Science Avenger

Best Comment on the Downgrade

2011-08-12T15:20:00.002-05:00

From a tweet whose source I've forgotten:

"The Tea Party has been downgraded to KK+"

The Stock Market Crash: Satan Did It

2011-08-08T21:11:00.001-05:00

The S&P 500 fell 6.66% today. Obviously Satan did it.

Why Atheist Fundamentalist is a Nonsense Term

2010-08-27T09:55:00.003-05:00

A lot of critics of the more vocal "New Atheists" try to in cheap debating points by poisoning the well with the label "atheist fundamentalists". The strategy here isn't too sophisticated: imply that these atheists are just as closed-minded as their opponents. The problem is the two aren't remotely similar. Oh sure, there are stupid atheists, ignorant atheists, loud atheists, arrogant strident atheists and even atheists that are wrong about the big questions. But none of this supplies coherence to the term "fundamentalist atheists". It's an oxymoron. We aren't much fond of authoritarianism, tradition, dogma, or of course faith. That's a big part of what makes us atheists in the first place. We don't herd well. We don't pledge our devotion to any particular beliefs, or hold much of anything in stone. Ask three atheists for their opinions on gods and religion and you'll get four opinions. Ask them again in six months and you'll four slightly different opinions from what you got before. There's no fundamentalism in there.

So you critics of the New Atheists, dispense with the intellectual dishonesty and these erroneous terms like "fundamentalist atheist". It only reveals your gross ignorance of how atheists think, or your dishonesty in dealing with it.

Teabaggers and Czars

2010-08-06T12:44:00.002-05:00

Here's Ted Nugent tossing an impressively stupid word salad of Teabagger talking points:

"This president's overtly destructive, clear-and-present-danger agenda is surpassed in transparency only by his ultra-leftist public voting record and overall lifetime conduct of consorting with the enemy as a child and student of Marxism, socialist and racist community organizer, congregant of the blatant America-hating black-theology- and social-justice-spewing Rev. Jeremiah Wright and close personal friend of convicted communist terrorists like Bill Ayers, and by his unflinching appointment of an array of communist czars, including Van Jones, Cass Sunstein, Anita Dunne, et al."

OK, first of all Ted, and any Teabaggers that might be reading, the moment you say "Bill Ayers", "Saul Alinsky", or "ACORN", thinking people stop listening. It was irrelevant bullshit in 2008, and it's still irrelevant bullshit now. Secondly, all you igtards yammering about communist czars, please go take a history lesson. The Czars were absolute rulers, the Caesers of Russia. The notion of multiple Czars being appointed is, well, like having multiple all powerful gods being chosen by mere mortals. "Czar" in the US is a hokey term for certain appointed positions, has been going on since Reagan and his idiot Drug Czar William Bennett, and is another phantom issue like the three A's above. Furthermore, the communists were the friggin people that overthrew the damned line of Czars, murdered the last one and his children in cold blood. So talking about communist Czars is like talking about Nazi Jews.

And you wonder why the stereotype of the Teabaggers is an ignorant blowhard...

Women Clergy as bad as Child Rape Sez Vatican

2010-07-16T11:48:00.002-05:00

Yep, that's right, allowing a woman to be a priest is as bad as raping children, or so says the Catholic church. I guess that means if they catch any ordainers, they'll just move them around instead of punishing them or bothering the proper authorities about it.

Fast Food Anecdote

2010-07-13T21:14:00.000-05:00

Inspired from this discussion

It seems clear to me that fast food is hopelessly unhealthy and expensive compared to almost anything home cooked. I don't buy the "I don't have time" argument either, unless one is on the road between destinations. Nonetheless...

...while in college in 1984, drained of funds and willing to do nearly anything ethical to get by, I took full advantage of the McDonald's Olympic game. This is the one where you get free food if the Americans medal in the event printed on your free game card you get when you go in. I would wander by between classes and scoop up game cards left by those not as desperate as I. When the month to turn them in came, I did so. All of them. Every day. 3-4 times: a Big Mac, fries, and a coke, for a month. I didn't gain a pound, nor notice any ill health effects.

Then again, my main mode of transportation was my bicycle, and to say my metabolism was high would be a major understatement. The lesson I take from that is not that fast food isn't unhealthy, or can't be cheap for that matter. It's that one shouldn't do medical research with a sample space of one. Oh, and never eat 3-4 Big Macs a day for a month. It's likely to cause you to never eat one again.

Dealing with Traveling Evangelists: Preach The Boot

2010-06-05T10:58:00.005-05:00

Here's a great story about two effective ways to deal with traveling evangelicals. You can impale them on their own spear:

Or you can satirize them:

In this second scenario, a student set up next to the evangelist and preached the word of the boot, and it's protection from the evil wetness. Shamed, the evangelist had little to say except "You're all going to Hell!". Like their cousins the Teabaggers, they have little defense from satire, because most people can't tell the difference at a glance. For the greatest example of this, read Mark Twain's The War Prayer.

The victims in the pictures are Brother Jed and Sister Cindy, who, those of you who've gone to college in the last 50 years know, travel around the country delivering their folksy fire-and-brimstone Christianity. I remember spending part of my afternoons mocking Cindy mercilessly. The big burr up her ass then was rock-n-roll, and it was going to send us to the LAKE...OF...FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRE!!! We'd bring a jam box and sing along to Stairway to Heaven while she ranted. I also recall one year a huge transvestite dressed for Halloween showed up and confronted Cindy, who literally curled up into a ball until the, um, guy(?) left.

Jed wasn't much fun then, looks like nothing changed. They must have found a fountain of youth somewhere, they don't look to have aged a day in 20+ years. But then, they came pre-aged.

Science and Intuition

2010-06-04T10:32:00.000-05:00

Good science often starts with intuition. Bad science ends with it.

Stupid Things Democrats Say: Here's Your Chance Democrat Haters

2010-05-28T12:08:00.004-05:00

For all of you splitting at the sides at my policy of not allowing tit-for-tat partisan political comments, this post is for you. Here's your chance to make good your boasts that the Democrats are just as stupid as the Republicans. Think my posts are biased against the GOP because its stupidity gets highlighted more than that from the Democrats? Now's put-up-or-shut-up time. To maintain focus and avoid the tactics of obfuscation (which is one of the main bases for my policy), here are the ground rules:

1) Give an exact quote by a Democrat with either a primary source, or a respected non-Rupert-Murdock-owned secondary source. No paraphrasing, no "watch this link", no "Ann Coulter said so", no "Some people say".

2) Describe what changes would need to be made to the statement to make it correct, and if it is a scientific subject, source your answer to some widely respected authority on the matter (ie a scientific organization or representative of its view). We can't measure how wide of the mark an idiotic statement is if we don't know what a true statement would be, and differing with GOP orthodoxy does not idiocy make.

3) Tell me what statement by a GOPer is comparable. Be sure to keep in mind #2, as well as how respected the speaker is on his side of the aisle, and how large an audience he has. It's hardly reasonable to compare something said by a Gaia tree-hugger whose group meets in a phone booth with something Sarah Palin said.

Failing to conform to this criteria will result in noninclusion. This is not an opportunity to toss as much shit against the wall as you can in an effort to see what sticks.

My contention, as made evident by my many blog postings on this subject, is that the "breathtaking inanity" (Bush-appointed Judge Jones' description of the Intelligent Design crowd) expressed by GOP politicians and supporters dwarfs that of Democrats by orders of magnitude, both in wideness of the reality mark, and the audience and respect such views get. It's never been my contention that there are NO stupid crazy democrats. But democrats who say things every bit as crazy as what creationists say are mostly laughed at by other Democrats, or hidden in the attic. They don't nominate them for Vice President. They don't make their views part of the party platform. The GOP does.

On every issue where there is a clear scientific consensus, and the two parties differ, it is the GOP on the ignorant side of the aisle. Whether it is evolution, global warming, stem cell research, abstinence-only birth control, and a host of other issues, it's the democrats that side closest to the best science we have. The Republicans pay lip service to science, and try desperately to give the impression that their ideology is supported by it, but in the end when science clashes with their ideology, ideology wins. That goes for overtly religious subjects like evolution, to more secular religious views like supply-side economics and pure capitalism. The Laffer curve is every bit as religious, and evidence-free, as a 6,000 year-old-earth is, as is the notion that government ruins everything. Ever hear of WWII, the moon landing, or the interstate highway system? Government programs all.

Again, that's not to say the Democrats are above criticism. On too many subjects, they deviate from clear science and mathematics (the drug war, gun control, social security, etc.) It's just small potatoes compared to what Republicans do, and is usually a lesser level of error. I'd compare the Republicans and Democrats to two doctors presented with our sick society. The Democrats want to bleed it with leeches. The Republicans want to pray for its recovery. While both solutions are clearly flawed, the Democrats are epistemologically eons ahead. At least their proposal understands that there are physical forces at work here, that they are part of the body politic, and curing what ails it means changing that physicality somehow. The Republican method doesn't even seem comfortable with objective reality, and is essentially relying on magic. The Democrats flaws can be changed with data. The GOP is stuck where it is forever, because to them, what seems true in their gut, or their mind, makes scientific evidence-gathering irrelevant. Republicans are, in every way that matters, still living in the 18th century. They never went through the scientific renaissance. They are still Aristotelian.

Think I'm wrong? Here's your chance to prove it.

More Tea Party Loonies Coming to a Race Near You

2010-05-26T14:41:00.005-05:00

Think Ron Paul and his aversion to aspects of the Civil rights Act are just dandy fun, be sure to check out this summary of Teapartiers running for office, where you'll find gems like these:

World Wrestling executive Linda McMahon

Tim D'Annunzio, for whom we find this wonderful description:

In Hoke County divorce records, his wife said in 1995 that D'Annunzio had claimed to be the Messiah, had traveled to New Jersey to raise his stepfather from the dead, believed God would drop a 1,000-mile high pyramid as the New Jerusalem on Greenland and found the Ark of the Covenant in Arizona. A doctor's evaluation the following month said D'Annunzio used marijuana almost daily, had been living with another woman for several months, had once been in drug treatment for heroin dependence and was jailed a couple times as a teenager.

The doctor concluded that his religious beliefs were not delusional. A judge wrote in a child support ruling a few years later that D'Annunzio was a self-described "religious zealot" who believed the government was the "Antichrist." The judge said he was willfully failing to make child support payments.

Sharon Angle, the Tea Party’s top candidate in the GOP primary to challenge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), is benefiting from an implosion by frontrunner Sue Lowden, who has been sinking in the polls ever since she suggested that poor Nevadans could “barter” with their doctors, perhaps by giving them a chicken in exchange for services...Angle’s ultra-conservative positions, which include abolishing the Department of Education and ending virtually all campaign finance restrictions

Ain't it great where the person suggesting we pay our doctors in chickens is the sane one?

Vaughn Ward, an Iraq war vet who had been endorsed by Palin and was highly touted as a recruit by the national party...was caught recycling lines from then Sen. Barack Obama’s 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention. Ward had also been rebuked for making it appear that Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo endorsed his campaign when, in fact, he had not. And on at least two occasions, Ward suggested that Puerto Rico, where primary opponent Labrador was born, is a foreign nation.

Well Hell, what do you expect from a party whose presidential candidate didn't know where Spain is.

Will America really elect insane people to office. Tune in November.

The Free Market of Health Care: A Simple Rebuttal

2010-05-24T20:53:00.002-05:00

Homeopathy.

Millions of people have decided, via their rugged individual minds, that water is medicine. "Inefficient market" is too kind a term.

Rand Paul, Tea Partier, De Facto Segregationist

2010-05-21T09:16:00.004-05:00

In case anyone actually needed the proof, Rachel Maddow does a masterful job here and here giving Rand Paul enough racist rope to hang himself. Paul prattles on about how he's not a racist and hates discrimination, and then waffles and dances like a madman to avoid answering the simple question of whether his view would allow businesses to refuse to serve blacks, or gays, or women, or whoever they want. Of course it would, and Paul should have been less of a pussy and just flat said that it did. He should have said that as a libertarian, he would rather suffer the negative repercussions of private business discrimination than suffer from government interference in that part of life, however big talk it'd be from a white male who wouldn't be the one suffering, rather than try to pawn it off as some sort of hypothetical, abstract discussion. That made him come off as a dishonest, patronizing sleazebag.

But I'm really waiting for all the Tea Baggers to come forward and denounce Paul's de facto support of racial discrimination (you can't say you're for dike breaches but against floods), and an effective social return to 1960. Come on guys, you SAY you aren't a bunch of racists - now put up or shut up.

We all know its the only time they'll be quiet.

O'Reilly's Parade of Stupid

2010-05-13T16:36:00.005-05:00

In case you missed it, here is Bill O'Reilly's recent parade of stupidity:

Here's Bill giving Ann Coulter a chance to babble nonsensically about those evil, fictional "liberals" who are against everything, and who loved Hitler. And Don't dare think rationally!

Of course what would an article featuring stupidity be without an appearance by Sarah Palin, revealing clearly her desire for a Biblical government, and her complete ignorance, compounded by Bill's, of the religion-free nature of our Constitution. I would love just once to hear someone blabbing on about how relevant The Ten Commandments is to our government to name a single law forbidding worshiping idols, or coveting, or not keeping the sabbath. Methinks they don't even know the contents of their own religion.

And finally, listen to Bill take the daring position, no doubt popular in his great-grandmother's time, that redistribution of wealth is a new and dangerous concept. Happens every time a tax is collected, or a government program implemented. Do try to keep up.

Imagine what the below-average Republicans must be like...

Only in Alabama

2010-05-12T17:45:00.007-05:00

Let's hope, anyway. First Bradley Burne gets accused of not being ignorant enough (believing in evolution but not the Bible), then he rebuts with 'DIRP! Yes I are!':

"As a Christian and as a public servant, I have never wavered in my belief that this world and everything in it is a masterpiece created by the hands of God. As a member of the Alabama Board of Education, the record clearly shows that I fought to ensure the teaching of creationism in our school text books. Those who attack me have distorted, twisted and misrepresented my comments and are spewing utter lies to the people of this state."

Enjoy, for just a moment, the schadenfreude at the quote-minders eating their own.

But back to harsh reality, this is a race for Governor folks. GOVERNOR! We shouldn't tolerate this nonsense from someone running for dog catcher, much less Governor. I guess given the recent rise of dull stars like Glenn Beck in the conservative constellation we should have expected this. Nonetheless, the next time someone tries to use the fact that Sarah Palin was governor as justification for giving credibility to her views, show him this half wit.

Also keep this in mind the next time someone insults your intelligence with the "oppressed Christians by the liberal media" meme. If the media had the slightest bit of objectivity, much less an anti-Christian bias, this guy would be eviscerated on every news network for a week. Instead, that appeal to the 19th century Republican base there in Alabamy might just help him win him the election.

Fabulous Comment on Homophobes in the Onion

2010-05-06T18:25:00.000-05:00

If you've wondered as I have about the long list of fire-and-brimstone homophobes that turn out to be gayer than a pink suit (Haggert, Foley, Larry Craig, etc.), you'll love this oldie from the Onion which ends with this:

"I swear, if these homosexuals don't take a hint and quit sucking my cock all the time, I'm going to have to resort to drastic measures–like maybe pinning them down to the cement floor of the loading dock with my powerful forearms and working my cock all the way up their butt so they understand loud and clear just how much I disapprove of their unwelcome advances. I mean, you can't get much more direct than that."

Nope, you can't. Now assume a wide stance...

Townhallers on Race and GOP - Revealing More than they Realize

2010-05-05T17:38:00.006-05:00

Michael Medved wrote a surprisingly lucid article on the demographic problems facing the GOP with regard to race. While John McCain got considerably more white votes than Obama, Obama's 4:1 demolition of the GOP ticket among nonwhites sealed the deal. Those demographics will work more to the Democrats' advantage with every passing year, and Medved rightfully sounds the alarm for changes to the GOP to take this reality into account.

Predictably, many of those who criticized Medved did so in a way that made pretty clear just what the problem is:

"Note that the illegal/legal distinction is relatively unimportant, since the two population are quite similar -- we're mostly importing people bearing little human capital. "

"No peaceful solution remains for taking back the country and the government from the leftists, blacks and hispanics. "

"This nation was founded by whites, and as long as whites were a majority, their Founders' vision of limited government, individual responsibility and self-sufficiency were upheld. But the white birthrate has dropped and continues to decline, while nonwhites remain prolific breeders, not to mention the hordes of peons pouring unchecked over the southern border.

The result is inevitable. When whites are outnumbered by nonwhites the nation's standards will sink inexorably to third-world levels. Nonwhites (and most women of any color, for that matter) want government handouts, and will vote for anyone who offers them, i.e. Democrats and socialists (but I repeat myself). "

"The people are waking up, and once affirmative action and compulsory PC end, white people will again become a 90% majority in the US within a couple of generations, because they will have restored to them the birthright every decent nation affords to its own people. "

"When all the white people stop working, who will feed the trolls? He who has the money has the power, eh? So, let's take control of ourselves and let the government rule over their voter base ... have no fear of bad credit and [] relocate to a state where the men are men and where everyone is armed. I don't think the northern states will be a part of the future of the white race. "

"Yes, personal responsibility and financial independence are the hallmarks of being White, and underachiving financially and educationally, and being supported by the State are those of the Blacks. That's not me saying it, but Blacks themselves demonstrating it."

"People of color have many conservative values, and actually only need to be enlightened as to their best interests to form a conservative voting block. "

"Frightened semi-literate minorities are easy prey to people who pander to their starrey-eyed dreams. "

"One thing the GOP can say with complete accuracy, 'at least we're all Americans'. "

"The demographic trends are frightening, because the left in general and the Democrats in particular have been so effective at forging minorities and all sorts of identity groups into huge ethnic voting blocs that are impervious to any considerations beyond identity group or ethnic solidarity. "

"The Demos, the libs, the progressies, all insist that Blacks are so stupid they must have help in passing a test, and must be given much help in getting a job.
I think that the real life situation proves the stupid lefties are right. Other wise the Blacks and Wettt Backkks would be smart enough to join the Tea Party, and the Republican Party. "

"Nearly all blacks and mestizos will remain Democrat, because they need handouts, quotas and soft gubmint jobs to get by ... The masses of the cognitively incapable will feed off the rest of us, and use their political power to keep the racket going. The only way forward is to circle the wagons in your white-majority state, make life on handouts as hard as you can there, and join forces with similar states in seceding from the dysfunctional, doomed USA."

