Usually I wouldn’t want to associate Ray Comfort with things that go in my vagina, but this was too cute to not share:
Need something to hide your tampons in? Look no further than the Banana Man himself. I know if I saw a Ray Comfort shaped container lying around, I’d be too afraid to open it lest ignorance spill out ala Pandora’s box.
If you’re not sold, the profit goes to a program supporting young female paleontologists. Definitely a good cause!
(Thanks to Jason for the tip!)
Oral Roberts died, etc. It’s already been covered by other blogs (My favorite title being “Oral Roberts has finally been killed by God for not raising enough money.”), and no matter how many horrible things I think a person did while they were alive, I just don’t feel right talking bad about someone when they’re dead. So I’ll leave it at that.
Why mention it, then? Well, it reminded me of a girl I went to high school with who now attends Oral Roberts University. We were sort of friends – the kind that talk a lot in class, but don’t really do anything outside of school. She was super nice and a brilliant student, and always outshone everyone in our honors english, history, and math classes. So when I found out she was going to Oral Roberts, it felt like a step down. This is the kind of person who could go anywhere on scholarship, and she was going there?
But it didn’t really surprise me, because I found out how religious she was that semester. We were in AP Composition together the spring of our senior year (one of the most hellish, ridiculous classes I had to take at my high school – that’s a rant of its own) and our next assignment was a debate paper. One person had to be pro, the other con on a topic of our choice. We were partnered together by the sheer luck of sitting near each other, and started brainstorming topic ideas.
I had been reading a lot about evolution lately, so I suggested “How about whether or not Intelligent Design should be taught in school?”
“Oh, that’s a great idea!” she said. I smiled. “My father has his PhD in theology, so he’ll be able to help me a lot.” And smile gone.
I shouldn’t say my smile was gone – rather it was likely replaced by the smug grin of an 18 year old who knew she had this debate in her pocket. After devouring information about evolution and the ID debates for the last four years, this paper was going to be easy to write. The hardest part was shoving it all into a 4 page limit in the constraints of the formal thesis-3 supporting paragraphs-conclusion format. And fulfilling all of the random requirements our teacher created, like interviewing people, using a certain number of magazine articles versus books, yadda yadda.
I found that paper now (pdf here). I have to say, it’s fairly good for an 18 year old who self-taught herself evolution – still more intelligent than most of the creationist bull crap you hear today. I’m actually more impressed by my writing style, which has apparently totally deteriorated after being subjected to nothing but science classes at Purdue (which pretty much never write anything, least of all essays).
But that’s not the fun paper.
The fun paper is my rebuttal. We got to read each other’s papers* and write a 1000 word rebuttal, which would factor into our overall grade. She didn’t seem too unnerved by my initial paper. But I still remember that day when we were sitting in the library and swapped our rebuttals.
I made her cry.
Oh, those big bad evolutionary biologists. Keep in mind I was a extraordinarily passive agnostic who was just coming out of deism at this point. Making her cry was not my goal – winning this debate, sure, but not tears. Thinking about this experience now, I can’t imagine what I said that could have upset her that much. That is, until I went back and read my rebuttal (pdf here).
Oh my god. Hilarious.
Not only did I call her paper a “futile attempt” with “claims [that] hardly contain even a modicum of truth,” but I invoked Hitler at the end. Yes, I failed Godwin’s law, but at least I did it spectacularly (in my unbiased opinion).
Even Behe’s book Darwin’s Black Box inclusion as “one of the most important books of the twentieth century” speaks little: Mein Kampf is considered one of the most influential books ever, but that hardly makes its message true (Sobilo).
I wasn’t trying to be mean. I think I just really, really wanted to win that debate – especially since, if I remember correctly, our teacher had some inane grading system where the better paper of the two got an automatic 100%. Niceties were not getting in the way of a grade boost I desperately wanted.
Needless to say, I got the 100%. Oh, she’s a far superior writer than I am – it’s just hard winning a debate when you have zero logical points to make (don’t worry, she still got an A for the writing). I remember I even showed all of the papers to my AP Biology teacher at the time. He just blinked slowly and said “You destroyed her.”
