The Dumbest Thing I've Heard in a While

Came from this guy, Reuben David:

Quote:

Osama Bin Laden's threat against the West is milder compared to the movements of [Soulforce founder] Mel White and others who are eating away at the vitals of a traditional society like zombies threatening to destroy traditional families … This is a guerilla war against traditional human marriages.

As PZ humorously points out, I have yet to scream in terror at the approach of the gay-zombies towards my (apparently insecure) relationship with my wife. And, traditional canine marriage is not their target -- only traditional human marriage. What a fucktard.

Why do people like this merit our attention and get their stupidity documented in media?
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Technorati tags: God, Religion, Politics

"...nothing fails like prayer..."

But apparently these dolts don't realize it yet:

The 35-member Congressional Prayer Caucus at a press conference on Wednesday launched an initiative to encourage every American to spend five minutes a week praying for the nation. Today's Detroit Free Press reports on the effort. The group has created a "Wall of Prayer Around America" page on the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation website. Using a graphic of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, it seeks individuals to sign up for specific times to pray so that all times are covered. Reacting to the effort, Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said: "Lawmakers should stick to their constitutional duties and leave religious decisions to individuals.... Religion is too important to become a political football." Additional coverage of the story is on Blog from the Capitol and Melissa Rogers websites.

It's a simple question, really: why pray?

If God exists, and wants to do something, then God will do it, right? Why does God need your help to do it? Is God lacking confidence? Does God need encouragement? Or is God forgetful, and you're like the helpful pager that goes off before a meeting? He's got Alzheimer's?

Perhaps all prayer is horizontal -- for our own benefit?

Perhaps people think God doesn't really give a shit about things, and they have to raise God's conscientiousness about it...? That little girl dying of leukemia will just have to suffer and die, because God doesn't fu*&ing care...until you pray, that is. God's like a grumpy old uncle whose ties to the family are so weak that he has to be prodded to attend holiday dinners, but, importantly, still cares just enough such that he can still be prodded to do so.

Perhaps they think that God is democratic in nature, and that a tally of votes is necessary for God to act -- God only cares about majority popularity.

And what's up with how prayers get answered?

A priest and his wife gave birth to conjoined twins, who will now possibly die in the separation surgery, and if they do live, it will only be by virtue of advanced surgical technology. No matter how much you prayed 150 years ago, these girls would have died. Were they born in this era by God's will? Does God get the credit for our medical advances, but not for witholding the information from us for thousands of years while people needlessly suffered and died of simple medical ailments (infections and poisons and etc.)? Does God get the credit if the girls live through this, or the surgeons, or both? Does God get the blame for their being this way in the first place, or the devil?

Who made the devil? Why?

Did this happen due to the priest's lack of prayer? His wife's lack of prayer? Did this priest not pray enough, and thus his daughters were born conjoined at the head, but if he prays now, God will fix it?

And if God sees, ahead of time, that people will completely lose faith in God's own existence when seeing pictures like that, why believe that God gives a shit if you believe in God or not?

Here's one stab at answers from some Catholics:

Upon the answer to this enquiry depends the whole business of our success or failure in prayer. Success and failure to be judged in God's terms, not ours.

Interesting. Basically, if your prayer gets answered, then praise Gawd! And if it doesn't? Well, it was your fault, of course, since God never fails!

Failure in prayer is related to no personal love for God or mental attitude sins.

Now, how can one say something so mean?!?!? That it's your fault!?!?!? Well...they're just quoting the bibble:

21Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. (1 John 3:21-22, NIV)

So, basically God has the perfect system: getting all the credit for "answers" and none of the blame for "failures"! Think of it this way: heads, God wins; and tails, you lose!

The only answer to these questions that renders coherence to reality at all is the simplest answer, and the most likely to be true: there is no God or gods, and your prayers are you, as a grown-up adult, talking to your invisible magic friend, just like you did when you were a little child. Every empirical study has shown the same thing -- that prayers do nothing. Don't believe me? Find one documented amputee whose limb grew back from prayer. One. Ever. (**update: here are documented cases of the flaws in these studies, and here are some of my thoughts on those studies**)

Grow up and deal with reality.

Wishful thinking doesn't change a goddamned thing.
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Technorati tags: God, Religion, Church-state, Politics

Tabash-Friel Debate at Daytona Beach 3-26-07, Talk at UF

The debate bode very well for atheism, and very poorly for any future hope for Friel at a career in philosophy. I think Eddie won handily. Friel basically sermonized and waxed emotive all night. His only arguments were from incredulity and ignorance (something I expected, from personal experience with him and the general creationist style). He honestly sounded more like a guy trying to convert a bunch of teenagers than someone attempting to make a rational case for theism. But...make up your mind for yourself, and leave a comment.

I really won't go any further than that, because I swear I don't think Friel is worth the analysis. He had nothing new, and what older arguments he did have were mangled versions (e.g., the first cause argument), which Eddie was able to refute, as he was met only with more personal incredulity and appeals to ignorance.

I was unable to tape Eddie's opening because I was limited by lack of equipment, but his arguments for naturalism were almost identical to what he presented (see below) to AAFSA last Sunday, albeit abbreviated, since he had 15 mins instead of 45 -- Eddie opened with arguments against the supernatural along Humean lines: miracles, the argument from physical minds, arguments against an afterlife, the argument from divine hiddenness, and the problem of evil. It was typical Eddie -- cogent, precise and clear.

The Center for Inquiry - Daytona came off looking great, from their representation to the graphics and banners and the ACLU table. Props to them for their hard work -- they were all really nice and appeared to have taken this project quite seriously.