"We must place a moratorium on immigration both legal and illegal."

"...they are real Americans and not hyphenated-Americans..."

"The GOP is the party of the... real American"

Gee, and they wonder why they don't attract minorities. This sample doesn't even include comments by a poster going by "El Rushbo" who seemed clearly fake to me. As a few other posters tried to explain, it's not so much the racists in the GOP, as the rest who say nothing about it, that makes for PR problems. Notice that practically no conservatives in the discussion takes any of these posters to task for these comments. If 5 members of the Klan lynch the black guy living next door to you, and you and your 20 buddies do nothing but stand and watch, you can't be too surprised that the racist label comes your way too. Sometimes inaction speaks as loudly as action.

You've Never Seen the Pope Like this

2010-04-30T17:59:00.002-05:00

I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. Do not not watch this video at work, or in the presence of sensitive Catholics. It's the kind of brilliant self-evoking humor the South Park guys have pulled off for years that wooshed right over the heads of it's targets.

Tea Party Innumeracy

2010-04-22T17:12:00.003-05:00

Tea Partier ignorance and intellectual dishonesty is sometimes something to behold. Check out the zinger on comment 97:

A Tea-partier claimed their ranks were made up of mostly Democrats and independents. When challenged on his claim, he produced these figures:

4% Democrat
+ 52% independent
= 56%, thereby a majority, via a CNN poll.

So, a poll which shows 96% of Teapartiers to be either Republicans or Independents gets presented as "a majority Democrats and independents" by the pushers of family values. Funny, the family values I was raised with didn't include gross innumeracy and/or intellectual dishonesty. By their logic, one could claim the majority of Teapartiers are child molesters...or morons.

New Giant Garbage Island found in Atlantic

2010-04-17T09:47:00.001-05:00

I guess we shouldn't be surprised that the Pacific isn't the only ocean with the garbage island problem. The Atlantic has one too.

Dawkins and Hitchens Call for Arresting the Pope

2010-04-11T11:31:00.002-05:00

Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have announced plans to have the Pope arrested when he visits Britain. This came after this evidence surfaced that the Pope was involved in covering up instances of child abuse by priests:

The Pope was embroiled in new controversy this weekend over a letter he signed arguing that the “good of the universal church” should be considered against the defrocking of an American priest who committed sex offences against two boys. It was dated 1985, when he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which deals with sex abuse cases.

The Pope should get no special privileges, and should be investigated the same as any other person accused of a crime, and let the evidence determine his innocence or guilt. Of course, this isn't going to happen, as no doubt those in charge in England will lack the cojones to actually do it.

But we can always pray.

Refreshing AP Honesty on the 'Activist Judge' Charge

2010-04-10T12:21:00.003-05:00

It's nice to see the AP calling it like it is with the charge of being an 'activist judge':

Senate Republicans said the nominee should not be an activist, which they describe as someone driven by a preferred result rather than by the law. In practice, though, Republicans find that only liberal Democratic-appointed judges wear the activist label.

As the debates rage over Justice Stephens' replacement, just remember that 'activist judge', whatever it's theoretical definition, amounts to "a judge I disagree with".

Belated Easter Pic

2010-04-09T09:21:00.003-05:00

This pretty much says it all.

Psychic Irony

2010-04-04T06:51:00.004-05:00

Teabaggers Spel Gud

2010-04-03T10:14:00.004-05:00

There's something immensely ironic about a group hyper-sensitive about English being spoken being so bad at it themselves. Here's my favorite:

Indeed, they are. Will America really be taken over by the most ignorant among us? November will tell.

Global Warming Eats Island

2010-03-24T19:32:00.003-05:00

Global warming is now starting to eat islands in the Indian Ocean, giving us a new technique for resolving territory disputes. Meanwhile, the deniers continue to deny. I guess if it doesn't happen where they are standing, it isn't real, being so fond of the "were you there" line of evidence as they tend to be. Or maybe they just don't care because its happening to, you know, them.

Tea Party Census Lunacy

2010-03-18T11:41:00.004-05:00

An email came my way via the Tea Party crowd on the census, and since I haven't done a dissection recently, I thought I'd shine some light in the darkness on a few choice comments:

In the body of the letter it states;

Your response is important. results from the 2010 Census will be used to help community get its fair share of government funds for highways, schools, health facilities, and many other programs you and your neighbors need. Without a complete, accurate census, your community may not receive its fair share. I urge you to re-read the above paragraph.

Please note where it states, "help community get its fair share of
government funds for highways, schools, health facilities,
and many other programs you and your neighbors need."

Yes, this is known as "promoting the general welfare". It's mentioned in a little document known as the preamble to the Constitution, perhaps you should read it sometime.

Is this or is this not, what Stimulus was for, but we have
yet to see?

Ah, so if you don't see something it doesn't exist? Sort of like "no one was there when life began"? Would you even know it if you saw it? When was the last time you saw something outside your home state anyway? Or are you miseducated enough to think government activity is only legitimate if it helps you personally, or promotes agendas you support? What does the word "democracy" mean to you?

What have we been staunchly protesting? We have
been protesting out of control Govt. spending! Remember the
Corn husker Kickback? The Louisiana Purchase? Who decides
what is our "fair" share? SEIU? ACORN? Obama? Congress?

Um, congress, you know, that group elected by the people to represent and serve the people? Did you sleep through government class in high school? Or did your home school agenda skip that part?

We are all individual Americans and it is up to us, to
decide, as individuals, rather we continue to fall in line
and do as we are told, by this intrusive govt.

If filling out a piece of paper, so that government representatives know who it is they are representing, qualifies as "intrusive government" to you, I suggest you get out more. Most everyone east of the Atlantic, or south of the Rio Grande, would laugh at you.

I will be filling out the 2010 Census, but my response will
be limited to only informing them of how many people reside
in my home. If a 2010 Census worker shows up at my door, I
will have the United States Constitution in hand.

And they will rightly conclude that you have taken leave of your senses. Try reading that wonderful document instead of waving it at public servants in ignorance.

The Boring Era?

2010-03-17T12:12:00.004-05:00

Here's an interesting article on technological progress in recent years, and how we may overstate just how fast we are progressing.

My alternate Title:

Why Scientists Have Outperformed Politicians (and how those with power have better learned to hang onto it)

I would argue that the internet is every bit as transformative as the telephone and electricity, although that like most of our high tech gadgets were born in the 80's, and all they've done since is get smaller, faster and cheaper.

I would also argue that his criticisms have the implicit assumption that there is always somewhere to improve to, and thus could amount to seeing our rapid progress since the scientific revolution as some sort of fault. Maybe the bicycle really is the physically optimal structure from human propelled locomotion. Something has to be. And so it may be with nation-states, although it seems likely there is a more optimal structure for societies with over 400 million citizens in them than the one we use, since it was devised in a society with 1/100 that population. The big question is whether there is a transitional form if you will, from where we are to there. There may not be, at least not one without a lot of spilt blood.

Hitchens on The 10 Commandments

2010-03-16T13:25:00.002-05:00

Watch Christopher Hitchens improve the 10 Commandments". Commenter Jame Sweet nails the value Hitchens has for the atheists' cause, and why the "not scholarly enough" criticism doesn't fly for him:

If you want someone to go on Fox News for sixty seconds and defend the atheist position ... Hitchens is your man. I think it is exactly because of his willingness to fiercely pursue an argument with a weak or poorly-understood foundation that he is able to acquit himself so well in the fast-paced fact-lite world of cable news and other forms of mainstream media. He makes his point fast, furious, and forcefully, with no apologies, no equivocation, and no caveats. He tends to be difficult to take out of context, because each statement (when he's on these types of show) is fully self-contained. There's no nuanced case-building, just raw talking points delivered with passion and fury.

Exactly. Nuanced, detailed, and scholarly-correct arguments mean little in today's socio-political context. One need only examine the Global Warming e-mail scandal to see that. We certainly need the scholarly defense in our arsenal, and atheists have no shortage of that. But we also need the Hitchens of the world to parse it down into bite sized chunks.

I'm Gonna Punch You In the Head for Jesus

2010-03-15T13:01:00.000-05:00

I'm Gonna Punch You In the Head for Jesus.

Nastiest Funniest Political Joke at Palin's Expense

2010-03-13T15:41:00.001-06:00

What's the difference between Sarah Palin's mouth and her vagina?

Only 20% of what comes out of her vagina is retarded.

Irony Galore in Mississippi Lesbian Prom Incident

2010-03-13T15:38:00.003-06:00

In the great prom lesbian incident, we get a nominee for greatest ironic statement ever:

Southside Baptist Church Pastor Bobby Crenshaw said he's seen the South portrayed as "backwards" on Web sites discussing the issue, "but a lot more people here have biblically based values."

Right, you're not backward, you just live by a 2,000 year old rule book. And we wonder why reason doesn't work with these people.

Atheism a Religion?

2009-12-19T10:01:00.002-06:00

I thought this photo said it all:

Oral Roberts: God Finally Took Him

2009-12-16T18:13:00.003-06:00

Oral Roberts, preacher and beggar of divine funds extraordinaire, pulled off the lowest of the low cons some years ago when he claimed if his followers didn't give him sufficient funds, God would "call him home".

And people gave. A lot. Explains a lot, doesn't it?

Oral Roberts is dead. Good riddance. Aren't you all so glad you gave?

Great Debunking of the God-could-have-done-it-that-way Argument

2009-12-13T10:05:00.000-06:00

If you get as bored as I do with the bad math and biological ignorance of the creationists who constantly claim some mutation or another is too improbable, check out what happens to Cornelius Hunter when a commenter named Duke goes to the trouble of doing the calculations for the evolution of a mitochondrial protein for him. Hunter just yanks a "million million" figure out of his ass, and then gets confused when Duke actually takes the time to put together a lower bound for the number of corn mitochondria:

Just to give an idea of the scale of numbers we're talking about here. Let' say that every corn mitochondrion has the minimum number of genomes, 2 (although that number will probably vary, since having more or fewer genomes is a common genetic abnormality, even in humans), and let's say that every corn cell has 100 mitochondria in it (Google "How many mitochondria in a plant cell" and take the first result), which is the low estimate for plants. Let's also assume that each corn plant has a millions cells in it, which is ridiculously low, but I'm making a point here. That means we have

2 genomes/mitochon. * 100 Mitochon/cell * 1e6 cell/plant

That means 2e8 mitochondrial genomes per plant, and that's a ridiculously low estimate. Even so, that takes you to one five-thousandth of your legendary "million million" number.

But wait! There are 4e12 corn plants grown every year. That means there are 8e20 (that's 800,000,000,000,000,000,000) separate mitochondria, every year, each one ready to randomly stumble upon a simple protein in that tiny 1e12 haystack.

Hunter's only reply after a lot of obtuseness by design is to declare the comparison "apples and oranges and not making sense".

Hunter also reveals that he doesn't understand that genomes do not copy themselves perfectly:

Hunter: You can have as many copies of the mitochondria as you like in that line of corn, they share the same genome.

Duke: Um... Reference? You're saying that mitochondria copy themselves perfectly? With no mutation at all? You'll have to show your work on that, I'm afraid.

Nor does he understand how common gene duplication is:

Hunter: And finally, the vast majority of the de novo gene we're talking about has high similarity to two existing segments in the genome. You're saying that unguided mutations just happened to create a new gene that mimics two existing sequences?

Duke: Um... Yes? This sort of thing is common and observed. Part of the genome is copied and added onto the genome twice. It's like some unguided copy-editor added two versions of Chapter Four to a book.

And for the best moment, one of Hunter's fans named Natschuster tries to come in and save him:

Natschuster: I'm not convinced that it could turn the corn into a new species. If I make small random changes to my car, I might get lucky, and one of the changes will improve my cars performance, but I don't think that it will ever turn my car into a truck.

Duke:Really? You can't see turning your car into a truck in small steps? Your car into a truck? Really?

Are you serious?

Of course, your thought experiment of turning a car into a truck is wildly wrong, betraying a gross misunderstanding of what your opponents believe. What you'd actually be doing is copying your car, repeatedly, thousands upon thousands of time, with minor variations. Those copies in the second generation that cease to function are destroyed; those that are better at performing whatever you need them to do are kept (in the case of the car-to-truck transition, this might be hauling cargo rather than carrying passengers) to breed the third generation. Repeat as necessary. This sort of thing does happen and has been demonstrated happening.

Ideological denial, meet reality, courtesy of Duke. Check out the entire exchange, it's a howler.

House Panel OKs Bill on College Football Playoff

2009-12-10T08:54:00.002-06:00

A House panel has given the OK to a bill proposed by Rep. Joe Barton, R-Arlington (that would be very close to TCU), which would prevent the BCS from calling its title game any form of a "national championship game" unless it were the result of a playoff system.

"What our friends and fans need to know about the Bowl Championship Series is that it is not about choosing the champion or competition on the gridiron," Barton said. "It is about revenue sharing for the schools that are in the BCS conferences."

The BCS, which started in 1998, was supposed to diminish controversy over determining a college football champion. But critics say the format has only muddled the situation further and left many schools at a disadvantage. BCS officials and other defenders of the system say it has a good record of producing a championship matchup and is constantly being adjusted for fairness.

Barton and others reiterated concerns about the system, though, during a jocular hourlong hearing that featured a number of references to team loyalties. Tradition-rich schools and conferences receive the bulk of the BCS' multimillion-dollar payouts, they said, and smaller schools, such as TCU and Boise State, have little opportunity to participate in the title game.

That's putting it too kindly. By eliminating point spread in the computer ratings which make up 1/3 of the BCS rankings, the BCS system has made it mathematically impossible for a team from a small conference, like Boise State, to reach the top even it defeated every opponent 100-0. Middle-of-the-roaders like TCU could do it, but it would require a crazy year like this one where many top teams lost games they were heavily favored to win.

Let's hope this fundamental disparity triggers some principle in anti-trust law to break up the BCS oligarchy and allow a playoff and a champion decided on the field, as happens in every other college sport, including lower division football.

Uncomfortable Question for Young Earth Creationists

2009-12-09T22:05:00.000-06:00

From Raven:

The other question some YECs hate is, “Do you believe Noah had a boatload of dinosaurs?”

The YECs that are trying to look intelligent and educated will waffle around and refuse to answer it. They know it makes them look silly.

Be sure to ask it often and don’t let them evade the question.

It is a central story of their religion. God ineptly creates humans in his own image so they are also inept. Then he genocides all but 8 in an attempt to improve them. That didn’t work so he sent his kid down to be nailed to a tree. So how did that work? The next step in god’s improvement program to fix his original design flaws is another genocide.

For an all powerful being, he certainly seems to have trouble getting things to work. Someone tell me again, why the fundie god is worth worshipping?

Indeed, why? We've all been so immersed in this lunacy, many of us have lost the ability to step back and see just how loony it is.

Nice Quote on Creationist Doublethink

2009-12-07T18:32:00.001-06:00

'Creationists are the only people in the world who could simultaneously think that 6000 years is the entire history of the universe but that the 70 million years of the Cambrian Explosion is “sudden”.' - Reinard.

The Designer's Goofs

2009-12-03T14:04:00.004-06:00

For quick rebuttal to the notion of a designing intelligence being the only logicl explanation for the complexity of biology, I give you The Designer's Goofs, all 96 of them (bonus points for finding more). The most persuasive IMO are those where the supposed designer made the same exact mistake in many species. Rather odd sense of humor he has.

Primate dietary requirement for vitamin C

Apes and humans require vitamin C in their diets... which is rather odd, because most mammals synthesise their own. Yet although we humans cannot; we do have the same gene for this that they do... but it is broken! And it is rendered non-functional by precisely the same mutation in all the great apes. Coincidence? And how loving of the creator to give people without adequate diets scurvy!

Cat taste

Unlike most mammals, cats are uninterested in, and presumably are unable to taste, substances that are sweet. 'So what', you might say, 'they don't need to'. Well perhaps. But if they don't need to taste sweet things, it is odd that they possess the same requisite genetic machinery for sweet detection that other mammals have... but one of the two receptor genes is broken, rendering it non-functional.

What's more, the exact same deletion and stop codons are found, not just in domestic cats, but also in tigers and cheetahs, which means the designer gave superfluous sweet-taste genes, and then broke them identically, not just to one design, but to several.

This Week in Palinology: Book Signee's Speak, America Groans

2009-11-30T04:13:00.000-06:00

For a blogger like me, always looking for the scientifically comical and idiotic about which to write, Sarah Palin is the gift that keeps on giving. Every time she, or her sycophantic followers, open their mouths, blogworthy idiocy belches forth. I couldn't keep up with the woman during the 2008 election, and I fear for my fingers if she has the audacity to run in 2012. She is without peer.

But I've decided one Palin post a week is plenty, so here is the first of what will undoubtedly be many Palinology posts. So cringe along with the rest of thinking America as Palin book signees speak, babbling nonsensically about czars, common sense, realness, atomic bombs and all that.

Here's a great description of Palin, and explanation of why she is more popular with men than women:

It's very simple why women don't like her as much as men. Women saw through Sarah Palin and we saw through her quickly. Men are literal and are more likely to say what they mean and mean what they say. Women are more nuanced and better able to persuade and manipulate others with their words. So it's quite natural for us to be able to look below the surface of another woman's words and grasp the intentions behind them.

Sarah Palin is the peppy cheerleader in high school all the boys thought was so sweet but the girls knew was really a vicious shrew. She's the new girl in the office who wears tight shirts and three-inch heels, is super-friendly to her male superiors, ignores the other women, and gets promoted sooner than her more capable and hard working peers. She's the outgoing PTA mom all of the other women are scared to cross because they will find themselves put on the worst committees. Only a woman knows how to give another woman a sweet smile and at the same time cut her down to size with an artfully crafted "compliment" without male observers having a clue about what just happened. It's like a dog whistle.

And what would a Palin post be without some wisdom from the Grand Dame herself:

I believe that I am because I have common sense, and I have, I believe, the values that are reflective of so many American values. And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the, um, the, ah -- kind of spineless -- a spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with elite Ivy League education and -- fact resume that's based on anything but hard work and private-sector, free-enterprise principles. Americans could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership. I'm not saying that that has to be me.

