Jesus.

Joe Biden recently made some remarks in the Wall Street Journal in which he discussed some of Russia’s concerns, and he made this casual remark.

“I can see Putin sitting in Moscow saying, ‘Jesus Christ, Iran gets the nuclear weapon, who goes first?’ Moscow, not Washington.”

It’s not such an earthshaking idea; I’m sure a European nation has more cause to be concerned about fundamentalist Islam on their doorstep than we do way over here on the other side of the world.

Oh, wait.

What’s that? He said what?

He took the Lord’s name in vain?

Pffft. So what? People say things like that (and worse!) all the time. But then, you must read Mark Tapscott’s prolonged hissy-fit over that comment. Fifteen paragraphs and 700 words, all about the evil of saying “Jesus Christ” in a non-reverential manner.

It’s hate speech. It’s offensive. He’d never abuse Mohammed’s name in such a way. “Biden’s uncorrected cursing is indicative of the slow strangling by the unrelenting forces of political correctness of the religious tolerance that is Christianity’s greatest gift to America.”

Apparently, Christianity’s version of religious tolerance involves pitching a fit over public figures saying a few words with insufficient respect for their dogma.

Jesus Christ. Give me a break, you nutjob.

Suffer the little children

Heresy is so easy to do, you don’t even have to try. My wife is off helping kids at Camp Quest, which is, apparently, a horrible, awful, evil act. Just ask the Jebus-lovers of Rapture Ready, who were recently all agog at the opening of a godless summer camp in England. Here are a few of their reactions, stripped of the animated smiley faces and garish signatures they like over there.

Poor kids! What will they sing about?

Give peace a chance?!?

They could sing about sex and drugs and rock and roll, I suppose…but songs about peace sound like they’d be very nice. Why would a Christian find peace songs to be an unfortunate subject?

what kind of boring atheist themed arts and crafts will they do there?

sounds lame.

Heh. When I was a young fellow, I went to Vacation Bible School, so I know all about those exciting Christian-themed arts and crafts: making crosses out of popsicle sticks, making wallets with crosses embossed in them, making scenes out of pieces of felt, like Christ on the cross. Don’t tell me about lame, I have lived it.

Last I heard from Mary, the kids had been doing canoeing, swimming, archery, hiking, some Indian dance and movement exercise, the traditional smores, basket and candle making, and something to do with parachutes, while also bringing in people to work with the kids in skeptical exercises. They sounded very busy.

very sad indeed…..Jesus is exactly what these precious children need, along with their parents…How tragic.

I like that. Kids get together, have fun, learn things, and what they really need is…Jesus. Jesus, however, never shows up at summer camp.

Yeah, but this camp is not open to all faiths… its excludes those with FAITH. It is a demonic tool to lose souls of those that might hear the true Gospel but will be filled with poison in advance. IMO Every souls that is “won” to the athiest is another soul that will burn in hell for eternity! I would think that might be significant.

I don’t think that Camp Quest actively excludes people of faith — you’re welcome to send your kids there. It’s just that one of the many things they do there is teach critical thinking and expose kids to a plurality of beliefs. When I visited a while back, for instance, they had a pagan priestess come in and talk about her beliefs, and they had a regular program of bringing in advocates of weird religions, like Christianity, to come in and make a case for their superstitions.

But yes, if you believe a magic man in the sky sits petulantly on a great golden throne and wants human beings to spend all their time worshipping him, then he probably is planning to throw all those happy, free-thinking children into a lake of fire, so he can chortle over their eternal torment. If such a god existed, though, I don’t think I’d want to worship it.

Here’s my favorite comment from Rapture Ready. No embroidering from me is necessary.

Lets face it Atheism is bankrupt so they have to indoctrinate young children.

The Creation “Museum” has given us warning

The Creation “Museum” is experiencing some dread and trepidation about our visit, and they have sent a letter to me and to the SSA expressing their concerns. These are some reasonable worries, given that there will be a huge number of us (240 and counting) showing up in one mass. Here’s what they have to say, and my comment to all of you.

