In Godlessness Just in case anyone is concerned that I'll soften my hardline rejection of all religion just because I've assumed fancy new corporate digs, allow me to quote Dan Savage approvingly. And finally, to Rob in Albany who felt my aside was proof of my intolerance and hypocrisy: Joking about Christianity isn't evidence that I'm intolerant—hell, I'm perfectly willing to tolerate Christians. I have never, for instance, attempted to prevent Christians from marrying each other, or tried to stop them from adopting children, or worked to make it illegal for them to hold certain jobs. I don't threaten to boycott companies that market their products to Christians, and I don't organize letter-writing campaigns to complain about Christian characters on television. It would indeed be hypocritical for me to complain about fundamentalist Christians who've done all of the above to gay people if I turned around and did the same thing to Christians—but, again, I've done no such thing. Intolerant? Hell, I'm a model of tolerance! Oh sure, I joked about the Virgin Birth because I think it's silly and sexphobic. And I'm free to say as much, however unpleasant it is for some Christians to hear. Fundamentalist Christians, for their part, are free to think homosexuality is sinful and unnatural, and they're free to say so, however unpleasant it is for me to hear. But fundamentalists aren't willing to just speak their piece, Rob. Nope, they seek to persecute people for being gay, and that's where their low opinion of homosexuality—which, again, they have an absolute right to hold—transubstantiates into intolerance.
Excellent. As has always been the case, you can continue to expect me to tolerate Christians…but don't expect me to ever respect Christianity. (via Stupid Evil Bastard) |
|
In Science A reader sent in this little question: Possible answers: - Well, what if McNuggets have souls, huh? What do you think of that, smart guy?
- Neither have souls!
- "Good" and "McNuggets" in the same sentence?
- Let's have a taste test and find out.
|
|
| |
| |
In Science I just received my copy of the latest Seed, and although I feel a bit reluctant to say it because it may be interpreted as sucking up to the corporate masters who provide my bandwidth, it really is a very good science magazine—I'd be subscribing even if they weren't sending it to me for free. Take a browse through it sometime, there's a lot of the content available online. Anyway, of course the first thing I turn to in the magazine is Chris Mooney's article on Learning to speak science. It's good and has some productive suggestions, and I agree with Mooney on 90% of what he says in it, but… |
|
In Personal This afternoon, I'll be at the Bell Museum at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus, celebrating the birth of Charles Darwin. Everyone is welcome, so come on down! Events:
1:00P - Lecture by historian of biology Professor Mark Borrello, Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, on the history of Darwin and evolutionary theory.
2:00P - Lecture by biologist and blogger Professor P.Z. Myers, University of Minnesota—Morris, on evidence for evolution.
3:00P - Panel discussion of University of Minnesota evolutionary biologists on their cutting-edge research at the U of M titled "My Life's Work in Three Minutes". To be followed by a cake reception.
Charles Darwin achieved fame and infamy for his theory of evolution by natural selection, now the foundation underlying all biological sciences. Darwin Day is the anniversary of his birthday, whose exact date is February 12, 1809. The date is celebrated internationally.
For more information, contact:
Mike Jones
Publishing and Editing Committee Manager
Campus Atheists and Secular Humanists
Bell Museum of Natural History (Directions|Google Map)
Mmmmm-mmm. Cake. You can't possibly miss this. |
|
In Godlessness …and that's exactly why he is a slimy ass-pimple, a child-abusing freak. Evangelist Ken Ham smiled at the 2,300 elementary students packed into pews, their faces rapt. With dinosaur puppets and silly cartoons, he was training them to reject much of geology, paleontology and evolutionary biology as a sinister tangle of lies. "Boys and girls," Ham said. If a teacher so much as mentions evolution, or the Big Bang, or an era when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, "you put your hand up and you say, 'Excuse me, were you there?' Can you remember that?"
2300 children. 2300 young minds poisoned. Nothing new, I know, and I should just get used to it. But I can't. And here's how Ken Ham gets away with spreading anti-intellectual idiocy. The children roared their assent. "Sometimes people will answer, 'No, but you weren't there either,' " Ham told them. "Then you say, 'No, I wasn't, but I know someone who was, and I have his book about the history of the world.' " He waved his Bible in the air. "Who's the only one who's always been there?" Ham asked. "God!" the boys and girls shouted. "Who's the only one who knows everything?" "God!" "So who should you always trust, God or the scientists?" The children answered with a thundering: "God!"
"God." Once again, I'm going to give good, liberal progressive Christians the vapors and point out that there is the destroyer, the idea that ruins young minds and corrupts education: god. Ham has god on the brain, and he exploits other people who have god on the brain to give him millions of dollars so he can run around the country and put god on the brain of the next generation. I know. Many of you support science, and you carefully set aside your religious biases when assessing ideas about the world—you've managed to find means to cope with this infectious lie. That doesn't change the ugly fact that it is a lie, a crippling corruption, and that many people don't even try to sequester their superstitions and cultivate their rational side. When I hear Christians make excuses for their religion, it's like hearing smallpox survivors praising their scars. "It didn't kill me, and these poxy marks add character to my face! Those deadly cases have nothing to do with my own delightful disease." So we do nothing. We let the infection simmer along, encouraging our children to get exposed to it, praising it, howling in anger at those who dare to say the obvious and point out that it's a poison, a mind-killer, vacuous noise and evil nonsense. We let the absurdity flourish. We know exactly where the vileness grows, in the cesspool of religion, yet we veer away from confronting the source, draining the contagion, eliminating the vector of ignorance. We encourage it to thrive and it leads to well-meaning parents pressuring their impressionable kids into gulping down the ignorance-laced koolaid. Emily Maynard, 12, was also delighted with Ham's presentation. Home-schooled and voraciously curious, she had recently read an encyclopedia for fun — and caught herself almost believing the entry on evolution. "They were explaining about apes standing up, evolving to man, and I could kind of see that's how it could happen," she said. Ham convinced her otherwise. As her mother beamed, Emily repeated Ham's mantra: "The Bible is the history book of the universe."
I'm so sorry, Emily. Ben Watson wasn't quite as confident. His father, a pastor in Staten Island, N.Y., had let him skip a day of second grade to attend. Ben went to public school, the Rev. Dave Watson explained, "and I thought it would be good for him to get a different perspective" for an upcoming project on Tyrannosaurus rex. "You going to put in your report that dinosaurs are millions of years old?" Watson, 46, asked his son. "No…. " Ben said. He hesitated. "But that's what my book says…. " "It's a lot to think about," his dad reassured him. "We'll do more research."