My seat for part 1 gave me a poor angle to begin with, and the issue of quality was compounded because I was only able to post this in low-res as the shitty Google Video Desktop Uploader for large files wasn't working earlier (no matter what I tried) with the hi-quality versions. I have DVDs (hi-res, 3.0Mbps) burned, and if you want a DVD, email me and we'll negotiate the $^***. I also have Eddie's talk at UF encoded and burned to DVD, and am uploading it to GV right now.

Here is part 1 of 2, which I recommend watching below as GV stretches it out and makes it look even worse at their site:

Here is part 2 of 2 of the debate:


Here is part 1 of 2 of Eddie's talk at UF on 3-25-07:


And finally, here is part 2 of 2 of Eddie's talk at UF:


Please leave thoughts and comments below.
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***To cover my time and media/shipping expenses -- I think $10, including S&H, is fair. You can pay me via mailed check, but I would prefer using the PayPal function on my own webpage, it will expedite the process and make record-keeping easier. Go down to the bottom of the left sidebar, where it says "Austausch", and use it there (I prefer it over Amazon). Again, email me and we'll negotiate.

PS: I'm always amazed by how differently two eyewitnesses can report the facts about an event -- see here for someone who thinks that atheists were "humiliated" by Eddie's performance...

You be the judge.
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Technorati tags: God, Religion, Atheism, Philosophy, AAFSA

Seminal Paper on the Establishment Clause

Those who claim to be freethinkers must arrive at their conclusions of belief without sole reliance upon dogma, religious (or otherwise unqualified) authority and tradition.

In that vein, I strongly encourage those who would call themselves freethinking, whether or not they agree with me on church-state separation, to read "The True Meaning of the Establishment Clause." (March 2007)

The paper, by civil rights attorney Eddie Tabash, and reviewed by other scholars, outlines in succinct and brilliant form the legal and historical arguments for complete government neutrality towards religion (strict separationism) and against nonpreferentialism and accommodationalism. He takes key opinions written from the latter two perspectives, analyzes their evidential arguments, and shows why they are flawed. It is required reading for anyone who demands to be informed on, and to understand, these perspectives, even if said person claims their mind is already made up on the issue.

For those interested, Eddie has an older, shorter paper on the issue as well: "The True Meaning of 'Separation of Church and State'".
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Technorati tags: Religion, Church-state

The Broken Record That Is Creationism

I went through a humor phase, once, in hearing the same damn questions answered over and over again to benefit the intellectual laziness of creationists. They repeat, like stupid parrots, the lines they are fed by pastors and "creation scientists" like Kent Hovind, then, when those are answered, they plug their ears in their fingers, or stare with their blank looks of incomprehension back at you, and repeat the same fu%#@ng questions...whether 10 mins later or 2 months later, whether to you or to someone else.

I went to the Friel-Tabash debate on Monday [Eddie soundly whipped the joker, I'm working on uploading it to Google Video as we speak, and I'll link back later], and the same thing happened (yet again). A woman demanded answers of me to the classic questions:

• How does evolution generate information? My answer, plus PZ's answers:

...there are mechanisms operating in genetics that make duplication of genes and the concommitant increase of information in the genome routine. I've traced the origin of bicoid and zerknüllt to a duplication of Hox3, for instance, and I've described how genes, such as Wnt, are found in gene families, the product of duplications over evolutionary history. I've shown how Hox genes arose by duplications; seriously, how can anyone look at the serial chain of Hox genes and their phylogenetic distribution, and the fact that vertebrates have 4 sets of Hox genes, and not recognize their source in gene duplication, and not see that as a change in complexity over evolutionary time? We can go further and look at synteny, or the conserved order of sequences in the genome, and see that there is an explicable pattern of change, one that is explained by common genetic and evolutionary processes, and does not fit the design hypothesis (except in the sense that the design hypothesis is so uselessly vague that you can make any observation fit it)...

• How did abiogenesis/the origin of the genetic code occur? My answer, in the form of amazing reviews that cover every aspect of the subject.
  

Here's the $64K question: do creationists read the answers? Do they have the sufficient willpower or background education to understand the answers (or even the questions)? Most important of all, do they want to even try?

The humor phase is gone. When I reciprocated these questions right back at her...what were her answers? "I dunno, but God did it!" They require evidence and logical arguments, but offer nothing in return but mere fideism. But they can go home and sleep at night, because they think they have used their own ignorance to disprove scientific knowledge. The anger phase is waxing. The futility phase -- where I quit even trying to educate people, because I recognize they don't want to learn, but only to believe what they wish, and cover their intellectual bankruptcy with a façade of scientific merit -- is right around the corner.
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Technorati tags: Intelligent Design, Evolution, Creationism

"War on Terror" -- Calculated Political Phraseology

A WaPo op-ed is spot on:

Constant reference to a "war on terror" did accomplish one major objective: It stimulated the emergence of a culture of fear. Fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue. The war of choice in Iraq could never have gained the congressional support it got without the psychological linkage between the shock of 9/11 and the postulated existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Support for President Bush in the 2004 elections was also mobilized in part by the notion that "a nation at war" does not change its commander in chief in midstream.

I must admit (cringes in anticipation) that I was taken in by this tactic. I have seen the err of my ways, and am willing to admit how wrong I was. It won't happen again. I wish I could've seen this quote long ago, and thought on it long and hard:

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
--An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania, Unknown, but credited to Franklin (1759)

So true. And so sad in the times in which we live.
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Technorati tags:Politics

Homeless Shelter Locale Approved

So the city commissioners finally decided on a place to put the homeless shelter -- 3335 N. Main Terrace (MAP). I've mentioned the issue here in Gainesville before, and I sincerely hope this does something to alleviate human suffering. Recently, some students tried to stage a camp-out in the Plaza area, in protest of the plight of the transients in Gainesville, and were forcefully removed, only the latest in a long series of efforts to raise awareness and concern.