No, it doesn't have to be you, whatever "it" one can glean from that babble. Qualified to be President? She's not qualified to be the president's aid.

Perino: No Terrorist Attacks During Bush's Term

2009-11-25T11:50:00.005-06:00

You have to watch this to believe it: Dana Perino actually says there was not a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term. Even worse, neither Sean Hannity nor Stuart Varney who were in the clip with her noticed or corrected her. This is akin to making a speech circa 1869 and claiming there hadn't been any war in the last 8 years. It is quite possibly the most untrue, inexcusable statement in the history of American politics. And of course it happened on Fox. Shocker.

Now to be fair, it's possible that Ms. Perino meant something else, and simply misspoke. After all, I think it's clear Barak Obama doesn't think there are 57 states, nor does Sarah Palin think Canada and Russia are in Alaska, because both misspoke when they said so. So if Dana Perino comes forward clearly correcting herself, I'll note it. Until then, she stands accused of shameful propagandizing.

The AGW Denialist Mindset Examined

2009-11-25T02:07:00.001-06:00

More discussion at fivethirtyeight on the hacked global warming emails reveals the standard denialist mindset:

Your blog arguments basically boil down to the scam artists are following a standard scientific protocol which lay people are too stupid to understand. Bull feces.

Yeah, believe it or not, specialisits in scientific areas know a great deal more about them than does Joe the Plumber, or you, and in the hands of untrained or unscrupulous people (see below) they can be easily misrepresented or misunderstood. I know that offends your egalitarian ideologies, but tough noogies, reality doesn't care what you think. Every argument the AGW deniers put forth validates this hypothesis, and your ignorant rants are no exception. To wit:

The "idiots" to which Mann is referring are Steve McIntyre - the mathematician at Climate Audit, and Ross McKitrick, the economics professor

First, note the good counseler's assumption of facts not in evidence. Mann did not refer to McIntyre or McKitrick as idiots, not did I. I merely posed an obvious and plausible interpretation of Mann's words that was not the least bit conspiratorial. I never said it was an exhaustive list.

Another far more plausible interpretation of Mann's words is that people with an ax to grind, or cranks working outside their fields, might misuse and misrepresent the data and commentary to their own ends. McIntyre and McKitrick are perfect examples. We see this all the time in the evolution denial of the Intelligent Designers. The modus operandi of the AGW deniers is identical, and often involves the exact same people.

BTW, do you accept the Modern Theory of Evolution? How about that HIV causes AIDS. Just curious. Hey, no complaining that these are off-topic. The party that supports so much AGW denialism is also the party that thinks it is so important to be judged by the company you keep. So pardon us if we find it necessary to toss the flat earthers, creationists and germ theory deniers in your face once in while to remind people that's the company you keep.

Here he runs completely off the rails:

There appear to be three varieties of responses to my posts on the email evidence of fraud: (1) attorneys are evil,

Not even remotely true. What people said was that attorney's a) are not trained in science and scientific protocals, and b) attorney's are paid to defend the side that hires them, not to seek truth. That's not a criticism at all. In fact, it is a position I wholeheartedly support as critical to every defendant getting a full hearing. It's one of the things that makes our country great. It's just not the sort of mindset I'd want studying scientific ideas. Reality is not a negotiable entity. It is what it is.

2) lay people are too stupid to understand the manmade global warming religion (MGWR) and should rely upon their priests like Jones and Mann,

Again, not remotely accurate. The point was, and remains, that global warming science, like any science or complicated intellectual profession, is going to have protocals, behavior, and information that will be unintelligible, or badly misundestood, by laymen. That an attorney would attempt this argument, given that law is one of the best examples of such a field, reveals the political nature of this argument. This intellectual egalitarianism, the same promoted by Sarah Palin and embodied in Joe The Plumber, is politically necessary for their agenda to succeed. Acknowledge the superior understanding of science by scientists and you find yourself on the wrong end of every political position favored by those whose support you so desperately need - all those angry twits clinging to their guns and religion and wondering what happened to "their" America. So one must absolutely deny the connection between study and understanding. Thereby can being a Harvard Graduate be presented as a negative character trait.

3) allegations without evidence that the science behind the MGWR is overwhelming and proven.

It is a simple fact, easy to look up, that a near unanimity of the world's scientific organizations support the AGW hypothesis, and there is zero evidence of any sort of conspiracy. The conpiracy theory is also completely implausible, because if the motive is money, any scientist supposedly on the dole could make far more with book deals and speaking engagements, and with far less effort. This, btw, is what dooms most any conspiracy theory based on greed - there is simply too much money to be made being the one guy that goes against the grain. It is cartel economics, and cartels cannot exist in an arena with traits like those of the scientific community.

The first two slanders are the product of deficient upbringing and do not merit a reply.

In other words, these attack basic ideological assumptions I make about the world, and I am therefore unwilling to give due consideration to the possibility that they are correct. Now consider that he may also have, as an ideological assumption about the world, the view that it was put here for man to enjoy by God, and there is no way we could destroy it or make it uninhabitable for us, and suddenly, it all makes sense.

Shocker: Palin's a Creationist

2009-11-24T07:22:00.000-06:00

In case you missed it, Sarah Palin now jons Mike Huckabee, Tom Tancredo, and others in the GOP in denial of the reality of evolution:

For those of you not up to speed, saying you believe in microevolution but not macroevolution is like saying you believe I can walk across the house, but can't walk across the street, without bothering to identify what exactly is the barrier preventing me from doing so. It's ignorance or dishonesty at best, lunacy at worst.

Palin's now officially a loon as well as an ignoramus. Her allegiance to the ideas of her witch-hunter minister takes away any benefit of the doubt. BTW, wasn't there a major party who was all about judging people by their associations recently?

College Football and Free Markets

2009-11-22T10:41:00.002-06:00

As the logic-defying, anti-fair-competition college football bowl season approaches for one more frustratingly dissatisfying end to the year, it is worth noting to all of those who have called for a national championship playoff (like they have in every single other sport, including lower level football), that this mess of a non-system has been produced by none other than a free market. No government forced this process to be what it is. No law rigged the game so that schools from small conferences like Boise State, TCU, and Cincinnati would be disqualified from the national title game before it started*. You all want free, unfettered, laissez-faire capitalism? Well look what it got us.

College football, I'd argue, is a natural monopoly, as are most of the major sports leagues. Competition in the form of alternative leagues or systems does not increase the quality of the product, it reduces it. But as a monopoly, it cannot be allowed to function according to market principles, or something like the bowl system is what we are going to get. Once certain entities, like the Big Ten and PAC-10 get enough power within the system, they will arrange things to their benefit, not to the benefit of all. A playoff, which would be better for everyone overall, is kept from happening because those with the biggest share of the pie under the current system refuse to change. An oligarchy of the major conferences has cut off a disproportionate share of the pie for themselves, and the remaining conferences and teams have no power to stop them. This is inevitable in such a situation, and as such, requires more government regulation than an ordinary market.

We should support any efforts on the part of politicians to bring a playoff to college football by breaking up the monopolistic stranglehold of the antiquated bowl system. This is one of the things government is for. IANAL, but I suspect there is merit via anti-trust laws to force a system that, at a bare minimum, gives equal opportunity to every competitor to reach the championship game.

In the meantime, fans should do the only thing they can to help facilitate this change: boycott the bowls. Go ahead and watch the conference championship games, and the national title game (a one game playoff is better than none). But as for the rest, they are nothing more than exhibition games, for money and recruiting and little else. We should place no more importance on them than we do NFL preseason games. Don't buy tickets, and if you must watch them on TV, DVR them so you can zoom through the commercials and cut off the value of that funding. This annual travesty must end.

=======

*When the BCS system forced the computer ratings to not use point spreads in their analysis, it effectively made them a measure of strength of schedule only. No more could a team with a weak schedule make up for it by consistently winning impressively. Winning by 1 point and winning by 50 points make no difference now to the computers. Thus, a team in a weak conference, like Boise State, cannot possibly earn the top spot in the computer ratings, even if they beat everyone 100-0. they are 7th now in the computers, and that is as high as they could possibly get.

An Analysis of the Hacked Global Warming E-mails

2009-11-21T09:36:00.004-06:00

I'm sure everyone has heard about the hacked emails of the scientists are RealClimate and the University of East Anglia, and the charges that they reveal some sort of conspiracy to manufacture a crisis and hide the truth. However, the emails I've seen do nothing of the sort. They simply show ignorance of the process of analyzing and presenting data on complicated subjects, and attempt to portray out-of-context quotes in a manner that belies their actual meaning. As an actuary who deals with this sort of thing all the time, I recognize the language well. Let's go through some examples touted by a commenter here as smoking guns:

"I’ve attached a cleaned-up and commented version of the matlab code that I wrote for doing the Mann and Jones (2003) composites. I did this knowing that Phil and I are likely to have to respond to more crap criticisms from the idiots in the near future, so best to clean up the code and provide to some of my close colleagues in case they want to test it, etc. Please feel free to use this code for your own internal purposes, but don’t pass it along where it may get into the hands of the wrong people."

I must say, after the intro to this as clear documentation as fraud, I was very let down. What exactly is the issue here: cleaning up code, testing it, anticipating criticisms, preparing for same, sharing information. All part and parcel of data analysis and presentation. I can only guess that the problem is with the last sentence, which the conspiratorial-minded might automatically assume means "hide the truth from all but those in on the scam". In actuality, it's far more likely to mean something like "don't let morons who won't understand what they are looking at get ahold of this, or we'll be answering stupid assed ignorant questions til the cows come home, and we won't get anything productive done." Contrary to the worldview of the Palinists, some subjects are far too complicated for untrained laymen, and data analysis is one of them. Making sure one's data is properly limited and presented properly is par for the course. It's no evidence of anything except people doing their job.

"Perhaps we'll do a simple update to the Yamal post, e.g. linking Keith/s new page--Gavin t? As to the issues of robustness, particularly w.r.t. inclusion of the Yamal series, we actually emphasized that (including the Osborn and Briffa '06 sensitivity test) in our original post! As we all know, this isn't about truth at all, its about plausibly deniable accusations."

All I can say about this one is that it doesn't do much for the charge that conservatives have no sense of humor. Anyone who can't see that last sentence is sarcastic is seriously deluded. It's no surprise that the preceding context is left out, it no doubt makes that even more clear than it already is.

"Anyway, I wanted you guys to know that you’re free to use RC [RealClimate.org] Rein any way you think would be helpful. Gavin and I are going to be careful about what comments we screen through, and we’ll be very careful to answer any questions that come up to any extent we can. On the other hand, you might want to visit the thread and post replies yourself. We can hold comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think they should be screened through or not, and if so, any comments you’d like us to include."

Again, I ask, "where's the beef?" Surely no rightwinger is going to claim that moderating a site is ipso facto evidence of dishonesty, given that conservative sites that heavily moderate dwarf those of the left by an order of magnitude. There's nothing here to indicate fraud or suppression of data. Now of course if one is already convinced that is the case, then it will look damning, but otherwise it looks like nothing more than a discussion of how to handle responding to comments, and being careful to properly screen them. I could see myself saying the exact same things.

"The Korttajarvi record was oriented in the reconstruction in the way that McIntyre said. I took a look at the original reference – the temperature proxy we looked at is x-ray density, which the author interprets to be inversely related to temperature. We had higher values as warmer in the reconstruction, so it looks to me like we got it wrong, unless we decided to reinterpret the record which I don’t remember. Darrell, does this sound right to you?"

This one is even more of a mystery to me. This looks like a standard (and rather dull) discussion of results and modelling of data. I can only surmise that this is considered revealing by those who are completely ignorant of the process of guess and test that is the core of science.

"I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline."

As has been explained in many places already, "trick" in this context means "useful technique", not "deception". Another word that springs to mind is "reach".

"The skeptics seem to be building up a head of steam here! ... The IPCC comes in for a lot of stick. Leave it to you to delete as appropriate! Cheers Phil
PS I’m getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data. Don’t any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act!"

and:

"If FOIA does ever get used by anyone, there is also IPR to consider as well. Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people, so I will be hiding behind them."

I know this may come as a shock to people who don't work in information-related, politically controversial, regulated fields, but all this FOIA stuff is easy to explain: no one, at any job that deals with complicated subject matter, willingly gives up all of their data. It makes life harder, even when you are 100% correct and proper. Overzealous regulators, politicians, or activists, will misrepresent or outright lie about what the data is/says, and you get stuck cleaning up the mess. This fiasco over what we are seeing is really nothing is a perfect example! This is just creationist quote mining techniques applied to global warming.

"The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate."

I find it amusing that scientists are on the one hand condemned for supposedly thinking they know everything, and then when they make qualifying statements about their limited knowledge, or openly admit when data is missing or contradictory, they are expected to pretend that means they know nothing. What is this quote but such an admission, in a very limited sense? Again, there is no there there.

All these emails prove is that scientists are human. The deniers and their ilk see all this as damning because they begin with the assumption that there is some sort of fraud going on, so to them anything like screening of comments is automatically assumed to be to keep the truth out, rather than, say, keeping morons and trolls from dragging the discussion down. Let's also keep in mind that this all comes as far back as 12 years ago, from a second-rate university better known for its literary programs than its science. It's akin to arguing that we should reject evolution because some researchers somewhere said doubtful things about it and their analysis of it. That doesn't change all the evidence. Bottom line, there is nothing here that will persuade the ideologically unencumbered or the statistically educated. Sadly, that isn't who they are playing to.

I found the Realclimate response very well written, and I'll close with what I thought was the crux of the issue as they put it:

"More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.

Instead, there is a peek into how scientists actually interact and the conflicts show that the community is a far cry from the monolith that is sometimes imagined. People working constructively to improve joint publications; scientists who are friendly and agree on many of the big picture issues, disagreeing at times about details and engaging in ‘robust’ discussions; Scientists expressing frustration at the misrepresentation of their work in politicized arenas and complaining when media reports get it wrong; Scientists resenting the time they have to take out of their research to deal with over-hyped nonsense. None of this should be shocking."

Indeed, none of it should be. The deniers would have us believe they've scored big points because they've shown scientists have all the same foibles as everyone else: biases, self-interests, emotional attachment to ideas, and a desire to avoid conflict. What they don't understand is that the scientific community has always assumed this to be the case, which is why they so emphasize public publishing of data and research, so others can have at one's biases. So in the end, the AGW deniers have proved only one thing: they don't understand science in the abstract, or the modern scientific enterprise as practiced.

The GOP Sinks further into Insanity: 52% think ACORN Stole the Election

2009-11-20T09:02:00.003-06:00

According to a new poll 52% of Republicans think ACORN stole the election for Obama. Apparently the GOPers are slipping on their math, as this would require each ACORN registered voter to vote about 10 times, and in the right states, to make up the nearly 10 million vote margin that was Obama's victory. The GOP has once again demonstrated that it has become everything it used to criticize the left for being: whining losers chanting "woulda shoulda coulda" instead of dealing with reality.

One commenter over at Ed Brayton's blog illustrated the new GOP attitude perfectly:

Perhaps they Shanghaied people and compelled them to vote for Obama. I don't know and neither do you. I am just a guy asking questions. And there is no such thing as a dumb question. Is there?

There they are, the articles of faith among the new Republicans:

1) Treating speculation as evidence
2) Assuming everyone shares their ignorance
3) Claiming dishonest partisan political gamesmanship is merely "asking questions"
4) Reliance on grade-school platitudes as insulation against criticism and identification of their stupidity

And they wonder why they've driven those of us with educations from the party in droves. Can they sink any lower?

The Texas Freethought Convention: It's a Miracle!

2009-11-16T16:10:00.002-06:00

The Texas Freethought Convention was held this past weekend in San Antonio. There were over 200 attendees (twice last years' inaugural figure), quite varied racially, and by age, to hear talks and commentary by:

FFRF president Dan Barker
Victor Stenger, author of God: The Failed Hypothesis
Kathleen Johnson, VP of American Atheists and investigator of the Fort Hood shootings
Stuart Bechman, President of AAI
Clare Wuellner of the Center for Inquiry

It was an energized and excited group, miraculously (via "no morality is possible without gods" arguments) conflict, and crime free. It's an amazingly easy result for those of us without the immoral impulses so many Christians brag of needing their god-belief to quelch.

There were many great t-shirt slogans and comments by the speakers, which I'll be blogging periodically. One of my favorites came from Bechman, which I paraphrase, in response to the argument that atheism needs to not be so negative:

That sounds strange coming from people whose religion has 10 Commandments all starting with "Thou shalt not...". We need "Thou Shalts".

Jon Stewart on Fox News and Glenn Beck

2009-11-09T16:46:00.002-06:00

Watch this brilliant video by Jon Stewart exposing the fake news process on Fox News (speculate on the opinion shows, then report that speculation as news on the news shows), and the cowardice of politicians (and frankly most Americans) to call it like it is.

Then here he is showing how insane the Foxiest of the Fox Friends, Glenn Beck, is.

Honestly, I don't see how the Republicans hold onto anyone with an IQ over 120. It's gotten to where they are so ridiculous they can't be parodied. Well, for those of us less talented than Stewart anyway.

Catholic League Misses the Joke

2009-09-04T14:07:00.002-05:00

The Catholic League, in promoting Bill Donohue's new book, lists the following totally predictable list of approving (and unbelievable given Donohue's penchant for spewing nonsense) comments, but with one surprise:

· “In these dispatches from the culture war, the indefatigable president of the Catholic League fires on all cylinders. With passionate prose he re-creates many of his hard-won religious battles and offers an urgent warning about what lies ahead.” – Raymond Arroyo, bestselling author of Mother Angelica, host of EWTN’s “The World Over Live”

· “In this bracing, brutal exposé of the anti-God movement, Donohue delivers a common sense smackdown that is both informative and entertaining.” – Laura Ingraham, nationally syndicated radio talk show host and bestselling author

· “Like the man himself, the book is feisty, controversial, impassioned, and important.” – Michael Medved, nationally syndicated talk show host

· “Bill Donohue is right on target. Every Christian needs to read his book.” – Donald E. Wildmon, founder and chairman, American Family Association

· “SECULAR SABOTAGE is an absolute must-read for anyone who believes the Judeo-Christian ethos is the very heart and soul of civilized society.” – L. Brent Bozell III, president, Media Research Center

· “Wake up, America! The secular minority has cut the brake cables on America’s In-God-We-Trust-Mobile™! Not even all 43 of our Christian presidents can save us now.” – Stephen Colbert, host of “The Colbert Report”

I've heard that 30% of the people who watch Colbert don't get the joke, I guess the Catholic league is among them. Either that, or Bozell and Medved really are parodies. Either way, it explains a lot.