Of course, did I do anything to help the cause of evolution? Probably not. I guess this illustrates the fine line we have to walk between opening up dialog, or letting our frustrations win and calling people names. Do the big names of ID who are spreading lies deserve ridicule? I’m in the camp that says “sure.” Do 18 year olds who don’t really understand the topic? Probably not.
Ah, young Jen fail. Though on an interesting note, I had just started reading Pharyngula while writing that paper. Coincidence, or contagious crankiness – I’ll let you decide.
*I don’t have a copy of her paper or rebuttal. Well, a hard copy is probably buried somewhere back home, but I still wouldn’t want to post it since it’s her intellectual property. You can pretty much imagine what she said by reading any creationist argument on the internet, since they just parrot each other anyway.
Kirk Cameron poses with students at Purdue University, holding copies of “On The Origin of Species”, containing a controversial intro he helped pen. (Source: Living Waters)
If you remember my post about our counter-protest, Thursday was cold, rainy, and miserable. You would be hard pressed to find any student not bundled up in multiple, water-proof layers and clinging to their umbrella…or to find a single spot on campus sunny and dry enough for this photo. Either God sent down a ray of brilliant sunlight just for Cameron’s photo op, or this article is full of crap.
I’m going with my “full of crap” theory. The article also claims “
Scientists on campus rallied against the handout with a handout of their own…” when it was actually the Society of Non-Theists who were performing the counter-protest. I checked the article they linked to over at NBC Chicago, and it only mentions that Cameron was behind the movement, not physically at Purdue. They also failed to mention the Non-Theists, but we got a plug in the Chicago Tribune!So has anyone else heard anything about this? I’m pretty certain he wasn’t here – can’t imagine the local news places wouldn’t pick up on that.
Yesterday I commented that Ray Comfort didn’t stop by Purdue to hand out his sullied version of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. Since Ray changed the release date to the 18th to screw up secular counter-protesters, I thought that would be the last we saw of him. Well, I was wrong. Around 11:30 I started receiving a flood of text messages, IMs, and emails, all saying the same thing – the books were being passed out at the Engineering fountain at Purdue!
Oh, and did I mention it was raining all day today? Kind of sucked.
Right after I got outside of I saw someone passing out books in front of LILY – the biology building where I live, sort of extra insulting – which showed me that they were all around campus, not just by the Engineering fountain. After politely receiving a book, I set up camp next to him handing out flyers and stickers to anyone who took a book.
Soon he ran out of books, and I was about to leave when I was approached by two biology professors I know.
Prof 1: Thank you so much for doing this!
Me: Oh, no problem.
Prof 2: Can we give you some money to reimburse you?
Me: Huh? For what?
Prof 1: For printing off all of those books. It must have cost a lot of money.
Me: Ooohhh, the Origin? Nooo, those are creationists handing it out. They added an anti-evolution introduction linking evolutionary biology to Nazism. We’re counter-protesting them.
Prof 1: I knew something smelled fishy!! Now I’ll definitely have to go read it, hahaha!
After that I ran to the Engineering fountain and found three different people widely spaces out and passing out books. A friend of mine tackled two of them who were closer together, and I focused on one (after getting another book, gotta catch ’em all!). Very quickly he figured out what I was doing, and probably wasn’t too happy. I felt a bit bad since he was apparently a high school student roped into this, while everyone else were 40 year old white males. But I continued to hand out flyers and stickers, and more non-theists came to join me and take photos.
Lurk lurk lurk.
I then explained to this guy what the book was all about, and he heartily laughed.
Soon they were out of books, and congregated around where I was passing out flyers…and then they tried to debate me. They asked me about proof for evolution, and I started rattling of patterns in DNA, transitional fossils – but then I made the mistake of saying I was studying evolutionary biology. Immediately after that, they changed the topic to the Bible and how awesome it is because they knew they had no chance in debating me in biology.
