Is society taking a step backward?

Our first top donor question:

“I was a teenager in Southern California during the 70s. I was raised in an environment where feminism was considered the norm. Imagine my surprise when 30 years later I find the social climate seems to have taken a step back. I’m often thinking, “Didn’t we already cover this?” Feminism is just one example. The persistence of anti-science views such as anti-evolution and anti-vaccinations are others. Lack of tolerance for anyone who doesn’t adhere to society’s norms. I’ve always assumed that as a society we are moving forward, but I’ve never looked for concrete confirmation. Are there objective measures for things like social tolerance? If so, how are we doing?”

I’m not sure if there’s a truly objective measure – you can’t whip out your Tolerancometer and see how many milliKings a person is emitting. But we can estimate how much progress is being made in social movements by comparing where we are now with where we were ten, fifty, or a hundred years ago.
And I think that’s what you have to keep in mind – that we need to look at general trends. Social progress, like many things, is often two steps forward, one step back. Sometimes the current climate is certainly daunting – evolution and climate change deniers being as loud as ever, women’s health being thrown by the wayside, gays still not being able to have the same rights as straight couples.

But in the big picture, we have come a long way. Science triumphed over ignorance in the 2006 Dover trial, unlike in the Scopes trial. Birth control is one step closer to being subsidized, where 40 years ago you couldn’t even get a legal abortion. More and more states are legalizing gay marriage, when coming out in the 80s could get the shit beaten out of you.

Are things perfect? Certainly not. That’s why it’s still important for people to be outspoken advocates for science, feminism, and gay rights. Because while it’s better now, we want to limit that one step back to just one step, instead of tumbling all the way back to the Dark Ages.

You also have to take location into account. Southern California isn’t exactly a typical representation of the rest of the world, the rest of the US, or the rest of California for that matter. There are pockets of places that are more progressive, just as there are pockets that have a lot of catching up to do. Hello, the Middle East. …And China. …And Africa. …And…oh dear, we have a lot of pockets to work with, don’t we?

So even if your little spot on this planet seems to be doing alright, activism is still important. I see a lot of apathy in Seattle because it’s basically godless liberal paradise. What people forget is that if all of your neighbors are socially regressive, their views and votes will eventually effect you. So stay optimistic about the future, but keep up the endless fight for progress.

This is post 6 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

My very own Creation Museum

Speaking of evolution denial in the Pacific Northwest, apparently someone thought I missed the creationist craziness from back home. They went and build me my very own creation museum, this time in Idaho! How…thoughtful.
What is the Northwest “Science” Museum?

What is the Vision?

The vision for this museum is to present a “Natural History” museum from a Biblical point of view. This museum would display similar exhibits to the well known natural history museums (i.e. Denver Museum of Nature and Science, American Museum of Natural History, Chicago Field Museum) but interpreted from a Biblical world view.

What is the purpose?

To lead people to a better understanding of God by viewing His creation. To show that creation science can explain the evidence we see in the world around us and that it is not just religion. The Museum is devoted to understanding and explaining origins, history and our present world as revealed by scientific discovery interpreted through the worldview of Biblical truth.


What is the Mission?


To share the everlasting gospel through God’s creation with people here in Treasure Valley, the entire Northwest, the entire United States, and regions beyond.

And of course, it has a fascination with dinosaurs:

Seriously, with all the dinosaur-loving creationists do, you’d think Jesus was martyred by velociraptor attack instead of a crucifix. Or was a velociraptor.


Honestly, it makes as much sense as what these “museums” are teaching.

(Via Friendly Atheist)

This is post 5 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

I’ve lost my appetite for Dick’s

Now that I have your attention…Dick’s Drive-In is a burger chain in Seattle. There’s one right by my house, and I was pestered incessantly to try it when I first moved here. I’m not sure what the fuss is about, because it’s woefully mediocre. I have a feeling it’s typical drunk food (in which case it would probably taste much better) or the product of years of childhood nostalgia. When I say I don’t really like Dick’s, Seattlites get kind of offended.

After they’re done giggling.

But now I have another reason to dislike Dick’s, not just because of their crummy cheeseburgers or stale fries or tiny (though undeniably delicious) milkshakes. James Spady, the owner of Dick’s, is also on the Board of Directors of the Discovery Institute, the Intelligent Design pedaling, evolution hating, intellectually dishonest shame of Seattle. Lovely.

