One must carry on

I’m dealing with some personal issues — sad news from the family — and like usual, I’m one of those assholes who buries himself in work. I’ve been up for a few hours working away at updating my lecture on introductory catabolism, all this stuff about oxidation/reduction reactions and the glycolytic pathway, as a way to avoid thinking about the stuff that really matters, and I don’t think I have enough energy to do the blogging stuff on top of everything else. My goal right now is to just give a lecture, hand out an exam, and do some lab prep, and then come home and spend a weekend in zombie mode.

I’m an expert at burying my feelings, so I’m going to work at digging deeper for a while.

Not if I bury them deep enough, Sigmund! Biochemistry makes for a pretty good shovel, too.

China can be proud

Look at that red line — China has almost doubled their life expectancy since 1960, which is a significant accomplishment.

Then look at the blue line. The US started from a more advantaged position, but we’ve still been steadily increasing survival over the years.

Except recently. See the abrupt downturn since 2020? It’s due to increased mortality from COVID. Chinese life expectancy continued its steady rise throughout this period, despite the pandemic, while we done fucked up and saw a terrible drop of life expectancy of 1.8 years. I’m closing in on the high end of the graph, and I want those 1.8 years back. With interest.

China can be proud, but we should be ashamed. Our COVID response has evaporated to nearly nothing, and I want at least twelve more good years.

Are all cops bad?

Sure seems so. Here are a few examples that illustrate the problem.

Christian Glass had his car stuck on a dirt road, and called for help. He needed a tow truck, or a ride to someplace safe. He hadn’t committed any crimes, he just wanted some simple roadside assistance. Instead, he got a bunch of aggressive, armed deputies who ordered him out of the car and threatened to break his windows…and then they did break his car windows, shot him with a beanbag gun, tased him, and then, when he was rightfully panicking at the inappropriate response, shot him dead.

Why?

None of this makes sense. He was frightened, was worried that the cops might hurt him, and he was right: he’s dead. There was no cause for violence, but that’s all cops know how to do. So they violented him.

At the same time, with such a limited repertoire of possible responses, the cops come equipped with an unassailable sense of entitlement, confident that they are always right.

PSA to everyone out there, I’m speaking for myself but I’m probably speaking for other officers out there if we’re driving on the freeway in our police car, get the fuck out of the way. If us officers stay behind you long enough, we can find a reason to pull you over.

We all know this. We’re used to it. If a cop wants to charge you with something, they can find a reason, no matter how blameless your behavior. It’s not about enforcing the law, it’s about their power trip.

This officer knows she could get in trouble for making this fact explicit, so notice how she keeps her badge number hidden behind a filter, but it didn’t help her. It was quickly figured out that this is Breanna Straus of the Federal Way, Washington police force. What saved her was the refusal of the thin blue line to address the problem of rotten cops: she only got a 10 hour suspension. It was less than a slap on the wrist, it was a gentle caress.

You might want to be very careful driving near Sea-Tac, she’s back at work. There are rarely any penalties for being an asshole and a cop.

Part of the reason for that is that cops lie. They are expert liars, skilled at concealing how useless and counterproductive they are. Look at how baldly they lied about everything in Uvalde — they’re authorities, you know, and you will learn to respect their authoritative assertions, or they will find a reason to arrest you.

THREE HUNDRED SEVENTY SIX police were standing around playing pocket pool for over an hour while kids were shot, and then they made multiple verifiable lies about the event afterwards. To answer the question in the title…YES. Definitely.

A good billionaire?

Shatter my worldview, why don’t you. Here’s one billionaire who is doing the right thing — giving away all of his money (although I bet he retains a healthy sum for himself, which I wouldn’t begrudge him at all).

Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard announced Wednesday that he is giving away the outdoor-apparel company — an unorthodox move intended to help combat climate change and the environmental crisis.

In a letter posted to the company’s website, Chouinard wrote that ownership of the company, which was founded in 1973 and reportedly valued at about $3 billion, has been transferred to a trust that was created to protect the company’s values and mission as well as a nonprofit organization.

“Earth is now our only shareholder,” it said. “100% of the company’s voting stock transfers to the Patagonia Purpose Trust, created to protect the company’s values; and 100% of the nonvoting stock had been given to the Holdfast Collective, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting the environmental crisis and defending nature.”

Now I’m all confused and conflicted. I resolve that confusion by noting that the way to be a good billionaire is to stop being a billionaire, and to have righteous values.

“It’s been a half-century since we began our experiment in responsible business,” Chouinard, 83, said in the release. “If we have any hope of a thriving planet 50 years from now, it demands all of us doing all we can with the resources we have. As the business leader I never wanted to be, I am doing my part. Instead of extracting value from nature and transforming it into wealth, we are using the wealth Patagonia creates to protect the source.”