Dr. Paul Myers (and the Secular Student Alliance)
Biology Dept.
University of Minnesota-Morris
600 East 4th Street
Morris, MN 56267

Re: Creation Museum Visit – Notice of Policies

Dear Dr. Paul (“P.Z.”) Myers and the SSA:

As the Security Manager for the Department of Public Safety at the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum, I am writing in regard to your planned visit to the museum, along with those associated with the group called the Secular Student Alliance, scheduled for August 7, 2009.

The purpose of this letter is to advise you of our standard policies and requirements concerning guest behavior.

Succinctly stated, and posted on signs at a number of locations at the museum premises, is the following notice:

The Creation Museum is private property, an outreach of Answers in Genesis. Guests at the museum are expected to conduct themselves in a polite, respectful manner at all times. Loud, disrespectful, destructive, obscene, or abusive behavior will not be tolerated, and may result in your removal from the premises. Please be courteous to other guests, security personnel, and our staff while you are here. Thank you!

Also, please be advised that vehicles and all packages, bags, and articles may be subject to inspection when on the premises or when entering or leaving the premises.

In reviewing your blog and website at http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula, we have observed a number of hostile, crude, and profane comments that suggest that some in the SSA group may be using your visit as an opportunity to engage in demonstrations, mocking behavior, wearing offensive clothing, or in other conduct that would be offensive to our staff and to other guests. We note, for example, that you have written that you urge the group to wear “godless clothing.”

We understand that your group (which you have described as a “horde” or “mob”) will consist of over 200 persons, many of whom have posted comments on your Pharyngula blog ridiculing Ken Ham and the Creation Museum, using profane language, and some are indicating that it is their intent to conduct themselves in a manner that is provocative, overtly homosexual in behavior, or otherwise socially unacceptable for guests of this privately owned Christian facility. As I’m sure you’re aware, some of those statements reference intentions to be “loud” and also to wear “armbands” and T-shirts or other clothing with images or wording that would be considered offensive to our staff and others at the museum. Such conduct will not be tolerated.

The Creation Museum is a privately owned facility; there is no legal right to engage in demonstrations, to harass or insult other guests, staff members, or speakers, or to otherwise engage in conduct that would be disruptive or rude. Again, such actions will not be permitted.

So long as you and the SSA group are willing to abide by our policies requiring civil behavior at all times, to include being respectful of others and of our facilities, then you will be welcome as our guests; but if you do not intend to abide by these policies, then please cancel your visit to the Creation Museum.

We request your acknowledgment of receipt of this letter and your agreement to abide by these policies.

We note that, unlike the exchanges posted on the Pharyngula site, communications from Lyz Laddell of the Secular Student Alliance have generally been polite and respectful, which we appreciate.

We remain willing to host you and the SSA group, provided you assure us that your party will remain civil and abide by our policies and that you have addressed those who have expressed contrary intentions for their visit. We request the courtesy of receiving your written response prior to your arrival. If we do not receive your written assurance that your party will abide by our policies, we will have no choice but to turn your group away at the entrance.

Sincerely,

David Blaylock
Security Manager
Department of Public Safety

cc: John Pence, Esq.

Here’s what I expect: EVERYONE in our group will be firm, rational, and will not shy away from asking hard questions. You will feel free to wear some distinguishing clothing — a scarlet A, a Darwin fish, a t-shirt, something so that we can tell we are members of the same group. You will discuss the material on display with your peers, but with other visitors to the “museum” if and only if they invite it.

There are a number of things you will not do, however.

Do not show up wearing obscenities or particularly abusive articles of clothing. Dress casual, but look good — you are setting an example. Pro-science t-shirts are excellent, t-shirts with naked lesbians masturbating with bibles will give them an excuse to throw you out, so don’t do it. The SSA won’t even give you a ticket if you show up looking like you want to brawl.

You will not be disruptive. This is an information gathering mission that will make you a better informed individual to criticize bad ideas. Do not interfere with other visitors’ ability to examine the place. Ask questions only where appropriate. Collect questions that you can ask of any of the real scientists who will be in our group. Do not get into loud arguments. If a discussion starts getting angry on either side I want you to be the ones to back off.

