Why is it always the berries?

I presume this essay about how women make better programmers was intended as satire…but it fell flat for me. I am so tired of this cartoon version of human evolutionary history that emphasizes the dichotomized roles of men and women, built entirely on grossly oversimplified views about our ancestor’s lives and contrived to reinforce stereotypes. It doesn’t matter whether it’s done to bestow Science’s favor on male or female — it’s bad.

The roots of this division are sadly rooted in humanity’s pre-history. On the plains of our ancestors, male hunters roamed the savannah, chasing down prey, while women remained home to nurture families and gather berries. The males adapted for big movements and fast action, while the women adapted for slow, methodical searching. The traits that made women expert bug-huntresses in the dust have carried forward and given them an advantage at hunting bugs in code. Men simply aren’t adapted to that kind of patient searching. They live for the thrill of the chase.

We’re wandering in Ray Comfort territory here, with this conception of the two sexes evolving and adapting independently. I don’t know about you, but I had both a mother and a father, and they contributed equally to my genetics, and I have fathered both boy and girl children myself. There are differences between the sexes, of course, but to assume that the differential responses to a couple of steroid hormones is so finely tuned that it completely segregates social roles, no crossover capabilities possible, is absurd.

No one has evolved to program. Maybe that’s the point of the joke, but it never ceases to annoy to see biology mangled.

I’m happy to make a deal with theists

LET'S MAKE A DEAL

Oh, hi, Rachel Held Evans. I hear you’d like to make a deal with us atheists. That’s rather sweet! Let’s hear it.

Dawkins is known for pushing his provocative rhetorical style too far, providing ample ammunition for his critics, and already I’ve seen my fellow Christians seize the opportunity to rail against the evils of atheism.

As tempting as it is to classify Dawkins’ views as representative of all atheists, I can’t bring myself to do it.

I can’t bring myself to do it because I know just how frustrating and unfair it is when atheists point to the most extreme, vitriolic voices within Christianity and proclaim that they are representative of the whole.

So, atheists, I say we make a deal: How about we Christians agree not to throw this latest Richard Dawkins thing in your face and you atheists agree not to throw the next Pat Robertson thing in ours?

Uh-oh. Did you really just compare Richard Dawkins to Pat Robertson? Really? I mean, because that gets your “deal” off on the wrong foot straight away. I do agree that Dawkins has been prone to gaffes, especially on twitter — he’s a master of thoughtful lucidity when he takes the time to write in the long form, as in a book, but oh, boy, do I agree that he has a knack for blowing it in the short form.

So you want to compare: on our side, a brilliant fellow with a long career in science who carries some unfortunately antiquated attitudes and has a tendency to be blunt on twitter; and on your side, a lifelong con artist who bilks little old ladies out of their life savings so he can buy diamond mines, to which he ships mining equipment under the guise of charitable rescue. Hmmm. This isn’t exactly a fair exchange that you are proposing.

And it’s not an exceptional choice you’ve made in Pat Robertson. There’s the Pope and his gang of child rapers, there’s Oral Roberts and Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham and the guy with the giant teeth — Joel Osteen — and Creflo Dollar and Robert Tilton and Jim Bakker and Paul and Jan Crouch and Ted Haggard…I could go on and on. Richard Dawkins is well off because he has earned his money with his writing talent, and by writing a number of critically well-regarded books. But he’s a peon compared to these pirate extortionists that use your religion to bilk thousands out of their cash. You might fairly argue that some of his personal views are a bit old fogeyish — he’s only human — but to compare one of ours, who has worked hard to disseminate good science, to one of yours, who has lived fat off the hate and fear of humanity…well, you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t take your offer seriously. Or perhaps laugh in your face and snarl and sweep the table clear before stomping furiously out the door.

I suspect that you aren’t negotiating in good faith, ma’am.

But you’re in luck! I’ve already voluntarily given away the store. I have this book, The Happy Atheist, and right there in the very first chapter I say this:

There is nothing unusual about my town. This is perfectly ordinary, rural midwestern America, like thousands of other small towns all across the country. We’re just immersed in religion, like every other god-soaked spot in lightly-populated, Republican-leaning, Real-Live Genuine USA.

