Anti-Global Warming Hoax

Apparently a few anti-science bloggers got nabbed by this hoax of a paper claiming to disprove anthropocentric global warming. Even Rush Limbaugh got nailed.

This really illustrates two things. First, anti-global warming skeptics are not really skeptics at all. Note their consistent lack of skepticism towards certain 2,000 year old myths. They do not want AGW to be true, and will promote anything that promises to support that view. Second, it shows how sloppy and uneducated they really are. One glance at the gibberish formulas from the paper like this:

"Q³uct + 3Ψ = XFº x Δjy {(∑y,ct79 + θtq-1)- λjc +2}

Δ³-¾Φ²,Ω13b
"

should have been a tip off to anyone that this was a hoax. But the anti-AGW folks like Limbaugh, just like the evolution deniers, can't be bothered to understand what they criticize. Anything that meets with their agenda will do.

For those curious, here is an interview with the hoaxer.

Discovery Institute's anti-PBS Propoganda

Desperate to avoid another dose of egg on the face from their horrible beating at the Dover trial, the ID crew is out in force in an attempt to discredit the PBS documentary on that historic event. Robert Crowther works hard to yet again rationalize why whenever the IDers are invited to participate on a level playing field, they run like scared rabbits:

”PBS has a track record of bias against ID, dating back to their poorly-received "Evolution" miniseries in 2001. Then, as now, we negotiated but ultimately were kept from participating by PBS’ unwillingness to fairly represent our scientists and views on intelligent design.”

In the true fashion of zealot, any environment that does not let the IDers control the content and basically lie their way through the process is dubbed as “biased”. Crowther presents no actual evidence that PBS is biased against ID. He simply asserts it as such because they do not let the IDers play their games, and because, apparently, they hold the IDers to what they actually say. He recounts a conversation for PBS done by Stephen Meyer, who, after tap dancing madly around the question of the nature of the designer for several minutes, finally admits that the designer he has in mind is the Christian God (shocker). This was what PBS chose to include in their program. Crowther’s reaction is a bit baffling:

”What was shown on Nightline? You guessed it: “I think the designer is God.” But not even the full sentence, and certainly none of the context of the discussion in which Dr. Meyer made it quite clear that science cannot identify the designer, that is a philosophical question and not what the scientific theory of intelligent design is proposing. “

Yes Robert, but you see, we all know that is a load of BS, as the near uniform criticisms from philosophers of science of that line of reasoning attests. Archaeologists and forensic scientists have no trouble identifying, in a scientific way, the designers in their line of work. For the IDers to claim that somehow the design they infer is inherently different is unsupported at best, and laughable at worst. It is a con to disguise that they are trying to smuggle creationism into the science classrooms, and thanks to the publication of the Wedge Document, and the ruling in the Dover trial, more and more people are onto that fact. You guys are either lying or kidding yourselves.

”So I was well aware of how interviews with PBS could be manipulated to say just about anything they want them to say. And because we published the Nightline incident, and the New York Times wrote a lengthy article about it, you can bet that Paula Apsell and others at PBS were well aware of the incident too. “

What incident? What manipulation? Meyer said he believed the designer is the Christian God, and that is what was depicted. It was not manipulated in any way. That his baseless claim that this belief doesn’t effect the so-called science of ID was removed is irrelevant. But to Crowther, if the IDers can’t control the content and manipulate it for their ends, that somehow makes the process unfair. PBS offered to provide the DI folks with a transcript of the interviews and a tape as well, with the following reasonable limitations:

”DI agrees that any use of such recordings will be limited to DI's commenting upon or reviewing the NOVA program or other related internal DI uses, and shall not be used for purposes unrelated to commenting upon the specific NOVA program, such as but not limited to, fundraising, lobbying, general advocacy, or in any publicly exhibited media.”

