It’s been confirmed: members of the Oklahoma legislature are investigating the suspicious circumstances of Richard Dawkins’ lecture. After all, what possible excuse could UO have for inviting a known rabblerouser who doesn’t happen to believe in gods? Other than his reputation as a world-famous scientist, writer, and speaker, of course.
Sure enough, I just received confirmation today in a letter from the Open Records Office at the University of Oklahoma. The letter confirms that on the day of Dawkins’ speech, Oklahoma State Representative Rebecca Hamilton requested substantial information relating to the speech from Vice President for Governmental Relations Danny Hilliard. Representative Hamilton’s exhaustive request included demands for all e-mails and correspondence relating to the speech; a list of all money paid to Dawkins and the entities, public or private, responsible for this funding; and the total cost to the university, including, among other things, security fees, advertising, and even “faculty time spent promoting this event.”
Rick Farmer, the director of committee staff for the Oklahoma House of Representatives, also wrote the University on March 12, requesting confirmation that Dawkins had indeed waived all compensation for the speech.
It’s actually too bad that Dawkins waived his fee — he was well within his rights to ask for it, and the university had the right to invest in bringing interesting ideas to campus. The issue is not whether speakers should be paid, it’s whether these witch-hunters are overstepping their bounds. Don’t like an idea that’s being expressed at a university? Call out the hounds and make ’em sweat.
In other surprising news, ERV seems to have a low opinion of the investigators.
So, what is the public opinion of Oklahoma on this?
I don’t think anyone believes Dawkins is “criminal” and I don’t think anyone is investigating him. The investigation seems to centre upon whether or not this is acceptable expenditure by a public university. The university authorities are liable here, not Dawkins.
Liable for what, exactly?
Oklahoma State Representative Rebecca Hamilton deeply suspicious that there might be an institution in Oklahoma that isn’t a church.
I was going to laugh at their Clouseau-esque antics, until I realised that what religious conservatives lack in brains, they make up for gross human rights violations and torture. Probably comes from that parable in the Gospel according to George, in which Jesus waterboards the moneychangers in the temple.
As is the case on the national stage, there are
two kinds of Oklahoma pols in the lege: those
who are feigning outrage are the HYPOCRITES.
Those who are actually outraged are the FOOLS.
After all that the Expelled bunch did to project their tendencies onto others, the cretinists just do their best to demonstrate that they are the real censors.
Well OK morons, we really couldn’t show you to be the hypocrites you are without your help. For that we are grateful.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Pete “total fool” Rooke. No matter how you look at it, this is a traditional witchhunt by the religiotards. Something happened that they didn’t like, therefore somebody must pay even if nothing wrong was done. And they wonder why everyone considers them and their defenders batshit insane hypocrites.
Free speech is for everybody or nobody. If they wish to censor, they should be censored.
I think that ERV actually said it best of Ms. Hamilton:
Thought police much, bitch?
Ahem,
*broken record hat on*
Who needs the fucking Taliban? We have something better right here in the USA: The Oklahoma. State. Legislature.
*broken record hat off*
Fatwa envy
Didn’t Billy “Damn That’s a Big Sweater” Dembski speak at the same University? Where was the outrage of the legislature then (unless of course I’m mistaken).
Oh FFS, now I have to write my state legislature again because of retardary. I just need to leave this state, even though I was born and lived most of my life in Oklahoma. These idiots just keep making me more ashamed, and who are the loonies that keep voting them into office?
FYI, the shorthand version of the University of Oklahoma is “OU,” not “UO.”
No Rooke, they must think Dawkins is doing something wrong, because why else single him out? If they don’t do similar investigations for everyone else, then the only difference is the identity of the speaker.
By singling out Dawkins, they’ve made the investigation all about him, regardless of who’s being pressed for information. And you only investigate people who you suspect of wrongdoing.
They worst part of it all is that they will never know how shameful they have acted.
They are investigating, but one wonders whether they will take it a step further and try to press charges based on whatever they can come up with. Perhaps we can be assured of the fact that surely they would not take it that far?
How quaint. A witch hunt. We all know what they really want to do. If it wasn’t for the federal government, Dawkins would be tried, convicted, and burnt at the stake.
I’m not even going to ask how many xian organizations there are on campus and how much university and government money they get. Probably dozens.
About all they have shown here: they are just like the Afghani Taliban only more stupid and more vicious.
How dare they invite a retired science professor from Oxford University, no less, to another University to deliver a speech?!
This ‘investigation’ is absolutely ridiculous. We’re talking about a well-known author, professor, scientist and intellectual here, not … I don’t know … some third class actor that makes everyone think Bueller when they hear his name.
10channel @16
Doesn’t matter if the press charges or not, they put pressure on the university just through the investigation. Read the linked article for a review of the supreme court cases on issues like this.
I do have to commend Richard Dawkins for trying to civilize the aborigines of Oklahoma. It is a dangerous job that even Indiana Jones would think about twice.
Fortunately with jet aircraft travel, he can always just fly in, drop off some knowledge, and leave before the natives decide to toss him into a big pot for dinner. Hmmmm, well the abos do have pots don’t they? Oh well, Oklahoma, who cares? LOL
How is stifling respected speakers protecting academic freedom?
I wish I could put together a group to send each and every member of their legislature a copy of Orwell’s 1984.
I just sent this email to her:
Representative Hamilton,
I have some questions for you. Do you investigate all speakers at the public universities or only the ones you disagree with? If it is only the ones you disagree with, how is this not a witch hunt? If you claim to investigate all, then where is the investigation of Ben Stein when he spoke at Oklahoma State University for the sum of $60,000. It is people like you that make me ashamed to be an Oklahoman.
It’s interesting that this silly lawmaker is a Democrat. I was expecting to see the big R next to her name. Looniness apparently crosses party lines….