I would even say that these are good people, like most human beings, who are mostly concerned with getting along, doing well for their families, and seeing their community thrive as a safe and stable place. I don’t accept the common atheist line that religion is a phenomenon that makes men do evil acts, like fly airplanes into buildings or start holy wars; it can and has, of course, but those are the pathological extremes, and it isn’t right to judge an idea by the excesses of those maniacs who turn a belief into a cause for violence. Mainly what religion does is make people believe in ludicrously silly things, substitute dogma for reason and thought, and all too often, draw people down into self-destructive obsession as they fret more over their reward in the next life than their accomplishments in this one.

See? I already agree that my mother and your beloved relatives and maybe you and Richard Dawkins and the Unitarian church pastor and the guy who fixes my plumbing aren’t all equivalent to a moral fuckwit like Pat Robertson! You didn’t have to offer anything, and your insults to atheists were completely unnecessary! Doesn’t that make you feel good?

So, agreed, I won’t mischaracterize all Christians as being war-mongering terrorists and greedy exploiters and unethical damaged goods. I’ve never thought that, and will try to take greater care to avoid rhetorical excess. That’s a deal.

But…

We’re still going to jump on you all for the nonsense and bullshit you do believe. And boy oh boy, there is a lot of that.

For instance, you claim to be a skeptic and a follower of Jesus. You probably are skeptical about many things, but to say so in the same sentence in which you announce that you actually believe a first century Jewish mystic actually had magic powers worthy of your allegiance…the incongruity is hilarious. Even if you claim it’s his philosophy you love, well, that’s a chickenshit excuse used by a lot of people who want to hew to the in-group of Christianity. There is no coherent philosophy there: it’s a cobbled-together mess thrown together by proselytizing religious fanatics. And really, if you’re going to sneer at Richard Dawkins for a few bad tweets, are you willing to stand up for the Apostle Paul? Or perhaps Augustine or Luther? Which have been more influential in shaping the beliefs that millions of people actually have?

I agree that Christian beliefs are complex and scattered all over the map — Calvinists are different from Mormons are different from Baptists. But there are still these common absurdities that clutter the brains of their adherents.

They believe in a guiding intelligence in the universe that is especially concerned with the sexual behavior of one species on one small planet.

They believe that they must spend time and money placating this intangible being by worshipping it or, preferably, giving money to its self-appointed intermediaries.

Christians believe that the universal sentient principle that rules the universe somehow condensed itself down into the form of one man, and that because he was killed (only not really), this god is now able to forgive us for an act of willful frugivory by one of our distant ancestors.

And the reward for this forgiveness is that some undefinable fraction of our consciousness will be permitted to live forever in an invisible church in the sky, rather than being set on fire and suffering eternal torment.

I am quite able to agree that you Christians are mostly harmless. But when you look objectively at the goofball ideas that you consider to be essential core beliefs of your religious philosophy, it’s a fair cop to say that you also look like freakin’ idiots.

Were you hoping that that was on the negotiating table? Because it’s not.

Any evolutionists in the San Jose area?

Some group of dingleberry followers of Ray Comfort are planning a DVD giveaway on the campus of San Jose State University, and the Atheist Community of San Jose is planning a demonstration. They’re looking for someone comfortable with answering difficult questions about evolution to join them and help out — reply at the meetup site link if you’re willing to help out.

Delusionally competent

You know that Chibuihem Amalaha is a scientist because at the top of the article, his photo shows him wearing a lab coat and holding a flask of colored water. That’s enough for me! And he goes on to demonstrate his competence by citing his great discoveries.

He continued: “Ever since then I have been doing a lot of researches in the country. There are many discoveries and inventions I have made in science and technology. I have also been able to prove that the mathematical symbol pi which people thought of as 22 over 7 is not actually 22 over , but rather a transcendental number while 22 over 7 is a rational number. I also proved that watching television in the dark impacts negatively on one’s eyes and by God’s grace, I was the first person to use scientific instruments to prove it in the whole world. The Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) featured me on this in one of their programmes on January 12, 2013, where I demonstrated to millions of their viewers that watching television in the dark damages the eyes. Usually when it’s around 10pm, many families in Nigeria will switch off their surrounding lights to use the light from television or the light from computer alone thinking that they will see images brighter. But from experiments I found that it’s not true and experts both at the University of Lagos and elsewhere have found my work to be true. The reason for this is because there is a lot of difference in illuminants (brightness) between the television screen and the dark background in the room known as the periphery,” Amalaha said.

