They’re finally getting organized. Minnesota has had our citizens for science group together for years now, and only now is Wisconsin catching up. Better go sign up now, Wisconsinites, lest your membership look pathetic next to ours.
I’m looking at you, UW Madison. Get in there and participate and keep your state off the creationist roster!
You’re just jealous, PZ, because the Wisconsinites didn’t invite you to be a science advisor.
This badger’s all signed up. Thanks for putting the word out.
Is Wisconsin so desperately short of potential science advisors that anyone would even consider asking some guy from Minnesota? And from a part of Minnesota that’s closer to the Dakotas than Wisconsin?
We usually make more jokes about the Dakotas than Wisconsin, but even they beat Wisconsin on this one.
Sorry, PZ, but I can sense the disappointment in your posts about being denied scientific advisorhood in the Wisconsinian Citizens for Science Faction. Just have a good cry and hope that when North Dakota gets around to instigating a Science Citizens Conglomeration, they throw a morsel your way.
OK. I signed up, too. I gotta wonder, however, if there is any creationist so stupid as to come near Madison. He’d probably die of rabies after we got through biting him.
I went to the UW Darwin Day a couple of weeks ago. They held it in a large auditorium in the Microbial Sciences Building. There was standing room only and they had to send a bunch of the standees into an overflow room to watch on closed-circuit. It was a really nice turnout but such things happen in Madison.
Sean Carroll was there plugging his new book, Beautiful Creatures and I got a copy. I am about half-way through it and it is terrific. It tells a lot about some of the lesser known luminaries of nineteenth and early twentieth century evolutionary pioneer such as Henry Walter Bates and Eugene DuBois. These are people did a lot of the nuts and bolts of evolutionary science, filled in gaps and added more detail to the Darwin-Wallace theory. (Yes, Wallace is in there, too, and I think he should get more ink then he does now.) Grab it if you get a chance.
Wisconsin is far from safe. I grew up in a small town within half an hour from Madison where we had WELS (Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, aka, young-earth crazies) walk out of the evolution section of 7th grade biology. We’ve had Grantsburg and I’m sure it isn’t going to be the last effort. I get no small number in my evolution course every year.
Sure, it’s better than what I saw while in Oklahoma but Wisconsin is far from untouched in this “debate”.
Unfortunately, there’s a lot of Wisconsin outside of Madison with crazies just like the rest of the country. Thanks for bringing this up PZ. They must not be doing a good job advertising, since I don’t see it around UW much.
This just got started, as did Madison Skeptics: http://skeptics.madisonwi.us/
All signed up too. I wondered when this was going to happen.
I signed up, like an obedient minion.
Thank goodness PZ hasn’t asked me to do anything evil yet.
Maybe we Badgers didn’t need a citizens for science organization because we didn’t have too much danger of the loonies destroying science. Grantsburg is practically Minnesota anyway. It’s much closer to Michele Bachmann’s district that most of the districts in Wisconsin.
Yes, the German Lutherans (WELS and LC-MS) which are well represented in Wisconsin do have weird ideas about science. I don’t know where they got them from, but they probably didn’t infect the public schools too much because so many of them sponsor their own parochial schools.
Since it exists, I’ve signed up, though. Thanks for the heads-up.
I’m a Madison student here and I can confirm that while Madison itself is great, Wisconsin at large is very much a different story.
I grew up in Green Bay, the third largest town in WI (about 100k). One of my (public) high school teachers brought in a retired teacher (from parochial schools, I believe) one day to talk about “Intelligent Design.” We were treated to “fine-tuning” arguments, the “2nd Law” classic, and of course “Irreducible Complexity.” The guy was remarkably immune to argument, and of course he got far more time to spew his nonsense than I did to call him out on obvious fallacies and fabrications. (Did you know that all of the fossils showing our evolution from apes are fakes? It’s true! No, really, there is evidence that they were all faked. I’ll show it to you later. . .)
We were high school junior and senior AP students, though, so almost everyone was at least a little bit skeptical.