Oh well. I didn’t need much more motivation other than taste to avoid Dick’s. Seriously, if I want cheap delicious food, why would I even walk past Rancho Bravos to get to Dick’s? Now I have even more motivation to stick to Mexican.

This is post 4 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Neanderthals and the beauty of science

A common creationist debating tactic is to sneer at science, saying something like “It changes all of the time! Scientists can never make up their mind, and often times they’re wrong! Why would you want to trust something that admits it could be wrong?”
And my response is usually to laugh, because that’s precisely what makes science so wonderful. We don’t stick with some dogmatic book even when faced with mountains of contrary evidence. We’re constantly trying to figure out where we’re wrong, so we inch closer and closer to an understanding of reality that’s based on…well, reality. Finding out we were wrong and correcting that mistake is the beauty of science.

I bring this up because a recent news story illustrates this perfectly to me. You may have seen the story circulating that non-African humans are part Neanderthal. Yes, some Neanderthals and Homo sapiens interbred back in the day!

At first I was a little confused, because I thought we had established this in May of 2010 when the Neanderthal genome paper by Svante Paabo’s group came out. But this new paper serves as a confirmation of that work, since it avoids one of the main criticisms of the study – that the human and Neanderthal DNA were cross contaminating each other. This new research only looked at human DNA, and compared it to the Neanderthal sequence. What they found was that about 9% of the X chromosome has a Neanderthal origin in non-African humans.

But if I go back to just April of 2010, everything was different. I was taking my 500 level Evolution class at Purdue, about to graduate. Our final project included downloading mitochondrial DNA sequences of humans, Neanderthals, and other apes to determine if humans and Neanderthals had interbred. From that data alone, the conclusion was an obvious “no.” And that’s what all prior knowledge had said up until that point.

I remember one of the last questions on the project being to explain how new information could potentially change this viewpoint. We needed the whole genome before we could definitively say Neanderthals and humans didn’t interbreed! Mitochondrial DNA is only a tiny part of the whole genome. We need more information because we’re so closely related. And what if only Neanderthal males were the ones mating with humans? Then no Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA would be passed on at all!

One year later, and my professor has to totally redo his lesson plans.

And that’s what makes science awesome.

This is post 3 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

SCA pressures Obama on faith-based hiring discriminaton

Yesterday President Obama was speaking at a town hall event in Maryland. The first person to ask him a question was none other than Amanda Knief, Government Relations Manager for the Secular Coalition for America. Go Amanda!

Transcript from Friendly Atheist:

Knief: I’m an atheist, and in Zanesville, Ohio in 2008, you asserted that no organization receiving taxpayer funds would be able to discriminate in hiring or firing based on a person’s religion. However, you have not rescinded the Executive Order that permits this type of discrimination.

In a time of economic hardship, when it’s difficult for a person to get a job based on her skills, what would you say to a woman who has been denied employment because of her religion or lack of religious beliefs by a taxpayer-funded organization?



Obama: Well, this is a very difficult issue, but a more narrow one that I think might be implied. It’s very straightforward that people shouldn’t be discriminated against for race, gender, sexual orientation, or religious affiliation.


What has happened is that there has been a carve-out dating back to President Clinton’s presidency for religious organizations in their hiring for particular purposes. And if — this is always a tricky part of the First Amendment. On the one hand, the First Amendment ensures that there is freedom of religion. On the other hand, we want to make sure that religious bodies are abiding by general laws. And so where this issue has come up is in fairly narrow circumstances where, for example, you’ve
got a faith-based organization that’s providing certain services. They consider part of their mission to be promoting their religious views.


But they may have a daycare center associated with the organization, or they may be running a food pantry. So then the question is: Does a Jewish organization have to hire a non-Jewish person as part of that organization?


Now, I think that the balance we’ve tried to strike is to say that if you are offering — if you have set up a non-profit that is disassociated from your core religious function and is out there in the public doing all kinds of work, then you have to abide generally with the non-discrimination hiring practices. If, on the other hand, it is closer to your core functions as a synagogue or a mosque or a church, then there may be more leeway for you to hire somebody who is a believer of that particular religious faith.


It doesn’t satisfy everybody. I will tell you that a lot of faith-based organizations think that we are too restrictive in how we define those issues. There are others, like you, obviously, who think we are not restrictive enough.


I think we’ve struck the right balance so far, but this is something that we continue to be in dialogue with faith-based organizations about to try to make sure that their hiring practices are as open and as inclusive as possible.