Remember, if you are calm, civil, and well-behaved, and you tour the “museum”, we win. If you are calm, civil, and well-behaved, and the security guards throw you out because they don’t like the fact that you’re an atheist, we win. If you are angry, rude, and cause trouble that gives them a reasonable excuse to throw you out, we lose, and I will be very pissed off at you.

Before you go into the “museum”, you will have to get a ticket from the SSA staff. You will be expected to sign an agreement promising your good behavior before you get one, and we’ll lay down a few rules for good behavior. We’ll probably have several designated counselors who will be charged with keeping everyone in line, too — we will police our own (another reason we’d like to be able to tell you are one of our godless horde on site), and if you’re causing a scene that might lead to SSA’s disrepute, we’d like to ask you to leave before their security does.

After we leave their private property, it will be time to laugh and mock and vent, and we will: this trip will produce over 200 experienced people who know exactly what kind of lunacy the Creation “Museum” represents, and we will express ourselves in opinion pieces, on blogs, at school board meetings, and in gatherings with our friends. That’s where we get our payoff, not in rudeness during our visit that gets us evicted.

Our model for this visit will be my infamous expulsion from a movie theater. Remember, what made that work is that I did absolutely nothing to justify getting thrown out: I followed all of their procedures for getting tickets, I used my full name, I was respectably dressed, and I was behaving myself in line, having a quiet conversation with friends and family. That left no doubt that my ejection was arbitrary and personal and an attempt to silence me. It would not have been effective if I’d been capering about, rudely accosting people, or essentially making myself a target for justifiable removal. It’s the same situation at this event. Do not hide who you are, but also don’t give them any excuse to mistreat you, other than your identity as an atheist.

If you really want to vent about the abomination in Kentucky, register for the SSA conference. Lots of attendees will be there to talk, and I’ll be giving the keynote speech at the meeting…and my topic will be atheist activism, and I’ll be including material I’ll be gathering that Friday at the Creation “Museum”, including giving some formal rebuttals.

Geologists get to suffer with the idiots, too

My most memorable encounter with the anti-animal research cadres was several years ago, when I was a graduate student, and the Animal Liberation Front snuck into our building one night and vandalized one of my colleague’s labs; they destroyed data, stole some irreplaceable mutant lines, and walked away with most of the research animals, things like white mice and quail and other small furry lab-bred animals. In their noble humanitarianism, they later released them all just off of I-5, where all the baffled, frightened little beasties made the local red-tailed hawks very, very happy. It’s the kind of event that convinced me that these people are freakin’ morons.

I’m not against ethical standards for the treatment of animals at all — I think that ought to be required and monitored. But these animal rightists seem to have largely formed their knowledge of biology from Disney movies

I thought they were a plague on biology, but guess what? Geologists have to strive against the ignorant, too! One proud “eco-warrior” is bragging online about his efforts to disrupt geological research in British Columbia. He dismantled a seismic shot, an explosive device which sends echoes bouncing through the earth, which was being used in a pure research project to examine deep granite basoliths, as part of a study of how mountains are formed.

His excuses were that it would frighten sandhill cranes nesting a few kilometers away, that it was probably secret surveying for the oil industry (yeah, right — I’m only a biologist, and even I know you don’t go drilling beneath mountain ranges for oil), and that it was all done without informing the community. For this, Ingmar Lee charges ahead and damages a simple research operation that, like most geology projects, was operating on a shoe-string already.

I think that Lee expects kudos and congratulations for his ignorance; perhaps you should politely inform him otherwise. Leave him a civil, informative comment at his site to correct him. The only part I’ll bother to reproduce from his posturing is part of his correspondence. He wrote to the PI of the research project to complain about the seismic shot, and John Hole wrote back, politely explaining what they were and were not doing, and how the public process was carried out. It’s an excellent example of good communication by a scientist, and is a model for how to address public concerns. It’s too bad the recipient was a committed ideologue who thought it would be heroic to smash up some science.