Your God Delusion Index

2009-09-03T10:06:00.001-05:00

It's a little slow to get going, but this video is worth a few laughs, and is refreshingly blunt.

Study Confirms Palin, not the Economic Crisis, Sank the McCain Campaign

2009-08-31T07:55:00.001-05:00

A new study of detailed polling supports what I've said here from the beginning: it was Sarah Palin, not that economic meltdown, that sank McCain:

John McCain’s August 29 announcement of Palin as his running mate surprised the Republican establishment, the media, and especially voters. She made a strong first impression: she enjoyed high approval ratings after her acceptance speech, and the percentage of voters saying that they intended to vote Republican skyrocketed. But within days of the speech, her ratings began a precipitous slide from which she—and the McCain campaign—never recovered. Throughout the rest of the campaign, vote intentions were closely tied to Palin’s approval ratings: each major Palin approval drop was followed, within a day or two, by a drop in McCain vote intention. No other factor moved McCain support with such precision. Comparison of the correlation between running mate approval ratings and vote intentions from 2000 and 2004 confirms Palin’s peculiar importance in 2008.

Yeah, "within days of the speech" was when all the information about what an ignorant loon she is came to light. The only question left isn't whether she cost the GOP in 2008, it's whether the GOP will sink itself with her in 2012.

More Fantasy from Bozelland

2009-08-28T08:05:00.000-05:00

What do you get when you mix Brent Bozell and Bill Donohue? A representation of America that is unrecognizeable:

...why can't we celebrate Christmas? Why can't our children pray in school? How did we just elect a president who insisted the United States ought not to be considered a Christian nation?

We can't celebate Christmas? Funny, I saw an awful lot of Christmas trees in my neighborhood, and one of them was in my house, surrounded by presents. Our entire society stops on Christmas day. Just how far up their asses do Bozell and Donohue have their heads to write such twaddle?

As ridiculous as that is, claiming kids can't pray in school is even worse. We couldn't outlaw prayer in school if we wanted to. One might as well attempt to ban teenage boys' thoughts about girls. As long as there are math tests, there will be prayer in school.

Our president recognizes that our nation is not JUST a Christian nation, and that our pubic discourse and policy should be based on "what we all see", not on a particular faith. This should not be difficult to understand. The violence between religions around the world is a constant testimony to its wisdom.

But then we can't expect comprehension from people like Bozell and Donohue, because they have a faith-based view, not only of what the world should be, but of what the world is, and they are not interested in the progress of our society towards greater enlightenment than the scrawlings of bronze-age sheepherders.

Odds of Earth Being Hit by an Asteroid

2009-08-26T06:35:00.000-05:00

From a recent story on asteroids hitting earth as they recently hit Jupiter:

So far 784 near-Earth objects (NEOs) more than a half-mile wide (1 km) have been found.

"If an object of about the same size that just hit Jupiter also hit Earth — it was probably a typical cometary object of a kilometer or so in size (0.6 miles) — it would have been fairly catastrophic," explained astronomer Donald Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object program office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Scientists have ruled out the chances of an Earth impact for all of these 784 large NEOs. Still, lesser objects also pose a risk, and researchers estimate more than 100 large NEOS remain to be found.

Currently just one NEO of all the objects scientists are tracking poses any significant chance of hitting the Earth — 2007 VK184. If this roughly 425-foot-wide (130 meters) asteroid hit our planet, it would strike with an energy of roughly 150 million tons of TNT, or more than 10,000 times that of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Roughly 100 telescopic observations made so far suggest that 2007 VK184 has a 1-in-2,940 chance of hitting Earth 40 to 50 years from now.

Great, so what they see poses no threat, but there is a lot we can't see. And if that doesn't make you nervous, try this on for size:

Of remaining concern are the NEOs that we do not see. Researchers suspect about 156 large NEOs 1 kilometer in diameter or larger remain to be found, and when it comes to dangerous NEOs in general, "when we get down to 140 meters (460 feet) or larger diameter objects, we think we've discovered about 15 percent of them, and with 50 meters (164 feet) or larger diameter, we've discovered less than 5 percent of them," Yeomans explained.

In other words, if one does head right for us, we may not get much warning. Let's hope our 500,000 years isn't up just yet.

Jon Stewart's Great Skit on Race and Health Care

2009-08-24T06:46:00.001-05:00

John Stewart hits one out of the park with a masterful skit on race in America. Larry Wilmore comes on to matter-of-factly describe the health care issue as "a racial issue like all issues are racial issues" and "about white fear". Then after showing the usual suspects (Hannity, Beck) ranting about losing the America they grew up in, and a crying woman at a townhall meeting saying she wants her America back, Wilmore goes for the jugular:

"She wants HER America back? Go tell that to the Indians. No one gives America back. You keep it until someone takes it away from you."

His prescription for dealing with white fear that they are literally losing their country?

Wilmore: The first step is to acknowledge that they are literally losing their country...Look, white people had a good run but it's over...Sorry. We've got a black president, a booming Hispanic population, in a few more decades whites won't even be the majority anymore. Thanks Octo-mom.

Stewart: So whites are right to be worried?

W: Yeah, but hey, don't get mad. It's white people's own fault. "All men are created equal"? How'd you think that was going to turn out? Or how about the poem on the statue of liberty: "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses the wretched refuse, the homeless"? Did you think "wretched refuse" was just the Irish? Sorry, John, this is what happens when you have a melting pot. The stew gets darker.

It exposes brilliantly the hypocrisy of the descendants of those who immigrated here and took the country by force whining about the same historical pattern coming around in a way they don't care for now that the immigrants don't look like them, as well as the barely hidden racism in statements like "this isn't the America I grew up in". It also shows that the principles espoused by the founding fathers were bigger than them, going where none thought they would go (freed slaves, women's suffrage, etc.). Wilmore's satire is a testimony to them, and it finishes with a flurry:

Stewart [scared]: Will you be good to us?

Wilmore: Nope...I'm just kidding John. Relax white people, being a minority's really not so bad. Think how excited you'll feel when young white people start talking like you. It's fun. And think about hockey. It'll finally be dominated by minorities!

S: Will our kids be able to be into Ivy League schools with a "B" average?

W: What are you trying to say man, that is so racist John! Which by the way soon you'll be able to say to me. Go ahead, try it.

S: That was so RACIST!

W: Feels good, doesn't it?

Barney Frank Demonstrates the Power of Ridicule

2009-08-22T10:27:00.002-05:00

In case you haven't seen it yet, watch Barney Frank demonstrate how lunacy is properly dealt with. After being told Obama's policy proposals were the same as the Nazi's, complete with a picture of Obama with a Hitler mustache, he responded with:

On what planet do you spend most of your time? ...It is a tribute to the first amendment that this vile contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated. Madam, trying to have a conversation with you is like trying to have a conversation with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing so.

This is the proper response to intellectually dishonest wackiness. Chop them off at the knees. Deny them the respect they need and crave. Whether it is a LaRouchian, a cdesign proponentsist, Bill Donohue, or Glenn Beck, the answer is ridicule, not rational respectful argument. Otherwise, they stretch the Overton Window to their advantage.

Humorous One Liners

2009-08-21T11:00:00.002-05:00

"It bears mentioning that it's also 'digital information to give someone the finger." - Pierce Butler responding to an IDer's claim that DNA was digital information.

"If I cannot say another prayer, if I cannot give or get another hug, and if I cannot have another martini, then let me go" - Monsignor Charles Fahey

"The difference between a million and a billion is the difference between a sip of wine and 30 seconds with your daughter, and a bottle of gin and a night with her" - unknown

Love Your Guns? Support Legalized Marijuana

2009-08-20T07:56:00.001-05:00

It occurred to me that those of you who so fear the government coming to take your guns really should get behind the legal marijuana issue. Why? It's a chain reaction from marijuana user imprisonment to a greater call for a gun ban. It' no secret our prisons are overcrowded and huge, constituting over 1% of our population, and 25% of the world's prison population. It's also no secret that every large scale shooting is going to be used to argue that handguns should be banned, where otherwise intelligent people will say idiotic things like this:

Handguns have no uses other than to a) kill and b) be the object of hobbyists collecting fetish. We can ban the handguns without any ill effects and only good effects.

Please, don't tell me their logic is flawed. Of course it is. But it is also politically effective, since many people share the same irrational fear of guns that treats gun deaths as worse than deaths from swimming pools or mop buckets, and makes people blind to the obvious refutations of such erroneous thinking. So the
fewer gun deaths for them to get excited about, the better. Yet every time we lock up a nonviolent offender, and a huge proportion of those are for marijuana possession, the more likely a violent offender (think Willie Horton) will be released, only to commit a crime again, and again the cry to ban guns will be raised. This is a time of limited resources, so picking our battles is key. Keep the violent people in prison, keep your guns, and let the marijuana users go.

I'll not mince words. Those who rabidly defend their 2nd amendment rights while defending the war on drugs are hypocrites at best, and ignoramuses at worst. There is no right to regulate drugs in the constitution. On what philosophy does one defend the one and not the other? We have a right to put bullets into other people's bodies, but not certain substances into our own? Drugs cause criminal behavior you say? You hypocrite! That's the same argument used by those who wish to take away your guns, and its just as baseless.

When you've got 1% of your population in prison, something is amiss. When we spend valuable political time arguing over a tool used to murder 0.004% of our population, or 1 person in 25,000, something again is amiss. Solve both problems. Legalize marijuana.

Why I Don't Blog Much About Lying Politicians

2009-08-19T06:14:00.000-05:00

A commenter expressed concern over my "denial" of Obama's status as a liar, and despite my windy response there, the fair-and-balanced BS keeps coming in. So I've given my response it's own post, with some additional editing.

What I deny is that the claim that "X is a liar" is worthy of much attention. It is childishly simplistic, as are so many arguments coming from the right these days. This is one of the traits of partisan Republicanism that can be directly attributed to their anti-intellectualism. Never mind the details that matter in the real world: what they lied about, in what context, based on what principles, and the evidence that what was said constituted a lie and not a mere mistake or misstatement or simple change of mind. You know, changing your mind, what you are supposed to do when evidence presents itself contrary to your views? If you rarely change your mind, it's not because you are brilliant, it's because you don't consider evidence objectively.

Pretending reality is binary, and therefore all misstatements are equal, is one way people do so. Those that do so to try to win political arguments are particularly insidious. If you think Obama's "57 states" comment warrants the same level of intellectual/moral condemnation as the 10 dumbest/most dishonest things Sarah Palin ever said, I'm looking at you. When the Nazis show up asking if you have Jews in the basement, you lie. Gee, I guess that makes you a liar.

Grow up. Life is not as simple as you so desperately want it to be. I'd be happy to entertain the notion that Obama lies about things he shouldn't lie about, it's just that:

1) This isn't a political blog. I have zero interest in partisan political "gotcha" whose-the-bigger-hypocrite parse-every-syllable wanking, whether it's "57 states" (Obama) or "Russia and Canada are in Alaska" (paraphrase of Palin). Unless there is some humor or science involved, I'm not that interested in it. I didn't blog a lot about Sarah Palin because it was politics, or that she lied. I did so because the things she said were so comically absurd and frightening coming from someone running for the second highest office in the land. So sorry, I'm not going to blog much about anyone in politics unless they cross the absurd line, liar or not, president included.

2) Too many GOPers trust sources that I consider completely unreliable, and I dismiss their claims on that basis. If you can't back your case with something that isn't from a GOP politician, Drudge, or Fox news, I'm looking at you. It isn't that I don't consider any of the claims. I just can't ever find evidence for the claims I consider blog worthy outside the GOP echo chamber.

3) "Politician Lies" is about as interesting a post title as "Player in Violent Sport Arrested for Violence". So is "Politician's Actions Deviate from His Campaign Promises". There's got to be more to it than that.

4) The fact that a post mentions politics in some fashion does not make any of this birther, deather, paranoid lunacy concerning the president relevant, nor does it make relevant a tit-for-tat attack on him. There are plenty of places on the net where you can go hog wild doing such things. This is not one of them.

So sorry, I'm not in denial about anything. I've just accepted unpleasant facts of life that you haven't. My initial intrigue with Obama had little to do with my opinion of his honesty, and that hasn't changed much. With apologies to the "Sunscreen" composer:

Accept certain unalienable truths. Prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, and politicians were noble

Militant Atheist Cartoon

2009-08-18T05:08:00.000-05:00

Everyone else has to actually be violent to be called militant. We atheists get the label merely by making an unapologetic counter argument.

It's the quickest refutation of all the intellectual dishonesty from the appeaser wing of atheists, like this long overdue piece of garbage in response to a simple request for actual evidence of the claims made against the "militant atheists:

And you'll continue to get nothing.

This is what I think of as the "You haven't read the right Heinlein" game, from my days on Usenet. People would turn up, and comment that they didn't like some book by Heinlein, only to be told "No, no-- that's not the one you should read, you should read this other book." And when the original poster didn't like that one, either, there was another one, and another one, and another one... The man wrote a whole lot of books, so this could go on for quite a long time.

The same bullshit game has been going on with Mooney and Nisbet and "framing." They write a perfectly clear post, and people make a big show of not understanding it. They follow up with another perfectly clear post, and it's still somehow mystifying. They give examples, and the examples aren't specific enough. They give more examples, and those don't apply for some reason. And on, and on, and on.

The game never ends. I'm sure the Hoofnagles have a card for it when this crap is pulled by global warming denialists-- it's the same pathetic routine. No mountain of proof, no list of examples will ever suffice, and at the end of the day, the person being beseiged has spent hours battling picayune objections, but still "hasn't given any evidence to support the claim."

The only way to avoid losing is not to play. So feel free to skip right to the part where you tell everyone I'm an irrational meanie who hates Myers and Dawkins for no good reason, and stop wasting my time.

I know its dated, but it is representative of that mindset today. Oh yeah, Mooney, Nisbet, Kirshenbaum make lots of perfectly clear assertions. But we in the scientific world like to get a little evidence. It's no game, and representing it as such marks you as intellectually dishonest. One cannot claim no amount of evidence will suffice when none is ever presented. Yet watch the appeasers babble on and on, rhetoricians all on the subject of outspoken atheists, whatever their day job might be. It's pathetic.

Cal Thomas on Killing Grandma

2009-08-17T05:16:00.000-05:00

Never happy to leave the intellectual low ground to others, Cal Thomas wades in on the issue of killing grandma, and in typical fashion, completely misrepresents those he is criticizing. Few are more consistent in demolishing straw while dodging the actual arguments presented:

The debate -- OK, the shouting match -- we are having over "health care reform" is about many things, including cost, who gets help and who does not and who, or what, gets to make that determination. Underlying it all is a larger question: Is human life something special? Is it to be valued more highly than, say, plants and pets?

Really? Someone in the health care debate is questioning whether we should value human life more than plants and pets? Someone is doing this in the mainstream, not just on the fringe of PETA and the proportional phone booth their followers could meet in? Why then doesn't Cal Thomas name these people and quote them? Simple. As usual, Cal is making shit up. The "larger question" that our limited supply of health care foists upon us is not "are humans more valuable than plants and pets?", but rather "are some humans more valuable than others?".

When someone is in a "persistent vegetative state" do we mean to say that person is equal in value to a carrot?

A person in a persistent vegetative state is not a person in any way that we use the term, in the same way that a blastocyst is not a person. As evidenced by the many references to the subject in our popular culture of movies and books (ie Freaky Friday, and many many Star Trek episodes), when we think of a person, we do not think of a body, or of DNA. We think of a consciousness, a mind. If we didn't, the notion of noncorporeal possession would be nonsense.

Are we now assigning worth to human life, or does it arrive with its own predetermined value, irrespective of race, class, IQ or disability?

We assign it in our personal lives through our own personal values, and collectively through our government and other public entities' actions. Anything that applies to some people but not others makes a value judgement on the value of human life, whether it is the rules to qualify for medicare, or the rules that limit medical procedures in free-market insurance policies, or the scale of monetary refunds for particular body parts in most workers compensation insurance. Thomas again misses the fundamental question, which is not whether to assign value, but on what values we should do so.

The bottom line is not the bottom line. It is something far more profound. Our decisions regarding who will get help and who won't are more than about bean-counting bureaucrats deciding if your drugs or operation will cost more than you are contributing to the U.S. Treasury.

No shit Sherlock, welcome to the debate. The rest of us started here. But wait, Cal's not finished demonstrating he has no idea what he is talking about:

The secular left claims we are evolutionary accidents who managed to crawl out of the slime and by "natural selection" stand erect and over millions of years outsmart our ancestors, the apes. If that is your belief, then you probably think health care should be rationed. Why spend lots of money to improve -- or save -- the life of someone who evolved from slime and has no special significance other than the "accident" of becoming human? Policies flow from such a philosophy, though the average secularist probably wouldn't put it in such stark terms. Stark, or not, isn't this the inevitable progression of seeing humanity as maybe complex, but nothing special?

No Cal, it isn't, and the reason the average secularist doesn't put it that way is because that isn't what we think. Statements like this are what put the nail in the coffin of any argument defending the intellectual integrity of people like Thomas. He has made such straw man arguments in the past, and no doubt will do so again, despite being corrected over and over and over again by the very people he supposedly knows so well. One can only say "no, that's not what I believe" so many times before one is left with no logical option except to conclude that the person speaking is making shit up. Cal and his ilk are the king of MSU.

Secular morality concerns itself with what humans are, not how we came to be what we are. This is the point Cal cannot get through his thick skull. We wish to save other humans because we empathize with them, or care about them because they are friends and family. We share a common life experience. This should be obvious, but listening to Thomas talk, one would think that learning about evolution (which is supported by far more than just the secular left) causes a complete loss of emotional and psychological attachment to other people. It's the exact same mistake that people like Thomas make when the wonder why atheists don't go on murderous rampages when they realize there is no god to punish them. The notion that we simply lack the impulse to do so eludes them. They also ignore the fact, independent of our views on our ultimate origins, that there are real world consequences to our actions, and that we have decided biases towards some of the results (say, keeping my sister alive) and not others (letting her die).