Okay. Well. We’re off to an interesting start, but that’s not the point of the article: Chibuihem Amalaha has proven that gay marriage is wrong, using Science. He is a true polymath who has used multiple disciplines to make his case.

Physics:

“To start with, physics is one of the most fundamentals of all the sciences and I used two bar magnets in my research. A bar magnet is a horizontal magnet that has the North Pole and the South Pole and when you bring two bar magnets and you bring the North Pole together you find that the two North Poles will not attract. They will repel, that is, they will push away themselves showing that a man should not attract a man. If you bring two South Poles together you find that the two South Poles will not attract indicating that same sex marriage should not hold. A female should not attract a female as South Pole of a magnet does not attract the South Pole of a magnet. But, when you bring a North Pole of a magnet and a South Pole of a magnet they will attract because they are not the same, indicating that a man will attract a woman because of the way nature has made a female. Even in physics when you study what is called electrostatics, you found that when you rub particles together they don’t attract each other but when you rub particle in another medium they will attract each other. For example, if you use your biro and rub it on your hair, after rubbing, try to bring small pieces of paper they will attract because one is charged while the other one is not charged. But if both of them are charged they don’t attract, which means that man cannot attract another man because they are the same, and a woman should not attract a woman because they are the same. That is how I used physics to prove gay marriage wrong.

Even more significantly, he has now proven that people are magnetic.

Chemistry:

“In chemistry, I used chemical reactions and we have different types of chemical reactions. We have double decomposition reaction, decomposition reaction, neutralisation reaction and reduction oxidation reaction. But in chemistry I used a simple one known as neutralisation reaction which is a reaction where an acid reacts with a base to give you salt and water. For example, when you bring surphuric acid and you reacts it with sodium hydroxide which is a base you are going to have salt and water. That tells you that the acid is a different body, the base is a different body and they will react. But if you bring an acid and you pour it on top of an acid chemistry there will be no reaction. If you bring water and pour it on top it shows that there will be no reaction. If you bring a base either sodium hydroxide and you pour it on top of a sodium hydroxide you find out that there will be reaction showing that a man on top of a man will have no reaction. A woman on top of a woman will have no reaction, that is what chemistry is showing. Even in chemistry when you also use a process called electrolysis, which is if you use electrolysis of acidilated water, that is water you drop some droplets of acid on it, you found that the negative ions will be attracted to the positive ones while the positive ions will be attracted to the negative ones. So the negative ones are not attracted to their peers, they are all attracted to the positive electrode and the positive ones are not attracted to the positive electrode. Instead, the negative ion is attracted to positive electrodes and why is it that the negative is attracted to the positive? It is because they are not the same. Likewise a man cannot be attracted to a man as negative ion is not attracted to the negative electrode instead negative ion is attracted to the positive electrode. That is what electrolysis is showing us that gay marriage is wrong in the area of chemistry.

I’ve noticed when I hug my wife that there is a tremendous exothermic reaction that produces big buckets of salt water. Oh, wait, no…I haven’t noticed that. I must have done the experiment wrong.

Biology:

“In biology, I used simple experiments and I came down to a lay man. We have seen that the female of a fowl is called hen and the male of a fowl is called a cock. We have never seen where a cock is having sex with a cock and we have never seen where a hen is having sex with another. Even among lions when you go to the zoo you find out that lion does not mate with a lion instead a lion will mate with a lioness showing that a lion being a male will mate with lioness being a female. Now if animals that are of even lower creature understand so much, how come human being made in the higher image of God that is even of higher creature will be thinking of a man having sex with another and woman having sex with another woman? That shows that it’s a misnomer and when you come to real biological standard, when you see a lady you love there is what is called the follicle stimulating hormone. The follicle stimulating hormone in a man triggers what is called spermatogenesis through your brain which is called hypothalamus. It will send message to your brain when you see a lady you love and through the hypothalamus you will go after the lady. And it will trigger your spermatogenesis and the lady’s host follicles stimulating hormone will be triggered by the hypothalamus and it will stimulate her ovarian follicle. So in the man is the spermatogenesis, in female it’s the ovarian follicle. You find out that the sperm alone does not produce a child and the ovary alone in the female does not produce a child. They need each other for reproduction to occur and the follicle stimulating hormone in the man and that of the female promote different things. The sperm in the man alone doesn’t produce a child and ovary in the female alone does not produce a child, they need each other for reproduction to occur. So that shows how biology proves that gay marriage is wrong.

