My readers hate me, and like to make me suffer. That’s the only way to explain why they would send me links to the ghastly Huffington Post. I swear, it’s becoming as insane as World Net Daily.

The latest screed is from some bozo named Dr Larry Dossey. The awfulness begins right away, as he quotes Jeremy Rifkin, the professional Luddite, on the scientific method.

[T]he scientific method [is] an approach to learning that has been nearly deified in the centuries following the European Enlightenment. Children are introduced to the scientific method in middle school and informed that it is the only accurate process by which to gather knowledge and learn about the real world around us … The scientific observer is never a participant in the reality he or she observes, but only a voyeur. As for the world he or she observes, it is a cold, uncaring place, devoid of awe, compassion or sense of purpose. Even life itself is made lifeless to better dissect its component parts. We are left with a purely material world, which is quantifiable but without quality … The scientific method is at odds with virtually everything we know about our own nature and the nature of the world. It denies the relational aspect of reality, prohibits participation and makes no room for empathic imagination. Students in effect are asked to become aliens in the world.

There is absolutely nothing in that description that fits my conception of the scientific method. It’s utter nonsense written by someone who doesn’t understand science in the slightest, but is familiar with cartoon stereotypes of the scientist as heartless robot. Seriously, has this guy never heard of Richard Feynman? Neil deGrasse Tyson? Roy Chapman Andrews? Any of the biologists I know? We become part of the world by understanding that world as it actually is, unwarped by the superstitious illusions people like Dossey want to impose on it.

As usual, the complaint is an indignant claim that scientists will tell you that science is the only “accurate process by which to gather knowledge and learn about the real world”, which is true. Instead of saying what it is not, though, just once I’d like to see one of these clowns tell me plainly and clearly what his alternative is. Dossey does not.

It’s probably just as well. His latest book is on the “Power of Premonitions”, and he’s also written books on the power of prayer. He’s a credulous magic man, in other words.

I like this. Larry Moran has the summary of a talk by Francis Collins, who asserts that science and religion are entirely compatible. Here are Collins’ last few slides:

[First Slide] Almighty God, who is not limited in space and time, created a universe 13.7 billion years ago with its parameters precisely tuned to allow the development of complexity over long periods of time.

[Second Slide] God’s plan included the mechanism of evolution to create the marvelous diversity of living things on our planet. Most especially, that plan included human beings.

[Third Slide] After evolution, in the fullness of time, had prepared a sufficiently advanced neurological “house” (the brain), God gifted humanity with free will and with a soul. Thus humans received a special status, “made in God’s image.”

[Fourth Slide] We humans used our free will to disobey God, leading to our realization of being in violation of the Moral Law. Thus we were estranged from God. For Christians, Jesus is the solution to that estrangement.

That’s it. A very simple but, I think, entirely compatible view that does no violence either to faith or to science. And puts them in a harmonious position …

Then Larry asks six simple questions that are basically, “where is the evidence for that claim,” or “how do you know that?”. I could break those slides down into more than six questions; if you listen to Collins’ whole talk, you know that every one of those claims for what his god did are simply phwooomfed into existence magically, with no supporting reason at all, other than the fact that he is a Christian who needs to believe in these miracles in order to continue being a Christian.

As for his final sentence … he’s wrong. He has done great violence to science. He might as well have dragged science into a dark alley and hacked it to bits with an axe.

Somebody was a little peevish that I slammed a woo-wooish poll. It’s not much of a note, but for some reason Mr Spagnuolo’s complete obliviousness tickled me.

I read your article about the lost girl and the man that gave credit to God for helping him to find her. You Sir, are a dick. Your arrogance has made you blind to the point where you take pot-shots at things your ‘scientific’ mind can’t even begin to comprehend. Quit being a dick.
-Chris Spagnuolo

I can’t. It’s who I am.

I think, though, that I am able to comprehend some guy finding a lost girl in a swamp by chance. Mr Spagnuolo can’t even do that! Maybe it’s his dicklessness that is the problem.

So it really does cause earthquakes!

“Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,” Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media. Sedighi is Tehran’s acting Friday prayer leader.

Suddenly, I feel exposed and embarrassed — not much action going on in Minnesota, I guess, while California and Japan are getting jiggy all the time. And oh boy, Iceland — was everyone getting wild there, or what?

A lot of people sent me links to that really dope Insane Clown Posse video where they expressed wonder at how magnets work and cussed out the scientists for lying to them, but I ignored you all, because when I said “dope”, I meant it literally. It was a pair of poseurs exposing their ignorance.

Don’t go looking for it. It’s just too awful. Instead, appreciate this lovely parody from Saturday Night Live.