Sins of omission

The other day, I got a request for an interview: a reporter was writing a story about Ken Miller. I was happy to do so — this was clearly going to be a friendly piece about Miller, and I thought it was good that he get some more press. I talked on the phone with this fellow for 20 minutes or so, and I told him what I thought: Miller is a smart guy, a great speaker, a hardworking asset to the people opposing creationism, and I also said that his efforts to squeeze religion into science were ill-founded and badly argued. I said, “It’s an effort to reconcile a legitimate discipline with foolishness.”

Guess what the only quote to make it into the article was?

Yeah, it turned out to be a crappy atheist-bashing article. It wasn’t enough to talk about Miller’s good work and the respect he gets from others — no, it had to be turned into a fight, with poor Miller unable to win because he’s being “attacked by Darwin-hating fundies and leftie atheists alike,” and the New Atheists are the primary villains of the piece. The more complex story I tried to tell got discarded, and only one short sentence made it to the final result. I must have been a major disappointment to the reporter, since I didn’t give him much in the way of vicious attack-dog quotes.

He also got a little bit from Jerry Coyne. Again, it’s clear but temperate stuff. The story really does not have anything to justify the claim that we’re out to get Miller, or that the New Atheists are somehow in symbiosis with fundagelical loons.

“By discussing science and religion together and asserting that science more or less points you to evidence for God, he blurs the boundaries between science and faith,” says Coyne, “boundaries which I think have to be absolutely maintained if we’re going to have a rational country and we’re going to judge things based on evidence rather than superstition.”

I agree completely with that — Miller does blur the lines in very silly ways. The article even reiterates Miller’s notorious explanation from his book, Finding Darwin’s God, and obliviously confirms Coyne’s point by approvingly citing the way Miller mingles nonsense with science.

But the cell biologist also makes explicitly scientific arguments: maintaining, for instance, that quantum indeterminacy — the ultimately unpredictable outcome of physical events — could allow God to intervene in subtle, undetectable ways.

This sort of sly intervention, he argues, is vital to the Creator’s project: if God were to re-grow limbs for amputees, for instance — if God were to perform the sort of miracles demanded by atheists as proof of his existence — the consequences would be disastrous.

“Suppose that it was common knowledge that if you were a righteous person and of great faith and prayed deeply, all of a sudden, your limb would grow back,” he says. “That would reduce God to a kind of supranatural force . . . and by pushing the button labeled ‘prayer,’ you could accomplish anything you wanted. What would that do to moral independence?”

That is not a scientific argument in any way—I guess the reporter was fooled by the flinging about of “quantum”. All that is is tired old post hoc theological apologetics without a hint of evidence to back it up.

Nowhere anywhere in the article is any reasonable support for the notion of a god, nor especially of any peculiarly Catholic deity. Of course there isn’t, because he doesn’t have any.

What he does do, again, is try to throw atheists under the bus. It’s more bullshit about how science has to compromise with the public’s version of spiritual superstition, rather than remaining true to the evidence.

But Miller rejects any suggestion that the science in his work suffers when he brings in the spiritual. And he argues that the New Atheists, in their forceful rejection of God, are doing damage, in their own right, to a scientific brand already under assault.

…

Indeed, Miller argues that the creationists and New Atheists are in an odd sort of symbiosis — reinforcing each others’ extreme views of the incompatibility of science and religion.

Well, fuck that noise.

The New Atheists are as much a force in opposition to creationism as is Ken Miller; more so, I would argue, because we don’t make fuzzy, muddled compromises with absurd medieval humbug. Even if he disagrees on that last point, his constant efforts to belittle the atheists on his side in this struggle, to repeatedly argue that they are a detriment to science education, is getting tiresome. Miller wants to turn the pro-evolution movement into a stalking horse for Catholicism, while his godless colleagues have repeatedly stated that we want no endorsement of religion or atheism in science education. The only one doing damage to the “brand of science” is the guy with pitiful idea that god is noodling about at the quantum level in ways that are completely undetectable — he wants to claim that he has an invisible dragon in his garage, and what’s more, that that claim is scientific.

Remind me, next time I’m asked about Ken Miller, that I shouldn’t bother to say anything appreciative. It will be ignored and won’t be reciprocated. And I’m not going to endorse his crusade to taint science with supernaturalism.