I’ve stated this before, but I reeeaaallly hate debating people, especially about the Bible. One, I’m not good at thinking on my feet – I like having a keyboard and three seconds of thought. Two, I’m not a Bible scholar, so I especially hate Biblical debates. And three, I don’t freaking care. Their reasoning is so circular that it’s maddening, and I hate repeating the same arguments over and over again knowing that it is completely pointless and that I’m not going to change anyone’s minds. Thankfully Bryan (the guy I’m dating) appeared, and he was a great help since he’s currently reading the Bible and commenting on it daily over at his own blog. Still, after going through Pascal’s wager, the inerrancy of the Bible, the circular logic of God’s word making the Bible true, the “faith” of science, the God of the Gaps, God being infinite but the beginning of the universe needing a cause, atheists not trying to look for God, and morality as proof of God, I kind of wanted to die a little. Or punch babies, but that probably wouldn’t have reflected very well on me.
Eventually I had to escape because I was planning to meet someone for lunch. I later found out they were passing out the books not just in front of LILY and the Engineering fountain, but in front of the Stewart Center Wetheril, Ford dining court, Armstrong…and who knows where else. Unfortunately, we only reached a small group of people who received books since we didn’t exactly know what was going on, but something is better than nothing. We’ve alerted all the local media, so hopefully someone will pick up on it.
But you know what? It doesn’t really matter. The most common responses I saw from people who took the book were, “Awesome, I’ve always wanted a copy!” The most common response from people rejecting the book were, “Ugh, no, I don’t believe in evolution.” You know what that means?
The only people who took Ray Comfort’s bastardized Origin were people who already accept evolution and are most likely to see through his deceitful bullshit. Them, and atheists who were gobbling them up like collector’s items. I got two, and other non-theist members were racing to grab one. I know when I’m teaching evolutionary biology at a university many years from now, I’ll be happy to wave this in front of my class and talk about the scary past where evolution actually had silly people fighting against it. At least, hopefully I’ll be able to say that.
These are going on the book shelf next to the Professor and the Dominatrix and Ken Ham’s Evolution: The Lie.
Yesterday night PZ Myers, who I’m sure you all know blogs over at Pharyngula, was nice enough to give a lecture at Purdue University. I found out through an ecology listserv that he would be speaking at an evo-devo meeting at Indiana University in Bloomington this weekend, and he was willing to fly in a day early to stop by West Lafayette first. We were all incredibly excited, and the atheists at IU were incredibly jealous.
Part of my duty at the President of the Society of Non-Theists was to safely retrieve PZ from the Indianapolis airport. Usually this would be a simple task – I’ve driven there a couple of times before and it’s about an hour and twenty away. The caveat was that PZ’s flight was supposed to arrive at 4pm, his talk started at 6pm, and flights are pretty much always late.
It seems the Flying Spaghetti Monster was not watching over us, because I soon got a phone call from PZ saying his flight was running a half hour late. No problem, plenty of time, I thought. I got to the airport and read American Gods in the parking lot for a while to waste time. But pretty soon it was getting later and later, and we both started to freak out on twitter. I unfortunately didn’t have internet access, so I had no clue what was going on (though it was apparently fairly amusing to our mutual followers).
I finally got a call at 4:50 that he had arrived, and we zoomed off toward West Lafayette, me trying to drive as quickly as possible without killing two atheist bloggers in one blow. I called my officers because I knew we’d be late, and that they should entertain the audience to prevent a riot – PZ suggested balloon animals, I suggested interpretive dance. We ended up being about 15 minutes late, but my awesome officers held down the fort by playing Mr. Diety videos (PZ: I have to follow Mr. Diety?! Oh no!). PZ then gave a great talk, “A Few Things I’ve Learned from Creationists” – which can pretty much be summed up by this photo:
Thankfully PZ gave us permission to videotape it, so you can watch it yourself! (EDIT: So…apparently people think the sound quality sucks, but I think it sounds fine. Either my computer is awesome, or I’m just not that picky. Regardless, if you think it’s crappy, feel free to donate a high quality video camera to the Society of Non-Theists. EDIT 2: Thanks for all of the audio recording tips. If you hadn’t figured it out yet, we didn’t exactly know what we’re doing, and I feel really bad that it came out so badly, so I apologize. I’m still completely baffled by the people who say they can’t understand a thing, though. I can tell what he’s saying the entire talk…either listening through headphones is the trick, or I have super human hearing.)