From: John Hole
Date: 2009/7/12
Subject: Re: Great Bear Rainforest Seismic Shot: Batholiths On Land Seismic Program mid-July, 2009
To: Ingmar
Cc: John Hole , George Spence

Mr. Lee,

I understand your distrust of government. We are not “them”. We are not the petroleum industry either. We are university scientists, who, for purely scientific reasons, submitted funding proposals to study mountain-building processes – to us this is a really cool part of nature. Our budgets are definitely not massive – to the point where our crew is mostly unpaid student volunteers. Our science will be student research projects, published in public online journals. Since the research is about the wrong type of rocks (granite), it will not be useful to petroleum companies.

Government employees working at the lowest local levels usually are not “them” either; these folks are more likely to be the whistle blowers. The government employee scientists who reviewed and approved the environmental-biological aspects of our proposal are based in Bella Coola (DFO and MinEnv) and Williams Lake (MinEnv). They seem pretty “green” to me – they sure asked a lot of questions and cancelled/shrunk a few of our proposed shots for good environmental reasons that only a local would know. We were happy to comply.

The marine Batholiths was not shut down due to the potential for marine damage. A permit was neither denied nor approved. We withdrew our application because the government permit process would take longer than the lifetime of our budgets.

When we withdrew our marine application in 2007, we informed all of the groups / organizations / agencies with whom we were in contact that we intended to propose a land project. We communicated about the marine and the land projects in the same manner, assuming the outreach would be equally effective – it worked for the marine. There was no attempt at secrecy.

It is unfortunate that the CCRD, Shearwater Resort, and Heiltsuk Nation did not inform your community about the land. We thought that they did. I can only guess that they were so unconcerned that they did not think they needed to.
Is there an alternate organization with whom we should be in contact?

Regarding monitoring, we are set up to quantitatively monitor ground shaking – that’s our expertise. Sound in the water comes from the ground shaking (not from the air “whump” noise), so we can calculate water noise. We would be pleased to cooperate with anybody who wishes to monitor biological reactions, but all relevant agencies and local organizations have said there was no need. This is not meant as an excuse, but context matters: routine local operations regularly cause more wildlife disturbance than us. Would you like to set up a scientific monitoring?

Thank-you for your communications – and your honest emotions. Unfortunately many of your impressions of us and the project are poorly informed. It is very unfortunate that the local organizations did not communicate with you.

Sincerely,
John

ps. I am a Canadian citizen, but I live and teach in Virginia. If you think your government is bad…

Romania struggling against the forces of ignorance

Everyone was so impressed with this clear-thinking Romanian woman whose video I posted last week — from that alone you might get the impression that Romania is a very rational place, full of level-headed smart people who have little truck with religious silliness.

To correct that, you should read the web page of the Romanian Humanist Association, which is fighting a tide of state-sanctioned nonsense rising in their educational system.

They have posted a brief education of some of the educational standards endorsed by the ministry of education. They are teaching creationism in the classroom and in their textbooks! For instance, one of their textbooks has a section that presents a day-age version of Genesis, illustrating each of the ‘days’ of Genesis and pretending to correlate them with the scientific evidence (they don’t line up, no matter how hard you try; the sloppy folk taxonomy of the Bible cannot be made to correspond to any pattern of evolutionary ancestry or the evidence of the fossil record).

They have two exercises described. One is to regurgitate the Genesis sequence alongside the scientific evidence, as if they have parity. The other is to have a classroom debate, splitting the class in two with one side taking the scientific view and the other the theological position.

This is very bad pedagogy. In a science class, you have to approach everything from the perspective of the material evidence, the observations and experiments that lead to a reasonable conclusion. The theologians have none, so this exercise has only two possible results: you either put half your class into the position of being humiliating failures for an hour, or you have to cripple the scientific side so much in order to give both an equal chance that you’ve compromised on the scientific instruction.

Both are bad. I’d never do such a thing to my students; my struggle has always been to give the creationist students enough shelter that they can freely express their ideas (where they can then be examined and corrected) without being eaten alive by the majority of students in the class. You do not ever elevate wrong ideas to equal status with good ones, and you also do nothing to turn students in your class into punching bags!

This is what the religious influence on the Romanian government has done, though: the theologians are cheerfully pushing superstition into the science classes, and no doubt expecting that these bad ideas will be treated deferentially. It’s good to see the Romanian Humanist Association fighting back, at least.

