Big fish on the hook. I repeat, BIG FISH.

I predicted that the creationist clickbait in the title of that stupid article about all animals originating at the same time would snag a few doofuses. I was right. Look who is tweeting about it: Eric Erickson and Ted Cruz.

Unfortunately, that means the nonsense will be spread even further.

The laws of karma and retributive justice aren’t actually laws, you know

I’ve been lucky to have never received a chastising letter from an administrator like the one below. A former professor at San Diego State University made a suggestion that a university provost receive an accelerated review — that is not a condemnation, but a recommendation that an impartial committee evaluate his performance — and the provost was a mite bit upset. He responded by asking Jesus to shower him with an unending curse.

I’m thinking that the suggestion for an accelerated review was wise and justified, and maybe there is more to the story than the former professor has made public. The provost has resigned from his position.

I still get email

People, I’m out of town! I’m taking a break! How about if the loons also take a little time off and stop pestering me with silly complaints?

No, they won’t. This guy is irate about an ancient quote from me — something I said and still stand by about how we shouldn’t be nice to the frauds of creationism. I get sent this quote fairly regularly.

In his book on Intelligent Design, Dr. Jonathan Wells gives the following quote from a University of Minnesota professor named Paul Z. Myers:

“The only appropriate response should involve some form of righteous fury, much butt-kicking, and the public firing of some teachers, many schoolboard members, and vast numbers of sleazy far-right politicians…It’s time for scientists to break out the steel-toed boots and brass knuckles, and get out there and hammer on the lunatics and idiots.”

This was in the chapter on Darwinists, their strident nature and willingness to employ machiavellian tactics to achieve their war on traditional and orthodox Christians.

“Machiavellian”? Saying that we ought to be blunt and undiplomatic and angry about the lies of creationists is kind of the opposite of Machiavellian. But this fellow goes on to really teach me a lesson.

Notice Myers uses the term “righteous fury”. How ironic. There is nothing righteous about him. I recall Professor Johanneson in my college days in Los Angeles who also was from the University of Minnesota, and who even way back in the 60’s was wildly and radically liberal. I was given a C in his class after getting all As on his tests. His explanation was “I must insure that people like you do not succeed”). I appreciated his honesty if not his world view!

Uh, what? I do not know this Johanneson fellow. He’s complaining about his grade in a class in the 1960s? I was at best 12 years old; I rather doubt that I had much to do with his grade. I also rather doubt the truth of his story; there are rather strong requirements about openness and documenting grades, and if a professor downgraded him with the intent of doing him harm there are all kinds of avenues for getting redress. More likely he did well on exams (but maybe not as well as he remembers) and that there were other components that were part of his grade.

But OK, if we accept his unlikely story as true, I will condemn the actions of Dr Johanneson. It hardly has anything to do with me, though. I guess this gomer just assumes Minnesota professors are all alike.

But the same sort of arrogant (and sometimes violent) dismissal of any views that are Biblically based, are imposed on our kids by University professors all over (yes even Texas) and they appear to be cut from the same cloth, a robe of virulent, ungodly and egotistical humanism.

They can not totally suppress the truth, and I think God for Scientists like Jonathan Sarfati, Henry Morris, Jonathan Wells and oh, don’t forget the founder of modern science, Sir Issac Newton who wrote more on religion than he did science!!

Piperwill

Creationists don’t get to call others egotistical. Sorry, guy, but you’re engaged in wholesale denial of physics, chemistry, geology, and biology, which takes an amazing lack of humility. Your short list of creationists is mostly loons — and Newton is not remembered for his writings on religion.

It is nice to see that I could write something in 2005 that still irritates creationists.

It’s a cult

Every day now, I get several messages/emails from Jordan Peterson fans. Nothing could convince me more that we’re dealing with a cult-like network of bewilderingly brainwashed people. The messages take several familiar forms.

  • “It’s his opinion and belief. Science and evidence don’t apply.” They are desperate to carve out an exemption from minimal standards of evidence for him. This is a common refrain from defenders of religious belief as well.

  • “Technically, he might be wrong about that one thing, but I like what he’s saying anyway.” My personal schtick in dealing with Peterson has been to focus on specific false claims and scientific misrepresentations. They don’t matter. His followers don’t care. The pseudo-scientific veneer is just that, a game to borrow the respectability of science while not caring at all about rigor.

  • “He has done so much good for young men!” How do we know that? Because he says so. It’s an ‘end justifies the means’ kind of argument with no evidence of a positive result. Again, this is a very religious defense, where we’re supposed to accept the conclusion as valid because of an assertion irrelevant to the truth-claim.

