Best line: “You can’t be a rational person six days a week…and on one day of the week, go to a building, and think you’re drinking the blood of a two thousand year old space god.”
The NAS has a new edition of their Science, Evolution, and Creationism publication, which is a genuinely excellent piece of work. We’ve used the previous editions in our introductory biology course here at UMM, and if you want a short, plainly written introduction to the evidence for and importance of evolution to modern biology, I recommend it highly. It fills a niche well — it explains the science and gives a general overview for the layman without getting distracted by the details. And if $12 strains your wallet and 70 pages exceeds your attention span, you can download an 8 page summary for free. If you teach high school biology or have kids in high school, grab that: it’s an outline of what every educated adult ought to understand about evolution.
However, it does play the bland game of religious appeasement to a small degree, and although it is only a short part of the book, it’s a blemish that would have been better left out. The NY Times review plays up the religion-and-science-are compatible angle, unfortunately; as you might expect, Greg Laden doesn’t sound impressed and Larry Moran doesn’t fall for it. I don’t either. It’s not enough to dissuade me from urging more people to read the book, since it really is an inconsequential dollop of pablum tossed on top of some good science, but I have to say that it really looks stupid in there.
Although this article does make a very good case that you can’t be a feminist and religious at the same time. Even the most peaceful religions, like Jainism and Buddhism, treat women as inferiors.
The article doesn’t mention any female-centered religions, though, like Wicca…I suppose you could be a Wiccan feminist, but you’re still stuck trying to believe in crazy stuff.
I always considered the US a secular nation, but if certain factions in our government have their way, they will make us a Christian nation by fiat and by falsehood. It’s a sordid story of the religious right trying to pass a resolution that uses phony history to prop up right-wing claims of religious lunacy.
We could be a Christian nation. Another word for that is a Christian theocracy.
…the newest Scienceblog, A Good Poop. If you’ve like weird medical science and all the strange things that go into and out of people, it’s the blog for you.
Cue the obvious jokes in the comments…
Every year, John Brockman comes up with a question and asks the eclectic group on the Edge forum to answer it…then all the answers get bound up in a book. In the past he has asked, “What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?”, “What is your dangerous idea?”, and “What are you optimistic about?” This year’s question is now revealed:
When thinking changes your mind, that’s philosophy. When God changes your mind, that’s faith. When facts change your mind, that’s science. What have you changed your mind about? Why?
It was a tough one. There are so many trivial things that we change our minds about — toast with my oatmeal, or a muffin? —but they don’t make for interesting reading. I’m afraid I got rather general in my answer, and argued that there is a commitment in science to look for data that will change your mind about something you are advocating, which creates an interesting paradox: if your goal is to change your mind about something, doesn’t finding evidence to change your mind mean that on a higher philosophical level you haven’t really changed your mind? For a scientist to really change his perspective would require a retreat into dogma.
Anyway, look for the book when it comes out — there are always infuriating and enlightening answers in them.
Those darn human rights organizations keep meddling in people’s personal affairs — for instance, they think fathers and brothers shouldn’t be allowed to beat or kill their wives and sisters if they have been dishonorable, and that women ought to report abuse to the police. Don’t they know that violence against women is a good thing? There are perfectly good reasons for it.
Relationships between fathers and daughters or sisters and brothers also provoke argument from human rights organizations, which propose the suggested solutions for all relationships. Personally, I don’t think fathers or brothers would undertake such behavior unless there was a reason for it.
Of course, if you actually read the article, the author just rambles about and never tells us what these good reasons might be. If women are naughty, you have to do something about it, after all, and why not kick and hit them?
Fathers are responsible for their daughters’ behavior, but human rights organizations deny this too. Brothers also should take action regarding their sisters’ behavior, especially if their parents are too old or dead. If a daughter or sister makes a mistake – especially a moral one – that negatively affects the entire family and its reputation, what’s the solution by such organizations?
According to them, women should complain to the courts about any type of violence against them. Likewise, should fathers and brothers complain to police if their daughters or sisters violate moral, Islamic or social norms?
Fathers should handle their daughters via any means that suits their mistake; thus, is it better to use violence to a certain limit or complain to the police? Shall such women then complain to the police against their fathers or brothers? It’s really amazing to hear this.
It really is amazing. How about talking with them, treating them with respect, and finding out what their reasons for their behavior might be…and how about finding a solution other than stupidly hitting them?
It’s also peculiar because all of this violence is only excused against women — as if fathers and brothers do not ever violate moral, Islamic, or social norms. It’s all so blindly one-sided. And here’s the interesting reason why:
Dear readers – especially women – don’t think that I hate or am against women; rather, I simply mean to preserve the morals and principles with which Islam has honored us.
I hope my message is clear, since it’s really quite relevant to the future of our societies, which must be protected from any kind of cultural invasion.
That last bit is legitimate — of course there is a fear that outsiders will destroy one’s culture, especially the valuable, useful, loved parts of one’s historical tradition, so there is a natural tendency to bunker up and defend everything with equal zealotry. But no culture is perfect and every culture has some ugly relics creeping about in the basement; in this case, the mistreatment of women is one such horrid little vestige of a barbaric society. Perhaps instead of arguing in favor of the indefensible, it would be better to encourage the culture to change from within, and recognize that there is injustice in Islam.
Unfortunately, there will also be people who will argue that because Allah wills it, it must be so.
I believe “pharyngula” has a Greek root, so it’s only natural that someone would translate one of my posts into Greek.
(via Too Many Tribbles)
In case you have a tough time keeping the squid family tree straight, here’s a nifty simple diagram of cephalopod evolution.
And if that’s too complicated for you, there’s always the Intelligent Design version.
I get to do some more traveling this morning, so I’ll leave you with an off-the-wall question: since Denyse O’Leary has taken over most of the posting on Uncommon Descent, and since most of her posts link to some other in her network of poorly trafficked, repetitious blogs (and sometimes she links to a post that links to one of the others!), does this mean UD is now officially a link farm?