I'm sorry, Ben. We let you all down. |
|
In Books  A few disclaimers: I do get kickbacks from affiliate programs when you purchase books after clicking through those links. If you'd rather not fund a perfidious atheist's book addiction, just look up the titles at your preferred source—I don't mind. This list is not a thinly-veiled attempt to get readers to buy me presents, either; I've read all these, so please don't try to order them for me. Get them for a creationist instead, they need them more. A while back, I presented a book list for evolutionists. Now I've updated it, adding a few recommendations and adding links so you can choose your favorite book vendor. Celebrate the birth of your favorite deity, the astronomical alignment of your choice, or any other traditional historical excuse for a midwinter party by passing along the gift of knowledge. For the kids: The Evolution Book (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Sara Stein. A fine book, but not for the lightweight science kid: this one tries to cover just about everything encyclopedically, so give it to the truly dedicated bookworm. Life on Earth: The Story of Evolution(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Steve Jenkins. Another encyclopedic illustrated summary of evolutionary history for the younger set. Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). David Norman. Not really intended for kids, but packed with full-color illustrations and detailed descriptions of many dinosaur groups. My kids would spend hours leafing through this one; it's the dinosaur book I wish I'd had as a 12 year old. Our Family Tree: An Evolution Story(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Lisa Westburg Peters. Excellent, simple summary of evolutionary history, for the K-3rd grade set. The Tree of Life : Charles Darwin(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Peter Sis. Nice picture book biography of Darwin for the kids. From the Beginning: The Story of Human Evolution(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). David Peters. An older book that may be hard to get, but worth it for the wall-to-wall drawings of the organisms scattered along the human lineage, from single-celled prokaryote to modern humans. For the grown-up layman: Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Sean Carroll. A phenomenal book; if there's one book you should pick up for an introduction to evo-devo, this is the one. Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Matt Ridley. Orac says, "It's a downright poetic look at each of the 23 chromosomes and what sorts of biological and disease processes genes from each of them are involved in, along with a nice dollop of evolution of the genome." Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Kenneth Miller. Danny Boy says, "A Christian debunks creationism and shows how evolution can be compatible with Christianity." Charles Darwin: Voyaging(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) and Charles Darwin : The Power of Place(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Janet Browne. This is the best biography of Darwin out there. Science As a Way of Knowing: The Foundations of Modern Biology(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). John A. Moore. This is part history book, part philosophy of science book; if you know someone who doesn't understand the scientific method, this one will straighten him out. The Darwin Wars(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Andrew Brown. Much as we aspire to the pure search for knowledge, scientists can be testy and political and vicious, too—this is a study of the sociology of evolutionary biology. Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Carl Zimmer. If you want a general survey of the history and ideas of evolutionary biology that isn't written like a textbook, this is the one you want. At the Water's Edge: Fish With Fingers, Whales With Legs, and How Life Came Ashore but Then Went Back to Sea(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Carl Zimmer. The focus in this one is on macroevolution of tetrapods and cetaceans. Excellently written, with a very thorough overview of the evidence. Trilobite: Eyewitness to Evolution(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Richard Fortey. Everything you need to know about the basics of trilobytes, with a chatty and often amusing introduction to the world of paleontologists. The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Jonathan Weiner. A Pulitzer-winning account of the work of Peter and Rosemary Grant in documenting the evolutionary changes occurring in Darwin's finches in the Galapagos right now. Taking Wing: Archaeopteryx and the evolution of bird flight(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Pat Shipman. Chris Clarke says, "an excellent and readable treatment of current thinking at printing on bird evolution and the evolution of that instance of powered flight." The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Richard Dawkins. Mrs Tilton says, "both as a general explanation of evolution and as a particular refutation of what has come to be known as intelligent design." The Ancestor's Tale : A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Richard Dawkins. A step-by-step account of human evolution, working backwards through time. What Evolution Is(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Ernst Mayr. A survey of the theory by an opinionated master. Evolutionary Biology(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Douglas J. Futuyma. If you don't mind reading a textbook, this is one of the best and most popular texts on the subject. An Introduction to Biological Evolution(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Kenneth Kardong. Another textbook, but less weighty and less expensive then Futuyma's; a book I'd use in a freshman non-majors course. For the more advanced/specialized reader: From So Simple a Beginning: Darwin's Four Great Books (Voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle, The Origin of Species, The Descent of Man, The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals) (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Charles Darwin, Edward O. Wilson (Editor). I've read these books, but I don't own this edition…so this is one I'll be hinting to my wife might make a nice present. It collects the four in one volume, with introductions by Wilson, so if every you've wanted these seminal works for your bookshelf, here they are in an inexpensive edition. On Growth and Form(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson. I'm afraid no developmental biologist can list important books without mentioning this one. From DNA to Diversity: Molecular Genetics and the Evolution of Animal Design(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Sean B. Carroll, Jennifer K. Grenier, Scott D. Weatherbee. Like it says…molecular genetics, evolution, developmental biology. A good textbook describing the new cutting edge of evolutionary biology. Shaking the Tree : Readings from Nature in the History of Life(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Henry Gee. GirlScientist says, "This is a collection of scientific papers that were influential in the field for one reason or another." (I don't think she intended that her recommendation come out sounding so tepid.) Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck?(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). David M. Raup. A little statistics, a lot of paleontology, a good introduction to how we try to puzzle out what the world was like from a sparse data set. The Structure of Evolutionary Theory(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Stephen J. Gould. Massive. Indulgently written. But full of interesting ideas. Developmental Plasticity and Evolution(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Mary Jane West-Eberhard. Also massive. If you're already comfortable with the conventional perspective on evolutionary theory, though, this one twists it around and comes at it from the point of view of a developmental biologist. Biased Embryos and Evolution(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Wallace Arthur. A slim and readable book about evo-devo. The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, and Environment(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Richard Lewontin. A slender book that lucidly summarizes the non-reductionist position on modern biology; it's a call for greater breadth in science. The Shape of Life : Genes, Development, and the Evolution of Animal Form(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Rudy Raff. Hardcore evo-devo. A little out of date, but very influential. For the anti-creationist: Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Barbara Carroll Forrest, Paul R. Gross. The best summary of the sneaky political strategy of the creationists of the Discovery Institute. Unintelligent Design(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Mark Perakh. Nice, blunt dissection of the pseudo-science of creationism. Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Matt Young, Taner Edis, eds. A team-takedown of Intelligent Design's bad science. Republican War on Science(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Chris Mooney. Here's my review; all you need to know about the current political attack on science. The Counter-Creationism Handbook(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Mark Isaak. Here's a brief review, but it's enough to say that this is an indispensable tool for dismissing creationist arguments. The Triumph of Evolution(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Niles Eldredge. Chris Clarke says, "useful and inspiring, both as a survey of evolutionary thought and a clarion call against creationism." Denying Evolution: Creationism, Scientism, and the Nature of Science(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Massimo Pigliucci. Michael Feldgarden says, "It definitely falls into the category of "anti-creationist" and "specialized reader." I don't know if it's a little too complex for the lay reader (I don't think so). It's an excellent and well-written rebuttal of creationism and definition of science and the scientific method as it relates to evolutionary biology." The Creationists(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Ronald Numbers. Sean Foley says, "For an overview of the growth and role of the creationist movement in America." Defending Evolution : A guide to the creation/evolution controversy (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Brian J. Alters, Sandra Alters. An excellent guidebook on how to handle creationism in the classroom, specifically for biology teachers.