The opposing view sees human beings as unique creations. Even Thomas Jefferson, identified by historians as a Deist who doubted the existence of a personal God, understood that if certain rights (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) do not come from a source beyond the reach of the state, then the state could take those rights away.

I seriously doubt Jefferson actually said such a thing (providing a quote gets in the way of Thomas' MSU), since it is so obviously false. Thomas speaks as if the power of the state immediately evaporates when divine support is acknowledged. Look around our world Cal, especially at the Muslim countries that you fear so, and how easily they acknowledge a divine source of their morality, and yet remove those rights we hold so dear.

Those who believe that God made us and also makes the rules about our existence and our behavior will have a completely different understanding of life's value and our approach to affirming it until natural death.

Perhaps. Unfortunately, you also have completely different understandings of life's value from each other. The fantasy world in Thomas' head, where all the religious folk live in peaceful harmony due to their common understanding that God made us, stands in stark contrast to the reality that is religious violence around the globe.

It is between these two distinctly different worldview goal posts that the battle is taking place. Few from the "endowed rights" side are saying that a 100-year-old with an inoperable brain tumor should be given extraordinary and expensive care to keep the heart pumping, even after brain waves have gone flat. But there is a big difference between "letting go" and "snuffing out."

Indeed, there is Cal. Everyone seems to already understand that except you, since no one on the "subjective rights" side of the argument is talking about snuffing anyone out. Of course, the fact that your worldview has those snuffed out ending up in a better place, would never encourage such a thing, right?

The unnatural progression for many on the secular left is to see such a person as a "burden." In an age when we think we should be free of burdens -- a notion that contributes to our superficiality and makes us morally obtuse -- getting rid of granny might seem perfectly rational, even defensible. But by doing so, we assume an even greater burden: the role of God in deciding who gets to live and who must die. Anyone who has seen the film "Bruce Almighty" senses how difficult it is to play God.

[yawn] Equivocation anyone? The "secular left" doesn't invent the financial burden the infirmed elderly (or the deformed infants) represent, nor does it invent the reality that our desires exceed our resources. Reality does that. The notion that it is "playing god" to acknowledge this and attempt to optimize our efforts better than insurance companies do now is childish at best and blinkered at worst. Playing god would mean magically fixing the problem through divine fiat. That the decisions we limited beings must make can be difficult doesn't make them go away.

And no one thinks we should be free of burdens, and reducing them makes us neither superficial nor obtuse. Thomas is just babbling here. If Thomas thinks giving up our modern burden-reducing conveniences like cars and vaccinations, computers and washing machines would make for better people, he's more than free to get a group together and see how that goes.

We are now witnessing some of the consequences of attempting to ban people with a God perspective from the public square.

More made-up bullshit. The vast majority of people in the public square have a god perspective. However, most of them understand that when making public policy for believers of all contradictory stripes, as well as nonbelievers, demanding that this or that speculation as to what the gods would want should be the law of the land makes for irreconcilable conflict. Faith does not lend itself to analysis and compromise. Reasoning from a common understanding of observable reality works much better. The Founders understood this. Why doesn't Thomas?

If there are no rules and no one to whom one might appeal when those rules are violated, we are on our own to set whatever rules we wish and to change them in a moment in response to opinion polls. Any appeals to a higher authority stop at the Supreme Court.

Yes Cal, and maybe you haven't noticed that the Supreme Court is an appointed body not subject to opinion polls, and how well that system has served us over these many decades. The day the gods show up to set us right for all to see, I'll be right there to listen. Until then, such talk of appealing to them is so much fantasy jibber jabber. Thomas sounds like he's sitting next to Linus in the pumpkin patch waiting for the Great Pumpkin.

The explosive town-hall meetings are indications that Americans are trusting government less and less.

No they aren't. Does the phrase "self-selected sample" mean anything to you Thomas? By your reasoning, the vast number of people at UFO conventions indicates that aliens are visiting us. All the tantrums being thrown at these townhalls indicate is how much attention a few disgruntled people living in an echo chamber of woe-and-doom propaganda can generate by following politicians around and being very loud. We are not fooled.

So where should we go? The answer is in your wallet or purse. It's on the money. Right now it is little more than a slogan, but what if it became true: in God We Trust.

Ah yes, we should trust the gods, like Iran does. That would make for peace and harmony, because after all, it has a long history of doing so. Talk about obtuse. Thy name is Cal Thomas.

A Nice Takedown of the Carlin AGW Denial Paper

2009-08-14T07:36:00.000-05:00

If you've seen all the hullabaloo about the Alan Carlin paper on global warming, here's a nice take down. It reveals that Carlin:

1) Is not a scientist
2) Did no research
3) Lifted cherry-picked and erroneous commentary from denialist sights.
4) Presented data collected by scientists to support a conclusion those very same scientists deny.

Sound familiar? It's the standard behavior of creationists as well. Denialists of a feather...

Be sure to pay attention to the analysis of the graphs from about the 4 minute point of the youtube clip, where the Carlin's dishonesty is thoroughly exposed. As always, the denialism devil is in the details.

Les Paul RIP

2009-08-13T16:51:00.002-05:00

Les Paul, the inventor of the electric guitar, as well as multi-track recording, died at 94 years old. We can only imagine what rock n roll would be without him.

Please observe a moment of highly amplified sound in his honor.

The Low Point in Health Care Propaganda

2009-08-13T07:40:00.003-05:00

We've heard them all: Darwin's death bed conversion, Einstein believing in a personal God, countless scientists quote-mined as being against evolution when they weren't, or were good Christians when they weren't, all the made up shit told about scientists in an effort to mooch off their well-earned credibility.

But this guy who made shit up about Steven Hawking forgot the rules about quoting scientists to support propaganda:

"People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."

No, no, no! You missed the class on misrepresenting scientists! You lie about the dead ones, not the live ones! Dead men issue no corrections! Live ones might come correct you and make you look like an idiot.

"I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS," [Hawking] told us. "I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."

That's got to be the all-time low. I just hope plenty of people get the message that most of the stuff they are hearing in the debate over health care that is scaring them to death has no more basis in fact than that quip above about Stephen Hawking. These people are the kings of MSU, and you should doubt anything they say when 1) their political purposes are served and 2) you cannot verify their claim from a source whose purposes aren't. So dispense with this baseless bullshit. No one is coming to kill grandma. All health care systems, including the one we have now, ration care. ACORN is not, well, whatever it is that has you so obsessed you cannot seem to discuss any issue without mentioning them. Get out of the politically-constructed echo chambers once in a while, you might be surprised what you'll learn.

Meta Analysis Confirms Sexual Orientation Change Unlikely, Dodges Role of Religion

2009-08-12T06:32:00.002-05:00

From an APA meta analysis of 87 studies conducted between 1960 and 2007:

...there is little evidence that efforts to change a person's sexual orientation from gay or lesbian to heterosexual are effective...[and] such efforts may cause harm.

The study goes on to say they either supress their urges or just plain fake it. You don't say. For more in that category, consider that those is such programs often experienced "loss of sexual feeling, suicidality, depression and anxiety...emotional and spiritual distress and negative self-image"

Yes, all the sorts of experiences you'd expect from someone being told that what they are, not merely what they do, is immoral and evil and must be changed. This flies in the face of the claims by those pious pricks who run these programs that sexual orientation is a mere choice. But then anyone who has known gay people for who they are knew that already.

The task force noted that some people attempt to change their sexual orientation because it conflicts with their religious beliefs, and recommended that their mental health care providers help them "explore possible life paths that address the reality of their sexual orientation, reduce the stigma associated with homosexuality, respect the client's religious beliefs, and consider possibilities for a religiously and spiritually meaningful and rewarding life."

"In other words," said Glassgold, "we recommend that psychologists be completely honest about the likelihood of sexual orientation change, and that they help clients explore their assumptions and goals with respect to both religion and sexuality."

In other words, your agenda is contradictory and doomed to failure because you are suggesting feeding the very beast that caused the problem in the first place: religion. Respecting their religious beliefs means ignoring the reality of their orientation! This is one of those places where science and religion are saying completely contradictory things:

Though all mainstream health and mental health organizations concluded years ago that homosexuality is not a mental disorder, the American Psychological Association formed the task force to work on the report two years ago after noting a resurgence of groups that identified homosexuality as a defect or spiritual or moral failing.

Yes, and you people with the science on your side need to make it crystal fucking clear that the evidence implies that homosexuality is not a spiritual or moral failing in any way that can be measured, and that people making such proclamations are simply wrong. They do not have "another way of understanding the world". They have a bunch of bronze-age made-up crap, and there is no reason people living in the modern world with a modern understanding of it should give any credence to those bringing a knife to a machine gun fight. It does real damage in real people's lives. Keep your comfy baseless thoughts inside your heads where they belong and out of everyone else's lives.

Centralia Pennsylvania

2009-08-11T18:33:00.003-05:00

I just watched an amazing story about the former city of Centralia, Pennsylvania, a city that became a virtual ghost town because of a mine fire. The fire is thought to have begun in the early 60's, and burned as something of a local oddity/annoyance until the late 70's, accompanied by problems with the poisonous carbon monoxide released. In the years after that, the heated ground, open pits, and increased smoke drew political attention, and nearly everyone was relocated. The fire is still burning under the ruined town, and is expected to burn for another 250 years.

It's a nice illustration of how vast geological time is, where events are measured in units that exceed human life spans. We forget sometimes just how brief our time here has been. A quick comparison:

The universe: 14,000,000,000 years
The earth: 4,500,000,000 years
Modern humans: 200,000 years
Agrarian humans: <13,000 years

We are but the paint on the top of the Eiffel tower of the universe's history.

High School and Dealing with Bullies

2009-08-10T04:21:00.000-05:00

If your experience in high school was anything like mine, one I wouldn't repeat for $1 million, go read Mark Chu Carrol's explanation of why he won't be attending his 25 year high school reunion and the many comments that follow of similar stories.

The way we deal with high school kids in our society is one where we have much opportunity for improvement, and as social (vs academic) issues go, the way we handle bullying has got to be near the top of the priority list. How many Dylans and Klebolds and Chos do we have to have before we accept that the torment some children inflict on others is not healthy, borders on criminal, and cannot be hushed up or dismissed with "boys will be boys" rhetoric without serious consequences. Healthy boys do not seek out weaker boys with the intent of causing them pain, and those weaker boys are scarred forever as a result in dramatically negative ways.

As a tiny, brilliant, emotionally and socially challenged, attractive child that moved every couple of years growing up, I dealt with my share of bullies. The new kid will always attract them, especially if he's way smarter than they are, pops off about it on occasion (that would be the socially-challenged part), and gets too much attention from the girls (not that I had the slightest clue what to do about it). I dealt with bullies in several ways. I was small, but very strong and a skilled wrestler. If I got a firm grip, it was only a matter of time until I ended up on top of you, or had you in a very uncomfortable hold, whining for your mommy. I once put an older kid in a triangle to end a fight, though I had no idea then that it had a name, I was 8. By high school I had perfected a shoulder twisting technique which was very effective.

If I felt outmatched, (which was often, I had no real interest in fighting, and bullies usually pick on younger, smaller kids), I simply tried to end the conflict as quickly as possible. Usually this would involve ignoring their taunts and other fight-starters. They'll push you, get in your face, hit you in the arm, but very few bullies will just walk up and cold cock their victims. They provoke you to give them the justification they need in their mind to pound you. I didn't know or care about that at the time. I just found (hit tip Ghandi) that if I just ignored them, and didn't react, they would get bored and leave me alone. They wanted a scene, a crying, whimpering, victim, a verbal reaction to their taunts. I wouldn't give them what they wanted. I'd look at them like they were nuts. I didn't care what they called me. Like I care that you think I'm a pussy? I think you're a moron, and that matters a lot more. Complex social interactions were beyond my comprehension. All I cared about was getting this fool away from me. It usually worked pretty quickly.

Lot's of kids aren't so lucky. They can get tormented to the point of committing murder, and they all carry those scars with them. Look at Chu-Carrol's reaction. He's still as bewildered by these people's behavior as he ever was. And obviously from his writing and passion, it was a very dark time for his life. It was for a lot of us. And it doesn't have to be that way.

Nate Silver of 538 Challenges AGW Deniers

2009-08-09T08:49:00.001-05:00

Nate Silver over at 538.com, one of the best sites for political trends and polling (he predicted the 2008 election with uncanny accuracy) has a challenge for all the anthropocentric global warming deniers who think they can legitimately criticize climate science by looking at daily temperatures: put your money where your mouth is, $25/day for a month or more.

It will be interesting to see if he gets any takers. I've found science deniers strangely resistant to engage in any specific predicting without being allowed massive wiggle room to reinterpret any results in their favor.

Jon Stewart Clobbers William Kristol on Health Care

2009-08-08T08:00:00.005-05:00

Watch Jon Stewart shred William Kristol on health care simply by following the logic of Kristol's assertions. The military deserves the better health care that it gets, according to Kristol, more than does the general population. But, as Stewart notes, the military health care plan is run by the government, which Kristol argues can't do the job as well as our private sector system. Game set and match.

Of course, scientifically, this argument was over long ago. By any objective measure, health care in the US is inferior to so-called socialist systems: We have lower life expectancies, higher rates of infant mortality, less satisfaction, and at significantly higher costs. Just choose a WHO statistic and cringe at the nations that outperform us. The opponents of reform have nothing to offer in rebuttal except evidence-free assertions (higher costs from crack babies), misrepresentation about our present system (we don't get to choose our doctors now, the HMO does that), and anecdotes.

The one card Kristol had to play in the above exchange was that the health care the military receives is expensive, but the reason for that is obvious, and essentially the same reason Medicaid and Cobra are so expensive: they cover the worst risks we have. Applied to the entire populace, average costs would be lower. But opponents of health care reform aren't interested in a reasoned analysis of the problem, as Kristol demonstrates by pulling out two favorite canards: pre existing conditions, and rationing.

When someone talks about eliminating preexisting conditions, what they really mean is eliminating an insurance company's ability to turn down a potential new insured on the basis that the insured already has a medical condition qualifying for payment. However, this need is essential: If people were allowed to wait to buy insurance when they were already sick, that's what everyone would do, and the insurance part of the equation would collapse. Insurance, any insurance, depends on the small premiums of the many to pay for the large unexpected costs of the few. With only the few, costs are not mitigated, and needed premiums would skyrocket. It would be like allowing homeowners to buy wind insurance as the hurricane approaches.

The real issue is portability: allowing insureds on a medical plan with their employer to not be treated as a new insured if they change employers, or lose their job. Change that, and the legitimate problems with the pre-existing conditions go away. When someone like Kristol neglects to mention portability and instead makes it sound like the problem is that the big bad insurance companies won't let you wait to buy cancer insurance until after you have cancer, he is demonstrating either gross ignorance or intellectual dishonesty.

Likewise when you hear people like him prattle on about rationing. Any time there is more demand than supply for a commodity, there will be rationing. It's just brute arithmetic: if there are 6 items, and 8 people want them, 2 people are going without (the real-life complexities complicate the argument without altering it meaningfully). The question is not "will there be rationing?" The question is "by what method will we ration?" Our current system does so poorly and expensively. People like Kristol attempt to avoid the legitimate discussion of the problem by implying the problem is created by government. Rationing is part of the equation, whether government is involved or not.

We need an honest debate of the myriad problems we face with our health care system. Our population is aging, and our financial status is poor. The challenge is great, and the situation is only going to get worse. We don't have time to waste on the prattlings of obfuscating twits like Kristol, who, aside from the dubious distinction of predicting the nomination of Sarah Palin, has been pretty wrong about nearly everything lately.

News One Liners

2009-08-07T21:34:00.004-05:00

"You want to hear something positive about Sarah Palin? I'm positive she's an idiot" - CNN emailer

"If at first you don't succeed, redefine what you did as a success" - Stephen Colbert

The New Guitarists

2009-08-06T07:58:00.004-05:00

There is a whole new breed of guitar players out there who are using innovative techniques to get sounds out of their instruments that would make Jimi Hendricks envious, so I thought I'd give a few of my favorites a plug:

Andy McKee
Antoine Dufour
Don Ross and Andy McKee
Antoine Dufour wth Tommy Gautier,
Dufour and Gauthier getting a wee bit silly with an old Jerry Reed tune,

and possibly the best of the bunch, Erik Mongrain, here and here.

They were all apparently influenced by a guy named Michael Hedges, who was experimenting with tapping/slapping techniques and harmonics back in the late 80's, and is absolutely mesmerizing to listen to.

"I feel I can always hear his heart when he plays. He respected my playing too, and that simply thrills me." – Pete Townshend

Evolution Revealed in Excess Butterfly Sperm

2009-08-05T10:36:00.000-05:00

In the best example of creationism-inconsistent evolution since the stab-raping bisexual bedbug:

The sperm of male butterflies has a strange property. About 90% of it is non-fertile -- essentially filler for the females' sperm storage organs that tricks females into thinking they have all the sperm they need to fertilize their eggs. The males' ploy reduces the likelihood that their mates will take another suitor, thereby ensuring their own paternity.

It's tough to imagine the creator god saying "gee, I think I'll design this butterfly so that the female won't be satisfied until she's full, so I'll give the male 10 times as much sperm as he needs, and 90% worthless sperm at that." Still, as good scientists we must always be ready to challenge our assumptions, and this is no exception. The science does have a bit more research left to solidify the case:

...the interpretation of Wedell's results requires some assumptions about the costs and benefits of non-fertile sperm production and storage that have not yet been confirmed, cautioned evolutionary biologist Darryl Gwynne of the University of Toronto, who was not involved in the work. The nutritious gifts that females receive upon mating are likely to be a high incentive for them to mate many times, but there are often costs associated with mating as well. It is therefore unclear how often females should mate to maximize their fitness.

"This paper addresses a really neat potential conflict situation in these butterflies," Gwynne said, "[but you] need to show [that] by filling her sperm storage organs with these non-fertile sperm and increasing her refractory period, you're actually impacting her fitness." In other words, demonstrating that this is a case of sexual conflict requires showing that females incur a cost by storing non-fertile sperm.

Notice however that there is no promise of salvation for the creationists in these criticisms. They only address the issue of whether the cause of the excess sperm is sexual conflict, not whether the excess sperm exists, or that it is nonfertile. It doesn't matter what the natural explanation turns out to be, or whether this one is correct, "god wanted it that way" will never fly as a viable alternative.

