He is truly a worthy successor to Kent Hovind

I made another Bad Science Sunday video, this one about Matt Powell. He claims to have debunked evolution in 50 seconds, and in that short claim he makes one of the dumbest creationist arguments ever…and he presents it in total seriousness in the style of a high school debate team point. The smug ignorance has to be something he got by aping Hovind.

At the end he claims to have refuted evolution using science and logic, neither of which are on display in his argument.

The sleep of the innocent

I sleep fairly well — as I’ve gotten older, I sleep less, but most nights I go to bed, read quietly for an hour or so, and within minutes of turning out the lights, I’m out. Then I’ll typically wake up around 5:30am. I get between 6 and 7 hours of solid sleep most nights, which is about what I need. That’s my pattern, I’m sticking with it.

Clearly, the reason I sleep well is because I’m an atheist — you know, unconflicted by storms of Catholic guilt or Protestant sanctimony. At least, that’s the implication of a study. After all, when it’s called a “study”, you know it’s serious business.

A new study out of Baylor University finds that 73% of atheists and agnostics sleep at least seven hours a night, compared to only 55% of Baptists and 63% of Catholics. Atheists and agnostics also reported fewer difficulties falling asleep at night. The findings held even after controlling for details like age and socioeconomic status.

Gosh, it fits my personal experience as an atheist, so I get that little buzz of confirmation. I don’t have any personal experience sleeping as a Baptist or Catholic, but I still get a little buzz at the idea that the Others are tossing and turning at night. And now, when my religious friends (if I had any!) show up at work tired and red-eyed, I get the smug satisfaction of being able to tell them they ought to become an atheist so they can get a good night’s rest for a change.

If I were an idiot.

I took a look at the study. They’re just mining a bigger data set for correlations, which is not a kind of science I care much for. In other words, there was a survey that asked a large collection of semi-random questions of religious and non-religious people, and then afterwards they fished for anything that might show a difference. It could maybe be useful if they followed through and figured out what caused the difference. But they don’t; this is just a cold wet plop of an observation from a data set.

Another thing that always bugs me is that when a study is reported in the popular press they always strip out important qualifiers that at least the original work includes.

Religious affiliation was associated with sleep duration, but not in the predicted direction. Atheists/Agnostics (73%) were significantly more likely to report meeting consensus sleep duration guidelines than religiously-affiliated individuals (65%), p< .05. For example, Atheists/Agnostics reported better sleep duration than Catholics (63%, p< .01) and Baptists (55%, p<.001). Atheists/Agnostics also reported less difficulty falling asleep at night than Catholics (p=.02) and Baptists (p< .001).

Notice the word I highlighted: these are the results of a self-reported survey. They don’t necessarily mean what you think they mean. It could mean that atheists are very insecure and like to lie positively about their health and confidence. Go ahead, Baptists! You can read it that way! Even if I know in my heart that you are tormented by your god-belief.

That’s the only thing that jumped out at me about this trivial and mundane study. It’s a great example of how the press likes to file the serial numbers off a paper: they report “atheists sleep better” when the actual paper says “atheists report that they sleep better”. In this case, they’re making a change that’s favorable to the godless, but it’s also what they do with studies that go the other way. This paper even begins with a statement of the common presupposition!

The psychology of religion literature indicates that religious engagement is beneficial to physical and mental health.

I don’t trust that interpretation any more than I do the suggestion that atheism is beneficial to your sleep.

Also, it’s a Templeton funded study.

Speaking of bugnuts…

Scott Adams has completely lost the plot.

Bet you didn’t know antifa was allied with fascists, didja?

In case you were wondering where he came up with this bizarre idea, he was asked, and his answer was “Wikipedia.” Just “Wikipedia.”

Good people don’t read Dilbert. We’ve got to stop encouraging these clowns.

The people with bugs in their brains are a vital segment of American culture, after all

I’m usually on the progressive side of current affairs, but I don’t know. Maybe Black Lives Matter is going too far — after all, Pat Robertson tells me so.

Robertson said he agreed with the general premise behind BLM, but “that legitimate thing has been hijacked by these radicals and they’re using that label to put forth an agenda and people need to be aware of it.”

“They’re talking about Marxist communism,” Robertson said. “They’re talking about destroying the nuclear family. They’re talking about destroying essentially Christianity as being racist. And all the way through, they want to upend the capitalist structure and destroy America.”

“People should be aware that they’re not just standing with the poor oppressed Black people,” Robertson added. “Of course we want to stand with people against police brutality. Of course we do. But we don’t want to go along with a lesbian, anti-family, anti-capitalist Marxist revolution. We don’t want that for America.”