I thought his talk was great, and so did everyone else (though I think some of the biology-heavy bits went over most people’s heads). He drew a big crowd – I wasn’t able to get an exact head count because there were so many people, but I’d estimate a little over 150 individuals were there. Just to give you an idea, here are a couple shots of the majority of the crowd (still leaving out about 30 or 40 people):
Surprisingly, there weren’t many creationists there, or they were just keeping quiet. Only one question seemed to have a creationist bent, and no one looked especially furious.
We then relocated to Boiler Market, a local restaurant with great food and cheap pitchers of beer, a winning combination. About 35-40 people showed up, and we had a great time talking with our fellow non-theists. This event definitely brought some new faces out of the woodwork – hopefully they’ll stay, and we’ll see them at future meetings!
The best part for me was definitely driving PZ from and to the airport. I was lucky to have him to myself for nearly three hours, and it was great fun talking to him. We talked about biology, grad school, blogging, silly religious topics, the book he’s writing, and all sorts of random things. I had a blast, and I hope he did too!
I love SMBC so, so much:
Though come on, I totally would have evolved a gun arm! That biologists must not have very high fitness.
Big atheist news for anyone within driving distance of West Lafayette, Indiana:
Dr. PZ Myers will be giving a talk titled “A Few Things I’ve Learned from Creationists,” which will be a biting and entertaining survey of bad ideas from those who oppose evolution.
Thursday, Nov 12
6:00 – 7:45 PM
Class of 1950 Lecture Hall Room 224 (main lecture room)
Oval Drive, West Lafayette, IN
Free, open to public
Free parking available at 3rd St and Grant St Parking Garages after 5pmPZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris. He writes about science and atheism at an extremely popular blog, Pharyngula. PZ is known for unabashedly dealing with religion and creationism, and has ruffled more than a few feathers by speaking out against the Creation Museum, mocking the movie Expelled, and desecrating a Eucharist (just to name a few things).
Sponsored by the Society of Non-Theists at Purdue University
Hooray! Yours truly is President of the club, so you’ll get the added benefit of meeting me (though I’ll know who you’re really coming for, it’s okay).
Facebook event for the lecture is here; RSVPing isn’t necessary, but it’ll give me a nice head count and make me happy.
I also get the added bonus of picking up PZ at the airport, huzzah! And if his flight is delayed at all (it’ll be cutting it close), I get the other added bonus of frantically driving PZ while praying to the Flying Spaghetti Monster that I don’t crash and kill a famous and beloved atheist/blogger.* No pressure.
*I should note that I’m joking and I’m seriously a good driver. Really. …
This is slightly belated since I was busy yesterday, but Happy Birthday, Earth! According to James Ussher’s 17th century calculations, God created the Earth on October 23, 4004 BC. We had a mini birthday party at Wednesday’s club meeting, and I made brownies:
I promise that I omitted Asia and Australia due to a lack of planning, not some deep-seated hatred for those continents.
This is all fun until you realize people actually believe this stuff. Many dates from the Creation Museum were taken from Ussher’s chronology. Because you know, one guy interpreting the Bible is so solid that nearly 400 years of scientific developments doesn’t really matter.
Dear Dr. Dawkins,
I had the great privilege of attending your talk at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN on Monday the 12th. I am the co-founder and current President of the Society of Non-Theists, a student organization for atheists and agnostics at Purdue University (we forgive you for speaking at our rival). The God Delusion played a major part in encouraging me to be outspoken about my atheism, and I thank you for that. I was also incredibly excited to hear you speak about evolution, since I will be graduating this spring with degrees in Genetics and Evolutionary Biology and then starting my journey towards a PhD.
I am writing you because I was lucky enough to ask you a question in front of the audience, but you never answered. Here, to the best of my knowledge, is what I said:
“I had the misfortune of visiting the Creation Museum this summer. While there were many scary things there, the scariest was how it was full of children. When you see kids like this or those who are home schooled or going to religious school, they’re effectively being brainwashed. Is there anything we can do to teach them science, or are they a lost cause?”