Reality rejection syndrome

This is old news. The NY Times has an article on the expanding agenda of creationists to include denial of lots of other phenomena that make them uncomfortable. We’ve known this for years! It isn’t just creationism; those beliefs have a surprisingly high correlation with denial of climate change, denial of HIV’s role in AIDS, anti-vax nonsense, rejection of the Big Bang, dualism, etc., etc., etc. At the root of these problems is discomfort with modernity and change, resentment of authority, anti-intellectualism, and of course, goddamned religion, which is little more than a rationalization for maintaining barbarous medieval values. So, yeah, face the facts: creationism isn’t just a weird reaction to bad science instruction and those annoying godless liberal college professors — it’s just one symptom of a deep-seated mental derangement.

One example from the story:

In Kentucky, a bill recently introduced in the Legislature would encourage teachers to discuss “the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories,” including “evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning.”

They often do this, taking the opportunity to try and get a whole slate of dogma incorporated into law. This one, from State Reprehensible Tim Moore of Kentucky, is just particularly stupid, but characteristic of the genre. I’m just impressed that now human cloning is a theory — I thought it was a technique.

They also mention the recent South Dakota resolution.

“Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant,” the resolution said, “but rather a highly beneficial ingredient for all plant life.”

Change the wording a little bit, and substitute “shit” for “carbon dioxide”, and it’s still just as true.

I have been repeatedly told that going to the root of the problem, the unwarranted deference given to religious views, is a tactical error if what we want is to improve the citizenry’s understanding of biology. What these kinds of absurdities reveal, though, is that creationism is just one wretched excrescence of a whole body of pathological thought…and that focusing on one symptom while avoiding the cause is pointless.

Now we’ve got Gypsy Creationists

It’s good to know that in the ecosystem of inanity, we have village idiots, like Ken Ham, and itinerant idiots, like Sean Meek. Meek has created something called The Traveling Creation Museum as part of his life’s work of making people stupider.

The Traveling Creation Museum is available to come to your location. It has exhibits on the days of Creation, the Flood, the Ice Age, dinosaurs and much more. It shows how the real scientific and historical information supports the Genesis account of Creation.The Museum includes many authentic antiquities from the ancient world and reveals in a dramatic and visual manner the grandeur of God’s creation.

That’s all the detail I’ve been able to find on this thing. There doesn’t seem to be a formal schedule for it, I haven’t found any photographs, I’m a little disappointed. I suspect that what it actually is is that if you give him a call, a creepy Christian guy in a safari suit will show up in his van (or maybe, if I indulge in a flight of grandiose fantasy, it’s something as elegant as a Winnebago) and hector kids about how the Bible is completely and literally true in every word. He’s one of those guys, the ones who insist that the Bible must be accepted as the ultimate authority on everything, which means that the Earth must be 6000 years old, something the Bible doesn’t say.

Attempting to compromise the Bible is like pulling a thread on a cheap sweater; it all begins to unravel. Suddenly all the verses that speak of God’s mercy and forgiveness begin to look self-serving and manipulative. All of the Bible would be built on lies and deception. As important as the question of Creation is, it is not the central question. The central is, and always has been, is the Bible really God’s Word?

No.

Wow, that was easy.

Anyway, if anyone wants to check this thing out, we do have a confirmed destination: it will be in Gastonia, NC, in the First Wesleyan Church, across the street from the Dairy Queen. That’s good news — it’s not like someone would have to travel to this obscure little place to see a craptacular display of a god-wallopers ignorance, you could also get yourself an ice cream cone.

Proud Canadians have written in to tell me that they beat us: they have their own ignorant ass with plans for a traveling museum.

OK, OK, you beat us at hockey. Do you have to get so danged competitive about everything now?

The Duggars visit the Creation “Museum”

The Duggars are that creepy family paraded about on The Learning Channel — the ones with the swarm of kids. It’s a horrifying show, but in this episode, the nightmare is compounded by the fact that they visit the Creation “Museum” and even get a personal guided tour from freakishly dead-eyed Ken Ham. Only watch it if you like to torment yourself.

One other reason to watch it: they show enough of the “Museum” that you really don’t need to go there.

Do pity these poor kids, too.

Target-rich polling environment

Oh, this is a cunning ploy to foil pharyngulation: a whole page of creationist polls, thrown up like chaff to distract us so we won’t slam any one of them too hard. You can still play, though, and skew them some. Here are three:

Do you believe dinosaurs and humans ever lived at the same time?

No
45,21%
Yes
39,92%
Probably not
7,84%
They probably have.
7,03%

How old is the earth?

Billions of years
47,01%
Around 6000 years
35,26%
Closer to 10,000 years
8,40%
Millions of years
7,56%
Close to 100,000 years
1,77%

Do you believe that humans were created or that they evolved?