I'll also add that Coturnix has a book list, too, and if you want a more specialized list, Mike has a list of books just for birders.
Just in case your favorite evolutionist has already read everything in the list, here's another possibility: bones! Here are a couple of sources of bones, fossils, and casts:
These kinds of lists can go on forever. Please do mention any other possibilities in the comments, and maybe they'll make it into the next edition. |
|
In Science Take a group of seventh graders and ask them to draw pictures of and describe scientists: as you might expect, you get a bunch of pictures of lab coats and adjectives like "dorky". Take those same seventh graders and introduce them to some real scientists, and the descriptions change. OK, if I had been one of the scientists they might still use the word "dorky", but in general, it's true that meeting scientists will almost always change people's perceptions of them.
Sir Oolius makes a good point: some of these cartoons of scientists suggest we ought to be rioting. I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of calling for a jihad against 7th graders, though. |
|
In Academics Here is a serious problem: Here's the thing, Gabriela: You will never need to know algebra. I have never once used it and never once even rued that I could not use it. You will never need to know—never mind want to know—how many boys it will take to mow a lawn if one of them quits halfway and two more show up later—or something like that. Most of math can now be done by a computer or a calculator. On the other hand, no computer can write a column or even a thank-you note—or reason even a little bit. If, say, the school asked you for another year of English or, God forbid, history, so that you actually had to know something about your world, I would be on its side. But algebra? Please.
That's Richard Cohen, who is supposedly the 'liberal' columnist for the Washington Post, giving advice to a young girl. It's outrageous. Because Richard Cohen is ignorant of elementary mathematics, he can smugly tell a young lady to throw away any chance being a scientist, a technician, a teacher, an accountant; any possibility of contributing to science and technology, of even being able to grasp what she's doing beyond pushing buttons. It's Richard Cohen condescendingly telling someone, "You're as stupid as I am; give up." And everything he said is completely wrong. Algebra is not about calculating the answer to basic word problems: it's about symbolic reasoning, the ability to manipulate values by a set of logical rules. It's basic stuff—I know many students struggle with it, but it's a minimal foundation for understanding mathematics and everything in science. Even more plainly, it's a basic requirement for getting into a good college—here, for instance, are my university's mathematics entrance requirements. Three years of mathematics, including one year each of elementary algebra, geometry, and intermediate algebra. Students who plan to enter the natural sciences, health sciences, or quantitative social sciences should have additional preparation beyond intermediate algebra.
This isn't what you need to be a math major. It's what you need to just get in, whether you're going to major in physics or art. Richard Cohen is telling Gabriela to forget about a college education. I'm sure that he has never once rued not being able to use algebra. If I had never heard a poem or listened to a symphony or read a novel or visited Independence Hall, I could probably dumbly write that I don't miss literature, music, or history…never heard of 'em. Don't need 'em. Bugger all you eggheads pushing your useless 'knowledge' on me! That kind of foolish complacency is what we'd expect of the ignorant, but it takes the true arrogance of the stupid to insist that others don't need that knowledge…especially after you've dismissed the utility of algebra because they can just use calculators. What, Mr Cohen, you don't think the engineers who make calculators need algebra? Cohen insists, though, that algebra is useless and doesn't even teach reasoning. Gabriela, sooner or later someone's going to tell you that algebra teaches reasoning. This is a lie propagated by, among others, algebra teachers. Writing is the highest form of reasoning. This is a fact. Algebra is not.
That's easy enough for a man to say, especially when his very next sentence is an example of the quality of the reasoning he believes he mastered with his ability to write. The proof of this, Gabriela, is all the people in my high school who were whizzes at math but did not know a thing about history and could not write a readable English sentence.
Maybe it's because I was bamboozled by all those teachers who taught me algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and calculus, but I don't think a bogus anecdote (seriously—the college prep crowd at my high school were taking math, languages, English, etc., and doing well at all of them) is "proof" of much of anything. It's about what you'd expect of a fellow who brags elsewhere in his essay that his best class in high school was typing. That's right, figuring out mindless, mechanical reflex action, rote memorization, and the repetition of stock phrases from a book were the height of intellectual activity in Richard Cohen's academic career. And the highlight of his elementary school education must have been mastering breathing. This is the man whose advice about education should be taken seriously? After all, education isn't important to live a happy, contented life. I have lived a pretty full life and never, ever used—or wanted to use—algebra.
If sheep could talk, they'd say the same thing. Yeah, a person can live a good, bland life without knowing much: eat, watch a little TV, fornicate now and then, bleat out opinions that the other contented consumers will praise. It's so easy. Or we could push a little bit, stretch our minds, challenge ourselves intellectually, learn something new every day. We ought to expect that our public schools would give kids the basic tools to go on and learn more—skills in reading and writing, a general knowledge of their history and culture, an introduction to the sciences, and yes, mathematics as a foundation. Algebra isn't asking much. It's knowledge that will get kids beyond a future of stocking shelves at WalMart or pecking out foolish screeds on a typewriter. We're supposed to be living in a country built on Enlightenment values, founded by people who knew the importance of a well-rounded education—people like Thomas Jefferson, who had no problem listing the important elements of a good education. What are the objects of an useful American education? Classical knowledge, modern languages, chiefly French, Spanish and Italian; mathematics, natural philosophy, natural history, civil history and ethics. In natural philosophy, I mean to include chemistry and agriculture; and in natural history to include botany, as well as the other branches of those departments.
Note "mathematics", which would have included geometry and algebra. In Richard Cohen we have a 21st century man insisting that an 18th century education is too much for our poor students. While Cohen may think a little more English or history is an adequate substitute for elementary mathematics, Jefferson would suggest otherwise…and if anything, this sentiment has become more true in these modern times. [I have] a conviction that science is important to the preservation of our republican government, and that it is also essential to its protection against foreign power.
I can't resist. I have to let Jefferson dope-slap Cohen one more time. If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
(via the SciAm blog)
This is a disturbing coda to the story. Gabriela gave up on school and got a job at the local Subway sandwich shop, but now she has new aspirations: "I don't want to be there no more," she said, her eyes watering from raw onions, shortly before she quit to enroll in a training program to become a medical assistant.
Ahem, what? She can't do basic algebra, and she's going to be a medical assistant? That is terrifying—remind me not to ever get sick anywhere near LA. |
|
In Weirdness  I've always wanted to be on The Simpsons, and I think my head is probably potato-shaped enough to fit in perfectly, but the Simpsomaker doesn't have quite enough options. More facial hair! I need a full beard with a Flanders-like mustache for this to work. At least it's easy to look like a Minnesotan.