  • “You’re just criticising him for the hits!” Somehow, that someone is popular has become a defense in itself — you’re only reason for criticizing the cult leader can’t possibly be because he’s wrong, but is simply an opportunistic attempt to get the attention of his crowds of followers (never mind that those zealous followers are annoyingly thick and I’d rather they went away.)

  • Meaningless drivel. You would not believe the lengths they go to to justify Peterson’s claim that a Chinese painting of intertwined snake-gods is an actual representation of the structure of DNA. An example:

    First, keep in mind that a representation doesn’t need to be a detailed model of how something functions, just a portrayal of that function. Which, DNA is essentially just a carrier of genetic information used to structure the development, appearance, and function of living beings. Passed on to children, in many species, from two parents.

    The image, is of Fuxi and Nüwa. In Chinese mythology, they’re credited with either being the first humans, or otherwise the creators of humanity. Which they made together, out of clay. In the image shown by Peterson, they also strongly represent (although I don’t entirely understand why, something to do with who they are, how they are arranged, and the things they are holding) the male-female and yin and yang interrelation. This duality of yin and yang is somewhat unique compared to many other dualistic systems, in that the two parts are also together a whole that is greater than the parts.

    All together, the image seems to me, to represent the idea of two beings coming together, to create something new, similar to themselves, but also with variation, as in the story, they are going from being half-human, half-snakes, to just humans.

    So, by my view, it’s not a model of DNA with any understanding of what the molecule is, it’s parts, or even that there is such a physical thing (And I don’t believe this is what Peterson was saying either). But it is a representation of DNA’s actual effect and function in the world, as it appeared to the people passing along these myths and creating these images. A sort of first-conceptual glimmering of an idea, that has grown to our current deep and detailed understanding of DNA.

    Now, Peterson seems to put a special emphasis on the two snakes being intertwined, I’m not sure of the mythological significance of that, and it shows up in far to many different cultures for me to research it easily. But like I said previously, you could always try asking him?

    • That’s just noise. Long-winded ahistorical noise. Our understanding of DNA did not evolve out of contemplation of mythology. This person seems to believe that contriving a post-hoc rationale is just as powerful as making observations and testing hypotheses.

  • “Debate him.” Jesus christ, but I hate the debate obsession. Creationists do this, too — they desperately want a contrived situation where their ideas are placed on a par with the bulk of the scientific consensus, even if they haven’t earned it, and they want it personified into a one-on-one conflict. It’s trial by combat. I have zero interest in debating J. Random Crackpot on a stage where he has rigged the game to give him every advantage, and I have nothing to gain.

I regret ever trying to address any of Peterson’s crappy arguments, but that’s exactly what they’re hoping for — they can’t win on reason and evidence, so they resort to a war of attrition with endless hordes of delusional fanboys bombarding me with garbage logic. I hate it, but years of conflict with religious fanatics has made me stubborn, and they’re nothing different.

Jordan Peterson gets burned hard

Whoa, you have to read this op-ed from a retired member of Jordan Peterson’s department at the University of Toronto — and not just a member, but his primary supporter in getting him hired and tenured, and who was good friends with him. Now it’s all regrets.

I thought long and hard before writing about Jordan, and I do not do this lightly. He has one of the most agile and creative minds I’ve ever known. He is a powerful orator. He is smart, passionate, engaging and compelling and can be thoughtful and kind.

I was once his strongest supporter.

That all changed with his rise to celebrity. I am alarmed by his now-questionable relationship to truth, intellectual integrity and common decency, which I had not seen before. His output is voluminous and filled with oversimplifications which obscure or misrepresent complex matters in the service of a message which is difficult to pin down. He can be very persuasive, and toys with facts and with people’s emotions. I believe he is a man with a mission. It is less clear what that mission is.

I am baffled by all the people who say things like that “He is a powerful orator”. I just don’t hear it — I find him meandering and pointless and weirdly distractable, but OK, I’m just going to have to recognize that some people are sympatico with his lecture style. Every teacher knows that there’s no such thing as a universal communication strategy.

But he really was a strong supporter, initially.

We did not share research interests but it was clear that his work was solid. My colleagues on the search committee were skeptical — they felt he was too eccentric — but somehow I prevailed. (Several committee members now remind me that they agreed to hire him because they were “tired of hearing me shout over them.”) I pushed for him because he was a divergent thinker, self-educated in the humanities, intellectually flamboyant, bold, energetic and confident, bordering on arrogant. I thought he would bring a new excitement, along with new ideas, to our department.

