What does Spain think of the atheist bus campaign?

Well, if you believe in online polls, they don’t like it very much. But hey, you know what we think of online polls! I suspect that we’ll be able to win over all of the beautiful country of Spain with a few clicks on all of our computers. Here’s the question, and the current state of affairs:

Que opinas sobre esta campaña ateista? (What do you think of the atheist bus campaign?)
Pésima (very bad): 83%
Mala (bad): 4%
Antiliberal: 8%
No se (don’t know): 0%
Buena (good): 5%

Will it become buena in the next few hours?

By the way, the slogan sounds much prettier in Spanish: Probablemente Dios no existe. Deja depreocuparte y disfruta la vida.

There is no religion of peace

I’ve been hiding from the horrible news in the Middle East, but this story induced me to poke my head out of my tortoise shell…so I can puke. A rabbi consulted his holy books to see what God had to say about the vicious violence going on right now, and you can guess what God’s word might be:

Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings.

Of course. Did we expect anything else? No moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians. Thank you for the carte blanche, God. How about raping? Is that OK? Baby butchering? Raping butchered babies? I’m sure it’s all good.

Sometimes it is so difficult to be an atheist. I don’t even have the solace of imagining Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu sizzling in hell, right next to Arnaud Armaury.

Chemical replicators

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We’re one step closer to self-sustaining chemical replicators, similar to what would have existed a few billion years ago, before true cells evolved. Lincoln and Joyce have created a couple of relatively simple molecules that assemble themselves from even simpler precursors in a test tube.

It’s not as straightforward as the simplest scheme one might imagine. The simplest model would be for a single enzyme, E, to catalyze its own assembly from two smaller precursors, A and B. This formula would lead to a test tube full of A and B to be quickly converted to a test tube full of nearly nothing but E with the introduction of a single copy of E. The actual solution is a little more difficult to explain.

[Read more…]

Brunswick, North Carolina: Ground zero for stupidity

The Brunswick school district is still arguing about teaching creationism. As is typical, the usual clueless ideologues from the community are getting up there in front of the board and babbling. Look at this argument:

The topic came up after county resident Joel Fanti told the board he thought it was unfair for evolution to be taught as fact, saying it should be taught as a theory because there’s no tangible proof it’s true.

“I wasn’t here 2 million years ago,” Fanti said. “If evolution is so slow, why don’t we see anything evolving now?”

That statement makes no sense. The slower evolution is, the more difficult it is to see the slow changes within the brief period of recent time. He has answered his own question! The second clause is simply raw ignorance, though, since we do see organisms evolving now. Bacteria, insects, lizards, birds…we’ve got lots of examples in organisms with shorter generation times than ours, and we even have molecular evidence of genetic changes in humans in the last 10,000 years. Is Fanti Italian for “Fool”?

Worse, though, is the fact that members of the school board are buying into this nonsense. They want to stuff creationism into the curriculum, somehow.

Board attorney Joseph Causey said it might be possible for the board to add creationism to the curriculum if it doesn’t replace the teaching of evolution.

Schools’ Superintendent Katie McGee said her staff would do research.

Babson said the board must look at the law to see what it says about teaching creationism, but that “if we can do it, I think we ought to do it.”

WHY? This is idiotic.

I think the square root of 9 is 27. I think that idea ought to be shared with the students in arithmetic class. As long as it doesn’t replace the teaching of the dogmatic opinion that the square root of 9 is 3, I think we ought to do it.

I think Moby Dick was written by Herman Shakespeare. I’m pretty sure we can find lots of Ph.D. experts in literature who will tell you that Shakespeare was the most important writer in our language, so I see no harm in promoting his importance further. If discussing Shakespeare’s extensive temporal contributions to American literature doesn’t replace a few a few American authors, it ought to be possible for the board to add my theory to the curriculum.

Creationism does not belong in the curriculum because it is wrong. Teaching is not a process of pouring random noise into the brains of young people and allowing them to pick and choose what they want to believe — it’s about giving kids a solid rational foundation for learning. Teach them lies and you’ve poisoned their minds for a lifetime, and here is a school board actively promoting harm to their charges.

For another take on teaching both sides, read some advocacy for teaching the controversy from a biblical point of view. Detailed dissection of the different claims of the book of Genesis will sow doubt in the minds of the students.