(via Just a Bump in the Beltway) |
|
In Organisms It's just a photo set of pictures of quail, but I noticed that my right forefinger reflexively twitched at the photo of the Republican lawyer in the middle of them. There may be a neurological explanation for Cheney's shotgun error, after all. |
|
| |
| |
| |
In Reproduction Ah, the life of the female giant Australian cuttlefish…males fight for her affections, and during the mating season she will have sex with 2-8 different males each day, with an average total of 17 copulations per day. She can be picky, too, and rejects most of the mating attempts (yet still manages to mate up to 40 times a day). It must be a good life. Males have a rougher time of it, I would think. There are many more males than females, and so it's a struggle to get access to one; the bigger, stronger males will guard females, acting as a consort, and use aggressive displays to chase off competitors. What to do if you're a smaller, but clever male? Read the entire post | Read the comments on this post |
|
In Evolution This week's issue of Science contains a very strongly worded statement about the utility of evolutionary biology in medicine, and calls for an increase in education about evolution at all levels of the medical curriculum, from high school to med school. I've put the whole thing below the fold—it's good reading. Read the entire post | Read the comments on this post |
|
In Godlessness August Berkshire of Minnesota Atheists gave a talk at Northwestern College, one of our regional evangelical Christian colleges, and the Star Tribune has a story about it. He gave the students a list of very poor religious rationalizations—it's a strange and interesting story, and a little sad, since the students don't seem to have learned anything at all. There are also peculiar little twists to everything that reflect how blinkered people can be. Berkshire was invited by the instructor in a theology class, and look how unaware this guy is: Johnson told the group that his association with Berkshire began when a student went to a debate at the University of Minnesota and brought him Berkshire's card. "I had a strong urge to call him up and tell him to leave my student alone," Johnson said. "But I was curious, too -- I'd never really rubbed shoulders with an atheist.
Isn't that odd? The student had gone to a debate and met Berkshire, and the instructor's first thought is to tell the atheist to leave the poor kid alone. And then for a theology teacher to have never met an atheist…these people are all hothouse flowers, aren't they? They get brought up in avoidance of anything that might challenge their delicate beliefs. He shouldn't have worried. There's a series of student responses at the end of the article, and it's clear that they have all developed very strong denial mechanisms, and not a word sunk in. "I appreciated that he was very approachable, not hostile," said Andrew Olson, 20, of Long Prairie, after class. "I was curious about his motivations, though. Why was he here? I felt like he came to try to convince us there is no God, even though he said he hadn't.
Yeah, and like he didn't have fangs and claws or anything. I thought the article clearly laid out why he was there: the instructor invited him, and as usual, August laid out his case quite clearly: Berkshire told the students he wasn't trying to talk them out of their beliefs. "I don't care if you accept my arguments or not," he said. "I just want to show you that yours are based on faith, not reason. And that's OK, as long as you don't try to force them on me or our government."
Pay attention, take better notes, and think, kid. "I wanted to ask him more about the Bible, if he thinks it's all deluded," Olson said. "He groups all religions together. I'd have liked to discuss the merits of salvation by grace, a truly unique concept."
Maybe thinking isn't an option, then. He didn't follow Berkshire's points 1 and 2. "Salvation by grace" is nothing but unjustified dogma, a bit of empty noise. I am a little curious what possible arguments he would use to justify it, but I suspect it would be nothing but a bunch of quoted Bible verses. Krista Baysinger, 20, of Benson, Minn., said, "I really enjoyed it. He was noncondemning and presented his arguments well. But nothing he said shook my faith -- not at all. Actually, this is a way to help us strengthen what we believe, by thinking it through."
Unfortunately, none of the students quoted are actually thinking. Betty Kraus, 20, of Prior Lake, wondered why Berkshire "has invested so much of his life in this. I mean, he comes in and lays out argument after argument that he wouldn't accept from us. What would he have us do?"
Wait a moment…a student who has enrolled in a Bible college is wondering about an atheist spending so much of his life on something? Does she think he spent his childhood going to atheist school on Sundays and atheist camp in the summer, after high school he went off to atheist college to get a degree in atheism, and now goes to atheist services a couple of times a week and sings in the atheist choir? These kids really need to get more exposure to the non-Christian life. Oh, well. One can always hope that there were a few kids there who were using their brains…but they were probably not the ones who would glibly parrot a string of rationalizations to the reporter afterwards. Read the entire post | Read the comments on this post |
|
In Reproduction Just a thought…but you know, my town isn't far from the South Dakota border, and there really isn't that much difference between my neighborhood and that of some small South Dakota town 50 miles away. I think the piggish prigs who are pushing the legislation to criminalize abortion are contemptible, but does that mean we people of the progressive state of Minnesota are any better? That got me wondering—I'm a fully entitled, blissfully unaware, card-carrying member of the Patriarchy, after all, so I've never had to consider what it would be like to be female, 17, and worried that I might be pregnant. I tried to imagine it. I can get a pregnancy test kit from the Pamida down the road. I'd feel a bit weird about it, though: this is a small town. We know everyone and they know us, and those are high school and college kids working the cash registers there. Everyone is going to know about it if I buy one…I suppose I could try shoplifting it, but jeez, if I got caught shoplifting a pregnancy test, I might as well just die. If I somehow got the test and it were positive, the next step would be difficult. There is a sign on the edge of town here that purports to be helpful— it says "Pregnant? Need advice?" with a phone number on it—but it's put up by some of the local religious wackos, and all they'll do is tell you to keep the baby and slap you upside the head with a Bible, so they certainly aren't to be trusted. The phone book isn't much help. I wouldn't trust the Morris hospital either…locals again, and they have a reputation for being very conservative. They don't do abortions anyway. The nearest Planned Parenthood clinic is 45 minutes away, they don't do abortions either, but they do provide emergency contraception…except that they're only open on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. WTF? Do a lot of people get knocked up on Monday and Tuesday nights or something? As it turns out, the only abortion providers in Minnesota are all in Minneapolis. Three hours away, by car; to get there by bus requires a shuttle to Alexandria, then taking Greyhound the rest of the way. It isn't easy, and it isn't cheap. Once there, though, there's more. Minnesota has a parental notification law, so at least one parent has to come along, and the other has to send along a notarized letter granting permission. Then there is a state-mandated 24 hour waiting period: at the first appointment, they have to counsel the person against getting an abortion, and can only do the procedure the following day…as if a young lady who has had to struggle that much just to get there hasn't already thought things through thoroughly. Spending a night in the Big City is going to cost. Did I mention that the procedure itself is going to cost $500+? I'm beginning to realize that the only young women who will be able to get abortions in my part of the state are the ones with a supportive family, or who are old enough and prosperous enough that they can afford the rigamarole and hassle. The ones who are going to be most distressed by a pregnancy, who are least able to cope with it, are the ones who are going to be excluded. I'm feeling a bit ashamed of being a male and not having thought much about this before. That little Y chromosome does confer some privilege in this regard, and it seems petty and cruel that we should so unthinkingly impose a greater pain on those who have already had more than their share. Right now, a few scrofulous boars in South Dakota have raised their snouts and squealed loudly, asserting their selfish rule over women, and it's easy to condemn them. But there are only about 750,000 South Dakotans, so most of us don't live there anyway; it seems to me that maybe what we ought to be doing is also looking to our own states' laws on abortion. Our pigs might be a little more muted, but they've been busy for years, planting a lot of little restrictions that add up to a substantial hurdle. "I think the stars are aligned," said House Speaker Matthew Michels, a Republican. "Simply put, now is the time."