Given the creationist/IDers’ well-documented habit of quote mining (taking quotes out of context and presenting them as if they mean the opposite of what the author intended) , it is obvious why PBS chose to require this agreement. They essentially called the IDers bluff: worried that we are going to manipulate what you say? Fine, you can see it all, but you aren’t allowed to manipulate it yourself and use it in your anti-science propaganda campaign. Crowther however, would somehow have us believe that PBS’s refusal to allow the IDers to manipulate the material is unfair.

”Clearly, NOVA didn’t want to be held accountable. If they weren’t planning to slice and dice the interviews, then why not let us record them? If you've nothing to hide, why refuse to allow complete transcripts to be made available?”

Robert, thy name is projection. They know if they let you make your own recordings, or take their’s away without limitation, you will do exactly what you accuse them of planning. If you had taken them up on their offer, you could have held them accountable for any manipulation, but you could have done none yourselves. It is the latter that is the real problem for you, not the former. Crowther finishes with much sound and fury, signifying nothing:

”We will be watching and we will be posting corrections to all of the mistakes and misleading pieces of information about intelligent design that PBS produces in the program, and in its plethora of propaganda materials, again aimed at censoring science education policy so as to present a one-sided Darwin-only approach to biological evolution. “

Right now science is evolution-only Robert. The only censoring that is being done is the censoring of nonscientific material from the science curriculum. If you want that to change, you guys over there at the DI need to start doing, you know, some science. Running away from all the fair public fights (courtrooms and scientific journals) and then whining that you could have won had you showed up doesn’t impress anyone. It only reveals you for the intellectually dishonest losers you are.

Innumeracy: It's not just for Americans any more

Here you can read about a scratch lottery game in England where lower temperatures are the winners. Apparently the innumeracy in England is so bad that they had to discontinue the game. Players were confused as to whether the larger (in absolute terms) negative numbers were higher or lower than the smaller figures:

"Tina Farrell, from Levenshulme, called Camelot after failing to win with several cards.

The 23-year-old, who said she had left school without a maths GCSE, said: “On one of my cards it said I had to find temperatures lower than -8. The numbers I uncovered were -6 and -7 so I thought I had won, and so did the woman in the shop. But when she scanned the card the machine said I hadn’t.

“I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher - not lower - than -8 but I’m not having it.”"

It would be funny if it weren't so sad. Hat tip Good Math Bad Math.

Blacks and Women Vote Irrationally? So Says McCullough

If you ever wonder why the Republicans don't have more appeal to women and blacks, well, here comes Kevin McCullough to make it crystal clear:

"Women - vote irrationally. Some women will be offended by the observation but most will agree, women do not vote according to what they know. They tend instead to vote based on intuition. They get "a feeling" about a candidate and that's what they trust...Thirty year old women don't care if it's true, it makes them feel like they are part of history and for that reason alone "its time" for them to vote for a woman. Smart women understand this as well."

That last line is right out of the O'Reilly propoganda book: assert that smart people agree with you. Never mind the complete lack of evidence of same. Your audience will buy it if you repeat it enough. Goebbels would be proud.

Of course, McCullough no doubt has the psychological studies that back, with evidence, his contention of female irrationality at the ballot box. Oh, he doesn't? Of course not. That's because he made it up, just like is often done by his hero...

"Ann Coulter recently confided to me off air - that she would gladly give up her vote because she is tired of using her informed knowledge of candidate selection being overridden by four to five other women who could not even name all of the candidates running for President, much less identify what they stand for."

You first Ann. And go get an education on science while you are at it. Your continued ignorant pontifications on intelligent design have grown most weary.

As if that wasn't bad enough, McCullough has a great dismount:

"The only group less rational in its voting patterns than women are African Americans who consistently elect people who keep them poor, keep them uneducated, and keep them killing their own. "

Note, as I have documented in the past, that conservative ideologues like McCullough treat their own speculations as fact: in this case, that blacks would be better off with Republicans in office. They then use this pseudofact as the premise in arguing that those who disagree with them are irrational. It locks them into their ideology, shielding them from refutation, and growth.