The center, named the GRACE Marketplace, will contain beds, showers, phones and laundry facilities. Social services, including budgeting help, legal aid, drug intervention and vocational training, will also be offered.

About $1.4 million will be spent per year in aid and services.

To me, the only responsible city policy is one in which panhandling is outlawed...IF you have a city-run shelter that will provide basic needs for those people panhandling. If you don't have such a shelter, then it is morally reprehensible to kick people off the sides of the roads (or arrest them) for trying to get money that may or may not be used for food and survival.

I think the former option is the most humane and intelligent solution -- panhandling is bad for everyone involved, and those who wish to give to the homeless now have a central location to find them and an associated charity (and responsible, accountable administration over it) to give to.
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Technorati tags: Politics

LTE - Gainesville Sun

I just sent in the following to the Sun, a bit of a follow-up on this post regarding Yecki, and hope it will get published:

Leonard Spearman's "disappointment" with the Faculty Senate's refusal to grant Jeb a degree, and the Alumni Association's mistaken belief that Jeb deserves the honor, should be contrasted with some facts. Let me tell you what is disappointing -- Jeb's track record on science education in our state. Sure, Jeb presided over Scripps, Burnham and Torrey Pines deciding to come to Florida. But it doesn't take a genius to figure out how tax breaks and revenue generation works, and to realize Jeb is no friend of science in general -- from stem cells to evolutionary biology. His quote on evolution (Miami Herald), "...I don't think it [evolutionary biology] should actually be part of the curriculum, to be honest with you. And people have different points of view and they can be discussed at school, but it does not need to be in the curriculum.'' So I guess Scripps et al can recruit scientists from outside the state to come work at their new facilities. Also, let's not forget how Jeb announced his opposition to embryonic stem-cell research in June at the Biotechnology Industry Organization conference in Philadelphia. Further, look at the state of science education among Florida's school kids. After Florida received an "F" grade on its science standards from the Fordham Institute's evaluation, after the NAEP found that 49 percent of Florida 8th graders couldn't perform at a basic science proficiency level, and after only one-third of students scored at or above their grade level in science on the 2005 FCAT, how does Jeb fix things? By overseeing the appointment of Cheri Pierson Yecke as the K-12 Chancellor. This young-earth creationist, who will preside over this year's renewal of the science standards for our school kids (purely coincidence, I'm sure), was basically fired from her previous post in Minnesota for trying to inject creationism into the science standards there (barely averted -- through the hard work of the MN Citizens for Science), and is now the head of Florida's state K-12 education! The grassroots Florida Citizens for Science (http://www.flascience.org/) will be working hard to reverse the damage that Jeb thus inflicted on our state's science curriculum for years. Had Jeb made the same effort to improve our school children's chances in science education as he did in generating revenues for the state (by luring research business in with tax incentives), starting with removing incompetent boobs from the education system, instead of presiding over the appointment of a fanatically anti-science, far-religious-right partisan dolt to the highest post in the K-12 system, then perhaps he would've actually earned the esteem of a degree from Florida's flagship university, and deserve alumnus status...on second thought, I doubt he had a GPA of 4.0 and SAT of 1300, like the average UF freshman of 2005, so he doesn't deserve it anyway.

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Technorati tags: Politics, Evolution, Creationism

In Which it is Necessary to Defend (one more time) Science from Religious Kooks

Bernie Machen was disappointed that his buddy Jeb didn't get an honorary sheepskin from UF. You know why he didn't, Bernie?

Because of dumbass moves like this one: presiding over the appointment of a young-earth creationist idiot politician, Cheri Pierson Yecke, who was basically fired from her previous job for trying to corrupt the science education of Minnesotan schoolkids (only through the hard work of these guys), as CHANCELLOR of Florida's state K-12 education!!! Had Jeb made any effort, whatsoever, to cleanse Florida's state education of incompetent boobs and fanatical religious right puppets, perhaps he would've earned the esteem of a degree from Florida's flagship university...

...then again, I doubt he had a GPA of 4.0 and an SAT of 1300, so he doesn't deserve it anyway.

Guess who will be fending off the drooling cretinists this time around? You know who.
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Technorati tags: Intelligent Design, Evolution, Creationism

Church-state Separation Victory in Starke, FL

In another legal victory for religious freedom, the American Atheists have won a court case involving a city display of a religious icon. Today's Gainesville Sun reports that an injunction has been placed against a cross placed above a city's water tower in Starke, FL:

[Judge Moore] prohibited the city from "displaying, maintaining, illuminating or otherwise allowing" the cross to appear on the tower.

Prof. Friedman, as usual, has pithy coverage:

In American Atheists, Inc. v. City of Starke, Florida, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19512 (MD FL, March 19, 2007), a Florida federal district court held that Starke, Florida's placement and maintenance of a lighted cross on the top of the city's water tower violates the Establishment Clause of the U.S. and Florida constitutions. The court held that the case was not moot even though the city had removed the cross. It granted plaintiffs' request for an injunction because it is not clear that city will not put the cross back up at a later date.