Not sure what the fallout from that incident was.
Oh, yes–and it was an Economics class.
I’m a new Wisconsinite so this comes at a good time for me.
I’ve got the academic bubble of secular science-love, too (though I’m not in Madison), but I never doubt that there are crazies right around the corner.
Hey, Oregonians! We’ve got a brand spankin’ new one of our own, too:
Oregon Citizens for Science
Hi, Danio
How’s it hanging, Sven?
freelunch #11
…the German Lutherans (WELS and LC-MS)…
Oh, dear. I immediately thought liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry.
You are the lucky one not to recognize it immediately. Some former members seem to think it is the Misery Synod.
The Grantsburg school board action(s) seem to pop up often on this thread. When I told one of the members of it how close they came to true fame he told me I was going to burn in hell. I don’t think they are aware of the outside world. But they’re Fundies so what can you expect.
I live 45 miles east of Madison, and 30 minutes west of Milwaukee in the Lake Country area, and even here we are not free of anti-science religious types in our schools. I’ve written about the science vs creationism public debate before and I always get one or to locals repeating the “teach the controversy” line as defense for creationism. One of my fellow bloggers appeals to his own authority as a former aero-engineer as an expert on global climate – as a denier of course. He claims that science is fallible (duh, of course) which means science ain’t reliable and then misapplies Occam’s Razor claiming that Genesis is just far to eaiser of an expanlation and therefore science. Yeah, no shit.
Oh, my fellow cheeseheads are correct. The waters of Wisconisn is littered with cretinist terds.
Whew… I needed to vent…
Nice to see an organization like this – I joined.
I live in Mequon, and also attended TardU-Wisconsin. Concordia Univeristy!
Growing up in River Hills/Mequon I was raised a WELS Lutheran. However, being that the area is what one would consider a more educated and professional type community, my pastor never even mentioned anti-evolution in all the years I attended (including Catechism class and whatnot). I had no clue that evolution denial even existed…until I went to Concordia. Then my head exploded.
I signed up too and this was posted to the Milwaukee Atheist message board, so hopefully we’ll get lots of people in Milwaukee signed up! I work at MCW and despite having excellent scientists and doctors, a large percentage of them are also right wing Lutherans who don’t look very kindly on non-“True Christian” liberals. It’s amazing to see how easily they can switch between being rational scientists and crazy Christians at the drop of a hat.
“Minnesota has had our citizens for science group together for years now”
That’s fine PZ, but don’t expect any stimulus money to support any science programs. In fact, some money supporting science programs may have to be diverted. Gov. Powenty is saying that he is not going to accept the 8 billion dollars allocated to Minn. How much of it he will accept is any body’s guess. La. Governor Jindal, Republican, is not going to accept 100 million for the unemployment program. That stimulus program should be written in such a way that any money turned down by a State would be allocated to States that accept the funds.
And your point SF? None as usual. Just angry at our existence. You need a better excuse to continue to post here.
Silver ‘still unable to disprove Ganesh, thereby – by his own argument – rendering his faith invalid’ Fox wrote:
Sounds like a pretty sure-fire way to get yourself booted come the next election. Good riddance to bad rubbish!
“Silver ‘still unable to disprove Ganesh”
Is Ganesh one of those garden variety gods you are always harping about? I have proven that on another thread to the satisfaction of any reasonable person.
SF, you have proven nothing to nobody except in your own deluded mind. Your failure on this argument is one of the biggest shit stinks we have had in ages.
I love how someone who likes to takes atheists to task for their attitude towards Christians acts exactly the same way for gods and religions he is atheist in regards to, and cannot disprove.
But, since you asked: Ganesh is, according to the Wikipedia page,’one of the best-known and most widely worshipped deities in the Hindu pantheon’ – Hinduism being the predominant religion of the Indian subcontinent.
Ganesh is one of many hundreds (if not thousands) of god that you have to disprove in order to support your claim that atheists need to disprove your god in order not to believe in him.
