Archive for March, 2008

I’m re-listening to the podcast grab of the TV show that Matt and I did yesterday. There is a point that I started to make about the framing of science, but I don’t think I carried it all the way through to its conclusion. What I did say, at the time, was that contrary to Matt Nisbet’s bloviations, science does NOT have the “framing” problem of being associated with atheism. Instead, science has the problem of being perceived as boring. The stereotypical image of a science teacher is a dull, droning guy reeling off disconnected facts. Not unlike Ben Stein’s own infamous Ferris Bueller character, if you will. (“Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. Voodoo economics.”) And so, I concluded, science could actually benefit from more public controversy. I have more to add to this. Science doesn’t have a problem with not being respected. In fact, despite its stodgy image, science is almost universally accepted in our culture as important and worthy of respect. There is no clearer example of this to be found than in the behavior of creationists. When they lost some early battles in the 60′s they retitled their subject to creation science. When that failed to work, they reacted by redoubling their efforts to make “intelligent design” (a.k.a. “Creationism, the Revenge”) sound less like religion and more like science. And finally, when people in the ID movement want to boost their own image in the public eye, what rhetorical approach do they take? Why, ID is real science, and evolution is unscientific! Look at all these people who have signed on to this statement titled as “A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism”. It says right here that “Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.” See? That’s not religious at all! What I’m saying is, in the...
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Links about today’s topic: Explanation of Framing at Wikipedia Matt Nisbet and Chris Mooney: Thanks for the Facts. Now Sell Them. No Admission for Evolutionary Biologist at Creationist Film (I’m sure this story is well known already, but it’s good background) Nisbet: Why the PZ Myers Affair is Really, Really Bad for Science PZ Myers calls Nisbet “Clueless” A really dumbass YouTube video, sent in by a viewer, which tries to slam atheism, but in fact winds up being a slam on the whole notion of using reason to decide things. (Didn’t mention this on the show, but the relevance here is in drawing the battle lines as “sane people vs. nuts”) Nisbet’s articles also remind me of a column written by Kathleen Parker in October 2001, about what a nice thing it would be, in the wake of 9/11, if atheists would all shut up and let God back into the public discourse. How do all these things fit together? Listen to episode #546 and find out!

I don’t know quite how I wound up on these idiots’ mailing list, but I’m glad I did. It helps to understand what the proponents of the New Dark Ages want to reshape our culture into. The folks behind Worldview Weekend, some kind of fundie pep rally for fear and ignorance, have sent out an email flogging a series of propaganda booklets aimed squarely at students whom they fear will actually be educated if they go to college. The idea is to innoculate their minds against anything that might threaten their precious fundamentalist teachings. In other words, keep the flock stupid so they’ll keep filling the pews and the collection plates. Education, clearly, is a detriment to blind faith, and so education itself must be tarred with such emotional hot-button words as “socialist,” “communist,” “humanist,” and possibly several other fearmongering sobriquets I didn’t catch. A quick glance at the blurb for one of these booklets, revealingly titled Christian Worldview for Students (that’s about as clear a title as you could come up with for something that’s basically naked propaganda), shows us that the “Christian worldview” essentially involves rejecting anything any scientist ever thought up, as well as embracing the most extremist right-wing paranoia out there. Seriously, these are people who believe the Bush adminstration isn’t xenophobic enough. Looking at the list below, you can see how these are views that would be eagerly embraced by the next generation of Eric Robert Rudolphs and Timothy McVeighs (and no, I don’t think that’s either a slippery slope or “appeal to consequences” fallacy). Survival Kit for the University of Humanism Glitzy brochures and slick websites that promote many of our universities don’t divulge the all-encompassing secular worldview that slashes God from every equation and consumes ill-prepared students. But...
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It’s always nice to be reminded that not all who call themselves Christian are dishonest anti-science ideologues who use their beliefs to justify their haughty disdain for reality. Henry Neufeld is a self described liberal Methodist who has a few things to say about Expelled, and he nails every reason why the movie gets it all wrong with admirable succinctness. From its confusion over what “free speech” really means, to his unequivocal condemnation of the movie’s most brazen lie — that “Darwinism” led inexorably to Nazism and the Holocaust, when in fact the teaching of Darwin’s theory was banned in both the Third Reich and Stalinist Russia, and Hitler famously credited his own anti-Semitism to a certain invisible guy in the sky — there’s not a single one of Stein and Co.’s reprehensible falsehoods Neufeld doesn’t take down. His most interesting point is one which is liable to raise the hackles of most of Neufeld’s brothers in Christ. Repeatedly, Ben Stein equates the theory of evolution with atheism, and claims that all ID wants is to open the door to considering that God might have done something. Evolution may be incompatible with certain forms of Biblical interpretation, but it is in no way incompatible with basic theism. Neufeld’s batted 1000 here. True, Dawkins’ passage from The Blind Watchmaker to the effect that “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist” is the one often flogged by creos who want to condemn evolution as a tool of the Devil to turn everyone away from Jebus. And the “evolution=atheism” link has been effective in pushing the emotional hot buttons of scientifically illiterate religionists. But, while it’s true that evolution does explain how nature works entirely on its own to effect biodiversity without any “need of that hypothesis,” it’s also true the theory itself is not...
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Okay, Elze has finally posted her collection of photos from Dawkins’ appearance last week, and these include some nice shots from the pre-speech reception. I’ve been reluctant to post the link, though, because they also include a couple of depressing shots of me at the AE Blog Meetup, in which I look to weigh about 653 pounds. Given that I was something of a major gym rat ten years ago, these are…ahem…well, let’s just say I pre-emptively accept every morsel of ridicule with which I’m about to be heaped, and let it go at that. Meanwhile, I think it’s time to dig out the MetRX and the creatine and wheel on down to Gold’s — where I suspect I’ll be pelted with water bottles and dirty jockstraps the minute I walk in the door. O the ignominy.