I rejected them, so they’re coming to get me

The other daaaay, I was asked to do a YouTube debate with an Islamic group, and I told them no, with this email.

I dislike debates, and find them to be nothing but rhetorical games. If you’d care to send me a written summary of your best argument that “the Quran is a scientific miracle”, I’ll consider addressing it. I have a few conditions: you should define what you mean by “scientific miracle”, and I would prefer that any examples you use discuss it from the perspective of biology, since that is my area of expertise.

They replied. This has gotten worse.

Yes you bring up a good point. The Quran and science argument has evolved
significantly since your discussion with Hamza Tzortis. A great deal of care
was given to refutations provided by skeptics.

We can send you a pdf of the new arguments, perhaps you can look them over.

We are planning to do an event at Univ of Minnesota at Morris via Muslim Student Association,
in which we talk about Quran and science. Once you reviewed the material, perhaps you can
provide some feedback/discussion during the question and answer period?

First, do I really believe their argument has evolved in any substantial way, or that they actually deal honestly with skeptical arguments? No, I do not. The fact that they’re trying to argue that Quran is a scientific treatise rather than a social, political, historical, and cultural document is revealing. Still, I’d be happy to look over their “new” arguments.

Second, I am not happy that they are trying to corrupt our Muslim students. When I first came to UMM, there was a fairly loud contingent of Christian creationists openly trying to undermine biology classes, specifically, and I do not welcome the idea of our Muslim students taking over that role. They’re smarter than that. But yes, I would definitely attend their event and point out the flaws in using the Quran as if it’s a science textbook.

Maybe I’d convert them to the joys of secularism…

I just got this invitation.

Hi Dr. Myer,

Our Global Islamic outreach organization, Mercy4Mankind.com
shares the message of Islam across the world and especially
on college campuses. We also make presentations on why
the Quran is a scientific miracle.

However, we would very much like to hear from you on why you feel
the Quran is not a scientific miracle.

We would like to arrange a panel discussion on an Atheist youtube
channel called Modern-Day debate

It’s on a site called Modern-Day debate (it’s run by a Christian, not an atheist, by the way), and I hate debate with a passion, so I’d normally just say no.

On the other hand, discussion is good, and I like discussing things with people I disagree with. So that tells me that maybe the right thing to do would be to talk with them, in a non-competitive format.

On the third hand, that is a stupid topic. There’s nothing miraculous or scientific about a holy book, so I ought not to waste my time.

On the fourth hand, is there an intelligent audience for this sort of conversation? Do people want to hear me talk with these dogmatists? Let me know in the comments.

I do have four more hands, if necessary. They’re also mix of yesses and nos.

I sent them this reply.

I dislike debates, and find them to be nothing but rhetorical games. If you’d care to send me a written summary of your best argument that “the Quran is a scientific miracle”, I’ll consider addressing it. I have a few conditions: you should define what you mean by “scientific miracle”, and I would prefer that any examples you use discuss it from the perspective of biology, since that is my area of expertise.

If they answer, I’ll make my answer here.

Oh…Goop Lab is on Netflix

I’m not even tempted to watch a single second of it, but I can tell I’m going to be entertained by the people who suffer through it to criticize it.

Although I can see where I might find it good if I need an anger rush, although the state of the country is doing that for me right now.

You know, Netflix raised their prices last spring to “allow the company to invest in more original content”. If this is their idea of quality content, I’ll unsubscribe at the next price increase.

Am I the only one who thought The Good Place finale was BS?

The Good Place was a comedy show about the afterlife that took philosophical questions seriously — in fact, much of the action involved placing interesting characters in difficult situations that required them to think through their choices. It featured characters with broadly exaggerated, but mostly endearing, flaws who had to cope with a complex afterlife that kept confronting them with meaning and purpose and conflict, which they generally overcame with good humor. It was a kind of Sesame Street for beginning philosophers.

They recently aired their grand finale, ending the season and the series definitively. It was an entertaining, sweet, charming episode in which characters we’d grown to know and love moved on (or beyond) their afterlife. I enjoyed watching it, and it was quite nice to see a show wrap up four years of build-up in a consistent, satisfying way (Game of Thrones, I’m giving you some side-eye there).

But here’s my problem with it: shouldn’t a show that is wallowing happily in its philosophy at some point question its premises? The show concludes nicely within the self-contained bubble of its own conceits, but it never tries to go outside of them — instead, it builds a complex set of rules that sort of work together and provide a framework for coming up with answers that fit its universe, but never steps outside of itself.