Gay penguins don’t count?

Math:

In mathematics which is another core area of science, I used what is called the principle of commutativity and idepotency. Commutativity in mathematics is simply the arrangement of numbers or arrangement of letters in which the way you arrange them don’t matter. For example, if you say A + B in mathematics you are going to have B + A. For example, if I say two plus three it will give five. If I start from three, I say three plus two it also give you five showing that two plus three and three plus two are commutative because they gave the same results. That shows that A + B will give you B + A, you see that there is a change. In A + B, A started the journey while in B + A, B started the journey. If we use A as a man and use B as a woman we are going to have B + A that is woman and man showing that there is a reaction. A + B reacted, they interchanged and gave us B + A showing that commutativity obeys that a man should not marry a man and a woman should not marry a woman. If you use idempotency, it’s a reaction in mathematics where A + A = A. Actually in abstract algebra, A + A =2A but we are less concerned with the numerical value two. We are more less concerned with the symbols A, you find out that A + A will give you A showing that the whole thing goes unchanged. It didn’t change unlike commutativity A + B give B + A there is a change. A started the journey in commutativity and A + B gave us B + A and B started the journey after the equality sign. But in the case of idempotency A + A will give you A showing that it goes unreacted. You started with A and you meet A ,the final result is A. Showing that a man meeting a man A + A will produce a man there is no reaction, it goes unreacted and in chemical engineering you have to send the material back to the reactor for the action to be carried out again showing that it goes unreacted. That is how mathematics has shown that gay marriage is wrong because commutativity proves that gay marriage is wrong. Idempotency also proves that gay marriage is wrong. So these are the principles I have used to prove gay marriage wrong in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and by the grace of God I am the only one that has proved this in the whole world.

Gosh. Math is hard.

And his work is unique! Google it; no one else is making these arguments, therefore he must be right.

“If you go on the Internet to check whether there is anybody who has used physics to prove gay marriage wrong, you find out there is none. You go to Google or youtube check whether there is anybody that has used chemistry to find same sex marriage wrong, you find out there is none and the same applies to biology and mathematics.

“In general, same sex marriage is evil. It should be stopped by those practicing it. Now they are saying that they will go and adopt a child, the question is that if everybody shows interest in same sex marriage where would the child they are adopting come from?”

So now he dreams of winning a Nobel prize. For what? I don’t know. He doesn’t say, either.

And now his works have earned him the respect in the world of science. He said: “At the University of Lagos where I currently study as a student you will find my publication on the notice board there. When you go to the Senate Building of the university you will see the same notice there and even recently my lecturer at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Profesor D.S.Aribuike pointedly told me that I will win Nobel prize one day, because he found that my works are real and nobody has done it in any part of the world. You know Nobel Prize is the highest award anyone could ever win and no African has won Nobel Prize in science. So I am aspiring to win Nobel Prize for Africa. Other universities have seen my work and sent me commendations. I have a professor friend who has seen the work I did and he sent me congratulatory message because of the originality of the work.”

Oh, so “originality” is now a synonym for “bug-eating frothing mad” now?

I have reached other echelons in the science and technology world like Professor V.O. Ife Olunyolo a well-known engineer in Nigeria. He brought the first system engineering known in Sub-Sahara Africa at the University of Lagos. I have given him a copy of my work and he didn’t find it wrong. I have never seen anybody who condemned my work.”

