The concern troll clans are gathering

This is getting ridiculous. Now I’m accused of “trying to drive a wedge between those who are against evolution” … because I think belief in angels and demons is absurd.

Damn. Just because someone accepts evolution doesn’t automatically make them a good guy, and if they’re praising evolution and at the same time babbling about demons causing appendicitis or angels warding off curses, they aren’t on my side in the cause of increasing rationality.

I’m beginning to wonder if there is some psychological transference going on here. People who think that merely believing in Jesus grants them redemption must also think that believing in evolution is a magic charm that grants them exemption from criticism of any nonsense they might hold. It doesn’t work that way. There is no get-out-of-criticism-free card.

Student Post: The BrainGate Neural Interface System

As I pondered what to post about on Pharyngula this week my thoughts immediately turned to football *wink* …which got me thinking spinal cord injuries (and no… not in the context of malice toward Drew Brees), which got me thinking of last year’s Distinguished Alumni speaker, physiatrist (and poet!) Jon Mukland ’80.

Dr. Mukland presented his research on the development of the BrainGate Neural Interface System– a program designed to interface victims of spinal cord injury with a computer. A silicon chip implanted in the motor cortex uses feedback from hundreds of probes to map electrical activity patterns associated with certain motor tasks. For example, if the patient is asked to imagine they are moving a computer screen cursor to the left, the implant records the pattern of electrical activity associated with that function. A computer is programed to interpret that activity and move the cursor left when it receives that input again. This is duplicated for other kinds of movement. The result is that a the patient is able to manipulate a computer cursor with his or her mind.

Dr. Mukland went on the describe the benefits of this system. The ability to manipulate a cursor independently, even in limited ways, opens up a host of quality of life opportunities for paralysis victims. Computer programs could be designed to allow patients to turn on appliances, use the internet, or communicate electronically. As the technology improves, the implications for improved quality of life increase dramatically.

I’ve never been so proud to be a UMMer :)

Little imaginary beings

I recently mentioned the way some serious theologians believe in demons and exorcisms. I can’t help it; I find these notions ridiculous to an extreme, and the absurdity of serious scholars blaming diseases on demonic possession in the 21st century is something one has to find laughable. I was being hard on Christianity, though. I left out an important exonerating factor for these people.

Some of them believe in angels, too.

Yes, I’m joking when I say this is an exonerating factor. This merely makes them even more silly. But no, you say, they can’t possibly argue for demons and angels being real agents in the natural world, can they? This must all be metaphorical, not literal. Judge for yourself.

Here’s a passage from the foreword to a 2002 book by Peter S. Williams, The Case for Angels. This is a book that argues for the literal reality of angels, and that they are important because “Angels (with a capital ‘A’, good angels) are worth studying because they are true (real), noble, right pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy. Fallen angels (demons are worth studying because they are real and because it behoves every army, including the army of Christ, to know its enemy.” The author of the foreword agrees. Can you guess who it is?

Peter Williams’ The Case for Angels is about…the theological rift between a Christian intelligentsia that increasingly regards angels only as figurative or literary devices, and the great mass of Christians who thankfully still regard them as real (a fact confirmed by popular polls, as Williams notes in this book). This rift was brought home to me at a conference I helped organize at Baylor University some years back. The conference was entitled ‘The Nature of Nature’ and focused on whether nature is self-contained or points beyond itself. The activity of angels in the world would clearly constitute on way nature points beyond itself.

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Don’t get David Attenborough mad

The offenses of creationists aren’t always blatant: it’s the sneaky erosion of science, the quiet omissions, the gradual degradation of good science where they make the most gains, and it’s where they get bold and stick their heads out (like Dover) where they get slapped down. We need to be aware of the small stuff, too, because it adds up — like this effort by Dutch evangelicals to edit David Attenborough’s documentaries. Some changes have to be made in translations and so forth, and the BBC does allow cuts up to about 5 minutes per hour, but the nasty thing is how targeted the cuts are at slicing out just those bits a pathologically ignorant theist would find objectionable.

I’ve had some people complain that we ought to reserve our outrage for the big stuff, the dramatic crap the creationists try to pull. I’m going to have to disagree. The little stuff that nibbles away at accurate information and slowly destroys the public education of science that must be confronted just as strenuously.