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Technorati tags: Church-state, Politics

NYT Article on Primate Morality

Check it out: "Scientist Finds the Beginnings of Morality in Primate Behavior"
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Technorati tags: Philosophy, Evolution

Two Debates Worth Attending re God's Existence

Eddie Tabash will be debating Todd Friel of Way of the Master Radio on Monday, March 26th at Daytona Beach (in the Mary McLeod Bethune Performing Arts Center, 698 W. International Speedway Blvd.). Doors open at 6:30 PM. I encourage you to check it out. details here

Eddie Tabash will be debating Rev. Joel Reif of the First United Church of Christ of Orlando on Thursday, March 29th at UCF (in the Pegasus Ballroom). Unfortunately, it starts at 1 PM, which is fairly inconvenient to most working people, and even students, here in Gainesville. But if you can make it, try! details here
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Technorati tags: God, Religion, Atheism

Free Hug from an Atheist

We've been discussing a simple and fun way to advertise our event, and to raise awareness of the group in general, on Facebook: "Free Hugs from Atheists." We will be out in Turlington Plaza on Thursday (3/22) from 12-2 pm, and we will bring our large sign from the SOF event, lean it up against a tree or plant, put together a simple poster that says, "Free Hugs from Atheists" and hug away. We will offer the hugs with no strings attached, but at the same time, afterwards, inform people about the event this Sunday and ask them, if they are interested, if they would like a flyer with more information.

What I would really appreciate from you guys is to bring handouts using flyer_05. Just save it to your disk, and open it using something simple (like MS Picture Viewer), then print 4 to a page, preferably with borders outlined for easy cutting. I did this, and the print is still very legible. Anyone interested in the free hugs, please do this, just print out a few (5-6) pages of 4 per page, of flyer_05 (easier to read than flyer_06 at low res and small font), cut them and bring them with you on Thursday 12-2 pm. See you then!
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Technorati tags: Atheism

Bombs Away!

Courtnix had a great idea -- Google-bombing Egnor:

Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor [<--yours truly]• Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor • Michael Egnor

Spread the love, people. I noticed my traffic went up some today, and it's because I have post #3 in the list.

As PZ said, "Teach the controversy!"
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Technorati tags: Intelligent Design, Evolution, Creationism

Hammer, Meet Nail

Ed Brayton hits the church-state issue on the head:

People can and do engage in public religious expression every minute of every day in this country, including on government property. I have personally attended an "America for Jesus" rally at which Falwell himself spoke held in a public park, on government property. No one tried to stop him from doing so; the permit for the rally was issued without regard to the religious nature of the expression. And similar events take place every day in parks and on courthouse grounds and public property all over the country.

And demagogues like Falwell are constantly conflating public expressions of religion with government expressions of religion. They also get enormous mileage out of conflating belief in God with opposition to separation of church and state.

I write on church-state issues a lot, and it always comes down to this -- people who conflate the issue of public/individual religious freedom with government/unconstitutional religious neutrality are wilfully ignorant. Some of them may be stupid, sure, but the vast majority of them use this rhetorical ploy the same way all con artists do -- for their emotive/manipulative power.

It angers and saddens everyone to think of some poor humble patriotic Americans, bowing their heads, and being told they can't do that. And so, even though this never happens, this is the imagery that the religious right and other liars and frauds use. Even though it is all about government-led and government-sponsored prayer, we hear these blowhards diatribe endlessly about how God was removed from schools! Really? Interesting, because I thought that God was everywhere, that your relationship to God is internal, and that the state was simply disallowed from leading and sponsoring prayers, not that the students aren't free to individually decide to pray.

So is your god so weak and pitiful that he needs to be regulated and prescribed by the government? An interesting admission. And the same logic applies to those who think that ten commandments (and other) monuments = god ... and thus when monuments aren't planted on all government courtyards, then god must be dead!

What a pathetic and small god that must be, to need propping up by the state -- as Franklin once wrote,

"When a religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it, so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."

Amen to that.
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Technorati tags: Religion, Church-state

Beautiful MammalianTransitional Fossil

After last year's Tiktaalik roseae, which was a gorgeous fish-tetrapod transitional, I didn't think another beauty would come along for a while. But I was wrong. Meet Yanoconodon allini, a Mesozoic-era eutriconodont mammal, and read PZ's take on it.

More evidence for creationists to ignore, yet another transitional fossil that they promise don't exist.

Ah, whatever helps them sleep at night, I suppose...
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Technorati tags: Intelligent Design, Evolution, Creationism

Another Young Earth Argument: Human Civilization Too Slow

I was speaking with a nice fellow from the chemistry dept. yesterday, and we had a good talk about creationism.

He's a believer, and although he never identified himself as a YEC, he was very familiar with their arguments and seemed to doubt seriously the veracity of things like isochron dating (the classic two assumptions -- initial conditions and the closed system) and star distance measurements (he likened it to measuring the distance between two points in proximity using a gigantic ruler). He also talked about scientific foreknowledge in the Bible (also here), not so much medical, which he admitted was a poor representation, but especially the earth being round and "hung upon nothing." Of course, when people point this out, they always fail to point out that in that same book of the OT (Job) from which they quote, that many references are made to "the pillars of the earth" and implications about its flatness and "foundation" are made. They also fail to point out the poetic context of all of this.

Now another of his arguments I was unfamiliar with, and I happened to find an article this morning, completely by accident, which addresses this very issue! It was quite odd, I thought...This argument was that if modern man came out of Africa 100,000 years ago (or so), that civilization shouldn't have taken so long to form. I didn't know this was a common creationist claim, but it is in the index. Some variants on the claim are about the speed of civilization's progress, or the complexity of ancient civilizations, or that the population of earth is too low for man to have been around so long, or that civilization only goes back about 3,000 years, and thus the Bible's story is believable. By chance, this morning I found an article on sociology by noted Harvard professor Steven Pinker: "On the History of Violence" that directly touches on this.

