Who needs church if you can get together and reason together? First it was Boston; now other cities are joining in with gatherings of fans of skepticism and science. Here are your opportunities:
London, England: Saturday, 15 March, 7:00pm, at the Doric Ach near Euston station.
Anchorage, Alaska: Thursday, 20 March, 7:00pm, at the cafe in the Barnes and Noble on Northern Lights Blvd.
We shall take over!
Florida also has an “academic freedom” bill in the works, and they’re using Ben Stein’s sillly movie to promote it … and if you want to find legislators with cobwebs in their cranium, Florida is the place to go.
Neither Hays nor his co-sponsor, Brandon Republican Sen. Ronda Storms, could name any teachers in Florida who have been disciplined for being critical of evolution in the science classroom. Better known for his ”Win Ben Stein’s Money” game show, Stein made the documentary to document how evolution critics have supposedly run afoul of mainstream science in higher academics.
”I want a balanced policy. I want students taught how to think, not what to think,” Hays says. “There are problems with evolution. Have you ever seen a half-monkey, half human?”
No comment.
Yesterday, the Minnesota legislature introduced H.F. No. 3922, another of those “Academic Freedom” bills that are actually attempts to infringe on academic freedom. It’s full of high-minded language, but 1) they have not demonstrated that there is a problem, 2) they simply restate principles academics already hold, but 3) they turn those principles into opportunities for meddling legislators to police our campuses. It’s sponsored by Olson (R, 16B), Heidgerken (R, 13A), Drazkowksi (R, 28B), Erickson (R, 16A), and Emmer (R, 19B). I think you can see the common link in their party affiliation; these are conservatives who want a way to sneak their crude and stupid views into our universities. If they’re your representatives, blast them with email. If they’re not your representatives, write to the ones who are and tell them that this bill must die.
What’s that? Some of you are unfamiliar with the phrase “Big Science,” so freely tossed about by creationists like Ben Stein? Here’s what it means:
Coo coo it’s cold outside.
Coo coo it’s cold outside.
Ooo coo coo.
Don’t forget your mittens.
Hey Pal!
How do I get to town from here?
And he said “Well just take a right where they’re going to build that new shopping mall, go straight past where they’re going to put in the freeway, take a left at what’s going to be the new sports center, and keep going until you hit the place where they’re thinking of building that drive-in bank.
You can’t miss it.”
And I said “This must be the place.”
Ooo coo coo.
Golden cities.
Golden towns.
Golden cities.
Golden towns.
And long cars in long lines and great big signs and they all say “Hallelujah.
Yodellayheehoo.
Every man for himself.”
Ooo coo coo.
Golden cities.
Golden towns.
Thanks for the ride.
Big Science.
Hallelujah.
Big Science.
Yodellayheehoo.
You know.
I think we should put some mountains here. Otherwise, what are all the characters going to fall off of?
And what about stairs?
Yodellayheehoo.
Ooo coo coo.
Here’s a man who lives a life of danger. Everywhere he goes he
stays – a stranger.
Howdy stranger.
Mind if I smoke?
And he said “Every man, every man for himself. Every man, every man for himself.
All in favor say aye.”
Big Science.
Hallelujah.
Big Science.
Yodellayheehoo.
Hey Professor!
Could you turn out the lights?
Let’s roll the film.
Big Science.
Hallelujah.
Every man, every man for himself.
Big Science.
Hallelujah.
Yodellayheehoo.
I hope that clears everything up.
This is the real goal of the New Atheists: no indoctrination, just kids questioning their indoctrination. Keep on asking those questions!
The New York Times has taken notice of the promotional tactics being used for the creationist propaganda flick, Expelled. As you all know, they are trying to filter screenings, allowing only ideologically friendly people to see it, and keeping out the serious critics who might actually evaluate it on its merits, rather than as a media echo of what the viewers want to hear.
There were nondisclosure agreements to sign that day, but Mr. Moore did not, and proceeded to write perhaps the harshest review “Expelled” has received thus far. The film will open April 18, but has been screened several times privately for religious audiences. Mr. Moore deplored what he perceived as “loaded images, loaded rhetoric, few if any facts” and accused Mr. Stein of using a “Holocaust denier’s” tactics.
Which, of course, was exactly the reaction the moviemakers were hoping to avoid by keeping mainstream critics out.
Mr. Stein said in a telephone interview that he had not read Mr. Moore’s review, but that “being compared with a Holocaust denier is nonsense,” adding, “This guy is extremely confused.” He said he decided to participate in the project because “there’s just a lot of people who don’t believe that big science and Darwinism should have a stranglehold on academic life, and they have been waiting for a voice.”