As for this – I have proven that on another thread to the satisfaction of any reasonable person. – it is, of course, a lie.
What you did was assert that other gods aren’t real because monotheism is the only possibility. You didn’t back that up with anything other than quotes from other monotheists and logic amounting to ‘because I say so’.
Quotes from people who presuppose, without evidence, the same things you believe, along with unsupported assertions ≠ ‘proven’ – any ‘reasonable person’ can tell you that.
In addition, your baseless monotheism assertions were refuted numerous times, not the least by the fact your own bible contains frequent references to the existence of other gods!
That aside, there are nearly a billion Hindus who believe in Ganesh and the rest of the Hindu pantheon; they do not accept that they, together, are the same as your boring one god. They don’t accept your monotheism
argumentunsupported assertion at all.Why are they wrong and you right? Tell you what, if you can explain to me why that is then I’ll consider letting you off from finding disproofs for all the other religions.
Remember – quotes from your bible and your say-so? They don’t count.
“Why are they wrong and you right?
quotes from your bible and your say-so? They don’t count”
I am still being drawn into these same old shop worn exercises.
They are wrong because there is no logical way that you can reason to their position. Two gods is a contradiction.
With the exception of a relatively small group of fundamentalists, no one draws on the Bible for a proof of God. No one can prove God through the Bible. However, atheists continue to harp on the lack of historicity or scientific truth to the Bible taken literally. Everyone knows that with the exception of the handful of people noted above. The Bible is a compilation of literary genres.
They are not wrong because I say so or the Bible say so. They are wrong because they take a position that is not logical or reasonable. There are rules of logic and laws of reason and those make them wrong not me saying so or the Bible saying so.
I would hope that this would lay this old saw to rest but when denial runs deep, that’s usually easier said than done.
Yawn, still a pile of horse manure. Just like before. Repeating manure just smells worse. Either put up some new information or shut up and go away, like the bore you are.
Silver ‘I believe in all the gods ever posited because I can’t prove any don’t exist’ Fox wrote:
and
So you say – hence it being your say so rather than using anything resembling logic to support it.
Your rationale for the contradiction was – and still is –fatally flawed. Your ‘logical way’ is based on yet another presupposition – that a god must be perfect. But you have provided no argument for this.
Where is the rule of logic and law of reason that says a god must be perfect? Please, tell me which logic textbook or reason primer where I can find this stated.
Until you can support the claim of a perfect god with logic, it remains your assertion, which is worthless. The only basis you have for this claim is your bible – not from any objective measure. What is the objective argument for requiring a god to be perfect?
The next stumbling block for you – infinite power. I asked you to explain how it would be impossible for your god to create another god – since, if your god is infinitely powerful then he must be able to create another infinitely powerful being; if he cannot then he is, by definition, not infinitely powerful.
So, is your god infinitely powerful or isn’t he?
You have once again failed to disprove gods other than your own; ergo, if I am in denial, you are too.
You still haven’t proved this logically, merely asserted it.
You’re still claiming this?
Aside from the fact that I disagree with your assertion on the face of it (and that the “perfect being” typically described by monotheists — omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent — is also logically untenable, but I’ll save that for another time), perfection isn’t even a necessary precondition for the existence of gods! There could be a single, flawed being who created the universe, or a collection of beings, all with different attributes, who worked together to create the universe.
If God or gods are effing ineffable, then you can’t say one damn thing about their nature beyond the assumption that they somehow called stuff into existence.
Hi,
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BTW I help out some ex-IIMA guys who with another batch mate run http://www.rambhai.com where you can post links to your most loved blog-posts. Rambhai was the chaiwala at IIMA and it is a site where users can themselves share links to blog posts etc and other can find and vote on them. The best make it to the homepage!
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Ray
“I asked you to explain how it would be impossible for your god to create another god – since, if your god is infinitely powerful then he must be able to create another infinitely powerful being”
Guess what?