The premises of The Good Place are

that people have an essence that persists after death,
that there are higher powers that judge your behavior,
and that the universe is ultimately kind.

Accept those ideas, and you have a set of rules within which characters can operate and drive a story. These are also premises that are as old as sentient beings’ attempts to find meaning in their existence, and they are also the premises that people want to be true, which ought to immediately throw up a red flag on the play. I distrust those ideas. I can see how they are necessary to drive a commercially viable, relatively long-running narrative, but there are alternatives that aren’t addressed.

It’s a kind of anti-Lovecraftian show, for example. The premises of a Cthulhu story would be

that people are insignificant, ephemeral specks moving into the void,
that there are greater beings who are implacable and unsympathetic,
and that the universe is ultimately cruel in its uncaring nature.

There isn’t a lot of room for humor or plot development there. My show, The Meaningless Place, which I ought to float for some network executives, would begin with Eleanor Shellstrop dying an unexpected, arbitrary death, and then…credits. We could maybe linger over her decaying corpse for a bit, but otherwise it’s over. There are no amusing hijinks, no character development, no dilemmas for Eleanor to think about, because she has ceased to exist and there is no one there to think anymore. The universe would roll on, unperturbed. Viewers would receive no comfort or consolation in a heart-warming finale.

It would be cheap and quick to make, at least.

I can understand why the show made the decisions it did — it was one of the few ways to set up propositions that would allow dead people to move within a framework interesting to living people — but its premises are also its greatest limitations. I can still enjoy The Good Place as a thought experiment or metaphor for a humanist ideal of a well considered life, but the finale only works within its own conceits, and none of its solutions are applicable to me. I’d been maneuvered into an improbable scenario with its own internal logic that had placed it outside of any useful experience.

Which is fine. You can still enjoy a fantasy novel, even if dragons and magic aren’t real. It’s just hard to find a real-life situation where dragon-slaying skills matter.

Conspiracy theories never die, but maybe they can be penalized

We’re going to have to deal with the rotting excreta of Info Wars for a long time, I fear. But at least one pile of shit has been shoveled up: Wolfgang Halbig has been arrested.

Halbig, in case you’ve happily forgotten, was one of those conspiracy zealots who was convinced that the murder of 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School was faked, and who harassed parents and administrators endlessly. He is a revolting human being.

Mr. Halbig, 73, a former Florida public school security administrator, has sent hundreds of public records requests to Newtown and Connecticut officials, demanding documents that include photographs of the murder scene, the children’s bodies and receipts for the cleanup of “bodily fluids, brain matter, skull fragments and around 45 to 60 gallons of blood.”

Soon after the massacre, Mr. Halbig appeared multiple times on Infowars, which aired his false claims to millions of people and gave him a platform for raising tens of thousands of dollars to fund his obsession.

Alex Jones was so happy with his delusions that he sent a film crew to accompany Halbig on a tour of Newtown, Connecticut as he pestered grieving people with his lunatic accusations. Recall that InfoWars promoted bizarre ideas about chemtrails, aliens, evil immigrant hordes, pig-human hybrids, pedophile rings in pizza parlors, etc., etc., etc., and at its peak was bringing in $20 million/year. It’s lost some of its more popular outlets, but it still exists: right now Jones is preaching that the coronavirus outbreak is really just a rehearsal for forced vaccinations.

We can only hope he and his minions fade into obscurity. Paul Joseph Watson, fuck off.

China: a major polluter of the scientific literature

China has surpassed the US in the number of scientific publications. Unfortunately for China, it has achieved that landmark accomplishment by streamlining the process of publishing garbage. They have institutions dedicated to making up data, forging results, and writing up formulaic papers.

Apparently, the Chinese paper mills even handle submissions, peer review (if there is a peer review, that is) and sign the copyright consent forms while pretending to be the listed authors. This is evidenced by the fact that in some cases only bizarre Gmail addresses are provided for alleged corresponding authors in China. Gmail access, as all Google services, were blocked by the Great Chinese Firewall in 2014, on Party’s orders. It is theoretically possible to use Google via VPN, but the Party has criminalised this, so hardly anyone dares. Whoever answers the Gmail accounts like [email protected] is definitely not some doctor in China listed as paper’s author, but the paper mill operator.

They are assisted in this endeavor by obliging editors in Western journals, who seem to accept anything that follows the form of a scientific paper without regard for the content. Just keep churning out stuff that vaguely resembles the LPUs that get dumped on familiar journals, and it will be accepted.