Oh, we can fix that. I’m a biologist. I condemn your work. Worse, it’s the dumbest pile of barely literate shit I’ve seen in ages; the argument from analogy has no force at all, and relying on comparing people to magnets, solutions of different pH, or algebraic rules is simply idiotic. The biology used is selective examples backed by a childishly avid adoption of the naturalistic fallacy and the crudest mechanical view of how the brain works. Shame on your professors for praising a pathetic collection of superficial and often wrong observations; shame on the media for pretending an ignorant fool is a respectable scientist.

The SETI boondoggle

Here’s Seth Shostak pumping up SETI again, and now he’s predicting contact with aliens within 20 or 25 years, or by 2030.

I don’t buy it for a minute, and I think his whole argument is ridiculous.

As these guys always do, they have a small set of arguments. One is the argument from very big numbers: there are 1022 stars in the known universe, and the current data shows that a significant fraction of them have planets, and they’ve even observed a few of them that have earth-like temperatures.

I say, big whoop. The other big numbers we could throw around are the distances of these stars from us and each other, which completely negate the bonus of large numbers. We’re simply not going to get an accidental signal from elsewhere; signal strength is going to drop off as the inverse of the square of the distance, so we’re not going to pick up some broadcast from an alien civilization. They’re going to have to aim a signal at us (one unexceptional star out of 1022), and they’re going to have to invest a significant fraction of the energy output of their star to get the signal to us.

I would ask, from the example of the sole technological society we know about, are we doing that? Why do we expect other civilizations are going to do that, and specifically send a signal to us?

But the most objectionable part to me, personally, is the short section titled “Biology: An Easy Thing?” Life arose very early on Earth, and there is good reason to expect that we are not unusual, and the emergence of life as an outcome of normal planetary chemistry probably is common and likely. Biology is only easy, though, if you’re willing to point to a stromatolite and leap immediately to the conclusion that life will build radios. There’s a rather wide chasm there that Shostak elides. The ubiquity of bacteria in no way implies the ubiquity of technology. The specific kind of intelligent life that builds telescopes and radios and artificial intelligences is going to be really rare: I can understand how an astronomer might get excited about incremental increases in likelihood by discoveries that maybe 70-80% of stars have planets, and maybe planets orbiting red dwarf stars would have habitable zones, but those numbers do not compensate for the fact that in the 4 billion year long history of life on earth, the technology to even dream of collecting signals radiating from other stars is only a century old. Only one 40 millionth of this planet’s existence contains that kind of capability.

Add to that the likelihood that any matching civilization might be a thousand light years or more away, and that their signal (although from our example, they probably aren’t signaling; think instead of thinly scattered civilizations all listening casually and unintently for a bit of patterned electromagnetic radiation) can only be received and echoed back over a time span far greater than the duration of any of our cultures, and that puts Shostak’s 16 or 20 or 30 year bet in perspective. That’s a convenient eyeblink on the scale of the time and space SETI proponents tout as an advantage for their calculations.

I do agree with Shostak’s comments about how science isn’t shackled to the narrow hypothetico-deductive method taught in introductory science courses, and that sometimes fishing expeditions are legitimate components of a research program. But I tend to expect fishing expeditions to have slightly better rationales and expectations of useful results than SETI can provide.

I blame David Futrelle. And maybe the Jews.

So I was reading Manboobz, which is usually about as low on the referenced depravity scale as I can go, and I ended up clicking on a link in an article which led me to…Stormfront. They were all outraged that some pick up artist was swarthy, yet he was chasing after beautiful pure European white women. That article was appalling enough, but it linked to something about the Neandertals, which is a subject I find interesting, and I clicked on that, and whoomp, down the rabbit hole I went.

I had discovered the bizarre pseudoscientific and profoundly anti-semitic world of Michael Bradley.

There are many things that you will find offensive at that link: the hideous Geocities style page layout, the incoherent rambling content of the text, the stupidity of the arguments, the goddamn racism, so be warned. It’s not my fault if he wrecks your brain or induces nausea.

Plowing through the wall-of-text interspersed with ads begging you to buy his revolutionary books ($49.95 for an e-book this badly written? No thanks), his message is fairly simple and wrong. He thinks there are two kinds of human, with some interbreeding between them: one kind are the tall browed, lean and handsome Cro Magnon people who are scattered around the lowland areas of the globe; the others are short, stocky, hairy people with receding foreheads who arose in the highlands of an area he calls the “Toxic Lozenge”.