With attitudes like this, it is no wonder the consevative movement, never known for its creativity, has grown so bitter and stale.

The Panda that Attracts Loonies

What is it with this poor panda that he attracts lunatics that want to jump into his cage?

"A male panda at the Beijing Zoo once bitten by a drunk tourist attacked a teenager, ripping chunks out of the boy's legs, officials and a newspaper said Tuesday.

The 15-year-old had jumped over a 4-foot, 7-inch barrier surrounding an outdoor exercise area for pandas on Monday afternoon while 8-year-old Gu Gu and another bear were being fed, said a man surnamed Zhang, the director of the zoo management office.

The teen startled 240-pound Gu Gu, who bit the unwanted visitor on both legs, said Zhang, who would not give his full name.

The Beijing News identified the teen as Li Xitao, citing emergency medical officials who said he was so viciously attacked that his bones were showing. Chunks of flesh were left behind in the ambulance, they said.

Gu Gu was in the news last year when he was bitten by a drunk tourist. The man jumped into the bear's pen and tried to hug him, but was bitten instead. The tourist retaliated by biting the bear in the back.

Pandas, which generally have a public image as cute creatures, are nonetheless wild animals that can be violent when provoked or startled."

It is truly remarkable that anyone has to be reminded of this. Perhaps all children in schools headed to zoos should watch this viideo of the woman foolish enough to jump the barrier next to the polar bear exhibit.

We are Losing Our Primate Cousins

Hunting, as well as loss of habitat due to climate change, logging and agriculture, continues to threaten the viability of many primate species:

"Almost a third of all apes, monkeys and other primates are in danger of extinction because of rampant habitat destruction, the commercial sale of their meat and the trade in illegal wildlife, a report released Friday said.

Of the world's 394 primate species, 114 are classified as threatened with extinction by the World Conservation Union.

The report by Conservation International and the International Primatological Society in Hainan, China, focuses on the plight of the 25 most endangered primates, including China's Hainan gibbon, of which only 17 remain.

'You could fit all the surviving members of the 25 species in a single football stadium; that's how few of them remain on Earth today,' said Russell A. Mittermeier, president of Conservation International."

That last statement is a real eye-opener. We are so used to huge population figures because of the success of our species, we forget just how few members of other species exist. Many hang by a thread of existence. Luckily there has been some progress:

"Nine primates from the last report in 2004 were taken off the list, mostly because of bolstered conservation efforts to save their populations. Among them are the eastern gorilla from Africa, the black-faced lion tamarin and the buffy-headed tufted capuchin from Brazil and the Perrier's sifaka from Madagascar.

'If you invest in a species in a proper way and do the conservation measures needed, you can reduce risk of extinction,' Mittermeier said. 'If we had resources, we would be able to take every one of the species off the list in the next five or 10 years.'"

Let's hope they get those resources. The more biodiversity our ecological system has, the stronger it will remain.

D'Souza's Warped Interpertation of History

In his latest article pimping his book What's So Great About Christianity, Dinesh D'Souza recounts a debate he had with Christopher Hitchens in which Hitchens was asked about the contributions of Christianity and atheism on various cultures. In reviewing this exchange, D'Souza makes a mistake common to Christian apologetics. He essentially gives Christianity credit for everything that involves Christians, whether the Christianity itself was to credit or not.

For example, if I am a vegetarian, and I produce a mathematical proof for a previously unsolved problem, is this a triumph for vegetarianism over the meat eating philosophy? Were we to apply D'Souza's reasoning when crediting Christianity for everything under the sun, it would indeed be considered such. However, a much more reasonable analysis would look at whether the proof was born of uniquely vegetarian principles and behavior, or whether it came from mathematical methods common to all mathematicians, whether they digest flesh or not.