Maybe he's right. Maybe now is the time to wake up and do something about this everywhere, not just South Dakota.
Here's an interesting tidbit: South Dakotans disapprove of the law by a large majority. How do these morons get elected? Read the entire post | Read the comments on this post |
|
| |
In Reproduction Once again, I bravely plunge into the fascinating world of kinky sex research in humans. This time, we learn something incredibly useful. Gentleman, would you like to know how to improve the potency of your semen? Do you need a good excuse to give your significant other when she catches you browsing porn sites? Do you want another excuse to sneer at those pompous business types who flaunt their fancy cell phones? Here's the study for you. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post... |
|
In Politics I can't do it anymore. I can't possibly keep up with the competition, who are willing to sink to sick, perverse depths to which the real porn kings and queens willingly immerse themselves. And they're so close to me—just a few miles to the west, across that state line. I'm talking about South Dakota. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post... |
|
In Godlessness I think The Raw Story is supposed to be a progressive political web site…which, unfortunately, means I now have to be greatly embarrassed by my fellow travelers along the great liberal path. Melinda Barton has written a bizarre and poorly supported screed against atheism, or as she'd prefer to call it, secular whackjobbery, as opposed to her preferred position, which I will call theistic wank-offery. She starts by making up a novel definition, always a bad sign. To Barton, the term "secular" refers to "those who disbelieve all religious and spiritual claims, not to those who merely support a separation of church and state." That's an interesting position for a progressive to take, since there are a great many liberal religious people who believe that a secular government is the best government, yet because they hold private beliefs about God, she gets to sweep them completely off the table in any consideration of the promotion of secularism. Sweet. It also means she gets to accuse those few remaining godless promoters of a non-religous government "whackjobs" and extremists. Not all the atheists, she is quick to note—just the evil ones who hold the outrageous claims she then lists. Strangely enough, when she lists these claims, she isn't able to provide any evidence that anyone actually holds any of these positions. You know, I'm a fairly extremist atheist myself, and I just find her assertions daffy. Outrageous claim number 1: Atheism is based on evidence and reason and is philosophically provable or proven. Atheism is a matter of thought not belief. In other words, atheism is true; religion is false.
Well, yes, I believe religion is false; that's no more a damning trait than the fact that Melinda Barton believes religion is true. But this claim that atheism is proven is bizarre; who says such things? She tries to quote a writer for the Atheist Foundation of Australia who defines atheism as "the acceptance that there is no credible, scientific or factually reliable evidence for the existence of a God, god/s or the supernatural"…tell me, where is the claim of provability there? She goes on to argue that both the presence and absence of a deity are matters of belief, setting up a false equivalence in which she tries to argue that both are therefore matters of faith. What nonsense; the absence of faith is not faith, any more than the absence of a sandwich is also a kind of tasty snack between two slices of bread. Outrageous claim number 2: Since the natural is all that we have or can scientifically observe and/or measure, it is all that exists.
Now we get into some real craziness. This basic claim of metaphysical naturalism, which is a reasonable interpretation of the absence of evidence, is called a blatant logical fallacy and scientifically inaccurate by Ms Barton. She claims it is a logical fallacy because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. That's an extravagant misuse of the aphorism, I'm afraid. Absence of evidence is a legitimate argument for the absence of a phenomenon. If I claim there is a unicorn living in my backyard, but repeated attempts to observe and record it, or to find indirect evidence such as footprints or unicorn scat all fail, it is perfectly reasonable to provisionally suggest that the claim is false, and to insist that any further consideration of the idea will require positive evidence from the claimant. As for her claim that metaphysical naturalism is scientifically inaccurate…her defense consists of abusing quantum physics. I'm thinking there ought to be an exam and some kind of licensing requirement before people are allowed to use The Argument From Quantum Physics in public. Outrageous claim number 3: All religion is oppressive.
I'm more sympathetic to this one. I think it's true that most religion is oppressive, and I agree with The International Manifesto for Atheistic Humanism that she quotes: Religion is oppressive. The act of subjugating human will to "divine will" is oppressive. The practice of obeying clergy, of letting them make our decisions for us, is oppressive and irresponsible.
The onus is on Ms Barton to show that this is false and only believable by whackjobs. She fails. She cites examples of commendable behavior by religious individuals, which I don't disagree with at all—people are quite capable of transcending the limitations of their dogma. As we've come to expect, she has to ignore the actual words of her atheist targets to make her case. She doesn't even try to address the issue of surrendering autonomy to an authority based on "faith" as oppressive. Outrageous claim number 4: The eradication of religion in favor of secularism will bring about utopia.
Again, a straw man, and she has got to know it. She reaches for the usual extremist examples with which atheists are typically beaten, the anarchists and communists, and says that they believe "the total eradication of religion is an essential but not sufficient step in the creation of an atheist utopia." The statement of her religious claim and her recitation of an example follow one after another; are we to believe that she doesn't understand what the phrase "but not sufficient" means? Possibly. She's not exactly dazzling us with her clarity of thought here. Outrageous claim number 5: All religious people want to force you or convince you or coerce you to believe as they do.
Just a rhetorical tip to Ms Barton: it's a bad idea to end a list of arguments for your position with the weakest, lamest, most pathetic claim you can think of, and also to immediately admit that it's unsupportable. You know, like this: I tried to find an "official" source for this hasty generalization with no luck, but chose to include it here based on personal experience.
Jebus. Never mind. Do we even need to try to rebut this kind of nonsense? Fresh off that flabby reasoning, her conclusions stoops even lower. Why should we oppose these "secular whackjobs" on the left? Pogroms, baby, we're all about persecuting you for what you do in your home and church. Step into my classroom or onto the sidewalk wearing a crucifix, and I might just rip it off and stomp on it. (Do I have to add, "not really"? Probably. The fevered imaginations of the Melinda Bartons of the world no doubt see sarcasm as a personal slight.) While most who believe in the separation of church and state hold that only government support of religion in the public sphere should be forbidden, the secular extremist may take it one step further to forbid the private display of religious symbols in public places.