Every time Stein opens his mouth, he’s helping us. This is a movie that uses Nazi imagery to accuse science since 1859 of being the primary cause of anti-semitism — it’s not denying the Holocaust, but instead is trivializing it by using it as a tool to dishonestly browbeat a group that was not responsible. In the 1930s, a political group in Germany used centuries of deeply rooted anti-Semitism to create a popular movement that culminated in the murder of six million people for their ethnicity and a war that consumed practically the entire planet; it wasn’t caused by academics arguing over a theory.
And he projects his bizarre misinterpretations again. “Darwinism” doesn’t have a stranglehold on academics; we’ve moved well beyond Darwin to new ideas, and are constantly wrestling with novel suggestions to expand on the old Darwinian core. To name one example, proponents of evo-devo think they’ve got a set of theories that should change the way we think about evolution. There are smart people loudly arguing on both sides, with the pro side bringing up observations and evidence that emphasize the importance of the discipline, and cons poking holes and pointing out major failings, and pushing for more and better evidence. There is no stranglehold, there are only high standards of evidence that are not met by making propaganda films and getting church leaders with no knowledge of biology to denounce one side or the other. There is hard work required to break through into academic credibility, work which is not being done by the IDists.
We also have expectations of honesty that are not being met. The makers of this film had to hide their motivations every step of the way, because they know that they can’t stand the harsh light of criticism. And they just can’t stop lying.
Logan Craft, executive producer of “Expelled” and chief of Premise Media, said he thought Mr. Moore had been wrong to attend the screening after being disinvited, but both he and Mr. Lauer denied any involvement in an online “media alert” that purported to be from a backer of the film. The alert accused Mr. Moore of posing as a minister to gain admission, calling his actions a “security breach.” Mr. Moore said he never represented himself as other than a reporter.
Oh, come on. I’ve got a copy of the “media alert,” and it’s from promotional material put out by Motive Marketing. Look at the official movie site, and right there on the bottom right is the logo for Motive Marketing. They’ve been bragging about using Motive for marketing, since this is also the firm that promoted Gibson’s snuff movie, The Passion of the Christ. This Lauer fellow is the founder of Motive. A reader has sent me more promotional mail from these guys, and they are peddling the movie hard. And now they’re lying to the New York Times and claiming they’ve got nothing to do with it? It seems to be a kind of pathological reflex to deny, deny, deny even when they’re caught red-handed in something relatively inocuous.
Oh, well. It’s a sign of desperation that they are straining so hard to find a narrow audience that will appreciate their movie; they know that they’ve got a klunker that will rely on appeal to a narrow bias to succeed. Randy Olson has ’em pegged: they want to use humor to broaden the appeal to more than just the theocratic sheep, but their movie isn’t funny. A movie that tries to build on clips of goose-stepping Nazis and Hitler salutes is pretty much destined to be depressing, unless you’re Mel Brooks. And Ben Stein is no Mel Brooks.
Does this story sound familiar?
The narrative goes like this:
- The famous, brilliant scientist So-and-so hypothesized that X was true.
- X, forever after, became dogma among scientists, simply by virtue of the brilliance and fame of Dr. So-and-so.
- This dogmatic assent continues unchallenged until an intrepid, underdog scientist comes forward with a dramatic new theory, completely overturning X, in spite of sustained, hostile opposition by the dogmatic scientific establishment.
Michael White summarizes a common trope in the media and elsewhere; there’s often a misleading attempt to shoehorn the gradual advancement of science into a more dramatic story of sudden breakthoughs — especially by that mythical underdog fighting against the wicked establishment. It’s not true. Even Charles Darwin, a fellow who did advance a revolutionary story, was himself a respected member of, and working within, the scientific establishment of his time. Even the most radical new idea must incorporate and extend the existing body of evidence; good science does not spontaneously emerge out of a vacuum.
The context for this narrative in this case is the Joan Roughgarden story. She has been claiming some strange things, about her role as a transgendered outsider scientist who has identified deep flaws in Darwin’s theory of sexual selection, but I’m afraid her claims are absurd. She does offer an interesting perspective, but what she is primarily opposing is a simplistic version of sexual selection that neither Darwin nor any contemporary scientists have ever accepted — she is basically cobbling up the underdog narrative, and has been getting a fair amount of attention for it.
The article does mention a comment from me on the subject that is actually the mildest thing I said: I do have a more thorough assessment of Roughgarden’s hypothesis from 2004 that is much less polite.
So mainstream journalists play this game with scientists, and some scientists play it up as well; but the real masters are the creationists. It’s all they’ve got: rhetoric that tries to put them in the role of the brave, noble, clever underdog trying to overcome the stifling influence of a stagnant scientific orthodoxy. It’s even more false, but it does appeal to the media.