Amsterdam is a cesspool of corruption

If you believe Bill O’Reilly and Fox News, that is. They’ve been fond of claiming that that very liberal European nation’s experiment with tolerance and personal freedom is a complete failure, that the Netherlands is collapsing in anarchy. So an Amsterdam resident made a short clip documenting cultural armageddon.

That was beautiful, an extremely effective rebuttal. If the Netherlands is in decay, the comparison of the statistics between that country and the US must mean that Bill O’Reilly really despises America.

Now I want to move to Amsterdam.

Republicans have become certifiably insane

The other day, one of those routine, empty resolutions came up in congress: a Hawaiian representative brought up a nice fluffy little resolution recognizing the 50th anniversary of Hawaii’s statehood, which contained a collection of whereas’s listing notable features of the state. Bland stuff, nothing controversial, except maybe one line, if you’re a kook: one of the points of pride is that Hawaii has now contributed a native son to the White House.

Need a kook? Minnesota’s own Michele Bachmann stood up to shoulder the honor. She bravely blocked the vote. (The resolution has since been passed.)

I could accept the occasional wacko, even if they do come from my own state, but it goes deeper than that. A huge chunk of the Republican contingent at the capitol is either buying into this ‘birther’ nonsense, or is so afraid of losing the far right wing vote that they won’t speak out against it. This is a hilarious video of Mike Stark interviewing Republican representatives, asking them if they believe Obama was a natural born citizen who could legitimately serve as president…and most of them dodge the question.

These people are nuts.

More geology!

Not long ago, we had a story about the University of Wyoming shutting down their geology museum. Now the issue has become…an online poll! We know what to do with online polls, don’t we, boys and girls?

Should UW put funds into keeping the Geological Museum open?

Yes, it needs to be open all the time.
(935 Votes, 60%)
Yes, but they were right to open it part-time to save money.
(516 Votes, 33%)
No, they need to close whatever keeps them financially sound.
(72 Votes, 5%)
They should turn the museum into a skate park and make some cash instead.
(29 Votes, 2%)

AT&T vs. 4chan

Imagine a titanic battle. No, not T. rex vs. a killer whale, but something more alarming, like T. rex vs. a massive bacterial infection. Which side do you think will win?

Something similar is going on right now. AT&T, the T. rex of the story, is going after 4chan, the infamous nest of /b/tards and fierce crackers and hackers, an unstoppable plague of corruption. AT&T is doomed if they continue.

AT&T has been sneakily trying to silence 4chan by quietly dropping access requests to the site by users on their network. I am not a great fan of 4chan (actually, I tremble in fear at even mentioning them, so I have to respect them—I’d rather piss off the Catholic Church than 4chan), but in this case I have to be on their side without reservation. AT&T is violating net neutrality and trying to censor voices on the web…and even if they succeeded in completely silencing one site on the web, the net is fluid, and they’ll just emerge elsewhere. With a grudge and a cause.

An update direct from 4chan:

For the past three weeks, 4chan has been under a constant DDoS attack.
We were able to filter this specific type of attack in a fashion that
was more or less transparent to the end user.

Unfortunately, as an unintended consequence of the method used, some
Internet users received errant traffic from one of our network
switches. A handful happened to be AT&T customers.

In response, AT&T filtered all traffic to and from our img.4chan.org
IPs (which serve /b/ & /r9k/) for their entire network, instead of only
the affected customers. AT&T did not contact us prior to implementing
the block. Here is their statement regarding the matter.

In the end, this wasn’t a sinister act of censorship, but rather a bit
of a mistake and a poorly executed, disproportionate response on AT&T’s
part. Whoever pulled the trigger on blackholing the site probably
didn’t anticipate [nor intend] the consequences of doing so.

We’re glad to see this short-lived debacle has prompted renewed
interest and debate over net neutrality and internet censorship?two
very important issues that don’t get nearly enough attention?so
perhaps this was all just a blessing in disguise.

Aside from that, I’ll also add that there is some big news due later
this week. Keep an eye on the News page, Twitter, and global message
for updates.