Fool of a Rooke! Throw yourself in next time, and rid us of your stupidity!”
I can’t help but think, given how petty and vindictive this action is, that public office was a poor choice of career for Rebecca Hamilton and Rick Farmer. At least if professional competence is something you seek in public bodies.
It is people like you that make me ashamed to be an Oklahoman.
It is people like here who make me glad I no longer have anything to do with Oklahoma except to drive through it.
I spent THIRTY YEARS in Okie-dumb, between 1994 and 2000…
I can’t help but think, given how petty and vindictive this action is, that public office was a poor choice of career for Rebecca Hamilton and Rick Farmer. At least if professional competence is something you seek in public bodies.
Down in Okie-Dumb, these vapid, vacuous dickweeks pass for the bright lights…
The investigation is bullshit but it puts a burden on the university and (probably as intended) might make them think twice before scheduling such a speaker again. I hope I’m wrong about that and OU fights back loud and hard against these asswipe hypocrites.
Erasmus at 25
A+++++++~~Would LOL Again!
@wombat – There are a lot of conservative Dems in Oklahoma, remember Oklahoma was the only state besides Alaska that every county voted for McCain. I am a moderate and people think I am the most liberal thing they have ever run across.
@woody – I have lived several lifetimes here by your counting :) I really am considering leaving and never looking back, except to visit family.
Pete, I want you to imagine, just imagine for a second, that PZ was being snarky with his headline.
Could he…wait! Hear me out!…deliberately mischaracterize the behaviour of the Oklahoma Legislative Brain Trust for the purpose of satirizing their dispicable attempts to quash the speech of people with whom they disagree?
Maybe?
So exactly where is it in the University of Oklahoma’s charter that requires the approval of the legislature when inviting guests to speak?
Why is it every time I settle on Florida or Texas being the looniest state in the Union, yet another southern state pops its head above the clouds?
On another ERV thread, Prometheus makes some good
points about the strategic value of waiving honoraria.
PS. Dawkin’s wife has an asteroid named after her.
Wombat, there’s really only one party in Okie-dumb: the narrow-minded, xenophobic, anti-intellectual, dickweed Party…It’s the home of Jim Inhofe, Garth Brooks, and Toby Keith…just for comparison…
#11– Didn’t Billy “Damn That’s a Big Sweater” Dembski speak at the same University?
Yes. Twice, at least since Ice been here. There was no legislative investigation as to who/how he was paid.
Is it normal for a state legislature to investigate academic speakers? Is it the job of any state legislature to approve of how universities spend their allotted moneys?
Your statement sounds like something that Silver Fox would say. That is not a compliment.
Why is it every time I settle on Florida or Texas being the looniest state in the Union, yet another southern state pops its head above the clouds?
They’re just the most populace of the total, complete asshole-states. I had the ‘pleasure’ of teaching in two others, somewhat smaller, but equally blighted, benighted, and dense: Oklahoma and Louisiana…
Louisianans just distinguished themselves by putting DI in their science curricula, and earning the scorn of the national science organizations which otherwise might have had conventions in NO…
This is for Pete “Total Fool” Rooke and the Oklahoma legislature:
FREE SPEECH FREE SPEECH FREE SPEECH FREE SPEECH FREE SPEECH
FREE SPEECH FREE SPEECH FREE SPEECH FREE SPEECH FREE SPEECH
FREE SPEECH FREE SPEECH FREE SPEECH FREE SPEECH FREE SPEECH
Get that through your dense heads, fuckwads.
Doesn’t this alleged “investigation” fall within the realm of “malicious prosecution”?
This is just political grandstanding, but sets off my free speech spidey sense. I don’t know what whats more disheartening. The fact the State of Oklahoma would try something this absurd, or that I’m sure there will be no real public backlash.
TheNewAtheist
http://www.thenewatheist.com
I’m a Dutchy and i have to say.. this looks completely mind boggling to me.
The country that claims and shouts and screams that it’s the land of the free.. and than something like this.
It’s riddiculous.
Hey! Rookie! There is a certain Dr Felix you should see to cure your condition.
What’s the purpose of the investigation? Is there even a stated purpose? Or are they fishing?
Very much sounds like they’re after a Chris Comer style sacrifice to appease all their outraged Jesus junkies.
Is the FBI going to start tapping my phone if I purchase a copy of The God Delusion? I mean, I already have The Anarchist Cookbook (and wasn’t overly impressed by it), but I’m beginning to think I’ll get flagged as a domestic terrorist if I purchase anything by Richard Dawkins with the way this inane McCarthyist investigation is going..
Batshit insane! (I love that phrase :-)
However, America is famous for it’s Freedom of Information laws.
Maybe some public spirited Oklahoman[1] could make an FoI enquiry back the other way. Ask the state legislature for full disclosure of the names and subject matters of all public speakers and their engagements that have been probed in this manner over the last half a dozen years or so, and ask them how much time and money was spent doing so. Then publish the results (or lack thereof).
[1] How does American FoI work? Do you have to be from OK to make this request? Or can any American do it?
Shameful. They investigate Mr. Dawkins, a respected author and intellectual, and yet they have no issues with Ben Stein speaking near the same university?
Good thing that I don’t reside in Oklahoma.
This is a witchhunt, plain and simple. There is an appointed Board of Regents that governs OU, so when legislators bypass the normal channels they are grandstanding/witchhunting.
Heliobates,
It was extremely rude for you to ask Pete Rooke to use his imagination. As a Christian, he is bound by God’s law to never use his imagination except for the purposes of interpreting scripture so as to square with his preconceptions. And I’m not even going to mention what a heinous act it is to ask a Christian to empathise with another’s position.
Personally, I think someone should demand of Hamilton’s office a full accounting of what resources went into these requests and the analysis thereof. Any time she spent on it, any time and/or money her people may have spent on it…
(/Goose. Gander.)
