Another imminent event of sublime ridiculousness

It’s hard to beat the spectacle of Dinesh D’Souza defending a god for absurdity, but the Twin Cities Creation Science Association will leaven their idiocy with pathos: it will be time for the Twin Cities Creation Science Fair on 14-15 February. I’ve got at least one person promising to send me a report on it, although this is one I won’t be able to attend…I’m arranging a trip to speak in Columbus, Ohio that weekend. And as we all know, there are no creationists in Ohio. Right?

Barker/D’Souza debate

Since I was asked, I’ll mention that we do have an interesting event coming up at the end of this month:

January 29, Minneapolis, Minnesota

DEBATE! Dan Barker and Dinesh D’Souza will debate “Can we be good without God?” at the University of Minnesota on Thursday, January 29. Sponsored by CASH (Campus Atheists, Skeptics and Humanists) and Campus Crusade for Christ, and the Mars Hill Forum, this promises to be a HUGE event! Details to follow…

I’ll be sure to mention the details when they come up, since I think I’ll actually be able to attend myself. I’m flying out to Edmonton/Calgary the day after, and since I have to zip into the Cities anyway to catch a plane, I might as well get in some entertainment the evening before.

Another day of celebration

Since the wingnuts and creationists are busily pushing a bogus version of intellectual responsibility that they have labeled “academic freedom”, which is really an excuse to peddle any old nonsense to children, some wag is now promoting Academic Free-For-All Day.

Ever since that sad debacle known as the “Enlightenment”, a cult of knowledge-and-learning has insisted that any investigation be based on what has been learned in the past. How limiting! If we can only free our minds from the yoke of wisdom, the possibilities become endless. Also, there is way too much hero worship these days. Copernicus, Newton, Darwin, Einstein, blah, blah, blah. They are just a bunch of old dead white guys. Why stand on the shoulders of giants when we can peer from between their ankles?

On Academic Free-for-All day, everyone can have it their way. Don’t worry if 99.9% of the experts on some subject agree on one conclusion about the facts — if your ‘gut’ says differently, then go for it! No matter how wacky the idea is, you can usually find a handful of cranks with Ph.D.s to back you up!

They also have a t-shirt contest, always the hallmark of great ideas.

Getting ready for Darwin Day

You should mark your calendars now…oh, wait, you’re all godless neodarwinist stooges, so you’ve already got Darwin Day colored in with circles and arrows and hearts. OK, so you should add an annotation if you live somewhere near Minneapolis, because the Bell Museum is sponsoring a special Darwin Day Cafe Scientifique, which will combine art and science to tell the story of evolution.

LIFE: A Journey Through Time
North American Premiere /Darwin Day Opening Event
Thursday, February 12, 2009, 7 to 9 p.m.
Bell Museum Auditorium
$10/ free to museum members and University students

Celebrate the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birthday with a special preview of LIFE: A Journey Through Time. The event will feature top University biologists using Lanting’s photographs as a springboard to deliver a rapid-fire presentations relating their research on evolution to the images. From the big bang to the human genome, hear the newest theories on how life evolved and enjoy the North American premiere of one the world’s most celebrated photography exhibits. Think speed-dating – Darwin-style!

This event is also the premier of an exhibit of a stunning collection of nature photography. You should go to that, too.

LIFE: A Journey Through Time
February 14 – April 12, 2009

The University of Minnesota Bell Museum of Natural History is proud to host the North American premier of this internationally acclaimed exhibit. LIFE: A Journey Through Time, interprets the evolution of life on Earth through photographer Frans Lanting. Lanting’s lyrical photos trace Earth’s history from the beginnings of primordial life to the ascent of mammals through otherworldly landscapes and breathtakingly intimate portraits of animals and plants engaged in million-year-old rituals. Many of the exhibit’s 62 photographs are matched with real animal, fossil, and plant specimens from the Bell Museum’s collection. Born in the Netherlands, Lanting serves on the National Council of the World Wildlife Fund and is a columnist for Outdoor Photographer and has received the BBC Wildlife Magazine’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award and the Sierra Club’s Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography.

One other special feature is that the speakers (I’m one of them) are going to present in Pecha Kucha style. This could be interesting, too.

Pecha Kucha (usually pronounced in three syllables like “peh-chach-ka”) was started in Tokyo, Japan in February 2003 by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham as a designers’ show and tell event to attract more people to SuperDeluxe, their multi-media experimental event space they had set up in Roppongi.