Can we just get something straight? Science builds on past discoveries. You don’t get to cherry pick what bits you want to include in your theory — successful new theories don’t throw away old evidence, they extend and strengthen and reinforce, and offer new insights. There may be new theories that follow the theory of evolution … but they will all incorporate the basic facts of earth’s history — its age, common descent, the relationships between species, etc. — and will not be any more appealing to creationists than what we’ve got now.
Here’s more pernicious ignorance that we have to deal with: this is Oklahoma State Representative Sally Kern, benighted hate-monger, babbling lies.
Well, there is one part that is accurate, when she states that “We’re not teaching facts and knowledge any more, we’re teaching indoctrination”, which is exactly right … at least in reference to her remarks.
(via Pam’s House Blend)
I am reminded of the whole host of intellectual failings of creationists: it’s not just that they reject modern science, but many of them tend to be brain-damaged peckerwoods who are also incapable of viewing literature and art without squawking in horror, unless maybe it’s a tasteless photorealistic airbrushed Aryan Jesus, or perhaps some cookie-cutter landscape from a hack like Kincade. For a truly sickening example, just look at Ray Comfort’s latest blog entry. He’s reacting to a documentary of Gustav Klimt, which describes his work as “sensuous” and “obsessed with women”, which are all marks of Satan in Comfort’s book. He ends his recitation of the description of the eroticism in Klimt’s paintings with this:
If you too enjoy gazing at the naked female form, you don’t have to go to New York to see similar works. You can find them scrawled on the walls of most public rest rooms.
I know there are lots of good artists around, but they generally don’t scribble on restroom walls. Does this look like something you’d find on a bathroom stall?
Does this make you think of pornography?
Here’s a gallery of art by Gustav Klimt. There’s a good reason he’s a famous painter — this is wonderful stuff. Ray Comfort, two-bit rednecked ignoramus that he is, sees none of it, and is so freaking dishonest that he doesn’t dare show his readers any of Klimt’s actual work … so instead he does his own crude rendition of “The Kiss” to illustrate his screed, and just so you don’t miss his point, he crudely slathers wicked words all over it.
I think you might find Comfort’s work in a seedy, filthy restroom somewhere, but not Klimt’s.
Just so you don’t think this battle is all about nothing but esoteric arguments over details of the interpretation of rarefied biological data, I can’t imagine a clearer example of the broader field of the struggle. This is a war over all of Western culture. What do you want? Klimt or Comfort? Science or lies?
We’ve got some new additions to the Deadly Sins, the ones that will get you consigned straight to hell as soon as you die.
“You offend God not only by stealing, blaspheming or coveting your neighbour’s wife, but also by ruining the environment, carrying out morally debatable scientific experiments, or allowing genetic manipulations which alter DNA or compromise embryos,” he said.
Bishop Girotti said that mortal sins also included taking or dealing in drugs, and social injustice which caused poverty or “the excessive accumulation of wealth by a few”.
He said that two mortal sins which continued to preoccupy the Vatican were abortion, which offended “the dignity and rights of women”, and paedophilia, which had even infected the clergy itself and so had exposed the “human and institutional fragility of the Church”.
The mass media had “blown up” the issue “to discredit the Church”, but the Church itself was taking steps to deal with it.
The article also mentions using contraception is a mortal sin.
It’s a strange list. There are a couple that are common practices of the Catholic church itself, the excessive accumulation of wealth and pedophilia (and isn’t that just the cutest little disclaimer? The church is “taking steps to deal with it” — which usually means hushing it up and sending the offending priest off to virgin hunting grounds). Does the Vatican really haven any credibility when an old guy in silk robes encrusted with jewels declares the virtues of poverty?
The dictum against polluting the environment is a good one, but awfully vague. Is he promoting a zero-carbon footprint? Is he arguing against nuclear power? Should we stop exhaling carbon dioxide? Similarly, the prohibition against drugs isn’t very specific — are all pharmacists going to hell now?
Declaring that meddling in the fate of embryos is also terribly broad, suggesting that all developmental biologists are also going to hell. This is one mean and nasty pope, I think — he has me damned on several counts!
And I’m sorry, but it is not defending the dignity and rights of women to deny them family planning. It also contradicts any sincere desire to improve the livability of the planet to argue that people are not allowed to take simple action to limit their fecundity.
But of course this is all an exercise in empty rhetoric. The pope does not have any better knowledge of the mind of any god than I do, and does not know anything about the actual fate of human souls after death. It is a bit presumptuous to be declaring that there is an immortal omnipotent being who will torture you for eternity for putting a condom on, don’t you think?