Good Cthulhu, you have to ask? It is just a mix of terrorism, thought policing, witch hunting, and polical pandering.
They really can’t do much. If they start burning deans, VPs, and biologists at the stake, the federal government will step in. Which I’m sure annoys them no end.
#23
While the republican party has a higher concentration of religious nuts, other parties have been infested with them too.
Florida and Texas are popular retirement destinations – so we get all the conservatives that managed to survive to retirement age.
Shockingly stupid. Or rather, all-too-predictably stupid. Don’t you people have university autonomy over in the states?
#21
Yes, this is doubleplusungood.
s/conservatives/loons in my last post – they come from all sides
If only there were someone well-connected enough, and prestigious enough to show them the speech-chilling errors of their ways; someone whose high school alma mater had produced a significant number of Nobel laureates, and had a principal who taught Physics; someone who attended multiple alumni functions, and had a famous, married, creative writing instructor; someone with powerful political alliances and a great many Facebook friends.
Such a person could threaten them with being written into his next novel in a ‘not-so-favorable light, I’ll have you know.’ Or he could take away all of their mutual Facebook friends and make them cry, if only they knew that he advised Ken Miller on important issues. Oh, and Brown University.
But alas, no such person exists today, at least not at Pharyngula. But there will always be lesbians on a bed of bacon, throwing rocks at the homophobic trolls and libertarian threadjackers–so it ain’t all bad. And MAJeff (biscuits!) is back. Happy Monkey.
Pascalle-
Interestingly, those who shout and scream about america being the land of the free are almost never the people who actually make some effort to support the expression of that freedom. They take its existence on faith and treat it like an abstract concept. On the other hand, those who pay any attention to the expression of this supposed freedom rarely find it appropriate to brag…
Even those these people are mighty loud, please don’t suppose they represent the whole country
Would you people stop equating Oklahomans with the Taliban. The Taliban live in Afghanistan. Get it?
oh joy. McCarthyism is back. and now they’re finishing the job of ridding the Godfearing U.S.A of subversive atheists
I wonder when Oklahoma will follow the shining example of Iran and sets up a religious police force. Better still, a secret religious police force, with the mandate to torture people. Because evidently the omnipotent deity worshipped by baboons like this Rebecca Hamilton is such a weakling that he has to be protected from dangerous enemies like Richard Dawkins at all cost.
Hamilton is a curiously Catholic famous fetus fetishist who plies her weird worship of the “pre-born” among her slightly frightened fundamentalist fellow representatives and generally jangled jesuits.
The fundies put up with her because she will back whatever nonsense they invent in exchange for their willingness to divert state funds to the miraculously appeased catholic clergy’s pet projects.
It is as if a mongoose family adopted a pet cobra.
By the way, you guys can quit all this “I am sure glad I don’t live in Oklahoma!” or “Boy I can’t wait to get out of here!” There are idiots everywhere. A compassionate and courageous mind goes where it is needed most. That’s why Dawkins came here in the first place.
No collection of blunt skulls is going to tell me what to do or where to live. I never miss a vote and own a lot of fire extinguishers. Toughen up.
The American Taliban aka the christofascists are alive and well in Oklahoma. Although, in most states, they aren’t state legislaters. Oklahoma is one of the few although Texas has its share.
The difference between islamofascists and christofascists is….nothing really.
They should invite PZ and Dawkins ASAP, you know, just to thumb their noses at the idiots.
Afghanistan? Huh? How far is that from Oklahoma City?
Wombat – “It’s interesting that this silly lawmaker is a Democrat. I was expecting to see the big R next to her name. Looniness apparently crosses party lines….”
Having lived in Oklahoma, I can confirm that there is a world of difference between an Oklahoma Democrat and a democrat from almost anywhere else.
I know Oklahoma liberals who home-school for secular(!) reasons. The schools are so bad…… And now you have evidence of the universities and those who feel they should have authoriatarian control over all beliefs, teachings in them.
It is unbelievable. Professor Richard Dawkins is one of the most respected scientists in the world. His CV speaks for itself. Can Oklahoma be this anti-intellectual that its State legislature, not just a few kooks but the State itself investigates someone for giving a talk (a talk he wasn’t paid to do, no less? It’s outrageous.
We all know why its happening. Creationists are gaining more influence, not just in America but across the western world, and their whole ‘academic freedom’ strategy is about keeping evolution out of the classroom and baseless mythology in.
If Oklahoma seceded, would anyone fight it?
O/T: Roseville wackaloon loses her appeal to the Supreme Court:
Read more here.
@ennui (57) you have the right phrase; “Chilling (Effect)”.
Representative Rebecca Hamilton must know her request will not do anything to OU except waste their time. She is trying to frighten all the other educational institutions into believing hiring an ‘eviloutionist’ speaker is more trouble than its’ worth.
Even if that’s the only difference, it’s not a tiny difference. The US constitution seems to be pretty well designed for avoiding tyranny (it’s a had good few years of serious testing, right?)
Hunter S. Thompson: “Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads?”
ennui #57
You should have added “pretentious enough and pompous enough.” Pretentious pomposity is an effective tool against certain legislators.
Matt H. at #67 wrote:
“Can Oklahoma be this anti-intellectual that its State legislature, not just a few kooks but the State itself investigates someone for giving a talk (a talk he wasn’t paid to do, no less? It’s outrageous.”
No, it can’t. A few legislative actors are trying to conduct a pointless investigation to gain some traction for an untenable dying ideology and one of them wrote some silly legislation nobody read. In 1971 Rep. Tom Moore wrote a resolution commending the Boston Strangler just to see if anybody in the Texas house was paying attention….unanimous approval.
“We all know why its happening. Creationists are gaining more influence, not just in America but across the western world, and their whole ‘academic freedom’ strategy is about keeping evolution out of the classroom and baseless mythology in.”