“I am dead serious about saving this planet,” he added.

All right, the gauntlet has been thrown. Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates — you don’t get to claim your goal is to do good for humanity until you follow suit.

I guess next time I’m in the market for a nice down or fleece jacket, I’ll have to shop Patagonia. I see their nearest store is in St Paul.

Greg Abbott should be doomed

Should be. Probably isn’t. This is a good strong anti-Abbott ad, for instance.

His position on guns is also horrific.

So why do I feel like there seems to be a lot of Texas voters who will read those as pro-Abbott ads? He’ll make those dirty pregnant women suffer, and he’ll let us all have great big guns that can turn children into hamburger, yeee-haaaw!

Maybe it’s just me, but I have this impression that Texas is a hellscape populated with inhuman demons.

Shameful pseudo-scientists

Dan Phelps sent me a link to a terrible, awful video of the Answers in Genesis astronomers babbling about how the JWST proves the universe is young. I know, that’s just nuts, but what else can you expect from AiG?

Fortunately, Dan provides a description, so I don’t have to watch it. You don’t have to either.

Young Earth Creationist Astronomers Declare Victory for Creationism Because of the Findings of the James Webb Space Telescope

Our favorite Young Earth Creationist (YEC) astronomers have finally discussed the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) at length. On Wednesday 9/14/22 on Facebook Dr. Danny Faulkner and Rob Webb of AiG, and Dr. Jason Lisle (formerly of AiG, now at the Biblical Science Institute) discuss the early findings of the JWST for a full excruciating hour. See: https://fb.watch/fymizG2T2H/ .

Faulkner and Lisle have PhDs in astronomy. Rob Webb, recently was hired by AiG as a preacher/scientist and has experience in aerospace engineering, helping design several different spacecraft (hence his AiG nickname “Rocket Rob”). Their “discussion” consists mostly of self-congratulation and sundry claims that every new finding supports Young Earth Creationism including having light from galaxies billions of light years away getting to Earth in 6,000 years (a miracle!). Their self congratulations are based on the fact that astronomers are revising their ideas about how quickly galaxies and heavy elements formed in the early universe because of new data from JWST findings. This motley crew seem to be gloating that other astronomers are, gasp!, doing science. Much of the rest is preaching/scripture quoting and, at about 23 minutes in, claiming a nefarious conspiracy of morally questionable “secular astronomers” based on their “worldview.” Most astronomers I know are rather upright citizens. The exceptions know who they are ;-).

About 32 minutes in Drs. Lisle and Faulkner joke about dead Democrats voting in Chicago, and Dr. Lisle claims “dead people vote Left.”

In Dr. Faulkner’s esteemed scientific opinion God only created life on earth, not elsewhere (~36 minutes in). However, he intones, this only includes “physical life like us; I’m not talking about spirit beings like angels and demons, and so forth.” (Is this video from the 13th century?). Then, after a discussion of exoplanets, Dr. Faulkner also tells us that God will destroy stars and galaxies when he creates a “new heavens and a new Earth” (~39 minutes). Golly wow! Thankfully, Dr. Faulkner goes on to rebuff an online questioner who asks about the Flat Earth, giving Biblical and scientific reasons the ancient Bible-based cosmology is wrong. Dr. Faulkner has even written a thick tome about the subject (for sale at the Creation Museum and Ark Park, as well as online). The three gentlemen then discuss Flat Earth Theory and the psychology of the cultish behavior behind it for a bit. They appear oblivious to the irony, that, in spite of their education, promoting a 6,000 year old universe and Earth. When they agreed that it is a “psychological issue,” I stopped the video for a few minutes out of necessity. I couldn’t decide to laugh or cry, so I took a bathroom break.

Near the end (~53 minutes) Dr. Lisle bemoans that mainstream science is ignoring his claim that he predicted the findings of the JWST. He goes on to claim that science itself wouldn’t be possible if the Bible weren’t true. Lisle then posts the inane cartoon below (my screenshot) insulting scientists and intelligent people as well as confusing evolution and cosmology/cosmogony.

The video ends with mentions of books they have for sale and the Creation Museum planetarium.

But, you ask, what about the biologists? We have to turn to the Institute for Creationist Research, which employs the most appallingly awful guy with some credentials in biology, Jeffery Tomkins. I’ve discussed Tomkins several times before, and I’m tired of. He’s incredibly dishonest fellow whose entire expertise is about distorting the scientific evidence in ways that anyone who knows the field sees is wrong, but he throws around technical terms that make lay people think he’s smart. It’s a classic pseudoscientific move.