Been there, seen that. Contrary to the right-wing stereotypes of academia, we actually do look for different voices — someone with good credentials who is also enthusiastically radical will get some attention. We won’t necessarily hire them, unless there’s a strong advocate on the search committee, but yeah, that rings true. It’s also sometimes a colossal mistake.

He sat in on some of Peterson’s lectures. This also rings true.

He was a preacher more than a teacher.

We walk a tightrope in the classroom. I think it’s a good thing to be transparent about my biases, but I have to be careful to avoid strong rebukes of students’ ideas — my job is to give them the basics, get them thinking, and draw out their ideas in discussion. I am not the repository of all knowledge, I’m the guy who has read a lot and can steer the class in productive engagement with the material, I hope. That’s not Peterson’s style.

And then it gets weird.

Jordan exhibits a great range of emotional states, from anger and abusive speech to evangelical fierceness, ministerial solemnity and avuncular charm. It is misleading to come to quick conclusions about who he is, and potentially dangerous if you have seen only the good and thoughtful Jordan, and not seen the bad.

Shortly after Jordan’s rise to notoriety back in 2016, I emailed him to express my upset with his dishonesty and lack of intellectual and social integrity. He called in a conciliatory voice the next morning. I was reiterating my disappointment and upset when he interrupted me, saying more or less the following:

“You don’t understand. I am willing to lose everything, my home, my job etc., because I believe in this.” And then he said, with the intensity he is now famous for, “Bernie. Tammy had a dream, and sometimes her dreams are prophetic. She dreamed that it was five minutes to midnight.”

That was our last conversation. He was playing out the ideas that appeared in his first book. The social order is coming apart. We are on the edge of chaos. He is the prophet, and he would be the martyr. Jordan would be our saviour. I think he believes that.

He used to support him, but now he’s seeing serious problems with the man — problems that are probably key to his popularity, but also tell us what we ought to fear in this guy who is basically a religious fanatic on a mission from God.

What I am seeing now is a darker, angrier Jordan than the man I knew. In Karen Heller’s recent profile in the Washington Post he is candid about his long history of depression. Depression is an awful illness. It is a cognitive disorder that casts a dark shadow over everything. His view of life, as nasty and brutish, may very well not be an idea, but a description of his experience, which became for him the truth. But this next statement, from Heller’s article, is heartbreaking: “You have an evil heart — like the person next to you,” she quotes him as telling a sold-out crowd. “Kids are not innately good — and neither are you.” This from the loving and attentive father I knew? That makes no sense at all.

It could be his dark view of life, wherever it comes from, that the aggressive group of young men among his followers identify with. They may feel recognized, affirmed, justified and enabled. By validating them he does indeed save them, and little wonder they then fall into line enthusiastically, marching lockstep behind him. That is unnerving. The misogynistic attacks on the British broadcaster Cathy Newman, after she was humiliated and left speechless by Jordan in the infamous “gotcha moment” of their TV interview, were so numerous and vicious that Jordan asked his followers to back off. These devoted followers are notorious for attacking Jordan’s critics, but this was different. It was more persistent and more intense. That was not outrage in defence of their leader who needed none; she was the fallen victim and it was as if they had come in for the final kill. Jordan’s inflammatory understanding of male violence for which “the cure … is enforced monogamy” as reported by Nellie Bowles in the New York Times is shocking. This is upsetting and sad if you are, or were, Jordan’s friend. But it is also frightening.

Peterson is also getting scathing reviews of his skills as a therapist. Again, he’s not there to help people learn and become better — his goal is to bully people into accepting his dogma, or to pander to their beliefs if they’re already aligned.

Ugh. Just ugh. I can’t believe this fellow has such a zealous following, but then I’ve never understood how people can fall for Deepak Chopra, or Joel Osteen, or Donald Trump, either…but they do.

A martyr for Shermer

There was a small contretemps at Santa Barbara Community College a while ago. Michael Shermer was invited to speak, and a few people objected publicly. They pointed out his unsavory history! They dared to use their free speech to express a strong dislike for Michael Shermer! As an ardent advocate of liberty and freedom, Shermer could do but one thing: he blustered and threatened to sue the campus newspaper and various individuals unless they shut up. Fortunately, he chickened out when his lawyer informed him how much it was going to cost — or perhaps when it sunk in how much dirty laundry a lawsuit was going to uncover.

Now for the twist. Shermer’s most vociferous defender on campus was a philosophy instructor named Mark McIntire.