I hereby promise that if you want to wear a yamulke in public, or want to dab ashes on your forehead on some incomprehensible holy day, I won't sic the cops on you. OK? There's a difference between accusing all people with certain religious beliefs of conspiring to lock you up in prison, and insisting that government should be entirely secular, granting no preference to one religious belief or another. When you target the latter under the pretext of protecting us from the former, you're promoting theocracy. Just for the slow and witless who have difficulty figuring out the obvious, Ms Barton, theocracy is not a progressive value. Read the comments on this post... |
|
In Godlessness Should the godless be a little more generous in dealing with believers? Here's an argument that advocates a little more charity; that we ought to recognize that belief in the supernatural is a nearly universal human condition, that it's a useful coping mechanism for dealing with the unknown, and that it's a mistaken belief, not a moral failing. I'm not entirely convinced. You can substitute the word "ignorance" for "supernatural belief/spirituality/religion" and it fits the whole argument just as well. Yet I don't feel any desire to make excuses for ignorance, and I certainly don't have sympathies for the promoters of ignorance. Read the comments on this post... |
|
| |
| |
In Weirdness  Chuck Olson has captured Geek Prom 2006 on video. Be prepared to be shocked: there's the talent show, the spaz dancing, the coronation, parades of geeks in strange costumes, and most terrifying of all…nerd nudity. Not safe for work or individuals with any sense of taste or propriety. Read the comments on this post... |
|
In Creationism More than once, I've said that I think the Discovery Institute is on the wane; Dover dealt a serious blow to their credibility, and demonstrated that their strategy was not an effective one for helping creationists get their way. That's really all they had, was the promise that their pseudo-secular approach would give anti-evolutionists an inroad into the public school system, and it is clear now that that is not true. I've also noticed that people give me a leery look when I say that—the DI has been a recent but ubiquitous feature in the Creation Wars—but now I can just tell you all to read this article. "Dover is a disaster in a sense, as a public-relations matter," said Bruce Chapman, a former Seattle city councilman and founder of the Discovery Institute, the country's primary supporter of intelligent design. "It has given a rhetorical weapon to the Darwinists to say a judge has settled this," he said. Even some critics of evolution have taken the ruling as a sign that the fight to bring intelligent design into public schools may be over.
Judge Jones voiced it authoritatively, but I think we knew it all along: the backers of ID were almost all creationists of the old school, who saw this as nothing but a loophole they could exploit. Even the Fellows of the DI were readily admitting, outside of their official pontifications and press releases, that they believed their Designer was a God, and the Christian deity no less. The article does a nice job of documenting these beliefs, and here's something I never thought I would say…I agree with Rush Limbaugh. "Let's make no mistake," Limbaugh said on his radio show. "The people pushing intelligent design believe in the biblical version of creation. Intelligent design is a way, I think, to sneak it into the curriculum and make it less offensive to the liberals."
Fortunately, that last clause is all wrong (we still found it offensive), so I can still say Limbaugh is a pompous gasbag who derives his authority from oxycontin-fueled bluster rather than evidence, and my world isn't totally shaken. Oh, but wait…I also agree with Cal Thomas! My aching brain. Columnist Thomas, a former spokesman for the conservative Christian political group Moral Majority, said the court decision shows that academic debates, lawsuits and alternate explanations are not the way to fight the secularization of the United States. "It should awaken religious conservatives to the futility of trying to make a secular state reflect their beliefs," Thomas wrote.
Now that statement has more ominous overtones coming from Thomas—I think he's implying that we need to get rid of the secular nature of the state altogether—but in general I think he's right. Right now we have a body of precedent on the separation of church and state (and enough religious people who also appreciate the protection that separation gives them) that makes it difficult for even the ignorant wingnuts with which the Republicans are trying to stock the courts to ignore, and it is so unambiguously clear that all forms of creationism are religiously motivated, that barring even more radical destruction of the institutions of our government, creationism is just not going to fly overtly in the public schools. The frontal assault on the education system has been rebuffed, and among the severely wounded still moaning on the glacis are the followers of the Discovery Institute, and their generals have also been exposed as comic opera buffoons. Does this mean I think we're winning the Creation Wars? Not at all. I think one fairly recent player has been knocked out of contention, at least temporarily, nothing more. The more insidious creationist strategy of sapping the educational system by stocking school boards with anti-intellectual cretins and applying pressure to suppress scientific education and increase scientific ignorance is ongoing and is painfully effective…and we haven't mustered a strong response to it yet. We flail at individual instances, but don't have a more permanent institutional strategy for promoting and maintaining good science teaching at the pre-college level. We're holding the top of the wall while they undermine our foundations, and we know where that is going to lead. I also think that while we must win court cases like Kitzmiller v. the Dover School Board, we're fooling ourselves if we think legal decisions are anything more substantial than stopgap measures. Losing a case like that would be catastrophic, but winning has its own costs. It solidifies opposition by feeding resentment. Every court case in this struggle, from Dayton to Dover, has failed to change a single mind, and while they have told us much about creationists and creationism, they've done nothing to educate people about science and evolution. And that's the only place where this war can be won, in public education, both in the schools and among the general public. Read the comments on this post... |
|
In Creationism Here's a description of the contents of her newest book: Though liberalism rejects the idea of God and reviles people of faith, it bears all the attributes of a religion itself. In Godless, Ann Coulter throws open the doors of the Church of Liberalism, showing us: - Its sacraments (abortion)
- Its holy writ (Roe v. Wade)
- Its martyrs (from Soviet spy Alger Hiss to cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal)
- Its clergy (public school teachers)
- Its churches (government schools, where prayer is prohibited but condoms are free)
- Its doctrine of infallibility (as manifest in the "absolute moral authority" of spokesmen from Cindy Sheehan to Max Cleland)
- And its cosmology (in which mankind is an inconsequential accident)
Then, of course, there's the liberal creation myth: Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. For liberals, evolution is the touchstone that separates the enlightened from the benighted. But Coulter neatly refutes the charade that liberals are rationalists guided by the ideals of free inquiry and the scientific method. She exposes the essential truth about Darwinian evolution that liberals refuse to confront: it is bogus science.
How many lies can you count in that? Now here's the best part: guess who is her source on matters of evolution? William Dembski. I'm happy to report that I was in constant correspondence with Ann regarding her chapters on Darwinism.
That is so typical of Coulter's research: find the most wrong-headed fool around and parrot his ill-informed opinions. This is going to be world-class suckage. This book is going to be a black hole of reason—reading it is going be like sticking your brain in a Cuisanart. What we're going to find in there is all the lies and nonsense we can expect to hear echoed back at us for the next decade, the dishonest crap that every clueless wingnut bozo is going to absorb instead of real science. And I'm going to have to read it. For I so love the world that I will sacrifice my neurons to bring my people rebuttals. Read the comments on this post... |
|
In Godlessness Man, the comments on my guest editorial at the Raw Story are nuts. I don't know if the word "secular" brought out a flock of trolls, or if that place is always infested with these uncomprehending goons. There are a couple of people who seem baffled by the fact that I wrote a positive piece on the virtues of secularism, yet my prior comment on Melinda Barton was a negative work that concentrated on criticizing her sloppy logic and sneaky redefinitions. It's bad enough that they are surprised that one person can use two different tactics, but they're also suggesting that the fact that I didn't beat up Barton some more means I'm backing away from my earlier statements. I didn't say more about Barton because I already wrote that argument. I thought I was thorough and didn't need to rehash it—the fact that I included a link to it should have clued in people that I wasn't repudiating it. I don't know why this should be so difficult to grasp. I suspect it's that people sympathetic to Barton's view share her bigotry, and think that atheists are all planning to line the Christians up against the wall as soon as we've finished subverting society, right before the looting and orgies start. Atheists must be tied to extremism, or poor Ms. Barton's argument falls apart. Or maybe it's the fact that the essay was a thousand words long, and overwhelmed their capacity (people who are bewildered at the idea of simultaneously supporting X while criticizing opponents of X don't have much capacity to spare!)…so here, let me help by digesting the essay down. Shorter intolerant rant by PZ Myers: I'm willing to get along with and even support the religious, as long as they don't threaten to suborn secular institutions to privilege religious belief.