From the article:

...These sorts of images [Stalin, Hitler] can lead us to thinking that modernity brings terrible violence. Perhaps native people lived in a state of harmony that we’ve departed from.

This, Pinker tells us, is bullshit. “Our ancestors were far more violent than we are.” We’re probably living in the most peaceful time of our species’s existence, a statement that seems almost obscene in light of Darfur and Iraq.

The decline of violence, he tells us, is a fractal phenomenon - we see it over the centuries, the decades and the years. That said, we see a tipping point in the 16th century - the age of reason - particularly in England and Holland.

Until 10,000 years ago, all humans were hunter gatherers. This is the group that some believe lived in primordial harmony - there’s no evidence of this. Studying current hunter-gatherer tribes, the percent of male adults who die in violence is extraordinary - from 20 to 60% of all males. Even during the violent 20th century, with two world wars, less than 2% of males worldwide died in warfare.

It appears that my friend's objection is based on the faulty assumption that humans have generally cooperated during their entire history, rather than acting in tribal-warfare fashion throughout. These are Pinker's explanations for why things were then as they were, and why things are now as they are:

1) Hobbes got it right. “Life in the state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” In anarchy, there’s a temptation towards preemptive violence, hurting the other guy before he hurts you. But with the rise of the Leviathan - the State - there’s a monopoly on violence. This helps explain why we still see violence in the absence of the state - zones of anarchy, failed states, street gangs.

2) In the past, we had a widespread sentiment that life was cheap. As we’ve gotten better at prolonging life, we take life more seriously and are more reluctant to take life.

3) We’re seeing more non-zero sum games, as people discover forms of cooperation that can benefit both parties, like trade and shared peace dividends. These zero-sum games come with technology, because it allows us to trade with more people. People become more valuable live than dead - “We shouldn’t bomb the Japanese because they built my minivan.”

4) Finally, Pinker leans on Peter Singer to speculate about “the expanding circle”. By default, we empathize with a small group of people, our friends and family. Everyone else is subhuman. But over time, we’ve seen this circle expand, from village to clan to tribe to nation to other races, both sexes and eventually other species. As we learn to expand our circles wider and wider, perhaps violence becomes increasingly unacceptable.

I sent this fellow this article, and I hope we talk again about this subject. He was quite willing to admit to most of the evidences for evolution, and to admit the difficulty in "making all the pieces fit" (evidences) for creationism, and for a young earth. He also admitted that many of these arguments are just argumentum ad ignorantium, or "god of the gaps"-style. Most sadly of all, to me, is that he had been suckered by the cronies at the Disco Institute, especially Jonathan Wells. Hopefully, our dialogues will continue, and he'll continue to develop his philosophy of science, and see these shams for what they are.
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Technorati tags: God, Religion, Creationism

UF Walkout for Peace on 3/20; Red Dawn Analogy

Activism:

Join the UF Walkout for Peace with the Students for a Democratic Society in Gainesville. See the Facebook event for more, and use it to invite friends. For me, it doesn't impact any classes or anything, since I'm a grad student.

On that note, I read a very poignant take on Iraq, using the comparison to the film Red Dawn, by Jim Downey. His major point is that rightwingers love that movie, and the ideals it embodies, but fail completely to apply that perspective to Iraq:

But what gets me is the complete disconnect that occurs with those on the right when it comes to applying the ostensible lessons of the movie to the real world, and specifically to Iraq. Red Dawn is all about how Americans would resist an invasion, even unto death, and is glorified on the right for this reason. People don't take kindly to being "ruled" by outside invaders or illegitimate government. Why on earth do the Republicans who still support this war think that the Iraqi people are any different from us in this regard?

Perhaps that's just it - early on the rhetoric was how we would be 'bringing democracy' to Iraq, and the repressed Iraqis would welcome us and quickly adopt our ways, because all people yearn to be free. But now the notion is that the Iraqis are somehow different from us in this regard, 'less' than us, and all we have to do is to continue to occupy their country long enough, with enough troops, as we did to the evil Germans and Japanese after WWII.

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Technorati tags: Politics

On the Origin of the Genetic Code and Abiogenesis

**Update (11/25/07): See here for updated links for all the papers below**

A new research paper in Science demonstrates yet more evidence for abiogenesis -- finally a 3D map of the chemical structure of a beautiful example of a ribozyme, one which researchers built "from scratch" and could very easily have evolved naturally under the right chemical conditions. See the EurekAlert!, and a perspective on the research:

No known RNA enzyme in biology catalyzes the polymerase-like joining of RNA. However, the powerful methods of in vitro evolution have made it possible to generate such enzymes from scratch, starting from a large population of RNAs with random sequences (6). The usual approach is first to evolve an RNA enzyme that is an RNA ligase, which can join two oligonucleotides in a template-directed manner. Then, through further evolution, the researcher attempts to coax the ligase to accept NTPs as substrates and to add multiple NTPs in succession.

Bartel and colleagues (7) have used one such in vitro evolved ligase, the class I ligase, and evolved it further to polymerize as many as 14 successive NTPs with high fidelity. Despite valiant efforts, however, it appears unlikely that this particular polymerase enzyme will ever be evolved to the point that it can copy RNA molecules as long as itself (~200 nucleotides). Nonetheless, it is likely that scientists will eventually apply a similar approach to a different set of RNA molecules to achieve more extensive polymerization and ultimately complete replication.

As the gaps in our knowledge continue to close, the "god of the gaps" continues to shrink along with them. This is as true today of the "Intelligent Design" creationism movement as it was of Young Earth Creationists and their pseudo-scientific arguments against evolutionary biology.

