World War Z was on the Netflix last night, so I made the mistake of watching it. It was terrible. Spoilers abound, so stop here if you care.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
World War Z was on the Netflix last night, so I made the mistake of watching it. It was terrible. Spoilers abound, so stop here if you care.
You know, atheists don’t do a good job of providing that essential social safety net, and the American ‘I got mine’ philosophy means the government often does a poor job, too. We just have to try and cobble together an ad hoc safety net. Here’s a case in point: a person who joined a church, travelled to California to become a live-in, paid volunteer to assist in inner city care. Then the double-whammy hit: he came down with a severe case of rheumatoid arthritis to the point where he can’t get around at all, and then…uh-oh, he lost his faith and became an atheist. Goodbye church-based support.
I also, over the course of my time at the church, completely lost what little faith I had, coming out as an atheist in 2011. As a result, I’ve lost much of my Oroville-based support system; friendships I’d thought were unconditional. I hesitate to say we’ve been shunned, because it hasn’t exactly been to Amish or Jehovah’s Witness proportions. There’s some contact once in awhile, but for the most part, we’re on our own, living in a landlocked island of isolation.
I met a friend of his; apparently, he could have just hidden his loss of faith and continued to get aid from the church, but he was too honest to do that…so they cut him off.
We atheists can do better than that, now can’t we? He’s asking for assistance to move his family back to his original home, in Spokane. He’d also appreciate any local help — any atheists in Spokane (come on, it’s a wonderful city) want to provide information and assistance in the transition back to the Palouse? Follow the link. Donations and support and encouragement are welcome.
This is an excellent piece on that quack, Dr Oz, by John Oliver. The first 5 minutes is spent mocking the fraud, but then, the last ten minutes are all about the real problem: the evisceration of the FDA’s regulatory power over supplements, thanks to Senators Hatch and Harkin.
OK, there is a silly bit at the end where they show that you can pander to your audience without lying to them about the health benefits of magic beans, but still — let’s beef up the FDA, all right?
The word is that he’s working on a book on evolution. Ken Ham helpfully informs him that it is unnecessary, because it has already been written. It’s called the Bible.
Good thing my wife is off running errands right now, or she’d be wondering why I’m giggling maniacally.
Credentialism always makes for convenient excuses. We love to construct simple shortcuts in our cognitive models: someone has a Ph.D., they must be smart (I can tell you that one is wrong). Someone is a scientist, they must have all the right facts. And of course, the converse: we can use the absence of a Ph.D. or professional standing, to dismiss someone.
Creationists are very concerned about this, and you see it over and over again: the desperate need to acquire a degree or title, even if it is from some unaccredited diploma mill or a correspondence school, in order to justify their wacky beliefs. Or they invent reasons to discredit the other side’s credentials: Ken Ham loves to trot out that nonsense about historical and observational science, a badly drawn distinction, to imply that the scientists who study evolution aren’t real scientists. Whereas he, of course, is the honest arbiter of good science.
Climate change denialists love to do it, too: Bill Nye isn’t a real scientist, you know. You can ignore everything he says because he’s an engineer and children’s TV host, so you should listen to what the TV weatherman says instead.
None of that matters. Ideally, you judge the validity of a scientific thesis by the quality of the data and the experiments behind it, not the academic pedigree of the author. If a children’s TV host accurately explains the evidence behind a conclusion, that’s what matters. You don’t get to ignore the evidence because the presenter is a mere educator (or even, a mere weatherman).
But you know who else indulges in this fallacy, other than creationists and climate change denialists? Nicholas Wade. He has taken to rebutting critics of his racist book by declaring them non-scientists. For instance, in response to a review by Pete Shanks, Wade declares that all of the people who dislike his book are not competent to do so.
Shanks failed to notice, or failed to share with readers, the fact that scientists critical of my book have attacked it largely on political grounds.
Although a science writer, Shanks is at sea in assessing scientific expertise. He places excessive weight on the views of Agustín Fuentes, the author of two of the five critical reviews that have appeared on The Huffington Post. To ascertain a scientist’s field of expertise, all one need do is consult their list of publications. Fuentes’ primary research interest, as shown by publications on his website, is the interaction between people and monkeys at tourist sites. I don’t know what the scientific merit of this project may be, but it establishes Fuentes’ field of expertise as people-monkey interaction. If you seek an authoritative opinion on human statistical genetics, the principal scientific subject of my book, he would not be your go-to expert.
Stunning, ain’t it?
Like all scientists, you have to focus: that Fuentes has published on a specific research problem does not in any way imply that he lacks a broader knowledge of a field. And if you’re going to play the credentialism game, Fuentes has degrees earned in the last 25 years in zoology and anthropology, with advanced degrees in anthropology, and a professorship at Notre Dame. Wade has a bachelor’s degree from 1964 in some general discipline called “Natural Sciences”. No disrespect, but I teach undergrads, and there is a world of difference between an undergraduate degree and a graduate degree — so for Wade to dismiss Fuentes for an inappropriate educational background is grossly hypocritical.