Better? Read the comments on this post... |
|
In Books I'm going to have to get this book, Sex, Drugs, and DNA (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) just on the basis of a few excerpts… Unfortunately, the US is a nation of very stupid people. So I have stripped out the jargon and tried to deal with science and health issues as though I was haranguing you at a party.
…and… The strange thing about talking to non-scientists about science is that you quickly notice that some of the smartest, most thoughtful and intellectually curious people have a terrible understanding of it. Most students leave high school poorly equipped to manipulate even the most basic concepts. Nonetheless, I remain hopeful that we can increase science literacy and intelligent discourse in the US. What can I say? I'm an optimist.
…and a nice cartoon… Read the comments on this post... |
|
In Politics You know I'm no fan of Richard Cohen. He's not the person I'd go to for some sharp insight or even for the ability to recognize humor, so it should be no surprise that he failed to see the humor in Stephen Colbert's performance at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. Comedy is a matter of taste, so that Cohen didn't find it funny is no big deal…but this comment shows off Cohen's typical obliviousness and tin ear. In Washington he was playing to a different crowd, and he failed dismally in the funny person's most solemn obligation: to use absurdity or contrast or hyperbole to elucidate -- to make people see things a little bit differently. He had a chance to tell the president and much of important (and self-important) Washington things it would have been good for them to hear.
Huh? What would have been good for them to hear? I heard pointed comments about the war, the economy, Bush's unpopularity, privacy and civil rights, and most importantly, the spinelessness of the Washington media. In fact, that's exactly what Colbert did: he used absurdity and contrast and hyperbole (which Cohen did not find funny, but so what?) to point out a great many hard truths. Even if he wasn't funny to some people, he used his opportunity to tell these guys some important things. He met his "most solemn obligation." Oddly enough, Cohen did not say what he thinks would have been good for the audience to hear. Which fork to use for the salad? A joke about airline food? A riff on the uselessness of algebra? Read the comments on this post... |
|
In Creationism The following missive was slipped over my transom in the dead of night. It reveals a dark secret, a clandestine society that has been working for years to hide their origins and true purpose. It begins with a murder and wends its way through a series of codes that are, as it turns out, reducible and simple, to reach a shocking conclusion. I know who the author is, but I'm not telling. I will say that it is not Dan Brown (fortunately!). Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post... |
|
In Entertainment Watch this short film of Terry Bisson's well-known short story, They are made out of meat. I like the idea, but it was a little off-putting that they used actors made out of meat to play the main characters. There is no shortage of non-meat actors, you know, and there are some CGI functions that might want to protest the usurpation of roles that really ought to go to minorities. Here some excellent, juicy non-meat roles come up, and they hand them over to the meaty majority. (via The Valve) Read the comments on this post... |
|
| |
In Academics Here's a controversial topic to discuss, especially for a science blogger. Science is overrated. This is my contention. Last night in chat I evidently hit a nerve by (perhaps not so) casually suggesting that maybe it's not the end of the world that fewer and fewer American students are going into the sciences.
I read that first bit, and you may be shocked to learn that I'm willing to agree. There are some really good arguments to support the position. Science is hard, and it's true that the majority of people aren't going to be able to grasp it. We're oversubscribed and overextended right now, too: more students are going through the science mill than can ever acquire jobs doing science. If every PI is taking on one new graduate student and one new postdoc every year over a career spanning 30-40 years…well, that's a situation that is rather ruthlessly Malthusian. It is definitely not a practical career, either—the excessively long training period and relatively low salaries mean that, in a purely economic sense, it would be more profitable to plunge into a blue-collar job straight out of high school. It's also not as if science is the only rewarding career of value out there, and no other work can possibly be as satisfying or productive. My own kids are all going on into non-science careers, and I say, good for them. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post... |
|
In Science Human milk is potent stuff. The Greek for milk was gala, and as you might be able to see if I hadn't had to reduce this Tintoretto so much, the galaxies were created from the spray of milk from Hera's breasts. Modern astronomers might quibble with that explanation of the origins of the extrasolar universe, but what do I know...I'm a biologist. I'll stick to biology now, and with that, here's a short summary of the biology behind mother's milk. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post... |
|
In Evolution  Four of my favorite things are development, evolution, and breasts, and now I have an article that ties them all together in one pretty package. It's a speculative story at this point, but the weight of the evidence marshaled in support of the premise is impressive: the mammalian breast first evolved as an immunoprotective gland that produced bacteriocidal secretions to protect the skin and secondarily eggs and infants, and that lactation is a highly derived kind of inflammation response. That mammary glands may have had their origin as inflamed glands suppurating mucus may not be the most romantic image to arise in a scientific study, but really—they got better and better over the years. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post... |
|
In Science  I just learned (via John Lynch) about a paper on cetacean limbs that combines developmental biology and paleontology, and makes a lovely argument about the mechanisms behind the evolution of whale morphology. It is an analysis of the molecular determinants of limb formation in modern dolphins, coupled to a comparison of fossil whale limbs, and a reasonable inference about the pattern of change that was responsible for their evolution. One important point I'd like to make is that even though what we see in the morphology is a pattern of loss—whale hindlimbs show a historical progression over tens of millions of years of steady loss, followed by a near-complete disappearance—the molecular story is very different. The main players in limb formation, the genes Sonic hedgehog (Shh), the Fgfs, and the transcription factor Hand2, are all still present and fully functional in these animals. What has happened, though, is that there have been novel changes to their regulation. Even loss of structures is a consequence of changes and additions to regulatory pathways. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post... |
|
In Reproduction Hang on, close your eyes, don't click on the "Read on…" link at the bottom of this post; I've put an obscene picture of explicit prurience below the fold. It might arouse you to engage in wild monkey-sex in your workplace, or worse, inspire horrific violence. Don't view it if you are a sensitive person! Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post... |
|
In Reproduction Great stuff from Majikthise, Pandagon, and Shakespeare's Sister on this fairly obvious paper (pdf) that argues that the rhythm method kills more embryos than contraceptives. It's straightforward: by avoiding sex during the prime time for ovulation and fertilization, there's a greater likelihood of fertilization occurring when the egg is past its sell-by date…it's increasing the chance of spontaneous abortion and birth defects. The paper is all speculative and philosophical about it all, but there are actually some suggestive epidemiological data that suggest it is true. A study by Jongbloet describes a doubling of the frequency of Down Syndrome in young Catholic mothers. Gray and Kambic say: There is an excess of male births conceived during the least fertile days, and the risk of spontaneous abortion doubles outside the period of peak fertility. Furthermore, there is growing but inconclusive evidence linking chromosome abnormalities to aged gametes.
