Archive for December, 2007

It will be a busy one, I know. For instance, in January, the Texas State Board of Education is slated to “review” science education standards, and we already know the creos are hard at work to undermine them. The pro-science community dealt with this handily back in 2003, and now we’re going to have to deal with it again. Sigh. They never learn. Such is the power of myth over minds. I’ll be taking a blog break of about 5 days or so. See you soon.

Superdickery is a site with some of the most bizarre, offensive, propagandist, sexist, racist, innuendo-laden, or just plain hilarious comic book covers and panels from back in the day. Much of it will have you scratching your head in bewilderment, while some of the less worksafe stuff — like a whole plethora of the most unintentionally gay Batman panels imaginable — will simply have you delirious with laughter and must be seen to be believed. The one above, though, has got to be the most inexplicable piece of art damage I’ve ever encountered. So Hitler is apparently crucifying Jesus — so he can blame the Jews for it, I wonder? — when suddenly God, a surprisingly short fellow who favors baby blue dresses and flip flops, bursts into the room, rather the hard way of doing things for an omnipotent deity. Bonus WTF comedy points for Jesus himself crying, “I’m saved!”

I’ve been thinking on this question in the last few days, in light of reading and responding to some comments made by a handful of inordinately ignorant creationists made here and on other blogs. We were visited here recently by a clod named Jon, whose gaseous and incoherent anti-evolution ramblings were annihilated with glorious eloquence by regular commenter Lui. Shalini, over at Scientia Natura, has been ruthlessly trolled by a commenter simply calling himself “creationist” who appears to be quite literally psychopathic, and over at Larry Moran’s Sandwalk, a jaw-dropping fool calling himself “mats” has raised (lowered?) the human capacity for aggressive stupidity to the level of performance art. It’s a phenomenon just breathtaking to behold, and it’s a sobering realization that this kind of mental chaos is what science education in this country has to confront. It would seem that, to a least a percentage of its followers, Christianity appeals because it provides them with a vehicle for intellectual poseurdom. Without anything in the way of scientific education or expertise behind them, creationists are unique among cranks in the perverse confidence with which they lash themselves to the mast of their stale and long-debunked claims. They’ll confidently and even condescendingly inform experts with Ph.D’s and 25 years of field work that there is no evidence at all to support what is probably the best-supported theory in all science. This goes beyond mere stupidity or even run-of-the-mill ideological denialism into a bold and deliberate repudiation of knowledge and even reality itself. I’ve often thought that a large part of religion’s appeal is directed towards the less intelligent or less educated, who have come to mistrust those more educated than themselves and who actually equate good education and intellect with “elitism.” For them, Christianity provides the comforting...
Read more

There’s a rumor going around that America is the most advanced nation on Earth, in terms of human rights and scientific prowess at the very least. But in reality, the majority of this nation has greeted the prospect of returning to the dark ages with open arms. Atheists only ever usually see this in the comments creationists leave on science blogs, most of which (the comments, that is) are such a black hole of vacuous moronity coupled with unwonted arrogance and smugness that they must be seen to be believed. But Americans’ eagerness to flush the last 200 or so years of civilization down the commode can be seen in so many places, and most prominently in the fact that the front-runner for the GOP right now is Mike Huckabee, a hyper-fundamentalist nincompoop who proudly wears his sexism, homophobia and scientific illiteracy on his sleeve, and who puts his superstitions right at the forefront of his campaign as if they were his greatest virtue. That the benighted American public thinks the more idiotic religious atavism you practice, the more virtuous you really are, it’s sadly predictable that Huckabee’s lunacy is selling. It’s selling so well that people not only don’t care that, when he was governor of Arkansas, this staunch enemy of abortion rights pressed for the early release of a serial rapist from prison despite numerous warnings that the man would almost certainly offend again (and sure enough, he raped and killed one more woman after Huckabee let him walk), but they’d probably be more inclined to support him if they did know. Hell, it’s what all them uppity feminazi bitches deserve, ain’t it? I fear some folks are taking the confident “it can’t happen here” attitude towards a possible Huckabee presidency. Even American voters couldn’t be that idiotic, they assure themselves. Well, when you remember that over half the population of this country believes the universe was created...
Read more

Sometimes in apologetics, you get an argument that something (i.e., morality, the universe) cannot exist without a creator. But when you try to pin down the fallacies in these arguments, the person presenting them will often back off to a safer position, such as: “All I’m saying is that there COULD be a God who started everything, and that is at least as plausible as the foolish idea that the universe (or whatever) came into existence without intelligence behind it. Surely you must grant me that much.” Case in point: a theist wrote to me: Current observations indicate that order and consistency (e.g., “design”) can arise from intelligence or from undirected events (e.g., Mandelbrot patterns, chance). Given those observations, is there any reason to assume that the design of the universe more likely arose from intelligence (theism/deism) or from undirected events (atheism)? First of all, just because you have two possible events doesn’t mean that the two must be equally likely. Some people actually play the lottery this way. They reason: “I either win or I don’t. So my odds of winning are 50%.” Wrong. The odds of winning the Texas jackpot are about 3*10^-8, which is way WAY less than 50%. Likewise, even if we grant that the existence of God is “a possibility” that doesn’t necessarily mean that the probability is any more that 10^-googleplex. Just about anything that you make up off the top of your head COULD turn out to be true, but probably isn’t. But explaining logical fallacies can be difficult when dealing with somebody who is convinced that he’s got an airtight case. So I responded with: Current observations indicate that people can be killed by machine guns, or by things that are not machine guns. Given those observations, is there any reason to assume that Julius Caesar was more likely killed by a machine gun, or by a non-machine gun event? He...
Read more