Oregon or bust

Get ready, West coast: in two weeks I’ll be in Ashland, Oregon, speaking in the Meese Room, Hannon Library, at Southern Oregon University, at 7:00pm on 23 April. If you aren’t a student, you’ll have to pay a whole $10 to hear me — that’s more than I’d pay to see a Michael Bay movie, and I won’t have any car chases or explosions! This is a talk sponsored by The Jefferson Center, and you should check them out if you want to know more. There may be other events around that date — I know I’m doing a radio program one morning, and I’ll be there for a few days.

The subject of the talk is the legacy of Charles Darwin, and I’ll be specifically talking about “Darwin and Design“. It’s one of the annoyingly ahistorical properties of creationists that they don’t look at the evidence, forgeting all the arguments that went on before, and they don’t seem to realize that Darwin’s Origin is fundamentally one long argument against design and intent in nature. I’m going to talk about both the history of the argument, from Paley to Darwin, and the modern evidence that demonstrates the dysfunctional uselessness of this repackaged theology called “Intelligent Design creationism”.

It should be fun. It should be even more fun if a few of you Oregonians who read the blog can make it.

Hitchens among the benighted

I’m dumber for even listening to this: Christopher Hitchens in a debate with FIVE blithering theologians (one of them was the so-called moderator). Hitchens was excellent, but the four other guys…Jebus. They all trot out these ridiculous arguments about a first cause and fine tuning and oooh, the historical evidence for Jesus is so good. Lee Strobel, in particular, is a flaming fraud and liar.

William Lane Craig was interesting, but stupid. His argument was that people couldn’t have a debate if they were the mere product of chemical reactions, because chemical reactions just fizz, they don’t hold debates. That’s an argument from ignorance; it’s claiming that all chemistry is a big black box he doesn’t know anything about, there’s no difference between biology and the chemistry of soda pop, and he needs to imagine a ghostly puppet master making the pop bottle dance. My impression of Craig’s intellectual acumen plummeted in this one debate. (My impression of Strobel, of course, was already flopped flat in the mud, and the others I’d never heard of).

Hitchens, though…wow. That takes guts to charge into such a biased audience and a panel stacked and loaded against him, and maul them all.

Man-hating Chinese doctors murder baby!

God blessed a Chinese woman with twin baby boys, each one ensouled at the instant of fertilization with personhood and a personal divine fate. At their birth, though, the doctors callously ended one proud male life…and they’ve probably got the poor fellow pickled in a jar somewhere. Here’s a photo of the pair.

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That is a baby. The odd blob on his back? That’s his brother, a nicely formed penis growing and thriving there. This is a case of fetus in fetu, in which a mass of cells, either an absorbed twin or a large teratoma (a surprisingly well differentiated, but abnormal, fragment of embryonic tissue), form a partial individual fused to a larger fetus. In this case, all that made it was a penis and what looks like some other adjoining tissues.

Please note that Little Wang (the kids were unnamed, but I have to call him something) is made up of entirely human tissue, and is genuinely alive — blood flows through him, he was probably innervated with sensory and motor nerves, he is obviously sufficiently differentiated that we have no problem calling him male, and he is a miracle of creation — yet what did the doctors do? In a cruel three hour operation, they cut him away from his brother and let him bleed to death.

Yeah, I know what you’re going to say: he was a parasite, entirely dependent on his brother for survival, and could not live on his own—but we all know that argument is totally bogus, because…because…well, because it just is! Life is precious, and you must choose life!

(OK, seriously, this was an awkward developmental difficulty for the child and his parents, but it’s also fascinating. Not enough detail is given in the articles; I’d like to know about deeper levels of organization. Were the various ducts present? Was there any recognizable pelvic tissue? Three hours of surgery implies there may have been some internal entanglements? And most importantly, that location implies that there might have been some spinal involvement — I hope the kid is entirely all right now, and that there won’t be any long term problems.)

(And again seriously, it does raise issues of individuality and human identity. I have no problem saying that the extra penis is an unwanted growth that can be eliminated with no ethical difficulties…but people who claim personhood for a tiny ball of cells ought to have greater problems with this case.)

Ray Comfort repeats the same dumb things again

Ray Comfort went off to New Zealand to have a debate — and wouldn’t you know it, he stood up there and repeated the same bunk he spouts on his blog. Oh, wait: he did change one thing. Instead of talking about elephants, he changed his animal that he claimed couldn’t possibly have evolved to a dog. Woo hoo. He also completely ignored his opponent’s arguments.

Ray Comfort is currently in the lead for top status in my list of dishonest, stupid creationists.

She will have no choice?

The National Organization for Marriage could be a spoof, they’re so silly…but they seem to take themselves very seriously. They have an ad out against gay marriage now that should win a prize for attempted dread.

They try to sound so open to the idea of gays marrying each other, but the real threat is some mysterious plan they have, which is never mentioned, that will force heterosexuals to change their lives. Near the end, some sad-looking woman says, “I will have no choice.” No choice for what? Are you cruel homosexuals planning to force Suzie Spinster to marry a lesbian or something?

Give them a few years. Nothing will happen to them, and their ridiculous organization will dry up and blow away.

(via Wonkette)

Gingi is angry

She’s so mad about how mean pro-choice people are, that she’s making up new facts. She says she received death threats over her callous use of the death of children, which may be entirely true (and if it is, I’m pissed off at you: no, it doesn’t matter how vile her behavior is, you don’t threaten physical harm over it), but she also makes strange claims about how harmless the raving loonies of the anti-choice movement are. Part of it is fallacious context. The anti-choicers haven’t blown up as many buildings as the number of churches that have been burned down! (Never mind that there is no group advocating the destruction of churches.) EarthFirst! and ALF/ELF have done more property damage than they have…and we people who believe that women should have a right to choose endorse those actions. Wait, what? She couldn’t have really said that. Yes, she did.

It’s astounding that the open-minded abortion-loving crew can’t seem to wrap their heads around the concept of hostility towards buildings that house infanticide and mass assembly-line slaughter, all while they support and applaud the regular targeting of churches, synagogues, forestry companies, corporate and university-based medical research laboratories, medical-supply firms, fur farms and other industrial buildings.

It’s the first time I’ve ever been accused of applauding the destruction of laboratories, anyway. I also don’t think of women’s health clinics as places of mass assembly-line slaughter.

She also makes up some weird numbers. How about this?

In the entire history of the struggle over abortion, only 7 pro-abortion activists (including three abortionists) have been murdered. Compare that to the 520 murders by pro-aborts and the 360 fatal botched abortions by abortionists including: 145 pregnant women, 360 abortion clients, 71 other women, 110 born children, 164 wanted preborn children and 30 men.

I like that. They’ve only murdered 7! They must not be so bad after all.

I’m baffled by the other numbers, though, and no source is given. So pro-choice activists have acted like Paul Hill, walked up to 520 people, and gunned them down in cold blood? What are the circumstances behind these claims?

But anyway, don’t bother with Gingi Edmonds — she’s demented and hysterical. In particular, do not send her threats of harm! That is never appropriate under any circumstances.

There is something productive that you can do, though. Every year on Good Friday, the MisogynyNow! crowd, thousands of rabid anti-choice fanatics, converge on family planning clinics and do their usual sign waving, shouting dance of hate against women using the facilities. It’s not as if you people have church services you need to attend, so sign up for a counter-demonstration at the Highland Park Planned Parenthood and show your support with peaceful social action. There may be similar activities in your neighborhood — look them up. There may be a thousand Gingi Edmonds howling and weeping there, but all you have to do is stand up against them in defense of reason and women’s autonomy.

(via Sunny Skeptic)