The idea behind Pecha Kucha is to keep presentations concise, the interest level up and to have many presenters sharing their ideas within the course of one night. Therefore the 20×20 Pecha Kucha format was created: each presenter is allowed a slideshow of 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds. This results in a total presentation time of 6 minutes 40 seconds on a stage before the next presenter is up.

I’m planning to talk about the evolution of multicellularity…with 20 slides in 6 minutes and 40 seconds. We’ll see how that goes.

Did someone say “cognitive impairment”?

Alzheimer’s disease is a serious problem that causes devastating and progressive mental deficits, and we need to have some of our best minds working on it. So what are these two jokers contributing?

Dr. Michael Salla’s work in Exopolitics seeks to inspire humanity to appreciate pathological conditions like Alzheimer’s and Dementia within a broader context of Extraterrestrial activities, which have been repressed from a vital body of human knowledge. Dr. Salla and his colleagues seek to disclose insight and awareness of Extraterrestrial activities that are potentially having profound effects on the quality of human survival, and human sovereignty on our planet Earth. Dr. Salla specifically documents Manipulative Extraterrestrials that use mind control weapons technologies, that interfere with human cognitive functions. Could Alzheimer’s be a side effect of an alleged interference in human cognitive functions?

Dr. John Lash’s voluminous historical research focused on Pagan Gnostics, that documented their discovery of Manipulative Extraterrestrials referred to by Dr. Salla. The Pagan Gnostics referred to a constituency of Manipulative Extraterrestrials that apparently has played a key leading role in an alleged agenda of mind control against humankind, as the “archons”.

Salla and Lash — you aren’t helping.

Inaugural Freak Show – The Daily Beast

I hope most of you are well past your lunch or breakfast now, because this story might ruin it. Never forget that our country is still ruled by a superstitious lot of kooks, a mob of witch doctors wearing suits and ties. This video, which is way too long and boring, shows a Georgia Republican and a pair of clerical loons chanting and nodding and praising each other while they daub a door with magic oil. Seriously.

It’s the door Obama will walk through on his way to giving the oath of office. Apparently, a god will be especially pleased with him if a set of true believers grease the lintel first. Awfully petty of an omnipotent being, don’t you think?

Louisiana does a wicked thing

The state of Louisiana has passed an unfortunate law that allows teachers to toss in any ol’ garbage into their science curricula. For most teachers, this will make no difference at all in their classrooms; this is a law that specifically caters to irresponsible instructors who want to smuggle in questionable content. All you have to know to see that this is a bad bill is to look at the backers: conservative groups that want to see more religion in the schools, old-school fundamentalist creationists, and the Discovery Institute.

The Amputee Challenge

One of the older arguments against god is that there seems to be some limitations on the kinds of miracles he’ll do, especially healing miracles. Faith healers can make some little old lady’s pain go away, briefly, maybe, but the big one doesn’t work: why won’t god heal amputees? That would be a vivid miracle!

I would have said that no magical regeneration of human body parts has ever occurred, but someone has pseudonymously claimed otherwise on the Minnesota Atheists forum.

There is MEDICAL PROOF and DOCUMENTATION that proves GOD HEALS AMPUTEES.
If anyone so desires, I WILL FURNISH THIS PROOF FOR YOU –
I WANT TO HELP PEOPLE – NOT CONDEMN THEM.

The TRUTH EXISTS for those who really SEEK THE TRUTH, instead of burying their heads in sand like an ostrich, and believing that things don’t exist.

Furthermore; there is SCIENTIFIC & HISTORIC PROOF of GOD’S TRUE EXISTENCE that could not have been 50-100 YRS. AGO.

WAKE-UP ATHEISTS BEFORE YOU LOSE YOUR SOUL FOR ETERNITY – THAT IS FOREVER & EVER!

Despite his offer, alas, “The Prophet” posted under a pseudonym and without a public email address. So we’re going to have to go one better. The Sunny Skeptic is looking for volunteers, Christians of great faith, who are willing to trust in the Lord to fix an experimental amputation.

I don’t think I entirely approve of the protocol, however. It seems a great waste of a very useful power to lop off a limb and wait for regrowth, especially since veteran’s hospitals are full of people with debilitating injuries. I’d rather see The Prophet sweep through an amputee ward in a hospital and give us a demonstration of his god healing the broken and severely injured.

It sounds like the kind of thing military chaplains ought to be doing.