I disagree that they are gaining greater influence but will agree they are becoming louder more daring and will soon grow violent. This is the nature of rats when cornered. It just means we need to have our shovels ready and make sure they don’t run up our pants legs.
so any chance the OU is going to donate Richards waived compensation to RDFRS instead?
Donors donate for a reason, and you dance with the one that brought you. For a lot of Okies, people like Professor Dawkins are the next thing to Satan. They paid for a voice, and a couple of voices squawked. In the end, they can say, “I tried.” Then ask for another donation. Politics as usual.
@ Ethanol
I have been following american politics and legislation for years. The PR about it to make it “normal” to spy on your own people and on as many people world wide as possible.
I know that those loudmouthing people are not the majority, but it’s what we in Europe hear, we got freedom (TM!) and you stoopid europeans are just jealous of our riches and freedom (TM!).
And than you see stuff like this. If this was only 1 thing, it wouldn’t be too bad, but there is so much of it, that the people defending the freedom (TM!) need to shout so hard, so the world doesn’t see the hypocrisy, the lack of human rights, the greed, the poverty, the lack of democracy.
This case with the board of education is just another of the many many examples that the usa is not the land of the free.
Hamilton is a fascist imbecile; then again, so is Dawkins.
See, that’s what I don’t get. He’s an admitted atheist and blasphemer, so don’t we know that he’s a criminal? At least in Oklahoma?
I just don’t get where we’re supposed to be all soft on those who admit their crimes.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
According to R. Dawkins blog, this is the email of wackaloon Rebecca Hamilton…
rebeccahamilton@okhouse.gov
Email her and let her know what you think of the waste of time and money she is engaging in. This goes particularly to my fellow Okie Pharyngulites.
Ever played Whack-a-Mole?
It would help if many of the various politicians, especially those in Oklahoma, would stop ignoring, misusing, flouting and or actively trying to dismantle the US Constitution because they think that Jesus (and, hopefully the rest of America) would be much happier if the US was a theocratic dictatorship that controls all aspects of the lives and thoughts of its citizens.
cw #77 wrote:
“Hamilton is a fascist imbecile; then again, so is Dawkins.”
What a ludicrous accusation. Can you name one thing Professor Dawkins has ever said that could be described as fascist?
Matt H. #82,
CW is, I suspect, the long-since-banned Charlie Wagner. Just ignore him. His posts will be deleted when PZ gets around to it.
Small mistake in the post: the University of Oklahoma is OU, not UO.
Good on you Beamstalk. You are exactly the type of person we need more of in this country, let these zealots know that not everyone approves of their BS beliefs.
Being from Illinois, I have a saying that when the revolution comes and this country is divided, I don’t want to be on the same side as Indiana. But that would put me on the same side as Oklahama.
Houston we have a problem!
Okay, fine. Now Ben Stein and all those people are going to give back all the compensation they’ve received for speaking at public institutions, RIGHT???
During the two weeks prior to Dawkins’ visit to OU, THREE leading ‘luminaries’ of the creationist Discovery Institute (DI) spoke on the OU Campus, sponsored by the student IDEA (Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness) Club, an extension of the DI. As a student organization, the IDEA Club is eligible for university funding. Most members of the club are also associated with the local Trinity Baptist Church; the DI speakers acknowledged support from the church. There was little media notice of the DI speakers, unlike that from Dawkins.
The influence of Rebecca Hamilton’s interference or the impact of the two legislative resolutions against the OU Department of Zoology and Dawkins’ visit to OU will be essentially nil. The President of OU, David Boren (former college teacher, state legislator, Governor and U.S. Senator), will stand firm against such attempts at intimidation, as he has done in the past. Furthermore, by State law the Legislature has no direct means of influencing funding to individual institutions. The Legislature approves lump funds for higher education and the State Regents make allocations to each institution.
As to Rep. Hamilton’s motives, here is a response to my post about her on the political blog Demokie ( http://www.demokie.com/ ):
“Rebecca (as Rep. Charles Gray did before her) is playing up to extremist Republicans to keep one from running against her. She believes that she can beat a Democrat but would have a much harder time if targeted full force by the Repubs.
In fact, it’s surprising that they haven’t targeted her before because she has so few voting constituents left after a huge “white flight” because of an influx of Hispanic neighbors many of whom do not vote; maybe they can’t.
Her constituents are among the poorest and most under educated in the state. Add to that 62 (mainly fundamentalist) churches in her district.
So she knows what she’s doing and feels perfectly safe in doing so.”
Can someone request the information as to how many hours the legislators are spending on this, so as to know how much this investigation will cost the taxpayers of the state?
From Wiki:
Makes me feel much better about flying. :(
j/k
“Hamilton is a fascist imbecile; then again, so is Dawkins.”
Ah, there enters the self-involved idiot who sees problems in everyone but himself, and feel self-righteous enough to make grand proclamations about other people as cover his lack of any real ability to discern what fascism even is, from the individuals that are the subject of the discussion. But, cw has deftly gone from anonymous poster with a point of view to unqualified idiot in a fairly respectable 10 words. Thank you cw for warning us early on you’re not worth taking seriously on anything remotely intellectual.
Does the name Nicole Smalkowski ring any bells? If I remember correctly, the public school she attended in Oklahoma ostracized her because she did not join in the Lord’s Prayer before, during and after basketball games.
That is enough right there to keep me from ever spending a cent on anything that comes from Oklahoma.
Once upon a time — for 18 long years, in fact — I lived in Oklahoma. That 18 years taught me that overestimating the sophistication of Oklahoma’s political and intellectual culture is as easy as assuming it surpasses that of a swarm of agitated grasshoppers.
As “Curt Cameron” pointed out above, it’s “OU” rather than “UO.” This puts the emphasis where it belongs — on O for Oklahoma and only then on U for University. I’ve long doubted whether OU qualifies as a university. I suppose inviting Dawkins to speak there hints at a pocket of functioning humans. Surely it sucks to be them.