Who's Irrational Now? The Same People That Always Were

2009-08-04T15:10:00.009-05:00

A reader sent me this article in the Wall Street Journal (a Murdock production) about a study which gathered data confirming something I considered a given: that fundamentalist Christians believe in nonreligious paranormal events (Atlantis, the Loch Ness monster, ghosts) less so than do nonreligious people.

The Gallup Organization, under contract to Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion, asked American adults a series of questions to gauge credulity. Do dreams foretell the future? Did ancient advanced civilizations such as Atlantis exist? Can places be haunted? Is it possible to communicate with the dead? Will creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster someday be discovered by science?

The answers were added up to create an index of belief in occult and the paranormal. While 31% of people who never worship expressed strong belief in these things, only 8% of people who attend a house of worship more than once a week did.

Even among Christians, there were disparities. While 36% of those belonging to the United Church of Christ, Sen. Barack Obama's former denomination, expressed strong beliefs in the paranormal, only 14% of those belonging to the Assemblies of God, Sarah Palin's former denomination, did. In fact, the more traditional and evangelical the respondent, the less likely he was to believe in, for instance, the possibility of communicating with people who are dead.

This is not a new finding.

Indeed, it isn't. I recall reading the same study they reference years ago:

This is not a new finding. In his 1983 book "The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener," skeptic and science writer Martin Gardner cited the decline of traditional religious belief among the better educated as one of the causes for an increase in pseudoscience, cults and superstition. He referenced a 1980 study published in the magazine Skeptical Inquirer that showed irreligious college students to be by far the most likely to embrace paranormal beliefs, while born-again Christian college students were the least likely.

Of course they are, and the reason should be obvious. The more fundamentalist the Christian, the more binary their view of the world: something is either consistent with the teachings of Jesus Christ as written in the Holy Gospel of the Bible, or it isn't. Those things that aren't are rejected. Naturally, this is going to lead to the rejection of practically any other viewpoint or epistemology, the good and the bad, science and nonreligious pseudoscience alike. You'd get the same exact results polling a guy with brain damage who could say nothing but "no".

Oh, except for all that baseless nonsense about talking burning bushes, a virgin giving birth, and dead people coming back to life after being dead for days. Somehow those ideas, and the intellectual mess that comes with it are given a pass from being labeled "superstitious" because, well, just because. So the study tells us that people immersed in an exclusionary belief system reject other belief systems. Color me amazed.

Instead of recognizing this, Murdock's writer Mollie Ziegler Hemingway decides it somehow validates criticizing atheism through an attack on Bill Maher. Maher supposedly said the following:

"You can't be a rational person six days of the week and put on a suit and make rational decisions and go to work and, on one day of the week, go to a building and think you're drinking the blood of a 2,000-year-old space god"

Cute, and on point with regard to putting people following irrational belief systems in positions of power where their decisions will be influenced by said irrationality. But sadly, generally, his statement is wrong. How nice it would be if the world were that simple. However the same creationist that would be a nightmare as a biologist might do just fine as a carpenter or mathematician, where his religion and reality would rarely conflict. Compartmentalization is the norm in humanity, not the exception.

So it is with Bill Maher, who holds his share of goofy beliefs, mainly having to do with medicine (he's a Big Pharma conspiracy guy as well as a supporter of PETA). He does OK with science until it gets near that subject, and then he gets goofy, just like anyone with a hole of irrationality in their cognitive processes. It doesn't make him any less astute an observer of religious irrationality. In similar vein, a believer in a risen Jesus may have no trouble seeing Maher's medical irrationalities for what they are.

Ms. Hemingway hopes her readers won't notice this inherent contradiction in her argument, which is why, as so many do on the right these days (a la Coulter), she doesn't make it explicit. She's trying to give religion points in the "who is more rational" wars by implicating Maher as an irrational person. But the only way to do that is to claim that his one set of irrational views brands him entirely irrational on all others, which is exactly what Maher is wrong about. If Maher's PETA support merits the irrational badge, then so does your support of Jesus, Ms. Hemingway. If you can compartmentalize (which is obvious), then so can Maher. You can't have it both ways.

Oh, and Maher doesn't claim to base his entire life and view of reality on his pharmacrap the way you claim to with the Bible. So that sort of gives him a leg up on you, as it does for everyone who believes in bigfoot (fight over Michael Medved if you must), and similar cognitively isolated views. As long as the people who believe in Atlantis and martian abductions don't start thinking their beliefs can save them from death, while all others will burn in torment for all eternity, they're still more rational than you are. One doesn't have to be perfect to be superior.

In Case You Still Don't Believe O'Reilly is an Idiot: Life Expectancy with Billo

2009-08-03T07:35:00.000-05:00

In case there was any doubt left in your mind that Bill O'Reilly is an idiot, watch this video of him explaining away Canada's greater life expectancy than ours by noting that:

"we have ten times as many people as you do, that translates into ten times as many accidents, crimes, down the line."

Yes you blithering idiot, and it also translates into ten times as many people in the denominator of the calculation of life expectancy. You don't increase an average just by changing the number of people in your sample. Add "life expectancy" to the terms O'Reilly, and apparently his viewers, don't understand. Is it any wonder that we can't have a reasoned debate on these subjects when so many people are grossly ignorant of the most basic aspects of the issues?

Let's also note that this is another classic example of substituting conjecture (if our population was the same size as Canada's, so would our life expectancy) for actual data. So much for "the party of facts".

The Science is in: Organic Food Not More Healthy

2009-08-01T06:37:00.003-05:00

In what had to be a a major blow to the natural-is-good crowd, "a systematic review of 162 scientific papers published in the scientific literature over the last 50 years...found there was no significant difference" between organically grown food and food created by other means. Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said:

"A small number of differences in nutrient content were found to exist between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs, but these are unlikely to be of any public health relevance. Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority."

I had always wondered about organic foods, and what exactly the supposed benefits were. The most common response is that they are "natural", but so are cyanide and botulism, so I found that argument entirely unconvincing. Now we find the science is lacking for alternative nutrition (at least this piece of it) just like it is lacking for alternative medicine.

This once again shows that conservatives don't have a monopoly on pushing pseudoscience. Leftwingers like The Huffington Post do their share of misinforming, and politicians like Tom Harkin waste millions in taxpayer money on pseudoscientific nonsense. Conservative nuts are just more numerous, and more mainstream.

The Will of the People and the Tea Party Mentality

2009-07-30T22:23:00.005-05:00

For a look inside the mentality of the Tea Party crowd, check out this video, apparently made as an advertisement for one:

In some ways its a nice historical tribute to America's opposition of tyranny, be it King George's taxation without representation, or Hitler and Japan threatening the world's freedom, and of course the ultimate cowards, the Islamic terrorists who committed the mass vandalism known as "9/11" and now proudly hide in caves.

But sadly for the Tea Partiers, their effort completely departs from reality when it tries to include the current administration and congress as tyrannies defying the will of the people. In a representative democracy such as ours, the will of the people is measured every 2-6 years, depending on which segment of the government we are discussing. We call these measurements "elections", and the Teapartiers have been losing a lot of them lately. Those now in power were elected to do exactly what they are doing, via the will of the people. When you lose, you don't get your way, no matter how revolting you find the other side's opinions, or how wrong you think they are. That's not tyranny, that's democracy.

Yet losing has turned the supposed party of facts-over-feelings into the party of woulda, shoulda, coulda. We woulda won had ACORN not cheated. The media shoulda been harder on Obama. We coulda won if Sarah Palin had been the candidate. It's a sad day for the GOP that so many have been reduced to this, but then so many haven't tasted minority status in their lifetimes, so in part its understandable. Few people are able to change their paradigm so radically in so little time, regardless of how rational we'd like to think we are.

Some of the Tea Partier's arguments (when they can be wrested from the jingoisms) have validity (such as the goals of having lean, efficient government). It's also entirely possible that the Tea partiers are right about a lot of the issues they have with the direction the President and Democrats are taking us. After all, truth is not determined by popular vote. Time, as always, will tell. But any Tea Partiers clinging to the notion that they represent "the will of the people" are deluding themselves. Right or wrong, you are now the minority, and every demographic indication is that the situation will get worse, not better, as long as you cling to the same old positions and arguments. Those immigrating to this country, those getting a college education, and those under 30, overwhelmingly reject your worldview. All the tea parties and snazzy videos in the world won't change that.

I Are Not Stupid!

2009-07-28T16:47:00.004-05:00

Bill Maher has a lot of people up in arms over his comment on CNN that America is a stupid nation, one reason being that Sarah Palin could become president.

He's right of course, although some of Palin's following could be attributed more to political partisanship than stupidity. There are a lot of Republicans who would look you in the eye and tell you they'd rather vote for a fool than a Democrat.

But what drove me to write here about it was what I heard on the radio driving home, which was a DJ incensed by this comment and challenging callers to defend Maher's comment. The dialogue I heard went something like this:

DJ: So why is Bill Maher right that America is a stupid country?

Caller: Because Americans have no critical thinking skills, no understanding or interest in anything outside our borders.

DJ: Then why do you still live here? How can you be an American and think America is stupid?

Caller: The same way I can love my child and still accept that he's a little shit sometimes.

DJ: Sounds to me you are talking out of both sides of your mouth.

[sigh] This hearkens back to that famous line "You shouldn't live here if you don't speak American good." I was tempted to call in and tell the DJ that his answers were non sequitors, but I doubt he'd have known what those were.

Myers on the Inconsistency of Religion in the Public Square

2009-07-27T08:01:00.000-05:00

On a recent rant, PZ Myers put more eloquently what I've been saying for years:

"Science and reason give us antibiotics, microwave ovens, sanitation, lasers, and rocketships to the moon. What has religion done for us lately? We have become accustomed to objective measures of success, where we can explicitly see that a particular strategy for decision-making and the generation of knowledge has concrete results. I'm sorry, but faith seems to produce mainly wrong answers, and in comparison, it flops badly.

Now, now, I can hear the defenders of religion begin to grumble, there's more to life than merely material products like microwave ovens — there's contentment and contemplation and a sort of subjective psychology of ritual and community and all that sort of thing. Sure. Fine. Then stick to it, and stop pretending that religion ought to be a determinant of public policy, that it can inform us about the nature of our existence, or that it provides a good guide to public morality. Get it out of our schools and courthouses and workplaces and governments, take it to your homes and your churches, and use it appropriately as your personal consoling mind-game. And stop pretending that it is universal and necessary, because there are a thousand different religions that all claim the same properties with wildly different details, and there are millions of us with no religion at all who get along just fine without your hallowed quirks."

For too long people have been allowed to make purely religious arguments in the public square, without having the same evidenciary demands made of them that is (or should be) made on every other point of view. Can you imagine if socialists, anarcho-capitalists, moneterists, gradualists, supply-siders, or the abstinence-only crowd were allowed to skip that whole "prove your theory" part of it? Yeah, you're right, some of those have been, and the results were Jim Dandy weren't they?

You say your religion is a personal thing, backed by faith and subjective experience that you don't expect to persuade others. You say it gives you great comfort in times of fear or stress. When backed into a corner, many of you will claim it doesn't matter whether it is true or not, it teaches good lessons. Fine - just keep it in your private lives, and out of your public ones, where it is important to be able to speak in terms that might persuade others, where personal comfort is not the agenda, and where it most certainly is true whether or not it is true, irrespective of what you think of the lessons we learn from it.

Girls Are Evil: Proof

2009-07-25T09:22:00.004-05:00

There are two lessons here. First, there is more actual math in this little exercise than there is in most (if not all) anti-evolution probability arguments. Second, if you change the definition of a word in the middle of an argument, or just invent a new one for a new word, you can produce distorted results from logical looking arguments. After all, "it's just a theory".

Napping is good for the Brain

2009-07-17T09:35:00.000-05:00

Napping apparently is good for problem solving, but only if it is REM sleep.

Researchers led by Sara C. Mednick, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, gave 77 volunteers word-association tests under three before-and-after conditions: spending a day without a nap, napping without REM sleep and napping with REM sleep. Just spending the day away from the problem improved performance; people who stayed awake did a little better on the 5 p.m. session than they had done on the 9 a.m. test. Taking a nap without REM sleep also led to slightly better results. But a nap that included REM sleep resulted in nearly a 40 percent improvement over the pre-nap performance.

The study, published June 8 in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that those who had REM sleep took longer naps than those who napped without REM, but there was no correlation between total sleep time and improved performance. Only REM sleep helped.

Notice also that just time away from the problem also improved performance, napping or not.

Analyzing a Jack Chick Tract: Creator or Liar?

2009-07-16T02:40:00.000-05:00

I'm sure most of you reading this have seen these Jack Chick tracts, those little booklets with absurdly simplistic Bible-tuting cartoons. I hadn't seen one in years, but just ran across one I hadn't seen beforeand in flipping through it, noticed how much you can tell about the writer and his intended audience by looking carefully at what is said and how the pictures are drawn.

Let's start with the pictures. At a bare minimum, this gives away that the intended audience here is either children, thinks like children, or is illiterate. One doesn't often find adult material that has an illustration for every claim.

But even at this simplistic level, the tract is more comical than inspirational. The first picture is supposed to be God creating "the heaven [sic?] and the earth", but the picture looks like a cloud giant rolling dice shaped like the moon, the earth, the sun, and what might be a pulsar, all about the same size, and all together taking up about half the universe. Note how no child looking at this picture would get the impression that the universe is >95% empty space. They can't even get out of the starting gate with their myth without denying reality.

"He made man out of the dust of the earth" inspires frame #2. Ever wonder why God could create the entire universe from scratch, but for man some raw material was required?

In the telling of the fall, man is shown running lovingly into a dark satan's arms, and a world of anarchy and murderous violence existing prior to the flood. Once again however, reality shines a harsh light on the credibility of such a story. Never mind the flood story and its gargantuan problems. The people in the frame are shown wearing shoes, sewn clothing and fighting with somewhat sophisticated weapons. Even those meager accomplishments would be impossible with a world where everyone was a violent murderer or rapist. Once again, only a child, unaware that shoes don't just exist or grow on trees, could buy such a tale.

The frame on the post-Noah world is enlightening for those unclear on why there is such hatred between the Arabs and the Jews. The Arabs are clearly the bad guys, while the Jews are chosen people. No explanation as to why this seemingly random act was done. Again, as if an idiot or child were the target audience, there is a big finger-pointing hand in the illustration making sure you see that Isaac was father of Jacob, who was father of the Israelites. Check with the Mormons on even more colorful versions of this story.

Ah more killing, this time of the prophets. And despite being told to sacrifice a lamb to avoid God's wrath, the people refused. At this point, is anyone else wondered WTF was wrong with God deciding to create these people in the first place? They kill each other and destroy things for no reason, they are unable to follow simple instructions. Dr.s Frankenstein and Moreau were pikers compared to God.

Then comes the most confusing part, and for some reason the tract shows angels with question marks over their head, as they looked onto a giant staircase (the stairway to heaven?). God decided the way to solve this problem was for him to become a man, and be sacrificed, to himself, for man's sins. Yeah, I'd be confused too. Sounds like the landlord deciding the way to settle my debt to him is for him to work a job for himself and pay himself what I owe him. And why didn't God just change the rules and not require any atonement? Or why didn't he just destroy or let die out the morbidly flawed creatures called man, and create something more worthy of his high standards?

Anyway, Jesus left heaven to be born as a man. We know this because the picture shows an arrow coming out of a cloud aiming towards earth. Again, kids or nitwits are the audience here.

I'll let the frame for "God (the Holy Ghost) came upon her and she conceived" stand without comment. Poe's law applies.

The Jesus story runs without much entertainment value until this humdinger of a line:

"He became our Saviour: through His righteousness deposited in an overdrawn account, we are restored to fellowship with God..."

So almighty God is subject to some sort of righteousness accounting that required his omnipotenceness to go die in this manner? And, not really, because he rose three days later as he knew he would? That's the equivalent of me claiming to sacrifice my life for something because I went to sleep for a while. Sure I was "dead" in a sense, and "sacrificed my life", in a sense. But it's not something to look at in anything like a glorious sense.

The rest of the tract is uninteresting bibbling until near the end, when those who "claim Jesus was a liar" are depicted holding signs. Funny though, none of their signs say he was a liar. They claim Jesus was a mere man, or that the virgin birth and the Bible were lies, or that God is dead. And they wonder why so many of us find the story completely unconvincing...once we get past the age of 10 or so anyway, and don't need pictures in our books any more.

New Dinosaur Species Discovered

2009-07-15T06:39:00.000-05:00

Austrailia finally has its first significant dinosaur find in almost three decades with the discovery of a 98-million-year-old giant velociraptor, and a couple of titanosaurs:

...the theropod, from the tyrannosaurus rex family, [compares] to the velociraptors made famous in 1993's "Jurassic Park", only "many times bigger and more terrifying".

"He could run down most prey with ease over open ground. His most distinguishing feature was three large slashing claws on each hand...Unlike some theropods that have small arms...His arms were a primary weapon."

The plant-eat[ers] belong to the giant titanosaur family, the biggest creatures ever to walk the earth.

"These discoveries are a major breakthrough in the scientific understanding of prehistoric life in Australia,"

"Many hundreds more fossils from this dig await preparation and there is much more material left to excavate,"

And in the red corner, we have scientists out in the field, making discoveries, incorporating them into other findings, and working with other scientists to validate their evidence. And in the blue corner, we have the creationists, fingers in their ears, eyes closed, chanting "the fossils don't validate evolution", and claiming every bit of science supports their views. Who's your money on?

Quick Conversion from Fahrenheit to Celsius

2009-07-14T05:20:00.000-05:00

Everyone remember that wonderful conversion from Fahrenheit to Celsius and back again? It went something like this:

F = (9/5)C + 32

So a temperature of 68 degrees Fahrenheit is equal to 68 - 32 = 36 * 5 / 9 = 20 degrees Celsius. Yeah, I know, it usually doesn't work out that neatly each time, but I've got a cure for what ails those of you who travel to Celsius lands and haven't a calculator in your head:

F = 2C + 30

Plug in the 20 degrees Celsius from above and you get 2*20 + 30, which I think most people can handle, and an estimate of 70, close enough to have a feel for what's going on. Fair warning though, the estimator does have its limits. It's equal to the real thing at 10 degrees Celsius, 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and has an error of 6 degrees at 104 and -4 F, so it won't work really well in desert or arctic conditions, and I sure as hell wouldn't cook with it. But in moderate conditions, it's just fine.