Likewise, if Christianity is to be rightly credited with scientific, philosophical, or political achievements, it needs to be shown how Christianity uniquely contributed to, or influenced these events. It is no more reasonable to say "Person A was a Christian and discovered X, therefore Christianity gets credit for X", any more than it would be reasonable to say "Person A refused to tie his shoelaces and discovered Y, therefore we should not have scientists tie their shoes." In statistics, we express this principle as "correlation does not imply causation", meaning that just because items A and B are often seen together does not imply that A causes B, or even that B causes A. There could be another cause C which cause both, or their association could be coincidental.

So whenever anyone claims Christianity was responsible for something, it is not enough to merely show that those responsible were Christians. One must show a causal link between the two. Now consider this sweeping statement by D'Souza:

"If we look at the history of Western civilization, we find that Christianity has illuminated the greatest achievements of the culture. Read the new atheist books and make a list of the institutions and values that Hitchens and Dawkins and the others cherish the most. They value the idea of the individual, and the right to dissent, and science as an autonomous enterprise, and representative democracy, and human rights, and equal rights for women and racial minorities, and the movement to end slavery, and compassion as a social virtue. But when you examine history you find that all of these values came into the world because of Christianity. If Christianity did not exist, these values would not exist in the form they do now."

That is quite a statement, and D'Souza needs to support it with solid evidence, not mere hand waving and assumptions that anything done by Christians was caused by Christianity. Sure Christians were involved in getting equal rights for women, as were atheists and members of other groups. But where is the evidence that they were motivated by their Christianity to do so? The Bible very explicitly says that women are not the equal of men, from Eve being created second, and blamed for the fall, to the admonishment that women should never have authority over a man and to learn in all submission and silence (1 Tim 2:11-12). Those Christians that fought for equal rights for women did so in spite of their Christianity, not because of it.

Likewise, where is the evidence that those Christians who fought for individual rights and the right to dissent were doing so based on their Christianity? The Bible says nothing about either. But it does place taking the Lord's name in vain, or even thinking impure thoughts, as sins. Does that sound like a promotion of the individual and dissent. Once again, a sober examination of the evidence suggests that those Christians who fought for individual rights did so in spite of their Christianity, not because of it. Each of the claims D'Souza attributes to Christianity can be dismantled in similar fashion by a simple analysis of the facts. The Greeks had democracy long before the birth of Jesus, so obviously Democracy would exist were there Christianity or not. Science depends on doubt, falsifiable experimentation, and public discussion of results, none of which are even remotely Christian principles. And so on.

D'Souza is following in the footsteps of his philosophical stablemate Ann Coulter, and is simply making shit up. There are good reasons why D'Souza spends so much time talking about historical issues. It is easier to distort reality. Thus he speaks of Christianity's supposed great influence of the past, while ignoring it's destructive influence today. He focuses on scientists and other serious thinkers of the past because that is the only place he can give the appearance of a solid case. He depends on the ignorance of his readers concerning the dominance of Christianity hundreds of years ago, and how atheists were rare at best, to try to make it look like Christianity used to win the intellectual war, when in fact it more or less had a monopoly on thinkers in the cultures he mentions. The fact that the Christian view is a minority view at best in modern intellectual life is one D'Souza doesn't want to touch with a ten foot poll, except to assert an anti-Christian conspiracy for which there is no evidence.

At the end of this article, D'Souza asks a question that once again reveals his complete lack of understanding of the issue:

"The real question to ask is, what does atheism offer humanity? In Tonga, as in America, the answer appears to be: Nothing. "

Yes, that's what atheism is. It is nothing. It is not a philosophy, nor is it a world view. It is simply a lack of belief in gods, the same as most people's lack of belief in elves, and just as impotent to be responsible for all the crimes D'Souza would lay at its feet. This is why blaming anything on atheism is absurd. Authoritarianism kills, be it atheistic (Stalin) or Christian (Hitler). Atheism is impotent. All it does is remove a barrier to rational thought which, as any honest evaluation of history shows, results in far more good for humanity than blind faith in talking burning bushes, virgin births, dead people coming back to life, and the books that describe those myths.