A very recent case-in-point is shown by Dr. Michael Egnor's rejection of evolution on the basis of a half-baked conception of evolution's inability to generate biological "information," which I refuted with peer-reviewed resources here. After reading Orac shredding the fallacies propounded by Dr. Michael Egnor, and especially the, "Duh, I don't know or understand this, so it must not be true!" (classic argumentum ad ignorantium), I wanted to highlight his section on the origin of the genetic code:

I'll agree that how the genetic code evolved is indeed a very good scientific question, but it is a question that in no way poses a threat to current evolutionary theory or requires the postulation of some sort of intelligence to explain. Indeed, it's a hot topic of research for evolutionary biologists, with computer simulations evaluating the plausibility of various explanations and competing hypotheses being tested scientifically. If you search PubMed, you'll find over 5,000 articles about or touching on the evolution of the genetic code, and PubMed doesn't even index many evolutionary biology journals in which such articles would be expected to appear. Indeed, there was a rather interesting paper in PNAS in November about how the universal genetic code may have emerged as determined by studying of transfer RNAs. It also seems to me that Egnor also sounds almost Lamarckian in the way he describes how animals evolve thicker coats in response to cold climate. He also seems not to have considered that the very fact that the genetic code is very nearly universal for all organisms can also be viewed as supporting evolution. If the development of the genetic code appeared very early in the history of life, that would go a long way towards explaining why nearly all life, from bacteria to humans, uses the same code, and even the variants of the genetic code that exist are minor.

Indeed. In addition to these papers, I wanted to highlight six other recent reviews that give a great overview of the present scientific thinking towards the origin of the genetic code:

1. "Selection, history and chemistry: the three faces of the genetic code.", Trends in Biochemical Sciences, Volume 24, Issue 6, 1 June 1999, Pages 241-247 (full-text .pdf)
   
2. "Genetic code: Lucky chance or fundamental law of nature?", Physics of Life Reviews, Volume 1, Issue 3, Dec 2004, Pages 202-229 (full-text .pdf) [low-quality pub, but expansive overview of the subject]
   
3. "Stepwise Evolution of Nonliving to Living Chemical Systems.", Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere, Volume 34, Issue 4, Aug 2004, Pages 371–389 (full-text .pdf)
4. "The Origin of Cellular Life.", Bioessays, Volume 22, Issue 12, Dec 2004, Pages 1160-1170 (full-text .pdf)
5. "The Origin of the Genetic Code: Theories and Their Relationships, A Review.", Biosystems, Volume 80, Issue 2, May 2005, Pages 175-184 (full-text .pdf)
6. "The Origin and Evolution of the Genetic Code: Statistical and Experimental Investigations.", Robin D. Knight, Ph.D. Dissertation, June 2001.
   

There are answers. Do the creationists know that they exist? Mostly not. Would they understand them if they did? Mostly not. How much knowledge is required before creationists admit that we have sound scientific answers to all of their objections? There will never be enough. Ever.

The bar of evidence would continue to be elevated, just as Behe demonstrated with respect to the immune system (blood clotting cascade = BCC, irreducible complexity = IC):

The BCC arguments can be found throughout IDC websites. One of the most well-informed responders to these arguments is Andrea Bottaro. Last year, as more evidence came in that transposons were involved in the human immune response, Dr. Bottaro put together the pieces and completely refuted the claim of IC as it applies to BCC. How did Prof. Behe respond? By moving the goalposts -- not in any way denying the evidence, but demanding a mutation-by-mutation account of the pathways involved. Thus, he undercuts his own argument by rendering the burden of proof unattainable by any scientific pursuit.

Creationists will continue to place ridiculous burdens of proof upon science, while completely refusing to provide positive evidence of their own (because, of course, they have none). Their arguments are, 99.9% of the time, anti-evolutionary in nature, because there are no sound pro-creationism arguments. And, as Judge Jones articulately pointed out, this fallacy of logic is the false dilemma: "If you're wrong, then I'm right."

The court in McLean stated that creation science rested on a "contrived dualism" that recognized only two possible explanations for life, the scientific theory of evolution and biblical creationism, treated the two as mutually exclusive such that "one must either accept the literal interpretation of Genesis or else believe in the godless system of evolution," and accordingly viewed any critiques of evolution as evidence that necessarily supported biblical creationism.

Typical creationist stupidity.

What knowledge do they produce? What cures do they offer? What technology have they manufactured? None. Nada. Zilch. They deal only in ignorance. They give nothing in the way of evidence or argument, and ask for the world in return. When mountains of evidence are presented to them, like in the papers above, they ignore them and dodge the facts entirely.

All they offer are bad arguments against evolution, distortions of facts, and philosophical pleas based on unsound premises. Their desperation is evidenced clearly by the depths to which they descend in order to preserve their silly superstitious religious beliefs. And desperate they ought to be, because evolution has irreparably demolished the validity of the ancient creationist myths forever.
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Technorati tags: Intelligent Design, Evolution, Creationism

A Little Feedback on My Talk with Todd Friel

As I mentioned, I talked to Todd Friel on "Way of the Master Radio," and he aired my segment. Well, I got some feedback.

A nice fellow, a college student at Boyce College in Louisville, KY, has edited the segment down to the relevant portion -- about 15 mins worth, and you can listen to it here on Odeo or download it here. After reading his feedback, I left a comment on his site.

I am the atheist who called in to talk to Todd, and as I explained on my website, I used a pseudonym. You can read what I had to say about it already here if you like.

He extensively edited our talk, but I understand why -- we talked for about 40 mins. He cut out the parts about evolution and cosmology (the Standard Model, or the "Big Bang" if you prefer), and he cut out some of the end.