Buchanan Apes Windchy: The anti-science Wing Speaks Again

2009-07-13T05:18:00.001-05:00

For a good example of why one should never trust conservatives on science, check out Pat Buchanan's latest idiotic article on evolution, where he apes without critical analysis, all of the moldy oldy anti-Darwin creationist arguments in a recent book by Eugene G. Windchy.

I'm not going to go through all the erroneous, baseless, claims Buchanan mentions in his article, and Windchy has in his book. Ed Brayton did a masterfully thorough job here and here.

There is one part of the essay I want to concentrate on however, because it illustrates starkly the difference and advantage of a scientific worldview over religious faith-based ones:

Buchanan: And here Windchy does his best demolition work.
Darwin, he demonstrates, stole his theory from Alfred Wallace, who had sent him a "completed formal paper on evolution by natural selection."

Brayton: This is false. Darwin and Wallace came up with very similar theories entirely separate from one another. Darwin had begun developing his theory two decades before it was published and it was only at the very end, in 1858, that Wallace contacted Darwin and sent him a manuscript. By that time, Darwin's ideas had already been sketched out in great detail but not made public. In the end, both men had their papers presented at the same meeting of the Linnean Society in London (coincidentally, 151 years ago today).

Indeed, Brayton is correct of course. Darwin was a meticulous scientist, and had been working on his theory for many years, collecting data, studying barnacles, finches, and pigeons, among many other items, making certain his conclusions were evidence-based. Wallace at the time was a young but accomplished scientist who noticed evolutionary indicators in the islands of the Southwest Pacific in his travels. The manuscript he sent Darwin not only served as more supporting evidence, but lit a fire under the elder scientists to publish his findings sooner rather than later, else risking being upstaged by the wunderkind. Thus, the duel presentations Brayton mentions.

The remarkable part of this story is that two men, working completely independently, drew the same conclusion regarding this most complicated topic. This is one of the hallmarks and strengths of science, that relying on replicable, falsifiable testing and the evidence that results is a method that will produce the same results regardless of who is doing it or where. Reality is what it is, in England as well as Borneo. There have been many similar occurrences in the history of science and mathematics: Newton and Leibnitz simultaneously developing calculus, or Ramanujan reproducing established mathematical equations in complete isolation from the mathematics world.

Contrast this to the so-called truths of religions, which differ all over the globe, and which never have the kind of convergence science has enjoyed except in cases where the religious morals have direct physical societal consequences (ie the golden rule). But take only the pure religious laws, those concerned only with what the gods want, and one might as well toss darts at the wall at random to reproduce the results. And the worst part of all, is that faith allows no mechanism for correction of errors.

As is so often the case, what creationists try to use as a weapon against science ends up backfiring. Two scientists coming up with the same theory at the same time provides MORE evidence that evolution is true, not less. Pity, though, that Wallace wasn't the one associated so closely with evolutionary theory. It would have been fun listening to the creationists try to say "Wallacism".

God Don't Bless the Yankees, I have to take a Piss

2009-07-12T05:57:00.001-05:00

Nice to see justice can still be served in America, as Bradford Campeau-Laurion, the guy tossed from Yankee stadium because he decided his bladitorial needs were more important than then standing in his seat for the playing of God Bless America, was awarded a settlement against the guilty cops.

Campeau-Laurion, a Red Sox fan, will also get $10,001 in a separate deal reached with the city because he got the boot from two uniformed cops -- one of whom allegedly told him, "Get out of my country."

Fuck you buddy. Get out of MY country. We don't have government enforced religious observances here. People are free to worship or not according to their own conscience here. It's called The First Amendment, perhaps you've heard of it? Perhaps you'd prefer it in a place that doesn't have such a philosophy, like Saudi Arabia or Iran.

So Why Does One Manage a Beaver?

2009-07-11T04:05:00.001-05:00

Once again a Republican anti-science quip has come back to bite them on the ass. We had Palin's French fruit flies, McCain's bear DNA tests, Jindal's volcano monitoring, and now McCain's quip about beaver management has come back to haunt his derriere, as we witness the comeback of unmanaged beavers into a bonafied major pest:

The dozens of public works officials, municipal engineers, conservation agents and others who crowded into a meeting room here one recent morning needed help. Property in their towns was flooding, they said. Culverts were clogged. Septic tanks were being overwhelmed.

Once wiped out in Massachusetts, beavers were repopulated in the 1930s.

“We have a huge problem,” said David Pavlik, an engineer for the town of Lexington, where dams built by beavers have sent water flooding into the town’s sanitary sewers. “We trapped them,” he said. “We breached their dam. Nothing works. We are looking for long-term solutions.”

Mary Hansen, a conservation agent from Maynard, said it starkly: “There are beavers everywhere.”

Laura Hajduk, a biologist with the state’s Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, had little to offer them. When beavers are trapped, others move in to replace them. And, she said, you can breach a beaver dam, but “I guarantee you that within 24 hours if the beavers are still there it will be repaired. Beavers are the ultimate ecosystem engineers.”

That was not what Mr. Pavlik was hoping to hear.

He is not alone in his dismay, and it is not just beavers. Around the nation, decades of environmental regulation, conservation efforts and changing land use have brought many species, like beavers, so far back from the brink that they are viewed as nuisances. As Stuart Pimm, a conservation ecologist at Duke University, put it, “We are finding they are inconvenient.”

Let's hope the recent GOP strategy of "pretend efforts to monitor and solve real problems are a joke" has run its course. I'm just waiting any day for someone to joke about monitoring financial institutions.

Hat tip: Mike the Mad Biologist

McLeroy Replaced by Dunbar? Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

2009-07-10T07:00:00.000-05:00

After working so hard to oust Creationist and general promoter of ignorance Don McLeroy from the Board of Education Chair, now rumors come that Cynthia Dunbar is next up for Governor Rick Perry, who seems not to have understood the firestorm and national embarrassment McLeroy created for Texas. Perhaps part of the comprehension problem is slipshod reporting such as the article linked above which begins with a false statement about the McLeroy affair:

Critics who engineered the recent ouster of State Board of Education Chairman Don McLeroy, in part because of his strong religious beliefs, could end up with someone even more outspoken in her faith.

McLeroy was not ousted for his religious beliefs. He was ousted for his scientific ignorance, which he insisted on proving every time he opened his mouth. He allowed his religious convictions, and not science, to dictate his scientific positions. That makes him unqualified for the position he held, and made his long overdue ousting entirely appropriate.

Unfortunately, Dunbar is cut from the same cloth. Scientifically ignorant BOE Chair, meet BOE member who thinks public schools are "a subtly deceptive tool of perversion" and calls the establishment of public schools unconstitutional and "tyrannical."

David Bradley, another member of the lunatic fringe right, gives us a good sample of just how out of touch with reality these people are:

"It would certainly cause angst among the same members of the pagan left that rejected Don McLeroy because he was a man of faith,"

Pagans? Does the man even know what the word means? I challenge David Bradley to name a single pagan involved in the McLeroy affair? He's just making shit up that sounds scary to his ignorant constituents.

Luckily, we have Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, to add a little reality to this cluster fraud:

Perry’s appointment of Dunbar would send a statement "that the governor shares her shocking hostility toward public education...Just as bad, he would be siding with a faction of self-righteous politicians on the board who have made it crystal clear that they believe the only real Christians are the ones who agree with them. If the governor really decides that selling out our kids like this is a good re-election strategy, then this state has an even bigger problem than we thought."

Indeed it does, or has, for a long time. It just hasn't come to light until recently. But make no mistake, there is massive projection going on here. It is Perry, McLeroy, Bradley and Dunbar who are judging people based on their religious beliefs, not their critics. Supporters of sound science run the gamut of religious views. It's the science they care about. Pity we can't say the same for the likes of Dunbar, or Perry if he appoints her.

Surprise me Rick Perry. Make us Texans proud for a change, and nominate and education chair that (gasp) actually puts the children's education first, not their personal religious views.

Traffic Jams - Not as Bad as You think

2009-07-08T04:31:00.000-05:00

Today, as with so many days, I found myself stuck in a traffic jam, and I thought I'd share my little trick for keeping one's sanity when it seems like you are just creeping along.

The key to understand is that traffic jams don't take as long as they seem to. It's just that when we are in a hurry, and think we should be moving, but we aren't, time appears to pass more than it does. To really illustrate this, the next time you are stopped at a light that always seems to take forever to change, try to accomplish something with your phone, your laptop, whatever you have available, and watch how much briefer the light seems.

When entering a jam on the highway, reset your trip odometer, and note the time. Then, when you clear the jam, and are normally on your way again, note the distance of the jam, and the time it took to get through it. For my experience today, it took me 6 minutes to go 2 miles. Now, it happens to be mathematically convenient that what you're going to average on an unburdened highway is about 60 mph, or a mile per minute. So to estimate what time the jam actually cost you, just take your traffic jam traversing time, and subtract the distance covered, which we now know is a good estimate of the time it would have taken with no traffic jam. In my case, all that aggravation amounted to 6 - 2 = 4 minutes.

Do this for every jam you are subjected to on a regular basis and watch how much less stressful they become once you understand how little time you are really losing.

Feeling Blue?

2009-07-07T07:20:00.000-05:00

Read the story about how these beauties were saved from extinction here.

Bat-Moth Echolocution Arms Race

2009-07-07T03:28:00.001-05:00

One of the interesting aspects of evolution is the production of "arms races" between predator and prey, each adapting to counter the adaptions of the other. Gazelles get faster, so the cheetahs get even faster, and so on. Here's a great article on such an arms race involving the echolocation of bats and the counterevolution of the moths that are their prey:

Tiger moths have evolved the ability to produce ultrasonic clicks in response to attacking bats. However, the function of these clicks was unclear, although decades of research has led to a number of hypotheses. The clicks may act to startle attacking bats, or they may be an acoustic signal which warns them that the moth is unpalatable. A study published in today's issue of the journal Science provides the first clear evidence for the third hypothesis - that the clicks interfere with (or "jam") the bats' echolocation signals.

The analysis of their experiments revealed just how much detailed knowledge we have of bats:

Analysis of the film footage also revealed that the clicks led to unusual echolocating behaviour. Normally, a bat's attack progresses through three phases. First, it approaches its target. Then, it increases the frequency and amplitude of its echolocation signals; this so-called "feeding buzz" enables it to generate a more detailed auditory image, so that it can homes on and track the target. Finally, during the terminal phase of the attack, it captures its prey. Corcoran and his colleagues noticed that the ultrasonic clicks produced by the tiger moths led to atypical echolocation behaviour in the bats. In about one third of the attacks, the bats reversed the attack phase, from tracking to approaching, or from the terminal phase to tracking, before continuing with the attack.

It is important to keep items like this in mind any time someone makes an anti-scientific argument that amounts to "Here's something totally obvious and basic that they've overlooked" (eg "if we evolved from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys?"). Scientists are human with foibles and biases like anyone else. But they are also very intelligent, spend their lives studying their subjects, and don't all have the same biases. So there's nothing obvious and basic to a laymen that is going to be overlooked by the entire scientific enterprise. They've gone way beyond basic into arenas with questions that most of us are just too ignorant to ask.

Great Alternative Medicine Sketch

2009-07-05T07:35:00.001-05:00

For some nice proof-by-contradiction theatre, check out this sketch, where the substance of alternative medicine is brought out all together for a nice laughable feast of foolishness. It revels in one of the telltale signs of pseudoscience - lack of implications or collaborations with other fields. Homeopathy and chiropractic, reflexology and qi, all have one thing in common: nothing to say to each other. Not like actual science at all.

Palin Resigns

2009-07-04T09:45:00.002-05:00

Sarah Palin resigns as Governor of Alaska, and that, is that. The biggest joke of American politics, perhaps of all time, is gone, hopefully for good. The most likely cause IMO, was the inability to function once the phony persona was exposed as such. It was inevitable, and it is good news for the GOP, who would only have been dragged down further into the fundamentalist sewer of arrogant ignorance with her.

Keep those Palin/2012 posters, they'll be collectors items one day.

Darwin, DNA, and the Meaning of Evidence

2009-07-02T10:18:00.000-05:00

This is a series of responses I had with a commenter or I thought worthy of a post of it's own:

C: Anyone who has eyes, whether he lived three thousand years ago, 200 years ago, or today, can look at a chimp and a human side by side and conclude that they are related. So what additional ammunition is there knowing that their DNA is so similar? It's icing, but not much else.

SA: Oh come on C, you've got to be kidding? Anyone who has eyes can look at a shark and a whale and conclude they are closely related, and he'd be dead wrong. You've illustrated the problem with casual observation as science. Its one of the fundamental problems with evolution-deniers, and with denialism in general - a lack of understanding of what constitutes evidence and an appreciation of what it means.

Scientifically, when you or I, based on casual observation, conclude that chimpanzees and humans are related, or that sharks and whales are, we've just gotten started We've done no science yet. All we've done is form a hypothesis. Without some falsifiable testing, it's nothing better than a guess. Indeed, that's as far as ID gets, and why as science goes its useless crap.

Science demands we one go further. From our hypothesis of close relationship, we'd need to make a falsifiable prediction, something that could give us a variety of answers, many of which would clearly indicate a flaw in our theory. (!) Let's check the DNA. If they are closely related (we'd reason), their DNA should be pretty similar.

So them we open them up, and lo and behold, the shark and the whale don't have DNA nearly as similar as we'd expect. In that case our hypothesis is disproven. But with the chimp and the human, the match is nearly total (95-99% depending on how you want to count it). This would be a confirmation of our theory. It doesn't prove it, but it gives it a huge leg up on any theory that hasn't passed such a test.

Empirical, falsifiable, repeatable testing of a theory, and adjustments to account for those results when they differ from prediction, is what makes science different from other epistemologies. The the rate at which mankind's knowledge grew once science became the standard is why it is held in so high a regard today, and why even those who criticize it with their words crave its stamp of approval with their actions. It doesn't get any better.

As long as you see THE thing that makes science the power it is as mere icing, you'll never understand science or the perspective of those whom practice and appreciate it.

Finally, it pays to remember that we knew nothing of DNA in Darwin's time. Some of the most enjoyable parts of "The Origin of the Species" were watching struggle to understand how traits were passed from one generation to the next. His theory demanded a mechanism, but he had none.

When DNA was discovered Darwin was vindicated in a huge way. There was simply no reason that such a thing had to exist outside his theory. Gods could easily have created without it. When it was ultimately mapped out so we could compare one creature to the next, the scientific battle over evolution was over for anyone with access to the information and the education to understand it. There was (and is) simply no way to explain, with any sensibility, why it looks like it does one creature to the next except through evolution via common descent.

Creationists take advantage of the ignorant and confuse them as to just how certainly Darwin's theory, with many modifications through subsequent discovery, won its scientific war. But win it it did, and those who recognize it will continue to grow as they have over these last 150 years until this debate is as quaint a memory as those about the existence of germs.

Sam Harris and Phillip Ball on Atheistic Accomodation

2009-07-01T05:57:00.000-05:00

There is a great exchange between Sam Harris and Phillip Ball which pretty much sums up the intellectual chasm that always grows up when this discussions take place. This paragraph from Harris pretty much sums up my view of the issue:

First off, it is undeniable that most humans are “ritualistically inculcated into stupidity” from birth onwards by their religious parents. Second, it is a perverse (and highly condescending) article of faith among secular academics that people can never be reasoned out of their religious convictions. I have heard from literally thousands of people who used to believe in the God of Abraham—indeed, many used to be scriptural literalists—who were stripped of their faith after a proper collision with Reason. It is quite possible for people to notice how “woolly” their thinking has been, how they were part of a culture grown incandescent with lies, how their parents and elders raised them in a near total vacuum of critical thinking and in complete ignorance of the scientific worldview. Indeed, I once had the pleasure of having dinner with a woman who could pinpoint the very moment she lost her faith, as it had been purged from her mind that morning while reading one of my books. Her overwhelming feeling was of regret for all the time she had wasted over the course of her life. No doubt such a terrific sense of sunk cost keeps many people stuck to a pew. Perhaps not everyone can be reasoned out of his or her faith—but the problem is that we don’t know how fully people’s minds could change because we haven’t really tried (please don’t feel tempted to make yet another tendentious excursion into history and bring up the French Revolution or the gulag). You’d do well to notice how easily children can be reasoned out of their belief in Santa Claus. The all enter school as devout believers, and they all exit as perfect sceptics. How is this dialectical miracle accomplished? Quite simply: there is no cultural support for a belief in Santa past a certain age, and no one likes to be laughed at. Do we replace Santa Claus with anything? No. We just oblige people to grow up.

That's pretty much it. And yes, accomodationists all, hear me when I say I realize that some people cannot be wrested from their faith positions by mere reason (who was it that said what was put there by something other than reason cannot be removed with reason?). Those we leave to you to cajole, persuade, and incrementalize their way to enlightenment. But for some people, a swift kick in the intellectual ass is exactly what they need, and many of us know it because we've had it happen to us, and we've seen it effective in others. Sometimes all someone needs is to have a person carrying intellectual respect to say point blank [best George Carlin voice here] "This is fucking stupid!", and begin a rational dissection.

Hat tip: PZ Myers.

12 or 13? How it works

2009-06-30T02:47:00.001-05:00

Check out this little puzzle where the number of people in the picture changes from 12 to 13 depending on the arrangement of the pieces. Where does the extra man come from/go to?

The secret is that the men do not stay the same size. Each is larger when there are only 12 men than they are when there are 13. It is especially noticeable with the man standing at the far left, whose head is neatly chopped off when 13 men are showing. Look carefully at their feet as well. They get noticeable smaller for the 13 man version. The picture is drawn very skillfully so that when the pieces move, each man changes size, by 1/13th of a man, but the black and white sections match in plausible ways.

There are many puzzles like this. I recall one when I was a child that had China men (I know, so un-pc) running around the world and their number changed (I think from 11-12) depending on how an inner circle of the picture was turned. I found the solution by looking closely at their beards and swords, both drawn about the same width, length, and black color. They all got longer when the smaller number of men were showing. Their faces got larger too.