It’s a safe bet that I won’t be voting for McCain

Just watch the little suck-up grovel for the Religious Right. It isn’t pretty.

McCain: I think the number one issue people should make [in the] selection of the President of the United States is, ‘Will this person carry on in the Judeo Christian principled tradition that has made this nation the greatest experiment in the history of mankind?’

Whenever I see these pious testimonies to “Judeo-Christian values”, I always wonder…how many Jewish founding fathers were there? How many Jewish presidents have we had? I have no objection to electing a Jewish president, but it always seems to me that these claims that toss in the word “Judeo” are made solely to put up a pretense of inclusiveness — they really mean “conservative Christian,” and they include an invisible, unnamed token Jew to hide their real narrowness.

Never try to exorcise an atheist

There’s nothing to drive out but the humanity. VJack has a sad story to tell.

If you think it’s just an isolated story and that exorcisms are an odd little superstitious relic that only wackos on the fringe fuss over, Nick Matzke brought this odd account from JP Moreland to my attention:

Recently, a hairdresser was arrested for performing cosmetic surgery on several “patients.” When this happens, the results are usually disastrous. Do fraudulent “surgeries” mean there are no legitimate cosmetic surgeries? Of course not.

Recently, a man and woman were caught trying to exorcise a demon from a little child in Arizona. The police found the three covered in blood inside a barricaded bedroom. The man died upon arrest. Do fraudulent, ignorant “exorcisms” imply that demons aren’t real and all exorcisms are bogus? You do the math.

A vast literature supports the reality of demons…

And if that isn’t enough for you, here’s an article recounting various demonic events at Biola. It’s a real eye-opener: these people are nuts.

Note that J.P. Moreland is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. People, don’t send your children to Biola. It’s like shipping them off to some empty wasteland and asking them to get educated by random goat-herders.

Young master Darwin

Tristero makes a few points that are exactly what I’ve been trying to get across in my introductory biology class this week, where we’re covering Charles Darwin and the evidence for evolution. The first is that we do not rely on Darwin’s authority; there is no cult of personality, no reliance on the master’s word, no simple trust of anything or anyone. The other, though, is that Darwin is still a fascinating and important figure, and it’s not just that he was an old guy with a white beard who lectured the law.

Darwin’s not a stuff-shirted Nigel Bruce pip-pipping his way across the Empire. He is a young kid on a ship who once had the gall to grab a sailor’s dinner from his plate because he (the sailor) was about to eat a very rare ostrich Darwin had been searching for in vain for months. He’s a fellow who, when learning to use the bolas from Argentinian gauchos, managed to lasso his own horse, and he’s willing to write about it. Later, as he worked through his theory, which took him over 20 years to announce, he was tormented by the implications if it was misconstrued (as it was, right from the beginning). He developed a cautious style that is a model of arguing and inferring from the evidence. And, by all accounts, Darwin was a man devoted to his family and friends, deeply considerate and generous.

Yes, Darwin had his faults. But anyone with ten times his faults and one tenth of his talent would easily win a Nobel or Macarthur. That kids don’t have a chance to learn who this guy was – that’s a real crime.

One thing I tried to get across to my students was how much he was like them. He went off to Cambridge when he was about their age, and on graduation, a position they’ll all be in in a few years, had to wheedle his father into letting him go on this exotic sea voyage instead of settling down. Darwin really was a young fellow when he went off on the Beagle, in his early twenties.

Despite his charming youth, though, I still have to explain the list of things he got right and the list of things he got wrong. It’s the evidence and the ideas that matter, not the lovely personality behind them.

Truly gagworthy

Young America’s Foundation is giving away a poster of the ‘heroes’ of the Conservative Movement — the usual roster of dunderheads shipped in to the photo shoot by way of the short bus — for nothing but the cost of shipping and handling. I guess they were having a tough time finding anyone who wanted to hang a picture of Dinesh, Michelle, Novakula, Ann, etc. anywhere in their home. But in case you want one for a dart board or something, just follow the link.

Myself, I don’t need one. I already have many copies of pictures of my conservative heroes. They’re all blank, white, and hanging from a roll in my bathroom.