Commitment!

Alright, I’m juggling way too many things here, but I’ve got to make a promise about where I’ll be tonight. After the talk at GMU, I’m going to try and get into the AU event at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill and spend some time with the good people there, and then I’m going to tear myself away to go to…The Dubliner. I’ll try to get there by 10 or 10:30 — if I’m late, start the party without me.

When I was in Toronto, both Ken Ham and Jesus showed up. Could somebody give a call to invite Bush (I hear that people like to drink beer with him) and Obama? I think both of them need to spend more time with the godless heathens.

Descended from a monkey?

She’ll be back: watch this mob of blinkered Republicans gush over Sarah Palin, especially Pat Buchanan, who makes up ‘facts’ as he goes along. The Republicans are accused of being a party that celebrates ignorance, Buchanan is asked if he accepts evolution, and he blithely confirms the accusation by repeating the notorious query of Soapy Sam Wilberforce.

I’ve heard a few times now the idea that the Republican Party has become the Know-Nothing Party. It’s entirely true.

I have landed in DC!

I’m here at the Hyatt Regency in Washington DC, and I’ve received a lot of questions about my plans and availability. Here’s the deal: I’m here for an AU meeting, and that’s my first priority; then I’m giving a talk at GMU Saturday evening. I may have to depart from the traditional post-seminar beer pilgrimage this time, though: my talk is overlapping a bit with an AU event in the evening, and I should scurry back early to catch part of it.

Now there is the possibility of a late night (like, 10:00) get-together here at the Hyatt or nearby, and if there is any interest, I could probably gather a few other interested science bloggers to join us. Leave a comment if you think that’s worth doing>

I get email invitations

I just got some email that surprised me. It was from Kate Fisher, the marketing director of KKMS radio, a Christian talk radio station I’ve dealt with before. They had a request.

I am with AM980 KKMS, a Christian Teaching & Talk radio station in the Twin Cities. We would like to do a creation debate in mid-January. I am writing today to check on your interest level in participating in something like this and if you are, what your availability and honorarium is.

I didn’t have any problem making a decision on that, and immediately sent my reply.

You know, I had a debate on your station last January — in which I exposed the creationist on the other side as an ignorant fool. The response from your station was then to give the ignorant fool an hour to babble unopposed the next week. I’ll add that you also abruptly changed the topic of the debate an hour before I went on, at the request of my opponent, an unforgivable and sleazy tactic. I do not trust you at all, and I think you would abuse my participation to promote the lies of the creationist position.

So, no, you could not get me to play your game for any amount of money. I have no respect at all for “Christian Teaching & Talk radio”, thanks to your disreputable actions.

I am, however, impressed with the level of shameless gall you have to ask me again.

I was a little bit tempted to put one pinky to a corner of my mouth and say, “My honorarium will be…one MILLION dollars.” I resisted.

Kate Fisher just replied.

My sincerest apologies as I wasn’t aware that this was what happened. I was simply given your name as a good debater and asked to contact you about doing an event with us.

Thanks for letting me know what happened.

Now I feel a little guilty about lighting into her. But only a little.

Oxygen has eyelashes!

It’s cute: this exercise in molecular visualization has been all dolled up with anthropomorphized atoms to sneak it into kids’ attention spans.

I can’t be entirely dismissive, though. There’s some cool stuff lurking in the backgrounds of these scenes, it’s just unfortunate that the goofy cartoon stuff is always being placed front and center.

I am kind of hoping that the creationists, with all their talk of cars and buses and traffic lights in the cell, steal this video. I can almost imagine Michael Behe exclaiming that the sophisticated facial expressions of atoms are evidence of intent and design.

Say no to RFK

So far, rumors of the first two appointments by Obama leave me worried. Rahm? No, please — after campaigning on a slogan of “change”, buying into one of the most deeply imbedded beltway insiders is not encouraging. Maybe there’s some virtue in working with the Democratic establishment, so I can forgive one concession to the status quo, but let’s see some innovative thinking, too.

More worrisome is the idea that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could get a prominent appointment. Orac has torn that one apart, and I agree: we do not need another irrational purveyor of woo and fluffy substanceless hysteria contributing to this country’s administration.

One thing you can do is contact the transition team and voice your disapproval. Demand rigor in the people running our government!

Salon has an illuminating perspective on Rahm: he’s Obama’s designated asshole. Yeah, that works.

What is an “atheist community”?

Slate has an article by Paul Bloom on why religious people are nice and atheists are mean. As you might guess, I have some difficulty with the premise of the article — in my experience, atheists have been far friendlier, while the religious have been downright vicious — but it does make some interesting points (and, of course, it cites me as “prominent”, which is very flattering).

In particular, his main argument, which I entirely agree with, is that if religion has any virtue, it is not in the belief itself, but in the community that forms around it.

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I had no idea I was so fluent in German

I was interviewed by humanistischer pressedienst about the New Atheism and American politics and religion. I am amazingly erudite auf Deutsch, so much so that I can only read what I said with considerable effort.

OK, I confess—the interview was in English, and it’s the fluency of the interviewer we ought to praise. I’ve put the original text below the fold for those of us who’d rather not read slowly with the aid of a dictionary.

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Purple America

Here’s a graphic illustration of how the presidential election turned out. These are the results by county, with color reflecting the percentage that voted Republican (red) and Democrat (blue).

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Here’s what it looks like when the counties are scaled by population size; the smear of reds is greatly diminished.

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It’s striking how the emptiest places in the country are enriched with fervent conservatives. People are always fretting over how conservatives are outbreeding liberals, but it seems to me that that actually works in liberals’ favor — as communities become larger and more interdependent, as people grow up aware of social support systems, as their numbers create richer opportunities for education, there’s a trend towards embracing liberal values. There are, of course, historical contingencies that can counter that pattern — Utah has been growing, but isn’t becoming more Democratic, for instance — but it’s interesting that fast-growing urban areas in even the reddest states somehow end up favoring the Democrats. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the Quiverful movement, that strange idea on the religious right that women ought to bear swarms of children, was a policy that would simply breed new generations of liberals?

Of course, there is the alternative explanation: this distribution is an indirect measure of prosperity. People tend to move towards areas with more upward mobility and better economic prospects, so population is only a proxy for opportunity—and it’s broadly distributed wealth that produces more liberals. Then it would be the case that pumping out a dozen babies that you can’t afford to educate properly would still produce more minions of the Republicans…by impoverishing the region. I’m sure the religious right would find that notion reassuring, since it also seems to be one of their goals to wreck the political and economic health of the nation.

Whatever the explanation is, I want more blue in these maps. There are more election cartograms to peruse.