Now, I'm a little confused by what you wrote:

It also shows that Atheists can deny God, but when it all boils down to it - you still have to deal with that “Sin” thing.

Atheists don't "deny God" per se, they don't believe in God.

People do not always behave as they ought. Now, how do we go from there to "however, there is a God," or even, "however, there is a judgment"?? Please, feel free to show me how that is an inevitable (or even a logical) conclusion...

I hope he replies. Upon listening to a little bit of the clip, I smiled at Todd's belief that atheists equivocate over the term "atheist". Todd is blissfully ignorant, it appears, that atheists have been arguing amongst themselves for years about what "weak atheism" versus "strong atheism" is, and whether someone can be an agnostic atheist, etc.

Todd thinks it's "all about deconstruction" -- he seems blissfully unaware that many (if not the huge majority of) atheists are not post-modernists. For me it is quite simple:

• I cannot disbelieve, or claim to know, anything about a concept which is not defined
• Therefore, define "god" for me, and then I'll explain whether I claim to believe or know something about it
• I am thus an agnostic about god-concepts that are vague or undefined, but an atheist about many defined and well-known gods, like the Christian god and Allah and Thor...
  
• If "god" = "the Western God, omni³: all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving", then I will unequivocally not only admit to disbelief, but also I will claim that such a God doesn't exist, because of arguments like these and these
• If "god" = "the power of love" or "the grounding of existence", then I'll roll my eyes and walk away.
  

Seems simple enough to me.
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Technorati tags: God, Religion, Atheism, Philosophy

Proud of the NEA

I'm quite proud of the National Evangelical Association for being more than a lap dog of the Religious Right and standing up for human rights and the environment, against the tide of criticism from Dobson and groups like the Family Research Council. I just hope they continue to do so. I don't think this controversy should be thought of as a "family feud," because I don't think the RR has any family -- the unholy alliance of conservative politics with fundamentalist Christianity so far has no bastard spawn (pure fascism) nor friendly cousins in liberal religion (all conscientious liberals reject this movement, regardless of shared religious views).

I've written before about the rift between Evangelicals and the RR, and I hope to see it continue to widen as the former grows in concern for broader issues (how about poverty, peace, and Darfur, just for starters?), and the latter is increasingly marginalized and trivialized by its own stupidity. I hope.

See: NYT, CNN, DefCon
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Technorati tags: Religion, Politics

Study Finds that Scripture Inspires Aggression in Students

A scientific study published in the March issue of the journal Psychological Science and mentioned in Nature found that students exposed to invocations of violence responded more aggressively when it was from a religious context. Undergraduates from both BYU (n = 248) and from a university in Amsterdam (n = 242) -- Vrije Universiteit -- were studied.

The lead author, Prof. Brad Bushman, made the publications (linked above) available from his website.

Does this surprise anyone? When you're told to hurt others, nothing removes inhibition like the feeling of being on a divinely-inspired mission. History and common sense confirm that.
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Technorati tags: God, Religion

FFRF's "Freethought of the Day": Einstein

Being a member of the FFRF entitles you to the email service "Freethought of the Day" -- receiving interetsing biographical and historical information on famous freethinkers each day. Today's date had two freethinkers, one a little more famous than the other: Judge Arnold Krekel and Albert Einstein. I want to reproduce the section on Einstein below...it's worth it.

Albert Einstein

On this date in 1879, Albert Einstein was born in Germany. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Zurich by 1909. His 1905 paper explaining the photo-electric effect, the basis of electronics, earned him the Nobel Prize in 1921. His first paper on Special Relativity Theory, also published in 1905, changed the world. Einstein split his time and academic appointments between various European universities. In 1932, Princeton named him head of the Mathematics Department, and he traveled back and forth between the continents. After the rise of the Nazi party, Einstein made Princeton his permanent home, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1940. Einstein, a pacifist during World War I, stayed a firm proponent of social justice and responsibility. He chaired the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, which organized to alert the public to the dangers of atomic warfare.

In an article for The New York Times (Nov. 9, 1930), Einstein wrote about his views on religion, and wonder at the cosmic mysteries: "This insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, also has given rise to religion. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms--this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men."

Confusion over his beliefs stemmed from such comments as his public statement, reported by United Press in April 25, 1929, that: "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the orderly harmony in being, not in God who deals with the facts and actions of men." Einstein's famous "God does not play dice with the Universe" metaphor--meaning nature conforms to mathematical law--fueled more confusion.

At a symposium, he advised: "In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task. . . ." ("Science, Philosophy and Religion, A Symposium," published by the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc., New York, 1941). D. 1955.

“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own--a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism. It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive, and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in nature.”
-- Albert Einstein, column for The New York Times, Nov. 9, 1930 (reprinted in The New York Times obituary, April 19, 1955)

Wonderful words. I've written before on how theists try to distort Einstein's true beliefs into their own in a lame appeal to authority, in order to prop up the credence of god-belief. And, did you know that I own an Albert Einstein action figure? Jealous, aren't you?
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Technorati tags: God, Religion, Philosophy

On "Way of the Master Radio" with Todd Friel

Out of boredom and curiosity, I called in to Way of the Master Radio on Friday evening. The host, Todd Friel, will be debating Eddie in Daytona Beach on 3/26, and I'm hoping he'll be able to come here the day before to do our debate. He's one of the last on my list as potential opponents.