I believe humans were created as humans in the beginning by God.
51,56%
I believe humans evolved from ape-like creatures with no intervention by God.
33,09%
I believe something different from all the options above.
9,44%
I believe God created humans and then they evolved.
5,91%

Right now it looks like a third to half of all respondents picked the stupidest answer possible, which is quite an accomplishment.

The Don McLeroy of Israel

I’m getting a flood of email from Israel. As one correspondent explains, Israel maintains three kinds of state-supported schools: one kind for the ultra-orthodox, because the state has always fostered freakishly fanatical ignorance among the lunatic subset, and these schools teach no science at all; a fully secular system, particularly in higher education, because Jews have also had a strong scholarly tradition, and Israel depends on material strategies for its survival, and these schools teach science very well; and a general intermediate kind of school where religion may be taught but science is also taught. That situation may be in peril now. Gavriel Avital, the chief scientist in the education ministry, has made a few statements that show he is a lunatic.

“If textbooks state explicitly that human beings’ origins are to be found with monkeys, I would want students to pursue and grapple with other opinions. There are many people who don’t believe the evolutionary account is correct,” Avital said yesterday.

“There are those for whom evolution is a religion and are unwilling to hear about anything else. Part of my responsibility, in light of my position with the Education Ministry, is to examine textbooks and curricula,” he said. “If they keep writing in textbooks that the Earth is growing warmer because of carbon dioxide emissions, I’ll insist that isn’t the case.”

Nobody has explained to me yet how such a putz got appointed in the first place, but this isn’t a good sign. The man is a freakin’ incompetent.

Prior to his appointment, Avital said in a video interview with Machon Meir, a religious-Zionist Jewish studies institute, “Another scientific field that is problematic is biology, or life and environmental sciences. When your doctrine is based on Darwin’s theory of evolution and its implications, you are standing on unreliable foundations – that is, there is no God, there was only something primeval, and then there are certain random developments which led to the apex of all creation, the human being.

“Today I am pleased that more and more scientists engaged in pure science, rather than being employed in the name of an ideology, are reaching the conclusion that the world must have a master. Nothing is given to chance,” he said. “These are my opinions and I won’t deny them just because I was appointed to an Education Ministry position.”

The chorus of outrage is already building among sensible scientists in Israel.

Yehoshua Kolodny, a professor emeritus at Hebrew University who won the Israel Prize for his contributions to the study of earth science, responded furiously to these statements yesterday.

“Denying evolution is like denying science itself,” Kolodny said.

“Evolution is not a theory, but an observation point that anyone can see. Perhaps Dr. Avital did not notice that throughout history, various species existed and then became extinct. In 2009, the entire world celebrated 200 years since the birth of Darwin and 150 years since the publication of his book ‘The Origin of the Species,'” he added.

“When a top scientist ignores these things, it’s a cultural calamity,” Kolodny said. “There are no disagreements among scientists regarding evolution. Catholics and Protestants long ago ended their war against evolution, and Avital is for all intents and purposes joining the radical fringe of evangelicals in the United States.”

I have to disagree with Dr Kolodny on one thing: Catholics and Protestants are still fighting over evolution in the US. Apparently some Jews are simply joining them now, parroting the same drivel that had its origins in fundamentalist/evangelical Protestantism.

Still, let’s add a few international voices to that chorus. Write to [email protected] and politely suggest that Gavriel Avital is clearly not the right man for the job.

Stay classy, Ken Ham, stay classy

The freethought community is grieving at the loss of Helen Kagin, and Ken Ham, petty whiner that he is, has decided to complain about her obituary.

We found it unfortunate that someone took this sad time as an opportunity to take a shot at the Creation Museum in an obituary. And sad, too, that some of the information was not correct. There were not hundreds at the protest rally outside the gates of the Creation Museum when it opened–we counted perhaps 70 people. Also it was not so “peaceful,” considering that the protestors brought in a loud rock band to disrupt our opening day, and also rented a plane to circle and buzz the museum for a few hours, dragging a banner stating: “Thou shalt not lie.”

She was one of Ken Ham’s many enemies, so I could understand a little fist-shaking…but this is so piously hypocritical. He finds it unfortunate that someone would snipe at the idiocy of his “museum” in an obituary, but doesn’t seem to find it at all unfortunate that he has chosen to snipe at the deceased.

And that’s without even the standard Christian snideness of opening up his complaint by pointing out how sad it is when someone dies…but at least Christians get to live forever in the “arms of the Lord and Savior”! I’ve run into more than a few Christians like that, who find their joy in the misfortune of others amplifed by the fact that not only are they dead, but they’re burning in hell, unlike his or her prospects.

Although I do find some personal satisfaction that Ken Ham is seething in this life over the contempt the Kagins have frequently expressed for Ham’s follies.