Archive for September, 2008

We had a fellow write in to the TV show address tonight, with a charge one tends to hear a lot these days leveled at those uppity folks who can’t just go with the mainstream flow: that we’re all snooty “elitists.” Troy writes: My question is: What makes you feel that your cause is a noble one, especially considering the lack of open-mindedness, and often outright confrontation that your audience often brings? If your show was purely for advancing the benefits of an atheist point of view, I’d say more power to you. But, I tend to agree with my girlfriend that I often see what looks to me like elitism – you’re content with your intellectual superiority to the bulk of your audience, and often seem to gloat over their vain attempts to justify their faith. In my opinion, they shouldn’t have to – it’s their business, and I wouldn’t be surprised if many called in to the show simply as a reflex to feeling attacked by your show’s attitude. Allow me to be the first (well, second, after Sam Harris) to declare that elitism is a feature, not a bug. I see elitism as nothing more than a dirty word people have attached to something that ought to be considered a noble goal: the pursuit of excellence rather than mediocrity in all walks of life, whether personal, professional, intellectual, artistic, or otherwise. After all, what can you be, if not an elitist, other than an advocate of mediocrity? Frankly I think there’s far too much mediocrity in the world. I think that Troy and his girlfriend have allowed themselves to be sold the negative definition of elitism, which is that it’s a bad thing practiced only by snobs who think they’re better than you. Mediocrities want you to accept that definition of elitism, because it gives them a name with which to dismiss people who are simply more informed or better capable of defending their ideas in the court of public opinion (or anywhere) than...
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Martin wrote: Ebert comes clean And gives those of us who get a little smug about our critical thinking a refresher on the importance of critical thinking. Go read. And he thanked me by name! You now get to ridicule me mercilessly for going into fanboy squee mode. To be fair, PZ does have some valid criticisms. Yeah, more than valid; it’s an excellent point that PZ is making. I like and respect Ebert, and many times I’ve relied on his well-written opinions to decide what movies to see. Having said that, I’ve seen this “point” made too many times to find it in any way novel or clever. The point appears to be: “I said stupid things in a public forum to show how people would react, and sure enough people called me stupid.” I mean, yes, ho ho Roger, very droll. The problem is that if I went around assuming that everyone was kidding when they recited a bunch of ignorant tripe that sounds exactly like what real creationists say, I’d be wrong in 95% of all cases, instead of (as some people were) wrong in this one. I am a fan of Ebert too, and like Martin, I’m familiar enough with his history that I didn’t think he would really turned into a creationist. But most people, having at most a passing familiarity with his non-movie writing, would have no reason to assume it wasn’t real. The only way to be sure is to read through the creationist nonsense carefully enough to detect the subtle sarcasm. And who the hell wants to do that, when all the creationist “I told you so” lists are so very uninteresting and similar to each other? Lots of people pull the “I acted stupid and people called me stupid” trick and call it a study of human nature. Many of them even use this tactic to cover up the fact that they really do believe something genuinely stupid, like Scott Adams. Another guy who very clumsily pulled the same thing was our good buddy Patrick, who, after receiving...
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And gives those of us who get a little smug about our critical thinking a refresher on the importance of critical thinking. Go read. And he thanked me by name! You now get to ridicule me mercilessly for going into fanboy squee mode. To be fair, PZ does have some valid criticisms.

I turned on my local Christian station this morning (99.3 FM in Austin) and ran smack into Dobson gearing up for a rant on abortion. I don’t remember how I knew that it was going to be about abortion, but I could tell from a phrase and the tone. Sure enough, it turns out they were talking about this clip from “The View.” In this clip, John McCain says that Roe v Wade should be overturned so that abortion can once again be thrown as a matter to the states. McCain specifically says: “I want people who interpret the Constitution of the United States the way our founding fathers envisioned.” Whoopi Goldberg asked: “Should I be worried about being a slave, about being returned to slavery? Because certain things happened in the Constitution that you had to change.” At this point, Dobson breaks in on the clip and berates Goldberg, saying that, of course it’s the CONSTITUTION that outlawed slavery. Specifically, the 13th amendment passed under the Lincoln administration. And so, foolish Whoopi, she should learn some history. This obviously misses the point, by a very long way. First, McCain’s traditionalist appeal to the “what would the founding fathers do?” argument is very directly countered by Whoopi’s point that the founding fathers supported slavery, even going so far as to write into the constitution that a slave‘s vote is worth 3/5 that of a regular person’s is worth 3/5 of a person for the purpose of census counts (Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3).* That Lincoln had to come along and fix this only emphasizes that point, which is that no, we DON’T always want to strictly go by “original intent.” In addition, Dobson should turn the page to the next amendment, because that bears very directly on the kind of “states’ rights” argument that John McCain invokes to indicate that RvW should be overturned. Ratified shortly after the...
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Nearly two years ago, Daniel Dennett wrote one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever read. After surviving a 9-hour operation to repair damage to his heart, he wrote ‘Thank Goodness‘, a short essay that discusses the ordeal, his take on the sentiments of well-wishers and his view that “Thank Goodness” isn’t simply a secular substitute for “Thank God”. This essay has been on my mind for the past few days. It came up in a discussion following Sunday’s show and I found myself thinking about it again this morning. As it turns out, I’ve got a few health concerns of my own and I visited my new doctor yesterday to discuss them. While we won’t have test results until Thursday afternoon, there’s a pretty decent chance that I’m diabetic (at a minimum, there’s a serious blood sugar concern and a few miscellaneous issues to address). I wanted to keep friends and family informed of the situation, so I fired off a quick e-mail, with the full knowledge that I’d receive a few “I’ll pray for you” responses. In situations like this, that doesn’t really bother me. Yes, it’s as silly as saying you’ll sacrifice a goat for me, but I understand that most of the time it’s really just a sincere attempt to show that you care. The words don’t matter nearly so much as the sentiment, and I can appreciate both the sentiment and the inability to find a “better” way to express it. I wouldn’t be upset if someone said they were keeping their fingers crossed, so why should I be bothered by those who say they’ll pray for me? As rhetorical as that question appears, the situation is not nearly so clear cut. Of those who would promise to keep their fingers crossed, I suspect there are relatively few who seriously entertain the notion that doing so is likely to have an effect on the situation. Of those who would offer to pray, I suspect...
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