Amanda was disappointed with the response:

“Unfortunately, the president didn’t address the most egregious aspect of this policy – that religious discrimination is occurring on the taxpayer’s dime. Discrimination is wrong in all forms, especially when it is being funded by taxpayers.”

Or as I like to summarize it:I think this summarizes why I’m disappointed with Obama on so many issues. To me, it’s not doing what will satisfy the most people. It’s doing what’s constitutional. If something makes your religious constituents cranky or not theoretically shouldn’t even be taken into account.

But I know, I know. It’s politics. He wants to get reelected and all. I keep fantasizing that once Obama is in his second term, he’ll rip off his shirt and reveal some sort of godless, gay marriage-loving super hero underneath.

…Wishful thinking.

This is post 2 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

And Blogathon 2011 has begun!

Woooo!
Actually, I have no idea why I’m wooing. I was so comfortably asleep when my three alarms woke me up around 6:15am. I set them that early because I was theoretically going to shower and eat and get all prepared. Instead I hit snooze a bunch. Off to a wonderful start!

Anyway, I look forward to blogging all day for your entertainment. But remember, this craziness is for charity. We’re already at $2,525.53*, which has almost matched last year’s total – hopefully we’ll destroy it by the end of today!

And if you have any post ideas or things that will encourage you to donate more…please email me. I probably won’t have time to read all of the comments while I’m writing, but I’ll certainly skim emails for help!

Okay, time to go chug some coffee. Urgh.

*The ChipIn widget does funky things on some people’s computers. If the total doesn’t match that number or seem to be updating, you need to clear your cookies.

This is post 1 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.

Is free birth control coming soon?

Possibly, and hopefully:

The Institute of Medicine recommended on Tuesday that health care insurers cover the cost of birth control under the new federal health care law. This was just one of the findings on preventive health care services for women from the Institute, the branch of the National Academies of Science tasked with providing research and information on medical topics. But like pretty much everything dealing with women’s health these days, this has turned into a debate about abortion.

The Department of Health and Human Services will get to make the ultimate decision about whether insurers will be required to provide birth control free of charge, but this is a good indication that it will. The new health care law requires insurers to cover preventative health care, and the administration directed the Institute to determine what that should include.


This isn’t just a matter of saving women some money (though I will personally cheer for that). From a purely practical standpoint, it costs much less money to provide birth control than it does to raise a child. The government should be happy to support this. Not to mention providing birth control also decreases abortions and teen pregnancies. I’m sure the religious right will be the first to promote free birth control, right?


If coming up with funding is an issue, maybe they can use this super cheap and highly effective birth control method:

As someone with two 4 year old nephews, I can attest to its effectiveness.

Ghana orders all gays arrested

This is definitely one of those moments where I’m very thankful for the random chance of being born where I was born:

Ghana’s Western Region Minister, Paul Evans Aidoo MP has ordered the immediate arrest of all homosexuals in the country’s west.

Aidooo has tasked Ghana’s Bureau of National Investigations and security forces to round up the country’s gay population and has called on landlords and tenants to inform on people they suspect of being homosexuals.

“All efforts are being made to get rid of these people in the society,” he said.

The move by the Minister follows months of campaigning by the Christian Council of Ghana which last week called on Ghanaians not to vote for any politician who believes in the rights of homosexuals.

Muslims and Christians in the Western Region have been staging protests ever since a local media report claimed there were around 8000 homosexuals and lesbians in the district.


Finally, something Muslims and Christians can come together about… *twitch*

Last minute bid time!

Blogathon is going fabulously so far thanks to you guys. We’ve already raised $1010.10 for the Secular Student Alliance! And if you convert that binary (101010) to base 10, it turns out to be 42. It’s a sign. Tempted to quit now.

But like I promised, the top ten Blogathon donors will get to request a topic for me to blog about. You’ll only be considered if you get your donation in by 12:01am PST on Friday (aka midnight tonight). Wondering what it’ll take to sneak into the top ten? Here are the rankings of the donation amounts so far:
EDIT: Updated at 4:45pm PST:

  1. $207
  2. $150
  3. $101
  4. $101
  5. $100
  6. $100
  7. $50
  8. $50
  9. $50
  10. $50
  11. $50

I suspect I’ll get a lot of oddly numbered donations coming in soon. If you want to add to your previous donation, that’s fine – I’ll take it into account.

Remember though – you have to leave a comment after you donate or email me with the same email you use for PayPal for me to know what to write about!

Thanks for all of the support so far! I can’t wait for 7am Saturday to roll around. And I think that’s the first time I’ve ever said that.