You replied that the topic of brainwashed children put a bee in your bonnet, and talked for quite a while about how inappropriate it is to label kids as “Christian children” or “Muslim children.” You talked extensively about this topic in the God Delusion, and I agree completely. But because this is such an important topic, you seemingly got sidetracked and went on to the next question without answering mine. Some of my friends suggested that you sidestepped the question because you didn’t have a good answer, but I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and blame forgetfulness.
Usually I wouldn’t be so adamant about getting an answer, but as a freethinker and an evolutionary biologist, this question is particularly important to me. The cynic in me feels almost doomed when looking at these sheltered children. We all know how impressionable children are. A study by Randy Moore and Sehoya Cotner found that what students learned about evolution and creationism in high school was the most important factor in their future views on the subject. What young people are taught sticks, and it is very hard to undo such thorough brainwashing.
So what do we do?
We fight to keep creationism out of science classrooms in public schools, and we win our legal battles… but creationists just pull out their children. They sent them to private religious schools or homeschool them.
We promote evolution in museums across the country… but we can’t forcibly take children there. Instead, creationists build their own “museum” full of propaganda and lies for the sole purpose of indoctrination.
We make science oriented tv shows… but we can’t make them watch them. What would a creationist parent choose: Bill Nye (a personal favorite), or Veggietales? I know some religious families who don’t even own televisions at all, for the fear that their children are exposed to the evils of the outside world.
We can make pro-science video games like Math Blasters or Number Munchers… but we can’t make them play. The fact that I had such a hard time coming up with scientific video games isn’t a good sign either – where are we in that market? Theists have Charlie Church Mouse Bible Adventure, Left Behind… what do we have? Spore? That attempted to be able evolution, but was effectively Intelligent Design – and still had angry theists calling it evil anti-creationism propaganda.
We write books upon books… but will they ever reach these children? When I heard you were writing a skeptical children’s’ book, I was excited and then sad. Creationist parents aren’t going to buy that for their kids – its target audience is those who want to raise skeptical thinkers. Who knows if it would even be stocked in school libraries, or if a child would voluntarily choose it knowing his parent’s beliefs. Who knows if that child is even allowed to voluntarily choose a book, what with their parents’ constant surveillance. Look at Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, which actually included God and the supernatural, but was avidly boycotted because it spoke against dogmatism.
I guess I’m wondering if there’s any hope at this point. Do we write these kids off as a lost cause? Should we focus our efforts on the fence sitters, the liberal theists, the people who sort of maybe accept evolution but with God’s guidance or other types of woo? Or are we just missing some vital strategy, an approach we haven’t tried yet? Short of kidnapping or mind control (neither of which I support*), I’m not sure what we could do. That’s why I’m curious as to what you think – maybe with your experience, you’re more creative than I am.
Thank you,
Jennifer McCreight
jmccreig(at)purdue.edu
http://blaghag.blogspot.com
—
In all honestly, I doubt I’ll get a response. Even if he wasn’t currently flying around on a book tour, Richard Dawkins is a busy man and probably receives far too many emails every day…but it was worth a shot. Feel free to comment and add your two cents. Do you think there’s a solution?
*I hate including such ridiculously obvious disclaimers, but creationists absolutely love quotemining sarcastic statements. Actually, they’ll probably do it anyway. Oh well.
Ken Ham again is talking about my Creation Museum presentation over at his blog. He posted some commentary by Brent Aucoin, the pastor who attended my talk and has commented a bit here. I think Brent was pretty fair in his description, even though we ultimately disagree on the validity of the scriptures and the Creation Museum’s message. I’m also glad that he’s passing judgment after actually seeing my talk, rather than Ken Ham who called me a godless atheist (redundancy, anyone?) who presented that Christianity is bad. That’s a whole other debate, and not something I discussed in my talk. I guess Ham was too busy globe trotting to read my email where I linked him to my blog and the video of my talk…oh well.