If you are unconvinced, imagine laying out 12 dollar bills, side-by-side, each 1/13th of a bill lower than the previous one, cutting them across the middle, and then shifting the lower half one bill to the left. What you'll get is 13 bills that are 12/13th of a bill in length, with a missing piece at the cut*. The puzzles are just more complicated versions of the same principle.

And personally, I've found this solution fabulous in it's subtlety and simplicity, and a good proof that the solution to a mystery need not diminish the wonder of it.

=======

*Yes, people have tried to counterfeit money this way. I do not recommend it, as it is easy to spot, highly felonious, and the only way the communists really could win.

Terry Eagleton, by Paul Kirby

2009-06-29T08:09:00.001-05:00

Terry Eagleton is interviewed on God, religion, and the new atheists, dances around practically every question he's asked, even something as simple as "do you pray?". I know, it's so rude and arrogant of we atheists to expect defenders of religion to be able to answer such things. And it's so convenient of them to criticize us for not being up all all the nuances of their arguments while they simultaneously refuse to give them to us.

The best summary was by one of PZ Myers' commenters, Paula Kirby:

'You don't know what I believe, and that makes you ignorant and bigoted. I don't know what I believe, and that makes me sophisticated.'

Hat Tip: PZ Myers

Betelgeuse Shrinking

2009-06-28T06:03:00.000-05:00

No, not the Michael Keeton character, but the star, the massive star (5.5 AUs wide) in Orion. Betelgeuse has shrunk 15% since 1993, and astronomers are puzzled as to why:

"To see this change is very striking," said Charles Townes, a UC Berkeley professor emeritus of physics. "We will be watching it carefully over the next few years to see if it will keep contracting or will go back up in size." (Townes won the 1964 Nobel Prize in physics for inventing the laser and the maser, a microwave laser.)

Though the star is shrinking, its visible brightness has not dimmed significantly over the past 15 years, the researchers say.

"But we do not know why the star is shrinking," said Edward Wishnow, a research physicist at UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory. "Considering all that we know about galaxies and the distant universe, there are still lots of things we don't know about stars, including what happens as red giants near the ends of their lives."

The really sad part of studying such items for an astronomer is the massive timescales involved. Stars live billions of years, so the amount of time we have in our lifetimes to study them is a microscopic portion of the total.

Putting Down the Dying Argument for a Biblically Based Nation

2009-06-27T06:40:00.000-05:00

We hear it every day: "The Bible was the basis for our constitution", a statement so obviously wrong it is a testimony to right wingers refusal to read either document carefully, right up there with the claim that the 10 Commandments forms the basis of our law, despite the clear unconstitutionality of over half of them.

For some good detailed refutations of this claim, Gregg Frazier had some interesting input in a now defunct (what else is new) discussion on a blog called "Evangelical Outpost". It's a quite remarkable bit or irony that so many Christians intent on spreading The Truth (tm) erase entire discussion threads when the discussion ceases to go their way. Here are Dr. Frazer's comments:

Correlation does not demonstrate causation. Leaves do not turn brown because squirrels gather nuts (or vice versa). The fact that some parts of the Declaration and/or Constitution are not in conflict with verses in the Bible does not mean that the Bible was the source. This is especially important when — as in the case of the Declaration and the Constitution — the authors claim other sources, but do not claim the Bible as a source!

This is a common problem when debating fundies. They presume that the Bible came from the gods, and the gods are the source for everything, so naturally anything consistent with the Bible came from the Bible. The notion that something Biblical, say the golden rule (which appeared in many cultures predating the Bible), or the rules against murder and theft, originated elsewhere is anathema to them.

In a May 8, 1825 letter to Henry Lee, Jefferson identifies his sources for the Declaration’s principles. He names as sources: Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, and (Algernon) Sidney — he does not mention the Bible. Then again, the terminology in the Declaration is not specifically Christian — or even biblical, with the exception of “Creator.” The term “providence” is never used of God in the Bible, nor are “nature’s God” or “Supreme Judge of the world” ever used in the Bible.

Very true, and very contrary to documents like The Mayflower Compact, which were very explicit in their Christianity.

In the hundreds of pages comprising Madison’s notes on the constitutional convention (and those of the others who kept notes), there is no mention of biblical passages/verses in the debates/discussions on the various parts and principles of the Constitution. They mention Rome, Sparta, German confederacies, Montesquieu, and a number of other sources — but no Scripture verses.

In The Federalist Papers, there is no mention of biblical sources for any of the Constitution’s principles, either — one would think they could squeeze them in among the 85 essays if they were, indeed, the sources; especially since the audience was common men who were familiar with, and had respect for, the Bible. The word “God” is used twice — and one of those is a reference to the pagan gods of ancient Greece. “Almighty” is used twice and “providence” three times — but neither is ever used in connection with any constitutional principle or influence. The Bible is not mentioned.

As for freedom and liberty in the Bible, it is always SPIRITUAL freedom/liberty — as a look at the verses you’ve listed IN CONTEXT shows. That is NOT to say that political liberty is an anti-biblical concept — it’s just not a biblical one. Arguing that it is a “Calvinist” concept does not make it a biblical one, either. The “disciples” of Calvin did not write inspired revelation.

The key Founders (J. Adams, Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, Wilson, & G. Morris) — those most responsible for the founding documents — were religious, but not Christians. They believed that religion was essential to produce the morality that a free society required, but that any religion would suffice. Their religious belief was a mixture of Protestantism, natural religion, and rationalism — with rationalism as the trump card and decisive factor. They retained elements of Christianity, but rejected the elements of Christianity (and of natural religion) that they considered irrational. However: of the ten CORE beliefs of Christianity (those shared by all of the major Protestant denominations of the day (and by the Catholics), they held to only one (or two, in some cases). Their belief system was, as I have termed it, theistic rationalism.

Hat Tip: Ed Brayton

Myers Challenges Ham

2009-06-26T04:37:00.000-05:00

Apparently PZ Myers has really ticked off Ken Ham, who's dedicated a blog to rebutting Myers' various comments about Ham's comedy museum. Myer's retort was typical:

Since Mr Ham is so concerned about my accuracy or lack thereof, and is obviously stressed at the poor publicity I'm giving his little monument to ignorance, I'll make him an offer. I'll give him a whole day of my time if he'll fly me in and give me a personal tour, during which he can point out all the things I've gotten wrong about Creation, and I will dutifully write them down and post a complete report of his various rebuttals. Thorough coverage for the price of a plane ticket. How can he possibly turn down such an offer?

If he was really confident of the legitimacy of his museum, I could probably even gather a small group of mouthy, obnoxious, and culturally prominent godless scientists who'd also take advantage of such an offer, and he could shepherd us all through at once, evangelizing as much as he wanted. It would be great! Come on, Mr Ham, put a little bit of your money where your mouth is.

Be sure to read Ham's rebuttals. They are really unintentionally hilarious:

"Nowhere is this stated in the museum or on our website. Only land-dwelling, air-breathing animals were on board Noah’s Ark (according to the scriptural account)."

Yeah, like that solves anything.

I suspect Ham won't accept - exposure to honest criticism is something his behemoth of Bible babble can't withstand. But we can only hope. After all, its not like there were many potential customers among PZ's readers who are going to be persuaded not to go by the report.

My Afternoon Teaching Evolution on Townhall: Part II

2009-06-25T06:42:00.000-05:00

Chris said: 'Science Avenger, if you can say "matter has always been", then I can say "God has always been" with equal certainty.'

Uh, no you can't, for the simple reason that you can't say with certainty that God has been just now, where I can do so for matter. You've got an epistemological burden I lack, and a big one.

"Where did the original pre-big bang matter come from? For that matter where did space-time come from? These questions are un-knowable."

Unknown perhaps, but unknowable? I'm not sure how that can be known, especially with questions so poorly defined (through no fault of yours). For instance, how do you even know any of these things came from anywhere? What does that even mean? It borders on gibberish.

"Evolution, on the other hand, requires unlikely things to happen routinely - and THAT violates the laws of statistics."

No, it does not. In the first place, there are no laws of statistics to violate. Second, there has never been a rigorous peer-reviewed mathematical proof of this claim, and indeed, the vast majority of those known (ie Hoyle's junkyard 747) make fundamental errors that would have made my intro-to-statistics prof cringe, like presuming all events are independent, or simply wallow in meaningless sciency-looking jargon (Dembski's CSI). None gained any traction with those experts, and for good reason.

And step back a moment. Mathematicians and physicists are smarter than biologists (just ask them). If there were a problem with evolution in their fields, no force on earth could shut them up about it. Yet no physics or math journal has ever come out against the theory of evolution. In short, all those arguments are bunk.

I rarely bother responding to anything Fabius Cunctator writes because he is obviously living in an alternate universe, but I thought this comment was worth examining:

FC: "The flaw of Evolution theory is that it cannot explain the origin of atoms or matter."

This is like saying the Pythagorean theorem is flawed because it cannot explain particle physics. It reveals a profound lack of understanding of the limitations of scientific theories, and how we much evaluate them within those limitations. Of course evolution can't explain the origin of atoms or matter. It was never intended to. Neither can the theories of relativity, Keynesian economics, or euclidean geometry. So what? For someone to condemn a theory for failing to explain everything is a daftness beyond redemption.

His other posts are loaded with similar, gargantuan mistakes. Read them only as a lesson for how out of touch with modern scientific thought a person can get.

Joel-de said: "DNA in humans is similar to DNA in animals because they serve a similar purpose. Once The Creator had designed the code for hair, would he re-do the code for each new creation?"

But "he" did redo it, many times, for many traits. Human eyes are not designed like octopus eyes, and in fact are inferior in some ways. Wings are designed differently in bats and birds. Worse yet, there are mistakes that were used in more than one place. Most mammals have a gene that synthesizes vitamin C, but in chimps and humans it is broken. Not different, not used for something else, busted, no bueno. Countless other examples abound. Further, as Ken Miller demonstrates here:

Humans have a gene that is the fusion of two ape genes. There is no way to describe this as anything but a natural screw up, not the work of a divine designer.

Your logic is sound Joel. IF we found every design of all parts in nature across all species to be the same, your argument would be plausible. But the facts betray you. There is nothing remotely resembling the common design you assert.

JD: "The objection is this: That the THEORY of evolution is taught as SCIENTIFIC FACT, and that there can be NO debate on the matter. If a child asks questions about the mathematical probability of life occurring because lightning zapped some chemicals in a puddle, he is told to shut up. If he tries to question the gaps in the 'evolutionary chain' he is told to shut up."

This sounds like urban myth to me. Show me a documented case of a child asking these questions being told to "shut up". If they were, the teacher ought to be fired, because the questions are legitimate and fairly easy to answer:

1) Evolution is a scientific theory, which means a great deal more than "theory" as you and your friends use it. It means it has been subjected to many falsifiable tests without failure and explains many facts. Theories stay theories. They never graduate to be called "facts".

2) No one is able to make very good estimates of the probability of life arising on ancient earth because we lack the necessary knowledge of the exact conditions on the planet at the time to do so. Anyone who claims they can is making claims beyond the facts and evidence, and are probably making many mistakes.

3) The notion that leading scientists think life began by lightning striking chemicals in a puddle is urban myth at best and an outright lie at worst. We really don't know how it all began, and you should be skeptical of anyone who pretends they do.

4) From what we know of the history of life, with it's slow genetic motion, motion of landmasses and water, changes in the environment, and the extraordinarily rare circumstances necessary for fossilization to occur, we can expect large gaps in what we are able to find. This is not a game where some giant adult placed all the puzzle pieces for us to find. Science is not that easy.

JD said: "If evolution was taught as a THEORY, and the teacher and textbook would be honest, and admit that it cannot be proven, and does not have answers for all questions, few if any parents would have an issue with it. We object to the INDOCTRINATION of our children into the false religion of Darwinism, which requires AT LEAST as much faith to believe in as Christianity."

Then none of you have any business ranting as you seem to be doing. Every textbook on the subject I've ever seen or heard about from a reliable source says all those things you demand. Evolution is a scientific theory. It cannot be proven because science does not deal in proofs. That's for the mathematicians and philosophers to worry about. Science deals in evidence, and evolution is the best explanation we've found for the evidence of biology. It does not have all the answers for all the questions and, in fact, as some of us are more than willing to show, it is downright silly to expect it to. It explains what it explains, nothing more. There is no such thing as a religion of Darwinism (if there is I'm a little pissed, cause I never get invited to the meetings), nor does evolutionary theory require any faith, certainly not on par with believing that the supreme being of the universe had himself killed to absolve us of a punishment he himself created (don't get me started).

It sounds to me like you've all been whipped into a frenzy over a myth, and no, I don't mean the gods. No textbook that I've ever seen says anything about evolution being "proven", nor that it is anything but scientific theory

JD said: "Life did not come from non life. Life has ALWAYS existed, and will always exist. The universes have always existed, and always will."

That is an article of faith, not science. The best scientific evidence suggests the universe is ~14 billion years old, the earth ~4.5 BYO and life ~2-3 BYO, and that is what should be taught in science class.

JD said: "God did not create this world 'out of nothing'. He organized the raw, chaotic matter that was in this part of the galaxy into our solar system. He then transplanted plants, animals, and Adam and Eve from another world onto this one."

Interesting religious faiths, and ones you have every right to believe. But you do not have the right to expect a public school teaching children of various (and no) faiths to teach such a thing, nor to alter their science curriculum because it runs afoul of it.

JD said: "Humans should not be classified as 'primates'. The various types of apes are one 'kind'. Humans are unique. We are not part of any other 'kind'."

This is rhetoric with no science to back it, and as such does not belong in a public school science class. Humans are 99% chimp, we are not unique.

Chris said: "Sorry - I meant the laws of probability (LOP)."

I knew what you meant, I'm not keen on semantic games, but the answer is the same - there is no such thing as "the law of probability". It's just a fiction made up by someone looking for a sciency-sounding word to attack science with. Nonetheless, I'll try to address your comments that contain it.

Chris said: "The junkyard 747 is a good analogy for abiogenesis, but not evolution afterwards."

You have no way of knowing that. No one has nearly enough information to do so. And given that we already know about self-replicating nonorganics like crystals, I'd say it's a worse than 50/50 bet.

Chris said: "What DOES violate the LOP is when multiple unlikely things have to happen at the same time to cause a major re-design of an already fit system...

The odds of that many mutations, together with all the expression controls, all happening at the same time in the same animal are astronomically small."

But you have no way of knowing that such is required! Evolution doesn't occur by several major things happening all at once. It happens by gradual multiple changes over long periods of time. Your argument is just a more sophisticated version of "why doesn't a dog give birth to a cat?". No one said it should.

All the details you posed, and all the examples you, or anyone else gives, makes assumptions you can't possibly know, about function, time, cooption, everything. Evolution is not a unidirectional, step by step, constant function process. Parts are routinely coopted for different functions, some parts serve multiple purposes, amd a whole host of other possibilities I couldn't begin to list in such a small space. Pretending you can somehow retrace the exact path it took and make a probability calculation is sheer fantasy.

All you've done (at best) is pose a problem for evolutionary scientists to solve. At worst, you've composed a nonproblem that's already been solved in a way you never began to imagine (have you even looked at the scientific literature on the subject? My bet is you haven't).

I know it is frustrating to go to all that trouble typing all that out only to have me brush it aside, but I do not do so whimsically. I do so because this is the crucial problem most people doubting evolution have. Such problems, regardless of how they are presented, merely fall into the category of "what we don't know yet". And as I've mentioned previously, there are such questions in all sciences, not just evolution. That doesn't give anyone intellectual warrant to dismiss the theory, any more than it would give someone warrant to dismiss mathematics because for so long no one could solve Fermat's proof.

Now if you could show something in nature that is impossible to evolve, then your argument would have some mettle. Creationists have been trying this for years, the bombardier beetle, the bacterial flagellum, the clotting system, the human eye (which is a real laugh given how poorly designed our eyes truly are). All have failed to withstand the scrutiny of science, and the proof is out there for all to see.

Chris: "And that's just one example. I could give you thousands."

And they'd be just as impotent in saying anything about the reality of evolution.

AndifNot said: "No, [a documented case of a child asking these questions being told to shut up] IS true...a district judge [in Cobb County Georgia] prohibited ... a sticker on science textbooks which stated: "Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."

My goodness, you think that's the same as telling a kid who asks a question to shut up? That's a reach Yao Ming would have a hard time making.

AIN said: "Why the fight by evolutionists to keep the sticker off the book?"

As Ken Miller (Biology instructor at Brown and devout Catholic) explains here:

Those stickers singled out evolution for special treatment for religious reasons. No such sticker was required for any other science. This also gave students the false impression that other sciences didn't require critical examination.

Miller's suggestion was for a sticker to be put on all books that said:

"This book contains information about science. Science is built around theories which are strongly supported by evidence. EVERYTHING in science should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."

The creationists of course, didn't like that one bit.

AIN said: "Opposition or criticism to evolution is still silenced elsewhere in selected localities around the country."

I'm still waiting for evidence one that your claim is anything more than an urban myth

"BTW- Interesting handle. Why does science need an AVENGER?"

Because it is under attack by people who either don't understand it, or who desire its demise because it offends their religious sensibilities, and I figured scientists had enough to do without having to fight those battles we layman are capable of fighting. This thread is a perfect example.

Fastest Bird by Size: You'd be Surprised

2009-06-24T06:26:00.000-05:00

And who's the fastest bird of all, by size? Would you believe the hummingbird? Yep, they've been clocked at 60 mph, which converts to about 385x its own body length every second, as they flaps theirs wings 55 times a second all to, you guessed it, impress the females with their physical prowess at being able to execute the stunt and survive the g-forces that come with it. As always it seems, it's all about the hoo-ha!

No More Reindeer Games? Global Warming Claiming another Victim

2009-06-23T06:50:00.000-05:00

Now it's the Caribou suffering because of global warming. They've experienced a 60% decline in the last 30 years, and the future looks even worse. The reasons:

Earlier spring green-ups now occur before migrating herds arrive north. This deprives mothers and calves of quality feeding.

Warmer summers cause more intense insect activity, harassing animals and affecting their feeding.

The impact of more freezing rain, in place of snow, has negatively impacted lichens that animals feed on during the colder months.

One can only wonder how many extinctions it will take before the denialists wake up to what is becoming increasingly obvious to everyone else.