I had no idea those poor oppressed Black people were a gang of lesbian anti-capitalist Marxists who…wait a minute. If that were true, I’d support them even more! Although it’s not true. Most of the people participating in BLM protests are heterosexuals with families who would be happy if the structure of American society gave them justice and security. At its core, this is not a radical movement unless you think treating black people with dignity and respect and equality is radical — which is probably Robertson’s position anyway.

I think we need a second opinion here, so let’s ask Michele Bachmann? Wait, what year is this? Why does anyone give a flying fuck what Robertson and Bachmann think?

Oh, right, because they are entertainingly bugnuts, as long as you’re not one of the people they hate.

“Antifa is, if you go to their website, their materials, they are directly traceable to the Communist Party because their goal is the overthrow of the United States government and to bring communism into America,” Bachmann said. “Just like Black Lives Matter, this is not a new movement either. On their website, these are transgender Marxists, transgender Black Marxists who are seeking the overthrow the United States and the dissolution of the traditional family.”

“What people need to understand is that 103 years ago, there were no communist countries in this world,” she said. “But this same idea where you have a pretext, you create something—like right now the pretext in America is race wars, that we’re seeing race wars on America’s streets—what this is is a cover to bring about communism and a communist takeover. It happened in communist China. It happened in Venezuela, many countries. What people need to understand, the viewers, is that we currently right now are in a situation where communists are trying to come in and take over America.”

“You say, ‘Aren’t you a little overheated? Isn’t this melodramatic?’” [OMG, Bachmann read my mind! At least, the restrained, polite part of my mind. If she’d gone deeper, she would have used stronger words] Bachmann continued. “This is exactly what a communist revolution looks like. They think they’re going to do it by electing Joe Biden and then once Joe Biden is elected, they think that these Davos, Switzerland, meetings that go on, they think that what they’re going to do is have the United States’ economy collapse, move to a digital currency globally, and then we move into a global-type government. I mean, it’s bizarre, but this is their goal.”

“For people who know their Bible, this is exactly what the prophets told us,” she added. “So, we stand on the word of God, the Bible, and we say, ‘Satan, flee, we’re going to stand on the truth of God.’ And so that’s why now more than ever, between now and the election, what we need to do is pray and cry out to Almighty God and ask for his protection over America and to speak in this election.”

Jeez, but the Cold War really wrecked people psychologically. It’s not the 1950s anymore, the Commies are not and never were hiding under your bed, and it is not anti-American to be smart enough to realize that capitalism is broken and needs, at the very least, a major overhaul. Biden is a political centrist beholden to all the moneyed lobbyists, not a transgender lesbian Black Marxist. You are not a little overheated, Michele. You and Pat Robertson are malignant freaks with bugs in your brain that you call “god” and a terrifying authoritarian streak.

Building up to a fundraiser

Remember FtBCon, the online conference we did before virtual conferencing was the only way to hold a conference? We’re going to be doing something similar, but different, at the end of this month — we are plotting some video events, some twitch streams, some auctions, some targeted blogging, all that sort of thing, all geared to provide content while we ask you all for donations to our legal fund. If you look at the top left of the window here, you’ll see some text saying “COMING SOON: FTB’S SEPTEMBER FUNDRAISER”, and if you click on that, it will take you to a page listing a schedule of events. Well, it will…it doesn’t yet. We’re working on it. We aim to have that list up next week, and then we’ll start spamming you with mentions of the fundraiser itself, which will be over the weekend of 26 September. We’ve got some ideas ready right now, but the purpose of this post is to ask you for suggestions. What would you like to see?

For example, for me we’re considering forcing me to watch some ghastly video, while you chortle at my reactions. Maybe we could let people bid for a seat at the viewing so you can react too? I’m thinking of some niche science blogging (that is, spiders) with donation requests in the post. I may also do a live video/Q&A of my macrophotography and photomicroscopy toys, with real time video from my cameras/microscopes — would you chip in a bit to watch that? There are some other ideas floating around here that we’re whipping into shape, but please, do make suggestions for what you’d like to see and do.

It’s not just me, either. We’re going to ask lots of other FtB bloggers to join in. Who’s your favorite blogger, and what would you like them to do for a few extra dollars?

All donations will end up in our GoFundMe or our new PayPal donation site, paypal.me/freethoughtblogs. Look for more information next week!

My mermaid pedigree?

