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.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
New Dinosaur Species Discovered
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?
...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?
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Quick Conversion from Fahrenheit to Celsius
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.
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.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Buchanan Apes Windchy: The anti-science Wing Speaks Again
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".
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".
Sunday, July 12, 2009
God Don't Bless the Yankees, I have to take a Piss
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.
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.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
So Why Does One Manage a Beaver?
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
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
Friday, July 10, 2009
McLeroy Replaced by Dunbar? Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss
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.
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.
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