I called in as "David" from Tampa, 23, at UF studying chemistry. I simply used a pseudonym because I wasn't sure how the show would go -- if he would be hostile, if he would even air my segment. I was also a little insecure about being live on air, and I've never debated live on-air before, so I wanted to see how it went. Only the beginning of my call was captured at the very end of the second hour of Friday's show, but he taped the rest of it and promised to air it later (on Monday, I suppose). You can listen to the last 2 minutes of the show here and catch me being welcomed on.

___*UPDATE*___

He did indeed put it on Monday's show, hour 2. You can listen to it here. My segment with him starts about 40 minutes in. He did a lot of editing of the show, which doesn't surprise me very much, and it is hard to tell, but he is actually jumping in and out of the show with explanations, and cutting out parts, rather than just letting it all play.

For instance, he completely omitted the part about cosmology and how the Standard Model = "something from nothing," where I corrected him and called him on equivocation.

One big thing that Todd messes up badly is the idea that atheists are "suppressing knowledge of God" in order to deny the judgment. I've dealt with this at some length before, and the problem with this argument, as I tried to point out, is that I don't have to deny a god's existence in order to deny the Christian God's existence, or in order to deny the Bible's inerrancy, etc. It is a non sequitur of the highest order to say, "If God, then judgment," yet Todd seems to take this leap in logic for granted and as if it is self-evident! The God of the Deists is only one of thousands of completely accessible theistic beliefs that avoid the whole notion of orthodox Christian judgment, along with Islam and Hinduism and etc. To say that atheists "just disbelieve to avoid judgment" is thus laughable.

At the end of the show, notice that he dodged the issue of mercy vs. justice entirely. Like many Christians, he can't seem to comprehend that you cannot both be merciful and just at the same time:

Mercy: Not giving someone what they deserve
Just: Giving someone what they deserve

According to Todd, at the end of the show, God is always just. He always gives people what they deserve. However, with the same breath, and in complete self-contradiction, he claims that all sinners deserve hell, but that some do not receive it, because they "repent and trust"...

The argument is that because God punished Himself, an innocent Person, in order to give mercy, it is still just, because someone "paid for" what I deserve.

So, in this twisted view of justice, an innocent person can be punished for a guilty person's crimes, and this is still just!! No. That is complete rubbish. Instead, this would be barbaric and injust. Now, if the person who is punished volunteers to be punished, then you have mercy, not justice. And if God can be merciful to whomever he pleases, and accept their wrongdoings by forgiving them for those wrongdoings, then of course God can arbitrarily decide to be merciful at his own whim! As Paul said in Romans 9:15-31ff, this sort of God just decides who to have mercy on, and who to judge justly, and can make some people for hell, and some for heaven ("vessels fit for destruction, vessels fit for mercy").

Of course, the question of how the whole "hell = just punishment for sin" argument follows, even if God does put people in hell, is a completely separate, and even more difficult, issue.

DagoodS from DC has dealt with this issue at some length: God gets to make the rules, and one of the rules can be that he doesn't have to enforce them at all times, and thus God gets to decide what justice is and what mercy is. The whole idea that God is "bound" to throw sinners into hell is thus laughable and absurd.

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One other thing to highlight: Exapologist points to a new and useful resource on the Christian apologetic commonly known as "presuppositionalism". I have covered this issue at some length here and elsewhere, and Prof. Witmer's intro to the subject, and his interview with Gene Cook, is always a good place to start.
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Technorati tags: God, Religion, Atheism

Follow-up to Godless Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA)

I wanted to re-iterate something that I brought up in the church-state email I posted a few days ago about Article VI of the Constitution, and the "no religious test for office" clause, which was articulated very well by Susan Jacoby:

We have retired the gods from politics. We have found that man is the only source of political power, and that the governed should govern.
—Col. Robert Green Ingersoll, July 4, 1876

On the centennial anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Robert Ingersoll, the foremost champion of freethought and the most famous orator in late nineteenth-century America, paid tribute in his hometown of Peoria, Illinois, to the first secular government that was ever founded in this world. Also known as “the Great Agnostic”, Ingersoll praised the framers of the Constitution for deliberately omitting any mention of God from the nation's founding document and instead acknowledging “We the People” as the supreme governmental authority. This unprecedented decision, Ingersoll declared, “did away forever with the theological idea of government.”

The Great Agnostic spoke too soon. It is impossible to imagine such a forthright celebration of America's secularist heritage today, as the apostles of religious correctness attempt to infuse every public issue, from the quality of education to capital punishment, with their theological values. During the past two decades, cultural and religious conservatives have worked ceaselessly to delegitimize American secularism and relegate its heroes to a kook’s corner of American history. In the eighteenth century, Enlightenment secularists of the revolutionary generation were stigmatized by the guardians of religious orthodoxy as infidels and atheists. Today, the new pejorative “elitist” has replaced the old “infidel” in the litany of slurs aimed at defenders of secular values.

Now, on the retard side of the fence, you have an example of stupidity like this one, wherein our author declaims,

"We are all entitled to our beliefs, but I am curious as to how one can swear to uphold the Constitution and not believe in God. After all, it was enacted in the 1787th 'year of our Lord.'?"

My jaw seriously dropped when I read this. I mean most religious right loons will use the Declaration of Independence, or some state constitution, to try to point out how "godly our heritage is..." to argue that atheists can't be patriots, or serve as officials in government, in the vein of frauds like David Barton. But by acknowledging the conventional dating scheme, the FF implied you had to believe in God to uphold the Constitution???? How fu*%ing stupid can wingnuts get? Actually...don't answer that.

See here for some more thoughts along Constitutional lines and how it bears on Stark. Hemant brings us the WaPo ad put out by the AHA to support Stark:


See the .pdf here, and the .jpg here.
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Technorati tags: God, Religion, Atheism, Politics