I haven’t told anyone else this, yet, but my sister is a mermaid. She assures me that it’s true, but I’ve never had a really good sit-down conversation with her about this, because as you might guess, this fact raises a great many deep questions in the mind of a biologist. I’m not going to dismiss it out of hand, though, since I’ve had my own strange obsessions with creatures of the vasty deep that might be indicative of some familial affinities. If she can be half fish, I want to be half kraken.

Anyway, I heard from her about a museum in Westport, Washington, The Mermaid Museum. While I have my doubts about the likelihood of a human-fish chimera, the place is part of the Westport Winery and Resort, and I think it would be a good idea, once this pandemic is over, for us all to get together and discuss the finer points of mermaid biology over a few glasses of wine.

I’m pretty sure that once I was a couple of bottles deep I might start conceding the possibilities. Ply me with seafood and I become very charitable.

Oh hi Phil

My public commentator blotted out the sun with another volley of exclamation points.

I almost forgot from my last email! You called Michael Nugent the ‘Irish wanker’ which is definitely racist! You, in your various blog screeds, have demonized all whites, men, heterosexuals, especially all white heterosexual men as racists, homophobes, misogynists and religious bigots! You’re in no position to be attacking Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins or anybody else, asshole!!!

I’m sorry, I’m already tired of him.

Have you had enough yet? Five questions about our future

I’ve gotten so jaded with all the unseemly revelations from our federal administration that I kind of ignored the latest horror story. Besides, everyone was saying it was based on “anonymous” tips, so his base was just going to call it “fake news” and ignore it. But now I learn the source was 45 himself, that he’d sat down and let himself be recorded on video saying it all.

Jesus. Did he learn nothing from Nixon? He outright gave an interview to Bob Woodward spilling the beans. There he is in February, declaring that he knew the coronavirus was going to be serious, that it was not just the flu, that it was going to kill a lot of people, and he didn’t act. That little video kills a lot of the excuses that people are using even now to minimize their response to the pandemic.

(It also makes me wonder about Bob Woodward’s ethics, since he sat on such serious information for 6 months while the disease ramped up.)

Now I have questions for everyone, though.

  1. On a scale of A to Z, where A is “do nothing, business as usual” and Z is “set their hair on fire, run around screeching, submit articles of impeachment every day, dispatch cops to arrest the motherfucker, and throw the whole damn corrupt family into jail to sort out the crimes”, what should the American people and the Democrats do?
    My answer is a fervent Z.
  2. On a scale of A to Z, what will the Democrat leadership do?
    My answer is A. Definitely A.
  3. The election is less than two months away. Do you think the asshole will get voted out of office?
    My answer is a tentative probably. I’d like to think we’ve had enough, but I also think the result will be closer than we’d like — the deplorables have been emboldened in this country — and it’s also clear that the Republican party is ready and willing to steal the election.
  4. What will you do if 45 gets re-elected?
    I can’t think about that possibility without feeling a deep despair. The United States of America would be dead. More death, more incompetence, more looting of the public, more racist discrimination, more inequality. I don’t know what I’d do. I’m getting old, and might just fold inward and resign myself to fading away in a dying state. I’d probably encourage my kids to emigrate, though — it’s not too late for them, personally.
  5. What will you do if 45 is defeated?
    In that case, there’s a feeble glow of hope, but it’s only going to grow if we fan it ferociously. I have no confidence that Biden will lead in a way that would produce the substantial structural change we need, so at that point we all have to work ten times harder to get the Democratic party off its lazy butt. We’ve got to get rid of the electoral college, overly influential lobbyists, and the deadwood of the party; we have to get a government that is sane about working for the people, rather than billionaires.
    Either outcome in the election ought to leave us terrified.

But look on the bright side: 45 has so thoroughly wrecked confidence in the country and killed so many people with neglect, ignorance, and corruption, that maybe your choices don’t matter at all anymore! Just sit back and enjoy your ride into history as part of the Fall of the American Republic! People of the future will be surprised at how quickly it all disintegrated, and we’ll be featured in many pseudo-historical romances and adventure stories and melodramas. Usually as the villain, of course, but the villains always get the tastiest roles.

That’s one evil enchantment

Oh, hey, I remember the Enchanted Forest in Salem, Oregon! We used to drive by it on I-5 all the time, and we’d gawk and think about taking our oldest child there sometime, back when he was a toddler. That was the early ’80s, before we left lovely Eugene.

It doesn’t look so enticing now. Now it’s the Enchanted Forest from Hell…

On second thought, that might appeal to Alaric even more today.

I’m so sorry, California, Oregon, and Washington. I hear everything is on fire nowadays. Let the rains come soon.