However, I disagree in one way — that doesn’t belong in science class. Spending more time teaching the garbage of chapter 1 of Genesis, and more, adding instruction in the garbage of chapter 2 of Genesis, is still teaching garbage, and giving too much time to nonsense. It’s useful for teaching that the Bible is an untrustworthy source, but that should not be part of the agenda of a science curriculum.

I’d like to see the kiddies learning that the Bible is incoherent trash in Sunday School.

Radio reminder

This morning at 9am (in about an hour!), Atheist Talk radio will have an interview with Todd Allen Gates, to talk about this subject:

What if the Christian god really existed?  That’s the premise that author Todd Allen Gates takes in his book “Dialogue with a Christian Proselytizer.”  What conclusions can we reach about this Christian god?  One of the book’s main themes is: “If you understand why you reject all the other religions, you’ll understand why I reject yours.”

Could be interesting. One of the infuriating things about arguing with believers is that they refuse to extend their ideas to their logical conclusions…which are usually absurd.

Testing, testing, testing…is this thing on?

It looks like Pharyngula is back online…at least I’m seeing new comments appear. Now let’s see if I can post anything.

How about another pointless poll? In a web page for some TV show I’ve never seen, ABC is asking, “Did Arlene have the right to refuse to vaccinate two of her sons?” (I presume this refers to some fictitious incident in the program). Alas, the anti-vaxing kooks have seized upon it, and the vote is now at:

70% say “YES – The parent has a right to act on their beliefs.”

30% say “NO – Her decision put her sone and hundreds of other people at risk for the measles.”

Wait, measles? That’s a dangerous disease that is currently on the rise because of these paranoid idiots who oppose the MMR vaccine. This should be a no-brainer — it’s too bad there are so many brainless people out there.

Orac has transcripts of the relevant part of the program, if you want to figure out what the poll is refering to.

Hasn’t he gone away yet?

I was startled to see that John McCain hasn’t been retired to the WaxWorks Museum of Irrelevant Political Figures yet — he’s still making speeches. Could somebody tell him that he’ll never, ever have a shot at the presidency again?

Anyway the subject of his speech was to sneer at fruit fly research again, and mock lobster research. What’s with the hatin’ on invertebrates, Mr McCain?

At least we don’t have to care what he says anymore: he is officially nobody, a washed-up politician who let himself get upstaged by his airhead running mate.

Booooorn freeeeee!

Everyone start singing now, this is a heartwarming story. Sid is an octopus in the Portobello Aquarium. Sid has the clever octopus habit of escaping — he disappeared for days, and was later discovered hiding in a seawater drain. So what is the aquarium to do with the sneaky fellow?

Set him free!

Isn’t that nice?

(Just because I’m cynical that way, though, I will point out two less happy reasons. They’re going to capture another octopus before they release him, which means Sid is going to have to change his name to Barabbas. The really cynical side of me notes that the aquarium managers also know that cephalopods tend to be short-lived, and they may be thinking that they’ll need to replace him soon anyway, so they’re getting some good PR out of his retirement.)

Downtime

Pharyngula will be going silent this afternoon. Do not panic, do not call 911, do not convert to Catholicism in a desperate search for succor. The Seed overlords are implementing a much-needed upgrade to the software that drives this place, so some of the functions will be turned off this afternoon, like posting and commenting, while a team of code dwarves move in and bang up the joint. It’s a big upgrade, so you’re likely to be locked out until sometime on Saturday. Be strong.

What will you get out of this? At first, not much. Everything will look and act exactly the same to the reader after the upgrade. However, I’m hoping for some performance improvements in some of the database functions, which means better troll control. There will probably be some other changes as I get a grip on the new functionality; I know there will be an option for threaded comments which I’ll give a trial run, and I’ll also be looking into requiring some minimal site registration requirements. Any changes that will affect you will be rolled out gradually, have no fear, and if they are disliked, I won’t hesitate to roll them back.

Anyway, this afternoon and tomorrow will be your chance to step away from the computer, take a shower, bake cookies, shovel your driveway, whatever…but I expect you all back on the job filling up comment threads by Saturday evening, and definitely back at it by Sunday.