(I have to offer a few caveats. There are also studies that report no deleterious effect of the rhythm method, and I also suspect that studies that show a change in viability are more likely to be published than those that don't—that file drawer effect. But when the Bovens paper says there is no empirical evidence for his speculation that conception outside a "heightened fertility" interval would be more likely to be problematic, it's not quite right.) I think the argument is a little bit irrelevant for the same reason Amanda states: pregnancies fail all the time anyway, even if the eggs are fertilized at the optimum time. Trying to get pregnant is always going to be an exercise in baby killing, if you believe that a freshly fertilized zygote is a a fully fledged human being—that baby is going to get flushed spontaneously about half the time. I'm guessing how the anti-choice crowd will react to this idea. - Simple denial. They'll ignore the argument every time it is made.
- Protestations of disbelief and ignorance. This is an abstract argument from probability and statistics, after all—it will make no impression on the innumerate.
- You may not believe this, but there are lots of people who flat out disbelieve that randomness exists. Everything is fixed and fated. Probability arguments are meaningless.
- The responsibility is God's. You see, contraception and abortion by a woman means she is abrogating God's privilege. Leaving it up to chance (which doesn't exist, see above) is putting the decision in God's hands…and if God decides to take the zygote to heaven, that's his right.
That last argument is the interesting one. If we accept the anti-choicer's claim that the zygote is a baby at the moment of fertilization, and the abortion rate is about 46 million per year world wide, and the number of live births is approximately equally to the number of spontaneous abortions, and the number of babies born last year was about 80 million…that means God killed almost twice as many babies as the abortionists did last year. That psychopathic bastard. I want to see the anti-choicers start picketing churches instead of abortion clinics. Oh, and there's one more strategy they could take: this result says that all contraception is evil and must be forbidden. There's already an attitude among some nuts that all sexual activity must be accompanied by the possibility of procreation, so why not go whole hog and ban the rhythm method, too?
Jongbloet PH (1985) The ageing gamete in relation to birth control failures and Down syndrome. Eur J Pediatr 144(4):343-7. Gray RH, Kambic RT (1988) Epidemiological studies of natural family planning. Hum Reprod 3(5):693-8. Read the comments on this post... |
|
In Creationism How can you possibly make the Creation "Museum" look sillier? This may not be a LOL image, but I thought it was hilarious. If you're having trouble reading the blurry print, it says: According to God's Word, thorns came after Adam's sin, about six thousand years ago, not millions of years ago. Since we have discovered thorns in the fossil record, along with dinosaurs and other plants and animals, they all must have lived at the same time as humans, after Adam's sin.
How can you argue with logic like that that? Read the comments on this post... |
|
| |
| |
In Godlessness One of the reasons we atheists have to be loud and assertive is that we are floating alone in a vast sea of ignorance. Case in point: here is an artist who has obviously never met an atheist. I am expressing my feeling towards the very Idea of Atheism. I almost pity those who have such beliefs. I'm not saying they are wrong or right. I'm just saying that what they believe in is more depressing than any other possibility. So I made this simple picture to express my feelings for somebody who believes in nothing. here we see a person sitting in a blank room without any doors or windows. What is most troubling is the fact that this person wants to be here, and is unwilling to move from his chair. Alone, neglected, and lost to the ravages of time. without anything to grab onto and hold as a symbol of his own identity. Those who seek nothing as a reward shall ultimately receive it. I don't think Atheists can even believe in love, which is the saddest part. If this picture offends you, remember that it is not directed at you. Even if you are an atheist.
Atheists don't believe in love? Where does this nonsense come from? This fellow is a fool who sits alone himself, imagining what atheists must think, and he conjures up this ridiculous picture based on the idea that atheists are lonely nihilists who believe in nothing. I know a lot of atheists, and no, his portrayal is not accurate. I'm not offended by the picture — I'm just sickened by the smug ignorance of its creator. There are a lot of comments over there, too, all of which are getting hidden away by the host, which tells us who has got his eyes firmly closed in this debate. I think he needs to retitle his picture to "Self Portrait." This atheist simply believes in all that is (which is quite a lot), and doesn't believe in that which isn't (which denial, to some theists, seems to represent a complete denial of the universe…which tells us more about their deluded mindset than ours.) Since the artist doesn't understand that we do believe in something (including love), here's a short, simple creed for the godless. An atheist's creed I believe in time,
matter, and energy,
which make up the whole of the world. I believe in reason, evidence and the human mind,
the only tools we have;
they are the product of natural forces
in a majestic but impersonal universe,
grander and richer than we can imagine,
a source of endless opportunities for discovery. I believe in the power of doubt;
I do not seek out reassurances,
but embrace the question,
and strive to challenge my own beliefs. I accept human mortality. We have but one life,
brief and full of struggle,
leavened with love and community,
learning and exploration,
beauty and the creation of
new life, new art, and new ideas. I rejoice in this life that I have,
and in the grandeur of a world that preceded me,
and an earth that will abide without me.
Read the comments on this post... |
|
In Books I must urge you to steal buy this book: Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). The description makes it sound perfect. Laboratory work is the essence of chemistry, and measurement is the essence of laboratory work. A hands-on introduction to real chemistry requires real equipment and real chemicals, and real, quantitative experiments. No existing chemistry set provides anything more than a bare start on those essentials, so the obvious answer is to build your own chemistry set and use it to do real chemistry. Everything you need is readily available, and surprisingly inexpensive. For not all that much more than the cost of a toy chemistry set, you can buy the equipment and chemicals you need to get started doing real chemistry. … DIY hobbyists and science enthusiasts can use this book to master all of the essential practical skills and fundamental knowledge needed to pursue chemistry as a lifelong hobby. Home school students and public school students whose schools offer only lecture-based chemistry courses can use this book to gain practical experience in real laboratory chemistry. A student who completes all of the laboratories in this book has done the equivalent of two full years of high school chemistry lab work or a first-year college general chemistry laboratory course.
Ooooh, I wish this book had been around 15 or 20 years ago, when I could have infected my kids with it. Maybe I'll have to wait a few years (many years!) and expose a grandkid to it … which will have an added advantage that the parents will have to deal with the messes and smells. Odd thing, though: I looked through the table of contents, and there's not one single solitary thing about chemistry prayers. How can the experiments possibly work? Read the comments on this post... |
|