The papers mills churning out masses of 100% fabricated, never performed science which only exists in Photoshop, are the secret of Chinese science output supremacy which we in the West so admire and strive to keep up with. Reality is: nobody cares if the published research is real, slightly falsified or entirely made-up. Fraudsters face little consequences if they are well-connected, and one can always denounce a western conspiracy. The good scientific practice lessons preached by Chinese science elites do not even apply to themselves, as the case of Xuetao Cao demonstrated.

Who?

As per official hagiography, Cao was awarded his PhD at the age of 26, because his Master thesis was so excellent that his examiners gave him a doctorate instead. At 28, Cao was made the youngest medical professor in China, at 40 he was appointed Vice President of the Second Military Medical University in Shanghai. In 2005, the 41 year old genius was elected as the youngest member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, of which the Medical Academy is part, and he simultaneously rose to the military rank of a general, the youngest in China.

Damn. I had to write a whole thesis to get my Ph.D., and I didn’t get a military rank, ever. I’m less than a private.

And what is all this furious scientific labor being applied to?

The extra joke on top is that many of these fake paper mill emissions tout the alleged powers of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) to cure cancer and other maladies, all because the nation’s President Xi Jinping himself is such a big fan of TCM. The Communist Party of China is merely getting what it ordered, again and again.

Then all the quacks cite these fake papers that get published in “peer reviewed” journals to justify their belief in quackery. Thanks, China!

Free seminars! On what?

When I was looking up how the Discovery Institute contributed to the spread of creationism in Brazil, I spotted an article by Brian Miller claiming that the Discovery Institute summer seminars were a turning point in his life. What’s this? It says, “The program is free, and travel expenses will be paid as needed.” Cool! I’m broke, I have some oppressive legal debt, and I’d love to spend some time in Seattle. It’s my favorite city, and my mom lives near there! Then, the application form says:

The seminars are primarily designed for upper-division undergraduates and graduate students, but each year we try to reserve a few spaces for a special cohort of professors, scientists, teachers, pastors, and other professionals.

I’m special! I’m also a professor, scientist, and a teacher. I should qualify!

What do you think? Should I apply? Or I might be delusional, just like the people who write testimonials for the program.

As a former research engineer (now a Catholic priest) I was convinced of the theory of evolution and always taught it in a Christian context (guided by God, a spiritual soul being infused into the first human beings by God himself). But a few years ago I watched the video Unlocking the Mystery of Life and my mind change overnight.

Uh…maybe it’s not for me after all. I think maybe they reaffirm the religious beliefs of people who already have creationist predispositions, but I don’t have any of those. Also, speaking of delusional:

Then, in 2016, I attended the Summer Seminars. That experience was a turning point in my career. I cannot adequately express my excitement at hearing directly from many of the leading scientists and other academics who so shaped my thinking. Even more striking, I learned that science is on the brink of the next great revolution. The evidence from multiple disciplines has demonstrated that, in accounting for the emerging scientific data, the philosophical framework of scientific materialism is hopelessly inadequate. I then realized that I wanted to be part of the cutting edge of scientific research and progress. I still recognize the significance of the design debate for faith and society, but I now also see its importance in maintaining the integrity of the scientific enterprise.

I’m neck-deep in various of those multiple disciplines, and I’m sorry, none of them are arguing that the “philosophical framework of scientific materialism is hopelessly inadequate”. If you go to one of these seminars and come away thinking that the sciences are at all challenged by intelligent design creationism, or that we’re on the brink of a scientific revolution led by the likes of Behe or Meyer or Wells, you’ve been lied to. Those people are totally irrelevant to the progress of science, except perhaps in the sense that they impede it.

Still, I’m tempted to apply, just to learn what kind of nonsense they’re teaching. I’ve got until the 4 March deadline to make up my mind.

Of course, the alternative is to stay home and explore fields and lakes and old barns for spiders. Mid-July is peak spider season around here.

Brazilian creationism under the wing of fascists

I really wish we could be over creationism. I see countries torn over bigger issues — racism, misogyny, deep inequalities, climate change, war — yet it’s clear that some people see an involvement with crises in the world as an opportunity to push their trivial stupidities on us. Case in point: Brazil and the Bolsonaro regime. They have a fascist running the country, rapid deforestation, oppression of native minorities, and what do we have to deal with? The appointment of an open creationist to run their science agency.