The UO-OU thing doesn’t matter in the least, of course, but the true Oklahomans will focus on this trivial mistake and use it to dismiss everything in the post, including all the words they don’t understand (i.e., most of them).
I guess the Oklahoma state legislature must have a booming economy, zero unemployment, repaired all the roads and bridges, reduced taxes, found all the missing children, eliminated crime, housed the homeless, established universal health care and are now desperately looking for some other problem to solve with all their spare time.
I absolutely agree with you on this, PZ, but I do want to bring up a past event… only to cause us to stop and pause and enumerate exactly the differences.
The invitation to Ben Stein to speak.
What are our reasons for approving of the campaign to oust Ben Stein and disproving of this one?
A notable differnce is this one is being done by the government.
The irony of this is consider the number of Rep Hamilton’s own constituents are over seas fighting and dying for the freedom of speech that she so gleefully tramples on.
Does anyone else wish that Lincoln had lots the civil war? Not because of slavery, but just so the south would be their own problem.
Hence the doubly-compounded noun-phrase chrislamofascists. Whoops, nearly typo’d that as chrislamofashits. Deary me.
Jerome Haltom #94
We objected to Stein speaking. We did not demand that the University of Vermont provide all e-mails and correspondence relating to the speech; a list of all money to be paid to Stein and the entities, public or private, responsible for this funding; and the total cost to the university, including, among other things, security fees, advertising, and even “faculty time spent promoting this event.”
Jerome Haltom #94 wrote:
Ben Stein was giving the commencement address, and receiving an “honorary degree” from a university after spending the year promoting pseudoscience. A pseudoscientist should not be given those honors.
Keep in mind that, according to ERV, Ben Stein spoke at this same university last fall, and we did not protest. He was brought in as a regular speaker, similar to Dawkins.
If Richard Dawkins had been invited to act as commencement speaker and receive an honorary degree, the argument against his doing so would not be that he is a pseudoscientist, but that he is an outspoken atheist. This would be like atheists protesting Ben Stein because he is an outspoken theist. That wasn’t our problem — and shouldn’t be.
Show to us where Richard Dawkins has deliberately and knowingly lied to people. In particular, held evolution up to causing the Nazis to exterminate people, an accusation that does not stand up to even mild scrutiny. Until then, apples and oranges.
Yes. It’s like all those “pro-life” people who support the death penalty. If only we could find a way to harvest that cognitive dissonance and turn it into electricity, America would be oil independant right now. Also it seems like it’s a renewable energy source.
OohRah!
That’s not entirely true. The christofacists have the worlds largest, best equiped and best trained mercenary military. The islamofacists have rocks, WW2-era weaponry, pickup trucks and impovised explosives.
Wait, what? Someone calls Richard Dawkins a facist imbicile, and the word you pick up on is facist? We’re talking about probably one of the 10 smartest guys on Earth, and you let imbicile slide?
Sastra, IIRC Ben Stein spoke at OSU, not OU.
Think of this stupid “investigation” as a microcosm. We waste shit loads of time on stupid things just like this and being a legislature here requires no intellectual honesty where party lines blur into the “crazy radical Republicans to not-so-radical AKA Democrat. Our governor is a supposed democrat but you might not think so by just looking at what he has done over the last 8 years (but has a done a great job compared to what our Republican alternatives could have done, especially as pertaining to the National Day of Prayer proclamations). OU is one of our bright spots though, and I really hope that they fight this tooth and nail and I hope they don’t think twice about bringing in someone else who might ruffly OK feathers.
ennui #102:
Thanks for the correction.
< <@85 elv8rdude wrote:Good on you Beamstalk. You are exactly the type of person we need more of in this country, let these zealots know that not everyone approves of their BS beliefs. Being from Illinois, I have a saying that when the revolution comes and this country is divided, I don't want to be on the same side as Indiana. But that would put me on the same side as Oklahama. Houston we have a problem!>>
Today’s word is Gerrymander. Heck, I’m willing to bet that there are parts of Illinois you’ll want to “edit out” as well.
You fail to realize that virulent stupidity, much like disease, does not recognize political borders.
Honest shitheads, usually.
So, this begs the (rhetorical, I’m guessing) question:
How many avowed atheist/agnostic folks are in the Oklahoma Legislature?
Open ones?! Probably none…’till I get there. ;)
ennui #57. Ooh, you are awful, but I like you :)
Just trying to blow off some steam… my wife had her oral comps for her MS today, and things have been kinda stressful.
This is exactly why we should be supporting those academic freedom bills. Teachers and lecturers should have the freedom to teach whatever controversial ideas without fear of being expelled and persecuted as so many are today. If you think what happened to Dawkins was bad at least he did not get denied tenure or fired.
facilis, ever heard the phrase “so open-mided, your brain fell out”? at best, that’s what those bills do. at worst they actually hinder true academic freedom by protecting non-science from criticism, while demanding unreasonable criticism on science.
Facilis SP (I assume the SP stands for the Shit Pile that stands in for your brain) the facile liar. No creationists have been sacked or denied tenure for being creationist, only for not doing the job they were hired for or for failing to meet expected standards, Such as Guillermo failing to get tenure for the lack of papers and failing to acquire sufficient grant funding, i.e. effectively no new grant funding at all over a five year period at Iowa State IIRC.
Facilis, SP (substandard pissant, presumably) wrote:
Ideas like the Holocaust never happened? That it’s okay for adults to have sex with children? That non-whites are inferior to whites? That woman are inferior to men? That if you are a man with AIDS you can cure it by having sex with a virgin?
These are all ‘controversial ideas’ that certain fringe groups believe, facilis. Why do you think we don’t let people teach them?