McIntire’s contract was not renewed this year — he’s out of a job.

So he’s set up a GoFundMe site to “defray his legal expenses incurred defending Dr. Michael Shermer”, which is a rather curious statement. What legal expenses? He doesn’t say. He was a guy firing off angry letters to the editor of the campus newspaper. I don’t think that costs money. Also, I think Shermer is well-off enough that he doesn’t need randos incurring undefined legal expenses defending him so they can ask for donations. I suspect this is dishonest: he also recently announced that he’s signed up with FIRE’s litigation project. He’s not raising money to defend himself, but rather, to go on the offensive and sue SBCC.

Also curious is that he lists a bunch of reasons why he was fired: he was accused of using “politically charged” topics in his classes, the chairman doesn’t like his facebook postings, and that he was accused of not understanding basic philosophical concepts. What he does not do is include the contents of his actual termination letter, which I can guarantee you doesn’t say any of those things. College administrators usually know how to cover their asses better than that. He goes further and claims that:

I will argue, in any future venue, that my removal is because I publicly oppose the ‘Social Justice Warriors’ who have seized control of Santa Barbara City College of late.

The real reason I will never be rehired is that I was the sole faculty voice expressing the cause of marginalized religious, conservatives, libertarians, homeschoolers, and/or Trump voters on staff, faculty, and student population. That is unacceptable on the SBCC campus today. Therefore, these are violations of my First and Fourteenth Amendments protections, attempting to silence and remove me from the SBCC campus forever.

You know, I really don’t believe that there is one word in the official correspondence from campus administrators that said any of that, which means his hypothetical lawsuit is going to have a tough time making a case. Also, I’m sorry to say, he was temporary, adjunct faculty, and those positions have limited support and are prone to termination on a whim. Without supporting McIntire personally — I think he’s a bit of a jerk — I do think the adjunctification of academia is disastrous, inhumane, and a disgrace to the system, and that every worker deserves better protections against frivolous dismissal.

I am also amused, though, that the body of Shermer defenders aligns so well with Trump supporters. If he was the “sole faculty voice” supporting assholes like himself (which I don’t believe for a minute — there are multiple regressive voices everywhere), then SBCC has just become a much more pleasant, rational, and collegial place.

If you want further entertainment, read the update, a letter of support from Michael Shermer. Once again, his defense against accusations is that he was never investigated by the police — exactly. He was never questioned by the police because conference organizers closed ranks and never forwarded any complaints to legal authorities. He was astoundingly privileged and sheltered when preying on women, and now he thinks that means he never did anything wrong.

Get out of my head, Eiynah!

Over at Nice Mangos, she posts about her perspective on movement atheism.

It’s quite depressing that movement Atheism has turned into such a joke. I valued it so much once.

This unraveling of the movement and it’s leaders has been tough to come to terms with. Especially for those of us who have already done this bit before…wrestled our beliefs, questioned respected leaders, lost community for it, and so on.

I had noticed a troubling turn 2-3 years ago. The questions in my mind became harder and harder to ignore when Rubin arrived on scene. He really brought the hypocrisies to the surface.

My personal, recent last straw was the treatment of the Krauss thing generally among movement leaders….and the Ezra Klein/Harris convo, the utterly obvious flaws in thinking. That was really it for me. No looking back and hoping former heroes come to their senses.

OK, that’s eerie — it’s the same scene, only about 5 years later, with different players. I noticed the “troubling turn” about 8 years ago, as more and more atheists began to rally around two themes: the Glorious Leaders who were fonts of inarguable Reason & Logic, and a definition of atheism that exempted them from all social responsibility or ethical obligation. The other big difference was that unlike Eiynah, I resisted criticizing with the excuses of #NotAllAtheists and they’ll outgrow the regressive social tendencies if we just keep trying. I was wrong. And it is quite depressing.

At least I can really love this portrayal of the shambles movement atheism is in right now.

Where’s all the energy of atheism going? Right into the pockets of those jokers, many of whom are openly anti-atheist.

Milo’s fate

It’s so sad and pathetic, and exactly what he deserves. Alex Jones “stormed” a Google Fiber office to see the “big AI supermachine” while raving and wandering around and confusing everyone, and he brought along a friend who tittered and joined in all the feeble fun — Milo Yiannopoulos. The clerk they talked to didn’t recognize him, and just seemed baffled by it all. Then they get kicked out and go to a bar and start babbling about evil technology.

They recorded the whole thing. It’s 40 minutes long, but it gets boring fast. Watch it yourself. You won’t be impressed.