Furthermore, apparently some of his other critics are so non-sciencey he doesn’t even have to mention them. Jennifer Raff is a post-doc studying the genomes of modern and ancient peoples in order to uncover details of human prehistory — that couldn’t possibly be relevant. Must be political. Jeremy Yoder is a postdoc studying evolutionary genetics at the University of Minnesota. Couldn’t possibly have greater expertise than Wade. Must be political. Greg Laden has a Ph.D. in Archaeology and Biological Anthropology from Harvard. Must not have learned a thing. Must be political. Eric Michael Johnson has a mere Master’s degree (well, he still outranks Wade) in evolutionary anthropology, and is only now working on a Ph.D., so he can be ignored. Must be political.
Now don’t go the other way and assume a fancy degree makes them right — you have to look at the arguments and evidence to determine that. But one thing you can know for sure: when someone stoops to rejecting a criticism by inappropriately and falsely nitpicking over the legitimacy of their training, you know they’re desperate. You also know they’re damned lousy scientists.
That also goes for the HBD racists who think calling evolutionary biologists “creationists” is an effective strategy.
I just got around to watching Cristina Rad’s rebuttal of Jaclyn Glenn — it’s often difficult to find a spot of time and a quiet place to watch videos when I’m flitting about. It’s very good.
It pins down a lot of my difficulties with the “He’s Crazy!” brigade. It’s just not an explanation. It’s about as useful as declaring that he’s possessed by a demon. It’s also as universally applicable: was Adolf Hitler insane? How about George W. Bush? Nelson Mandela? Richard Dawkins? If you’re just going to say that mental illness is believing strongly in something that other people find repugnant, then they’re all bug-buggering nuts, and ought to be locked up.
Or if you’re going to try and narrow it down to just those who rationalize doing physical harm to others (you’d have to be crazy to murder people, you know!) then please, do send the men in white coats to pick up Obama. And all the legislators who passed ‘stand your ground’ laws, and support the death penalty. And the entire roster of the Texas Open Carry organization. And at last, we’ll be able to lock up Sheriff Joe Arpaio. It might also mean you get locked up, but I’m willing to pay that price.
I think part of the problem is an excessively reductionist attitude that leads to a kind of identity essentialism. You are who you are because that is your nature (an entirely circular argument), and that nature is determined, so that if you differ from my nature, it can’t be because you are misinformed, confused, miseducated, or warped by your circumstances — it must be because your nature is broken and defective. And sadly, there’s nothing to be done about that other than to label you as someone outside the healthy circle of humanity and ostracize you.
That’s also visible in the recommendations some people make to deal with these problems. Bullies, rapists, misogynists are treated as an external force of nature, rather than as part of our communities already — they only possible response is for us sane ones to change our behavior to defend against them. We can’t possibly recognize the bullies’ existence as part of us, because that would change our essential view of our society as a good one. So we set them apart, insist that it is neither our responsibility nor within our power to change their beliefs, and we let ourselves suffer to maintain the fiction. The demons will occasionally possess one of us, making them an Other, and thereby justify isolating them.
Gosh, I hope the word doesn’t get out that you have to be insane to not go to church. Or has it already?
You’d think that after yesterday’s travails, I might finally be home. But no; I’m still in Minneapolis, and am about to spend a day at the Science Museum of Minnesota with a group of students. And then afterwards I’ll go home and sink into blissful unconsciousness.
It’s a good way to prepare for World Humanist Day, don’t you think? There are a lot of other suggestions at that link, but contributing to a museum and talking science with young people is just my thing.
You’ve got until tomorrow to come up with something human to do for yourself. What will it be?
The UK has officially prohibited teaching creationism in all government funded schools.
The government released a new set of funding agreements last week including clauses which specifically prohibit pseudoscience.
"The parties acknowledge that clauses 2.43 and 2.44 of the Funding Agreement [which preclude the teaching of pseudoscience and require the teaching of evolution] apply to all academies. They explicitly require that pupils are taught about the theory of evolution, and prevent academy trusts from teaching ‘creationism’ as scientific fact," one clause reads.
The funding agreement defines creationism as "any doctrine or theory which holds that natural biological processes cannot account for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth and therefore rejects the scientific theory of evolution," and goes on to note that this idea is rejected not only by the scientific community but most mainstream churches as well.
"It does not accord with the scientific consensus or the very large body of established scientific evidence; nor does it accurately and consistently employ the scientific method, and as such it should not be presented to pupils at the Academy as a scientific theory," the agreement states.
That got me thinking. Here in the US, legislatures are constantly debating creationist bills, all usually the same old ‘strengths and weaknesses’ boilerplate, and the good guys are reduced to playing defense (often successfully, fortunately). Conservatives and creationists are really good at being aggressive in pushing stupid ideas forward.
So where’s our offense?
Why doesn’t someone (hey, NCSE, what you doin’ today?) take the language of the UK resolution, adapt it to have a more American flavor, and get friendly state politicians to propose it? Many politicians, proposing it many times, just like the game the creationists play. It may not get passed the first time through, but persistence works, and having a clear statement of principle can be a great rallying cry.
And don’t tell me you don’t want to antagonize the electorate. That’s timidity that gets us nowhere. Have you ever noticed that the idiots on the right say incredibly stupid stuff all the time, and they still manage to advance their agenda? So why be shy about saying something intelligent?