Facilis, SP #112 wrote:
Any controversial idea? What if they’re a very bad teacher, with an absolutely horrible understanding of their own subject, rife with pseudoscience and conspiracy thinking — and they call that “being controversial?”
Do we throw out all standards, lest we’re not being ‘fair?’
As has been mentioned before, creationists have not been “persecuted” for being creationists: the stories in the movie EXpelled were exaggerations and lies.
There’s a reason for that: Dawkins is an imbecile. For example, try providing just one logically sound argument that Dawkins has ever used to rationally support his atheistic materialism, specifying all premises, conclusions and inference rules. Nobody has been able to, because he has none. He relies on slogans, soundbites, and caricatures — and if his written words are any indication of his thought life, then it’s quite obvious he’s never learned to critically evaluate his own views or those of others.
Dawkins is more of a politician than an intellectual. Sorry.
<
SHUT UP CHARLIE.
Dawkins is more of a politician than an intellectual. Sorry.
and you’re more of an obsessive compulsive moron than anything.
sorry?
charlie wagner, stop masturbating all over our threads.
cw, simple, god adds nothing to the argument so its possible existence can be totally ignored. Parsimony and all that. What else needs to be said.
Sent this to Mrs. Hamilton today. Was I to Rough?
Mrs Hamilton,
I wanted to traveled to Oklahoma to see Mr. Dawkins because we here in Texas have not had the honor of his presence at someplace closer.I hear his speech was marvelous and you should be proud to have had him as a guest speaker. But instead I hear that the powers that be in your state are “investigating” the circumstances that led to his speaking engagement. Are the “powers” there so afraid of this man that you are willing to circumscribe academic free speech? Are you so steeped in your own superstitions that merely to hear something that differs from your own opinion is a threat? Is your world view so precarious that it can’t take a dose of reality? Why was an investigation not launched when Ben Stein ( totally discredited by the science community) was paid 60,000 to speak? I pity you and your close minded world view.
Charlie Rodriguez
Sigh,
time for another Survivor round,the way facilis is going.
So the headline wasnt quite correct,since RD isnt being investigated,OU admin is.
Curious though,is there any legal way of getting you for say,denying the existence of dog,or critisizing religion,in that state?
I second the notion of finding out how much the OK state legis spent on this thing,via FoI inquiry or whatever else.
And,”62 mostly fundamentalist churches in her district”,you are kidding right? Right?
Wouldn’t that better describe John Kwok?
pz=2=cw #117 wrote:
“Mental things, brains, minds, consciousnesses, things that are capable of comprehending anything — these come late in evolution, they are a product of evolution. They don’t come at the beginning. So whatever lies behind the universe will not be an intellect. Intellects are things that come as the result of a long period of evolution.” (Richard Dawkins)
Definition of God: “a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it.” (Dawkins)
(P1) Extremely complex phenomena that cannot even in principle be explained as arising from simpler, more fundamental principles are extremely improbable.
(P2) God is by definition a being that is a) conscious, and b) fundamental in the sense that he is not evolved or derived from anything more fundamental.
(P3) Conscious beings are necessarily extremely complex.
(I1) From (P2a) and (P3), God is extremely complex.
(I2) God cannot even in principle be explained as arising from simpler, more fundamental principles since, from (P2b), God is defined as being fundamental.
Conclusion: The existence of God is extremely improbable [from (P1), (I1), and (I2)].
Hmmm, does this come under the umbrella of the ‘Courtier’s Reply’ or does it require its own description? Or is it a new ‘Proof for God’s Existence’ – ‘A famous atheist can’t meet my strict demands for his philosophical disproof of my god’s existence; therefore, my god exists!’
Does he need a ‘logically sound argument…specifying all premises, conclusions and inference rules’ in order to not believe in minotaurs? How about not believing in mermaids? Would that require a different ‘logically sound argument’ or could both be covered by the same one? What about Banshees? Pixies? The Wendgio? Underpants Gnomes?
If you’re a Christian, how do you justify not believing in Ganesh? What’s your ‘logically sound argument…specifying all premises, conclusions and inference rules’ that can’t be applied to your god?
pz=2=cw #117 wrote:
“ For me, the important point is that, even if the physicist needs to postulate an irreducible minimum that had to be present in the beginning, in order for the universe to get started, that irreducible minimum is certainly extremely simple. By definition, explanations that build on simple premises are more plausible and more satisfying than explanations that have to postulate complex and statistically improbable beginnings. And you can’t get much more complex than an Almighty God!” (Dawkins)
Definition of God: “a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it.” (Dawkins)
(P1) Extremely complex phenomena that cannot even in principle be explained as arising from simpler, more fundamental principles are extremely improbable.
(P2) God is by definition a being that is a) conscious, and b) fundamental in the sense that he is not evolved or derived from anything more fundamental.
(P3) Conscious beings are necessarily extremely complex.
(I1) From (P2a) and (P3), God is extremely complex.
(I2) God cannot even in principle be explained as arising from simpler, more fundamental principles since, from (P2b), God is defined as being fundamental.
Conclusion: The existence of God is extremely improbable [from (P1), (I1), and (I2)].
“Mental things, brains, minds, consciousnesses, things that are capable of comprehending anything — these come late in evolution, they are a product of evolution. They don’t come at the beginning. So whatever lies behind the universe will not be an intellect. Intellects are things that come as the result of a long period of evolution.” (Richard Dawkins)
I’m assuming these academic freedom bills somehow don’t extend to sex education?
*cough* ultimate 747 *cough*
ah, sorry for the (sorta) double post…
‘A famous atheist can’t meet my strict demands for his philosophical disproof of my god’s existence; therefore, my god exists!’
sure reminds me of the old “we don’t need your pathetic level of detail!” argument/projection from one William Dembski.