My infinitely powerful God CANNOT create a square circle. By your reasoning (faulty) if he was all powerful, he should be able to do so. Why can’t he create it? He can’t because a square circle is a contradiction. A contradiction is a fault. An all perfect being which included a fault would not be all perfect. Two all perfect gods is a contradiction since the perfection of the one would be lacking the perfection of the other. Consequently neither would be all perfect. You really don’t need a logic book for that.
You understand that all too well. Your motives for revisiting this issue is probable to get me kicked off this site for godbotting.
What about two imperfect gods? Why are you bigoted against imperfect gods?
More importantly, what does this have to do with science and Wisconsin. Take your rambling bullshit theology elsewhere. I apologize to everyone else for responding to this guy.
Two all perfect gods is a contradiction since the perfection of the one would be lacking the perfection of the other. Consequently neither would be all perfect. You really don’t need a logic book for that. – Silver Fox
The usual theological drivel. What does “perfection” even mean, without specifying some particular characteristic in which something is perfect (e.g. a perfect score at bowling, a perfect vacuum, a perfect circle)? Until you can give a clear account of that, your argument can’t even get started.
Based on what, exactly? You’ve – once again – made a ludicrous assertion but have not backed it up. Remember, your say-so counts for nothing until you support it with logic. Explain the rationale behind this claim and show your work.
One clumsy structure toppled. Next!
So, you can’t justify why, if your god was perfect, there can be only one. And you still haven’t backed up the assertion the precedes that assertion – that a god must, by definition, be perfect.
The other religions’ gods – which you cannot prove don’t exist and so you must still believe in – don’t make that claim made for them; how is it that you can? The only reason you claim this is because it’s what your religion tells you to – which disqualifies it as an objective source.
What is the source for, or the logic supporting, your claim that a god must be perfect?
No, Silver Fox – I’m doing the exact opposite: trying to get you to support your claims without godbotting. That you cannot proves you’re not being objective regarding your alleged god’s supposed qualities.
Bob:
“More importantly, what does this have to do with science and Wisconsin?”
Absolutely nothing. Why don’t you read the thread. At #24, I was noting for PZ that the Governor of Minnesota said he was not going to accept Obama’s stimulus money. Eight million is allocated for Minnesota. I suggested this was going to impact some of science programs he alluded to. If Wisconsin accepts the money they might surpass Minnesota.
Two posts later at #26, Nerd of Redhead, asked why I had not disproved the existence of Ganesh. Now, you might ask Nerd what that had to do with science in Minnesota or Wisconsin
“I apologize to everyone else for responding to this guy.”
Well the everyone you’re apologizing to are the ones who jumped in after Nerd and diverted the thread. READ THE THREAD before you start carrying on about RAMBLINGS.
Silver Fox, since you never make cogent points, you do nothing but rambling. We know that. Why don’t you?
Nerd:
“Silver Fox, since you never make cogent points”
When the thread is about science programs in Minnesota and Wisconsin and you jump in with a question about the existence of Genesh, how do you figure that’s a cogent point?
SF, you have been asked to leave by PZ a few times. Why haven’t you done so?
Silver Fox, I told you I would not give you a free pass on your egregious error of claiming that one cannot disbelieve in a god unless one has proved its nonexistence. I’m just reminding you and the other posters here of that so they’ll treat you in the manner you deserve until you resolve the issue.
But you have neither proven this nor retracted your ridiculous unsupportable claim – one that, using your logic, renders your own faith invalid.
If you prove the non-existence of other gods or retract your claim you will be able to post on whichever topic you like without me or anyone else bringing it up – though any new stupidity you introduce*, of course, will be subject to the usual derision.
*I suppose it’s possible, that you will start writing more sensible posts; I, however, will not be holding my breath.
Well, PZ, we’re up and running. Our first meeting has been scheduled for April 18th. Check out the website for more details. Also, there is a Facebook group (“Wisconsin Citizens for Science”). We welcome any and all to join our defense of science in the Badger State!