dastardly sort of way… buying up domain names such as theory-of-evolution.com, etc. I’ve noticed a few other creationist/ID sites that use similar tactics, but none are as blatant & convoluted as the “allabouts”.
By: sponyak on May 7, 2009
at 9:03 am
Why must the creationists be so slithery?
I thought honesty was supposed to be a religious virtue..
By: marnster on May 8, 2009
at 2:58 pm
A quick whois search reveals that allaboutscience and allaboutgod are owned by one ‘Greg Outlaw’, a pastor who runs an outreach ministry- he even boasts of his ability to pump up his site’s position on search engines
http://www.gregoutlaw.com/greg-outlaw.htm
By: Coryat on May 10, 2009
at 7:22 am
“Greg Outlaw”, ay?
So an appropriate moniker for his polar opposite would be “Fred Goodguy”.
Good find, Coryat… thank you!
By: sponyak on May 10, 2009
at 9:42 pm
I have also written about the fake science website:
http://circleh.wordpress.com/2008/11/02/another-fake-science-website/
Enjoy!
By: Dale Husband on October 1, 2009
at 6:01 pm