Oh, come on, Dawkins isn’t invited to lecture about science nowadays. At least, he wasn’t invited to talk about science in Oklahoma. That cockbitch rep. was jumping up and down because Dawkins undermines her politically – because he speaks out against religious bigotry. Religious bigotry is the stock-in-trade for these people. Without religious bigots voting for them, they’d be out of a job.
Dawkins symbolizes the rational threat to theocracy. I’d be scared of him too if I was Hamilton.
Ya, Christians would never do that, they always point out the inconsistencies and contradictions in the Bible, and pick and chose what verses are the “real” ones. TEACH THE CONTROVERSY!
Oh. ffs. Can’t you assholes just fuck off already?
Have you ever read Dawkins? His argument against God is that there is no good reason to believe in God – that life is a product of evolution and the natural world shows neither purpose or intent. The universe and everything in it is shaped by natural processes, some of which we know in great detail – and that demonstrates that the universe isn’t “created” for the purpose of mankind.
His argument is that there’s no good arguments for God, and a lot of good arguments against God – namely that science works. We are products of evolution, and while that by no means kills God, it takes away the necessity for God and our place in the universe.
Where’s John Kwok when you need him?
Facilis, SP #112 wrote:
Teachers and lecturers should have the freedom to teach whatever controversial ideas without fear of being expelled and persecuted as so many are today.
What’s next?
Doctors should have the freedom to treat you with any controversial non-FDA approved drug or procedure without the fear of being expelled and persecuted as so many are today.
AIG executives should have the freedom to put whatever controversial amount of government bailout money in their own pocket without the fear of being expelled and persecuted as so many are today.
Car mechanics should have the freedom to fix your car with whatever controversial chewing gum and duct tape they have at hand without the fear of being expelled and persecuted as so many are today.
Airlines should have the freedom to fly you in whatever controversial plane they want whether safe or unsafe without the fear of being expelled and persecuted as so many are today.
I could go on and on and on.
What the heck, we could as well do away with requiring any qualification for any job although I doubt that unqualified non-believers would not be good enough for you.
Do you see the silliness of your argument?
Following your trail, I doubt you ever will.
OU should try to get Dawkins to make this an annual event. That’ll fuck ’em!
A higher percentage of historians deny the holocaust happened than biologists who deny evolution – teach the controversy!
A large percentage of Americans believe that 9/11 was an inside job by the government – teach the controversy!
There is still a minority voice that the earth is flat and is at the centre of the universe – teach the controversy!
There are some who speculate that aliens build the pyramids – teach the controversy!
There are many who believe that written in the stars is our destiny – teach the controversy!
There are historians who maintain Jesus never existed – teach the controversy!
We never went to the moon – teach the controversy!
And so on and on and on and on… the problem with those academic freedom bills is that they aren’t about academic freedom. Academic freedom happens at a post-graduate university level. Those bills are designed to teach high school students pseudoscience (and more specifically teach them that Goddidit 6000 years ago.) High school students aren’t at the level where academic freedom applies, they simply do not understand what science is and what evidence there is to support ideas. That’s why what is taught to high school students is at the very beginner level. Those bills are designed to push Christianity onto students, to make it seem like science is inadequate and that evolution is wrong. High school students are being misled by those “academic freedom” bills.
Facilis the Fallacious Fool. Show me ten peer reviewed papers from the primary scientific literature using ID or creationism as the primary theory behind biology. Until you can do that, there is no scientific debate. There is only religious dogma versus scientific facts, and religion has no place in the science classroom. Not understanding that makes you the fool.
I’m not an historian, I just play one on tv.
In my experience, a request for information like the one in the article is a harassment technique, pure and simple. The victims have to bustle around and provide copies of everything, including verbal conversations, and make decisions about what they considered to be related to the activity, or as promotion of the activity. It’s a real pain and disruption.
The harasser then picks over the documents at leisure, and can then pretend something was wrongly presented, and prosecute for obstruction of justice. (That’s what happened to Bill Clinton.) The victims must cover all conceivable avenue, which simply presents the harasser with more material to work with.
It’s all legal, worse luck, and often used simply as a form of abuse, with no legal action ever intended.
Really?
Do you have a citation for that?
It might not be legal. The two legislators are legislators, not cops and not judges. Since Oklahoma has a regents system, they aren’t even in the chain of command at the school level. They don’t even have the legal authority to issue a parking ticket.
I don’t know the law in Oklahoma but it might well be that they have no legal, statuatory authority to harrass OU. If it was me, I’d ask them for a copy of which laws they are operating under.
Or just tell them they aren’t the thought police, no matter what they think and ask for a subpoena or court order signed by a judge.
Pete Rooke survived last week’s cull?
So what was the point?
I hope the OU administration simply ignore these requests. These bozos in the OK legislature have no oversight authority over the university. If, as a result, they want to provide further grandstanding, offer up some bills cutting the budget of the university. Of course, that could result in the loss of a few football scholarships plus a cut in pay to the coaching staff.
That might have a few, much more severe, repercussions.
Barb, Simon, and Kwok. Doesn’t the loss of those three make for a much nicer blog?
I guess the Ancestor’s Tale was pretty much a political pamphlet. The Blind Watchmaker was a great soundbite though.
Wow. As much as I would bitch and moan about a university inviting Ben Stein to speak about anything but game shows and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (not to mention paying him $60,000 for the appearance,) not in my most megalomaniacal dreams would I imagine initiating an official investigation into the invitation process.
Earth to Oklahomans: Some of the folks in your legislature do not have half as much brain tissue in their heads as they do time on their hands. Can’t you keep them safely occupied with some ribbons to cut or babies to kiss? (Safety note: Make absolutely sure that you take away their ribbon-cutting implements before overloading their brain capacities by presenting them with babies. We are talking SERIOUS stupid here, and we wouldn’t want any innocent kids getting hurt.)
Julie Stahlhut #148 last paragraph FTW :)
He didn’t accept a fee from the U of M (CASH) either.