This other contending subspecies originated in what I call the “Toxic Lozenge”, a narrow elongated area extending from the Rift Valley lakes of Tanzania, Kenya and southern Ethiopia to the northern Caucasus Mountains. This Toxic Lozenge therefore encompasses the geographic epicentres of both Homo habilis and later Neanderthal development. This Toxic Lozenge is also the original homeland of the Hamitic languages and the later seemingly related Semitic ones.

In case you didn’t get the hint, these Toxic Lozenge residents were descendants of Neandertals, and are the modern Jews and other Semitic people.

Physically, this subspecies is characterized by very great nasal development, extreme hairiness in males, long torsos and short legs, extremely high numerical and spatial intelligence, very little visual artistic ability, a low level of emotional stability, fanatical monotheism, anti-feminism and a predisposition to control, enslave or exterminate “ordinary humanity”. There is some fairly recent anthropological evidence (1990-1991, see “Homo Georgicus” on Wikipedia), coming from the Caucasus Republic of Georgia, that this subspecies may derive from Homo habilis, through the Neanderthals and on to modern living representatives.

However, not all anthropologists agree that Homo habilis should be considered fully “human” as that term is rather loosely defined, but was possibly an aberrant offshoot of either Homo or Australopithecus (see Esau’s Empire I on this website).

That is, people deriving from this Toxic Lozenge in ancient times may not be exactly human and certainly seem to be incompatible with the values and attitudes of “ordinary humanity”. However, recent historical migrants into the Toxic Lozenge represent mostly ordinary African humanity.

Much more important than physical traits, the aggression of this subspecies is responsible for its expansion from its original Toxic Lozenge both east and west to inhabit most of the “Middle East” (especially mountainous regions) and even parts of Europe, western India and northern and eastern Africa, imposing its religious and social values. In short, the people of this Toxic Lozenge have gradually driven a wedge of perhaps “not-quite-human” genes and culture between the ordinary humanity of the West and the ordinary humanity of the Far East. And this wedge has been inexorably expanded by well-known historical events from 5600 BC to the present. Despite the incessant propaganda and disinformation promulgated by this subspecies, adherence to Judaism, Judeo-Christianity and Judeo-Islam are the symptomatic indications of its biological expansion and/or cultural influence.

Oh, look. He’s in favor of some flavor of feminism, and he’s against monotheism, and he later announces that he’s a humanist. He’s one of us! (Cue projectile vomiting and blinding tears.) The othering of Jews as not quite human and on a mission to enslave “ordinary humanity” is a bit off-putting, isn’t it?

You might be wondering what his evidence for this remarkable thesis might be. Well, there are the pictures:

neandertals

That’s supposed to be a picture of rampaging Jews erupting out of their homeland in the Toxic Lozenge. It might be a little more persuasive if it weren’t a painting by Frank Frazetta that was used to illustrate some sword-and-sorcery fantasy novel.

What about the scientific evidence? He’s not a fan of Svante Paabo, who sequenced the Neandertal genome and determined that Europeans and Asians have a small infusion of Neandertal genes, on the order of about 4%. Paabo is misinterpreting the data, he thinks. Try to follow this logic:

Anyway, that’s the worldwide “Paabo spin” on Neanderthal DNA in modern humans and, looked at this way, “1 to 4 percent” doesn’t amount to much. Figures don’t lie but liars figure.

On June 5, 2010 the world’s population was estimated to be 6.8-billion-plus people (United States Census Bureau, Wikipedia). One percent of that is roughly 68-million and change. Four percent works out to about 278-million people. Odd, isn’t it, that this is about the population of the Middle East, according to my Bloomsbury Pocket Atlas? And this is the geographic homeland of the Semitic peoples, the present Judeo-Islamic Arabs and the Jews. Work it out for yourself using any good atlas.