Monday must be Pick On Francis Collins Day!

Sam Harris seems to have triggered some kind of reflex, because there is discussion going on all over the place.

Jerry Coyne has a long piece up that chews over that awful talk Collins gave at Berkeley. He has the full recording of the whole talk — it was titled “The Language of God: Intellectual Reflections of a Christian Geneticist”, and I’m pretty sure the fifth word slipped in there entirely by mistake — and it is a genuinely appalling load of rubbish. It’s two hours long, but I could only make it through the first half hour before having to give up. I thought I had a strong stomach from years of wading through the creationist literature, but I guess I have limits.

I ran away in exasperation at the point where he starts babbling about the fine-tuning argument, claiming that there are only two possible choices: either there is a multiverse with an infinite number of possibilities to explore, or the cosmic constants were chosen by his god. What about chance? There’s nothing impossible about the fact that our universe was the product of a chance event: after all, I am the product of a chance event, a randomized mixture of the genes of two people equally the product of chance. You can’t simply rule out the importance of chance events in the history of individuals or the universe, but Collins does. And what about necessity? It may be that a universe can only exist if it possesses an interlocked set of constants…that, in fact, all the parameters of the universe are co-contingent and co-dependent.

Anyway, I’ve read his book, but I hadn’t experienced the full force of his looniness until I’d seen that presentation. The man is a flaming idjit.

US New and World Report weighs in, too, and asks a couple of reasonable questions that I have to answer in the negative.

But isn’t it possible that Collins’s faith might be valuable for NIH beyond its PR power?

From spending some time with him, it appears that Collins’s scientific curiosity is at least partially motivated by a faith-based desire to understand what he believes is God’s universe. Isn’t that a net positive, given that it helped him lead the team that decoded the human genome?

And might not his faith lend guidance on inevitable questions he’ll face around scientific ethics? Don’t those ethics have to be rooted in some moral or religious system that transcends pure science?

Curiosity is a fine thing and I have to encourage any wellspring for it. However, the defining feature of Collins’ faith, and that part of it that makes it objectionable, is that he uses it to wall off parts of the human world from curiosity. The human genome project was a technological exercise, a sustained, disciplined effort to apply developing tools to a specific, narrow problem. It opens up new avenues for science, but in itself was not a demonstration of scientific competence. His administrative ability led the work to a conclusion, not his scientific skill set.

And what has he done with it afterwards? Declared the genome a divine artifact, decreed that certain domains, such as human behavior and morality, are exempt from scientific scrutiny, and proposed a succession of freakish Christian dogmas as substitutes for reasoned analysis. At this point, where the real science takes over, his faith only gets in the way.

And please, don’t ever equate faith with ethics. They have nothing to do with each other, except, perhaps, that faith is a commonly used escape clause to get away from the requirements of human morality. Science itself is a tool, as amoral as a hammer, and it certainly can be misused, but don’t go crawling to the priests for guidance. Let’s hear from philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, and lawyers long, long before we consult with theologians—I can’t imagine a worse fate for scientific ethics than for it to fall under the sway of a dogmatic Christian.

Russell Blackford takes a pragmatic approach: we’re stuck with Collins, there isn’t much we can do to oppose his appointment, and we can’t even make the argument that he’s a crummy bureaucrat — he’ll do a competent job in the office. I agree completely. There really are no plans for the godless horde to march on Washington, there will be no effigies burnt, we aren’t going to even throw rotten tomatoes at the NIH building. We will sigh and go on.

However, we will continue to make quiet complaint, and we will be scrutinizing his actions carefully.

The situation is this: the White House has picked for high office a well-known scientist with a good track record in management who wears clown shoes. Worse, this scientist likes to stroll about with his clown shoes going squeak-squeak-squeak, pointing them out to everyone, and bragging about how red and shiny and gosh-darned big his shoes are, and tut-tutting at the apparent lack of fine fashion sense exhibited by his peers who wear rather less flamboyant footwear.

I would rather Obama had appointed someone who wore practical shoes, and didn’t make much of a fuss about them, anyway. And excuse me, but I don’t want American science to be represented by a clown.