South Dakota sleaze

Don’t ever claim that the little people can’t influence the course of government. Don’t assume that you need “credentials” or “knowledge” in order to make a difference. Read the inspiring story of the Unruhs and the South Dakota abortion ban.

Leslee Unruh, a person with no legislative or medical qualifications, drafts a law governing the medical care of female patients in South Dakota. She is also the the chief of the pro-ban campaign.

Alan Unruh, Leslee Unruh’s husband, a chiropractor, sits on the South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortions, and is tasked with studying and evaluating medical evidence, reporting the findings, and making recommendations on the need for any additional legislation governing ob/gyn medical procedures.

See? This little family of unqualified, ignorant people possessing nothing but zeal and faith were able to make an entire state a laughing stock and put thousands of women at risk. Follow your dream, people! It doesn’t matter if it’s crazy or vile or requires you to misrepresent your abilities—just do it!

Of course, it also helps if you wangle one of those incestuous little deals where lazy legislators let proponents write the laws and stock the review committees with ideologues rather than competent experts, but you know what? That’s incredibly common nowadays.

Yakkety yak

So…I’m on this chat room thingie. Anyone else want to join in?

Is it more interesting if I say Mary and Skatje are there, too?

I’m out of that madhouse now…time to go to the theater. We’ll have to try it again sometime, but I suspect we’re going to have to move to IRC to cope with the volume.

A couple of candidates for the Pastor Ray Mummert award…

Richard Dawkins was interviewed in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and whips out some of his standard ‘arrogance’.

Q Here are quotes about faith from two thoughtful Twin Cities clergy members. What is your response to each?

The Rev. Greg Boyd, pastor of Woodland Hills Church in Maplewood: “I thirst for water, and water exists. I hunger for food, and food exists. I hunger and thirst for God, so I concluded that God must exist.”

Dawkins: The fact that you hunger and thirst for something does not make it exist. A young man ravaged by lust might hunger for a woman he believes loves him back, but she just doesn’t, and he can’t make it so by longing for it. It’s silly to assume that wanting something means it exists.

Roman Catholic priest and liturgist the Rev. Michael Joncas: “I am willing to embrace what science and knowledge offer us. Yet what has inspired me since early childhood is a great sense of holy mystery.”

Dawkins: Scientists thrive on mystery, on investigating it. But we would not use the word “holy.” To call life’s mysteries holy and imply that they have something to do with God is unhelpful and misleading. Among the things Roman Catholics call holy mysteries are the holy trinity and transubstantiation. But those things are myths.

Actually, that doesn’t sound arrogant at all to me. It’s more like clarity in stark contrast to the stupidity of a couple of “thoughtful” priests. Shouldn’t Christians be a little embarrassed at the vapidity of their representatives?

In another Twin Cities connection, we’re getting a warning.

Christian author and philosopher Os Guinness warns of a growing atheist backlash to the political strength of Christian conservatives.

In an interview with a radio station in St. Paul, Minn., Guinness said he doubts that atheists have grown more numerous, but he believes they’re now more organized and determined to press their case against religion and its influence in society.

Well, yes. Isn’t it about time? The only question is, when the “intelligent, educated segment of the culture” goes on the attack, which side are you going to be on?

It’s like watching contortionists at the freak show

Those funny guys at Uncommon Descent seem to have developed their new standard reply to charges that Jonathan Wells misrepresented Bill Ballard. They’re demanding an apology from me for saying mean things about Wells because—get ready for it—Wells is accurately reporting his agreement with Ballard’s ideas about development and evolution. I knew Ballard, briefly, and his work, and I’ve read both of Wells’ books cover-to-cover, so this is a surprise to me. Wells wrote these two books to support the evo-devo view? He isn’t trying to claim that development does not support evolution?

Come on, you kooks. Are you even aware of the bizarre position you’re putting yourself in? If you want to come in from that cold, crazy world you live in, though, please do: just admit that you were all wrong about evolution, and join the rational world.

Strange worm, Xenoturbella

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This odd marine worm, Xenoturbella bocki, is in the news right now, and I had to look it up in Pechenik’s Biology of the Invertebrates(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) to remind myself of what it was. Here’s the complete entry:

Xenoturbella bocki

This marine worm, first described in 1949 as an acoel flatworm and later claimed as either an early metazoan offshoot or a primitive deuterostome, has recently been affiliated with primitive bivalve molluscs, based upon a study of gamete development (oogenesis) and an analysis of sequence data from both 18S rRNA and mitochondrial genes. Little is known about its reproductive mode, and developmental studies that might help to resolve the phylogenetic issues are just starting to be reported. A second species was described in 1999.

The animals are up to 4 cm long, vermiform (worm-shaped), and covered by locomotory cilia. They have no digestive tract, and indeed no organs at all. Their only conspicuous morphological feature, other than their cilia, is a statocyst for determining orientation. To date, they have been collected only off the coasts of Sweden and Scotland, in sediments at depths of 20 m to 100 m.

That’s it. Part of that is now known to be wrong: the data showing an affinity to the molluscs is an artifact, caused by the fact that it somehow eats bivalves, and partly digested clam material contaminated the samples. Otherwise, not much is known; I’ve found papers describing the presence of oocytes inside the animal, but no one as far as I know has actually observed its development. It’s a strange, mysterious blob of a worm.

[Read more…]

Big event in Colorado Springs!

Brian Flemming points out that Ted Haggard insists the biblical word on homosexuality is simple, and that the Bible says “They must be put to death.”

I’m not really into throwing rocks at people, but maybe I’d be willing to run the fried foods onna stick concession.

Slacktivist offers a rather more realistic prediction of what to expect.

All that language — forgiveness, deliverance, confession, repentance — really means here only that Haggard needs to go back to living a lie. If he agrees to live that lie, and with clenched teeth to continue proclaiming that others must join in living that lie, then Haggard will be “accepted” back “into fellowship.”

Well, heck. We won’t be able to sell tickets to that.

Chat chat chatty chat

This easy chat room I tried out a while back is still idling along. It’s mostly rather quiet, but now and then conversations get going.

Anyway, just as another experiment, I’ll be online tomorrow (Saturday) evening at 5pm Central time (that is, right around an hour ago, if you’re reading this right around the time I posted it). I wonder if it would be an added attraction if I tried to convince Skatje or my wife Mary to be online at the same time—should I try?

Also, I know that IRC would be much better, and that there is a #pharyngula channel on DALnet. That would be better in the long run, but just for these little forays into the world of babble, let’s stick with the simple web-based widget for a while.