I am spared the pain of working through Tomkins’ lies by Dan Cardinale, who explains how his arguments about junk DNA are totally bogus.

Remember, racism is bad

Wizards of the Coast, publishers of Dungeons & Dragons, is suing another company that is resurrecting an old TSR (original publisher of D&D) title, Star Frontiers. They say the the game besmirches their reputation because it gets a bit racist. Maybe a lot racist. I could argue that a lot of fantasy tropes are rooted in dividing people into imaginary races, so maybe the company in the glass house shouldn’t be throwing stones like that.

Except… excerpts from the game do sound hella racist.

That last bit is painful to read.

Think about your race carefully as some races are more superior in power etc., some races have latent issues, similar to blacks having issues with sickle cell enemia [sic] and family issues. Remember racism is bad, do don’t do racial things like racism. Have fun with it but remember some races are just sometimes superior in some ways.

Wizards of the Coast might have a case. The new TSR seems to be blatantly un-self aware, and they seem to be saying the quiet part out loud, naming their strong dumb race “negro” rather than hiding their stereotypes behind names like “orc”.

They’re also eager to cater to the transphobes, asking if any of their testers would like a trans “race”.

But remember racism is bad, don’t do a racism.

Wealth and fame make you stupid

That’s the conclusion I draw from the words of the wealthy and famous. Elon Musk was doing a fine job of demonstrating that he was a brainless twit all by himself, but now his ex-partner Grimes has chipped in.

Maybe it’s just religion that screws them up, because she also said this:

Religions are something con artists invent, so I’ll take that as a confession.

I don’t think someone who makes up an experimental polytheistic religion is going to be welcome with young earth creationists like Ken Ham. You never know, though — they may share a common interest in the art of the grift.

In case you were wondering about the Republican vision for higher ed…

Just look to Kansas.

A plan to restructure the school and allow the firing of faculty members with only a 30-day notice is expected to be approved this week by the Kansas Board of Regents, which oversees the state’s higher education. If adopted, the “workforce management plan” would effectively suspend tenure for the fall 2022 semester.

A semester doesn’t seem like much, but it’s enough time to wreck careers and burn down programs that have taken decades to build. It’s enough time to change an institution that has contributed to the common good in Kansas for more than 150 years to one that is dedicated to … well, we just don’t know yet.

Yikes. We’re hired on a legal contract…but they can just tear it up and throw it away like that? How can they do that? Simple answer: Republicans.

There’s little doubt that the university’s move to end tenure is in response to pressure from the deeply conservative Kansas Legislature, and I’ve heard the former university provost Gary Wyatt say as much. Once, in a department meeting, he told us that legislators viewed tenured professors as “the enemy.” Then again, at a faculty address this fall, he said the campus would have to come to grips with the reality that we live in a state that is mostly Republican, with a legislature that is GOP dominated. How much clearer could he make it? To his credit, Wyatt is one of the few administrators willing to speak the truth on the issue.

They don’t care. They’re willing to wreck the state for their failed ideology. And the hired gun they employ to do the dirty work is the new president of the university, Ken Hush. How he was hired was appalling.

The same week KBOR extended the “workforce management” policy, it also hired a new president for Emporia State: Ken Hush. An ESU alum and former college tennis star, Hush had served as interim president since November 2021. Hush is a former CEO of Koch Carbon and, according to the Federal Election Commission database, a contributor of tens of thousands of dollars to KochPAC, which predominately funds conservative candidates for Congress.

Hush’s appointment as president came as a surprise to campus because many assumed a presidential search would select someone from the outside with an advanced degree. Hush holds a dual major bachelor’s, in business and marketing, making him the least academically credentialed of the leaders of the six universities in Kansas.

The presidential search process, unlike all previous searches at ESU, was a closed one, veiled in secrecy. There was no announcement of finalists or opportunities for faculty, students and staff to evaluate them, whoever they were. The chairman of the search committee was another former ESU tennis athlete, Greg Kossover — and a major donor to the new tennis complex on campus.

The selection of Hush at first seemed an odd fit.

Although he had served on the Wichita State University board of trustees, he didn’t have a deep background in public service in a classroom setting. He had run a Koch company that specialized in bulk commodities of coal and petroleum coke, and contributed heavily to a PAC that funded candidates who were often climate change deniers.

The libertarian Koch brothers, of course, kicked off the current culture war during the Obama years with their support of the Tea Party. The university and KBOR both refused to release a resume or curriculum vitae for Hush, something that most schools share with pride.

We’ve gone through several chancellors at my university during my tenure here, and every time, hiring a new one was a major effort involving a national search, multiple candidates, multiple interviews, faculty consultation, a thorough review of their qualifications, and draining amounts of work by a committee. This guy was just hired because the Koch’s said so?