With good maps and atlases there is a way of looking at this “1 to 4 percent” of Neanderthal DNA in modern humans that makes a great deal of historical sense. What if this Neanderthal DNA is concentrated in the Caucasus Middle East, where this 2010 study admits that Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons (or “Early Modern Humans”) met and interbred? Surely it is reasonable to suppose that the main concentration of the world’s surviving Neanderthal DNA must be in this area, discounting very modern migrations of some people by railway, steamship and aircraft transportation, and that Neanderthal DNA decreases rapidly as distance from the Caucasus centre of interbreeding increases?

You see, Paabo was reporting an average admixture, but if you just assume that all the Neandertals are living in the Middle East, and no Neandertal genes are anywhere else, then you get the same average! As you read further, you discover that this flawed calculation is gradually assumed to be proof of Bradley’s thesis.

And it gets crazier and crazier, and the font gets bigger.

Basically, I estimate that about seventy percent of the present crisis on this planet can be fairly attributed to the machinations of Neanderthal-Semitic elements of the human population against the Cro-Magnon majority of the human population.

And then…9/11 was a Jewish plot! Obamacare! Hillary Rodham Clinton climbing to the presidency via her Jewish constituency! Jews control Hollywood! Fascism…it isn’t so bad!

It is time for the non-Semitic peoples of the world to come together in a multi-racial alliance under one banner in order to severely limit Semitic activities before they put an end to us and everything else on the planet. I offer the following banner, emblem and symbol. However, I will warn everyone that it may well be too late.

The symbol is a flag with a swastika on it. He thinks he’s too old to run this movement, but he has a suggestion for a charismatic person who could: Mel Gibson.

Then…Roswell — we’re part of a cosmic war! ATLANTIS!!! Aaaah! Argle-bargle! Mene tekel upharsin! Ëa ëa! Blaaarfh!

I think I need to lie down. Or get drunk. It’s always something, someone who has to show how low and stupid and vile humans can get.

Karen Stollznow has a new book coming out soon

Now this looks interesting: God Bless America: Strange and Unusual Religious Beliefs and Practices in the United States.

God Bless America lifts the veil on strange and unusual religious beliefs and practices in the modern-day United States. Do Satanists really sacrifice babies? Do exorcisms involve swearing and spinning heads? Are the Amish allowed to drive cars and use computers? Offering a close look at snake handling, new age spirituality, Santeria spells, and satanic rituals, this book offers more than mere armchair research. It takes you to an exorcism, a Charismatic church and a Fundamentalist Mormon polygamist compound. You will sit among the beards and bonnets in a Mennonite church, hear the sounds of silence at a Quaker meeting, and listen to L. Ron Hubbard’s sci-fi stories told as sermons during a Scientology service. From the Amish to Voodoo, the beliefs and practices explored in this book may be unorthodox, and often dangerous, but they are always fascinating. Some of them are dying out, while others are gaining popularity with a modern audience, but all offer insight into the past, present and future of religion in the United States.

My only question would be…are there religious beliefs that aren’t strange and unusual?

A vaccination survey

The survey on vaccination that’s being held up by DJ Grothe is not out yet, but there’s a preliminary summary that was made available. I learned something from even that one page summary: most anti-vaxxers actually do recognize that vaccination is protective, and their opposition is based on widespread misconceptions about side-effects and the evilness of pharmaceutical corporations. There is even a hint about effective strategies to convince reluctant people to vaccinate.

The full results were supposed to be released a year ago. I wonder when we’ll finally get to see them?

You can study the past scientifically

One of the most common rhetorical games creationists play, especially those influenced by those frauds at Answers in Genesis, is to erect a phony distinction between historical science, which they claim is not a science, and observational science, which they claim is the one true kind of science. It’s a way for them to deny claims of events in the past having any credibility unless there is a direct, eye-witness, personal, written account (a restriction they blithely ignore when it comes to things like the first five days of the creation week, or the life of Jesus, which is all by second-hand accounts).

So it’s always useful to collect good summaries of how you certainly can evaluate claims about the past, and how science can legitimately study historical processes. John Wilkins adds some more arguments.

To deny that we can know the past in any sense is not science. It is in effect an admission of failure, but we need not be so pessimistic. For example, we know Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his legions. We might not know how they were dressed or if it was raining that day, but we do know it happened. Likewise, we know the earth is 3.85 billion years old since the surface hardened. The evidence is there, supported by experimental observations.