President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration on Saturday named Benedito Guimarães Aguiar Neto to head the agency, known as CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior). Aguiar Neto, an electrical engineer by training, previously served as the rector of Mackenzie Presbyterian University (MPU), a private religious school here. It advocates the teaching and study of intelligent design (ID), an outgrowth of Biblical creationism which argues that life is too complex to have evolved by Darwinian evolution, and so required an intelligent designer.

Is it a coincidence? Michael Behe visited Brazil and specifically the campus of MPU this past fall, where the Discovery Institute has a chapter, and Jonathan Wells visited the year before. Whenever we take our eyes off those wankers in Seattle, they’re off to build another foothold in some dogmatic religious institution somewhere, and next thing you know, some criminal politician hands them some tidbit of power over science.

This is the second time under Bolsonaro that a nominee’s views on creationism have become an issue. In January 2019, Damares Alves, Bolsonaro’s newly appointed minister of women, family, and human rights, drew criticism for saying, in a 2013 video, that Brazil’s evangelical churches had lost influence in society by allowing scientists to “take control” of the teaching of evolution in schools. Brazil’s evangelical Christians are among Bolsonaro’s strongest supporters.

Evangelical Christians everywhere are among the most ignorant and fanatical supporters of fascism, so this is not surprising. Creationist idiocy just never ends.

I knew nothing about enneagrams until yesterday

I’d heard of them, of course, but I was in a state of blessed ignorance so the term just sailed right over my head. Now I’ve received a couple of emails from the persistent Richard Colter (never heard of him, either), so I looked ’em up.

Jesus.

It’s some kind of personality profile system, based on numerology and Christian mysticism, with this magical figure used to diagram your personality traits. It has about as much validity as Myers-Briggs personality tests, that is, none at all, but sucks believers in with its pseudo-scientific/pseudo-mathematical posing.

An enneagram is, literally, a drawing with nine lines. Figuratively, however, the enneagram is a New Age mandala, a mystical gateway to personality typing. The drawing is based upon a belief in the mystical properties of the numbers 7 and 3.* It consists of a circle with nine equidistant points on the circumference. The points are connected by two figures: one connects the number 1 to 4 to 2 to 8 to 5 to 7 and back to 1; the other connects 3, 6 and 9. The 142857 sequence is based on the fact that dividing 7 into 1 yields an infinite repetition of the sequence 142857. In fact, dividing 7 into any whole number not a multiple of 7 will yield the infinite repetition of the sequence 142857. Also, 142857 x 7 = 999999. And of course 1 divided by 3 yields an infinite sequence of threes. The triangle joining points 3, 6 and 9 links all the numbers on the circle divisible by 3. To ascribe metaphysical or mystical significance to the properties of numbers is mere superstition and a throwback to an earlier time in human history when ignorance was considered a point of view.

I’d just throw it in the bin with astrology and dianetics and The Bell Curve and every attempt to reduce humanity to a couple of numbers, but Richard Colter has a book he thinks I should read: UNDERSTANDING HUMAN EVOLUTION: AND THE NINE HUMAN ENDEAVORS – REVEALS THE PURPOSE AND MEANING OF LIFE. I am almost tempted to order it.

Perhaps the most compelling reason to read this book is that it reveals the Nine Human Endeavors (NHE), which are the highly sophisticated behaviors that separate modern humans from early human species such as Neanderthals. The constructive use of this knowledge is the key to unleashing the untapped potential of individuals, organizations, and countries. Thus, the knowledge contained in this book will prove to be indispensable to people of all walks of life.
This book will be of interest to Anthropologists because it provides a comprehensive theory of human evolution that answers the unassailable questions of how and why humans evolved. As the story of human evolution unfolds, new concepts fill the gaps existing in the anthropological sciences, along with critical details such as the key psychological and physiological differentiators between modern humans and early humans. And a basic timeline of evolutionary events provides the context necessary for those without a background in anthropology.

It’s 341 pages of this egotistical argle-bargle. I’m sure, given how the Ennealogical Brigade thinks, that it ought to be full of bizarre mystical diagrams that represent the “evidence” that this view of purposeful evolution is true, but a quick glimpse inside reveals that the author has instead substituted page after page of word salad. Maybe the diagrams are in an appendix.

Mr Colter himself is active on Quora, where he writes about two things, and only two things: how to get out of paying speeding tickets, and spreading misinformation about evolution, which always includes a plug for his book. I’d look deeper, but I think I’ve had enough nonsense for the day.