Note to self: we currently have an acting chancellor, and I presume will eventually hire a different person. Thumbs down on any applicants from Kansas, unless they’re refugees with solid qualifications fleeing the imperial regime of Kochistan.

The objective morality hamster wheel

I’d almost managed to forget that Michael Egnor exists, but there he is, yelling stupid arguments at me. He dropped a pingback on my recent post about objective morality, but then he weirdly quotes something I wrote in 2012.

There is a common line of attack Christians use in debates with atheists, and I genuinely detest it. It’s to ask the question, “where do your morals come from?” I detest it because it is not a sincere question at all — they don’t care about your answer, they’re just trying to get you to say that you do not accept the authority of a deity, so that they can then declare that you are an evil person because you do not derive your morals from the same source they do, and therefore you are amoral. It is, of course, false to declare that someone with a different morality than yours is amoral, but that doesn’t stop those sleazebags.

Yay! I’m consistent!

Egnor objects, however.

Actually, Christians don’t ask “Where do your morals come from?” in order to call atheists evil. We do it to point out that objective morality is powerful evidence for God’s existence.

They can do both, you know, and they do. On multiple occasions, I’ve had Christians announce that I’m an atheist to discredit me and my arguments, so yes, they certainly do use it to call me evil. I will concede that they may think they’re making a “powerful” argument for god, but they’re not. It’s a stupid argument. I guess I was unconsciously giving them more credit than they deserve to think they can’t possibly believe it’s good evidence.

Egnor then defines the difference between subjective and objective morality to explain how the argument defends the existence of a god.

How so? From our human perspective, moral law can have two origins — subjective and objective.

Subjective moral law is based on human opinion. It may just be one man’s opinion, or it may be the collective opinion of a group of people. If our standards are wholly subjective, dislike of strawberry ice cream and dislike of genocide are not qualitatively different. The dislike is just human opinion.

Objective moral law, by contrast, is outside of human opinion. It is something that we humans discover. We do not create it. Thus, objective moral law exists beyond mere human opinion.

Oh, OK. Then I do possess an objective morality, by Egnor’s own definition. It’s not merely my opinion that we shouldn’t murder other people, it’s a conclusion based on empirical observation of the consequences of murder on individuals and society. Human cultures discovered this by seeing the harm done to a society if death runs rampant. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there was also a genetic component, that we have an in-built revulsion from death, especially violent death.

Also, I like strawberry ice cream. What kind of monster dislikes strawberry ice cream? Except…OK, if you are lactose intolerant, you’ve got a legitimate objective reason to dislike it.

So far, I’m fine with Egnor’s claim. Yeah, moral judgments (but not all moral judgments!) can be based on something objective, greater than opinions about ice cream. Fine. Done and done. So we agree that atheists can have an objective morality? Not so fast, because next, without evidence or reason, he leaps to another claim, one that is not related to his earlier definition.

Of course, if a value judgement prevails over other human value judgements, there must be Someone whose opinion is Objective Moral Law. There must be a Law-Giver. That is the one whom all men call God.

No, this is false. I just gave sources of objective morality that are not dependent on authoritarian pronouncements from an imaginary deity. There doesn’t have to be an anthropomorphic invisible law-giver anywhere in the process.

This is just the standard creationist shimmy. The universe had a beginning, therefore there must have been a superpowerful cosmic man-shaped being who started it…but no, that’s not true, there could be some other material cause, or some meta-cause outside our universe that triggered it. A burp in hyperspace, a glitch in the matrix, or why not an entity that cares nothing about us, but spasmed a bunch of stars into existence for its own purposes? There is no logic to his conclusion there.

Myers, as you might expect, is a moral scold, which is odd, coming from an atheist who by definition denies any Source for objective moral standards. Without Objective Moral Law, debates about morality are merely assertions of power — I just try to force you to believe and act as I do because I assert the power to do so. And you do likewise to me.

Every time Myers scolds humanity on morality and immorality, he implicitly acknowledges God’s existence. Myers detests the question “where do your morals come from” because he can’t answer the question without acknowledging the existence of a non-human Moral Law-Giver. For an atheist, denying God’s existence appears to be more important than consistency, logic and evidence.

Notice that he smuggled in a capital-S Source as a prerequisite to objective morality, and that he hasn’t provided any evidence or even any reason why it must exist. That’s his premise. So his argument distills down to:

  1. Objective morality exists because God is the Source
  2. God exists because objective morality exists
  3. Goto 1

It’s as circular as a hamster wheel, and Egnor is frantically running in it.