“Representative Hamilton’s exhaustive request included demands for all e-mails and correspondence relating to the speech; a list of all money paid to Dawkins and the entities, public or private, responsible for this funding; and the total cost to the university, including, among other things, security fees, advertising, and even “faculty time spent promoting this event.””
I am so glad Minnesota isn’t fucked up like Oklahoma. Because there were probably over a 1000 emails sent between CASH and the various individuals/organisations involved in getting DDawk to the U of M.
Richard Dawkins you are charged with the crime of corrupting the youth! How do you respond to these accusations?
Not off the top of my head, but if you wait a few hours I may be able to get one for you. Though if you are impatient, there’s always google.
I’m glad you finally realize that God is fiction, simon
wait, wasn’t Simon tossed off the island?
he morphs. and evolves, too (into a mega-troll)
Why am I not surprised that such a sicko as Simon would turn into a morphing stalker. He must have a really sad life to keep coming back to where he is not welcome. If he wasn’t such a sicko I would feel truly sorry for him. As it is, I can feel only distaste and a sadness for one more mind poisoned by religion.
I received this letter from the Oklahoma Atheists,
“Meetup Description: This conference, in its second year, is designed to inform and engage you in local church/state issues.
The morning session includes a panel discussion with local legislators (Wallace Collins, D-Norman, and others) and a talk about academic freedoms from Abbie Smith, renowned science blogger (http://scienceblogs.com/erv/).
Enjoy an on-site lunch session, while you network with other local activists.
After lunch, hear the keynote speaker, Andrew Tevington, well-known author, lawyer and father of the Oklahoma Ethics Commission.
The cost for the session is $15 per person, some of which goes to cover lunch. Please RSVP to Jim Huff, executive secretary, at 405-632-0037 or at jah30@cox.net. RSVP deadline is Thursday, March 26 – this date is set so we can order lunches. However, if you want to leave for lunch, you can still attend the session! If you are not eating lunch, the registration fee is $10.
Also, you do not have to be a member of Americans United – ALL are welcome!
We hope you can join us! Please feel free to pass this along to any who may be interested.
8:30 a.m. – registration (pay in person with check/cash)
9:00 a.m. – morning sessions
12:15 p.m. – lunch
1:15 p.m. – keynote
2:30 p.m. – end of dialogues”
So, maybe there is at least 1 open minded legislator (surprise surprise, he’s in Norman!). Can’t wait to be enlightened by the ERV in person!
Many, if not most, of the people in Oklahoma don’t agree with the utter stupidity of the legislature on this subject. Don’t condem all of us living in Oklahoma for the asinine behavior of politicians and right-wingers. Most of us are not right wing nuts. The nuts are just louder than anyone else.
You’re going to see Abbie in person, Chas? I’m jealous!
@To all you guys who mentioned the Boeing 747 argument
It isn’t that good.
From what I understand the argument goes like this
1)Things that are really complex (like a Boeing 747) are really improbable
2)If God created and watched over everything he is really complex
3)Therefore God is really improbable
4)If god is really improbable therefore he (probably) does not exist.
For all the Discovery Institute bashing going on here let us compare him to Dembski. Whether you agree with Dembski or not ,in his book he defines what he means by specified complexity, explains how he assigns probability, what his acceptable probability bound is..etc. So at least Dembski’s critics can pick apart what he means by complexity and check out his probabilities.
Dawkins’ critics can do no such thing. Dawkins never defines complexity or states how he calculates probability, so all his critics have is 2 completely arbitrary assertions.
Not to mention the illogic behind Dawkins’ argument when you apply it to his own conclusions. I’m sure we agree one universe is highly complex. Dawkins believes there are billions of multiple universes. How much more complex and improbable would a billion universes be by Dawkins’ own measure?
The argument doesn’t have to be good, Facile Fool; it only has to be sound–and right.
Cough up the evidence for Yahweh. Real evidence. Not fundie fucktard evidence. You know, the kind YOU have presented all of the time you have been here.
Until then, SHUT THE FUCK UP.
His point is that Dawkins makes no argument for his position.
Dawkins never substantiates his assertion that God does not exist, much less his claim that naturalism is true.
Note how you twisted his words. Dawkins wants us to believe in atheistic naturalism. He is no saying mere “lack of belief”. He wants us to believe God “almost certainly does not exist”.
I don’t believe that mermaids exist. However I do not make the claim that they “almost certainly do not exist” and I do not go calling people who believe in unicorns delusional or say they are suffering from mental illnesses or call them child abusers.
p1)If the Christian God exists then other Gods do not exist
Evidence:The claims of the Christian God to be the only true God
p2)Ganesh is “another God”
Premise true by definition
p3)The Christian God exists
Evidence: Historical arguments + transcendental arguments + impossibility of the contrary
c1)Ganesh does not exist
Was that too hard?
@John Phillips
Your assertion flies in the face of all the evidence. Data indicates that he outpublished many of the other tenured professors at ISU during his time.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/05/guillermo_gonzalez_has_highest.html
Facilis grunted:
Logic fail. FTFY.
Why not? Do you think they are correct? Do you think they are sane?
bzzt! Logic failure. p1 is false; The Christian God does not claim to be the only true God. The Christian God orders people to worship no other Gods before him — implying that those other Gods are real.
Therefore, Ganesh is as good a God as Yahweh.
QED
Oh, and p3 is false as well, but we won’t go there, because you simply launch a denial-of-service attack on the listener whenever you use that stupid piece-of-crap presupposition.
facilis lying @ 163:
Dawkins asserts no such thing.He knows that it cannot be proven that god doesnt exist.
He has called himself a 6.5 on the 7-point scale between agnostic and atheist,or somesuch.
Get at least your strawmen right,man !
Facilis grunted:
No these bills are designed to teach the “strengths and weaknesses” of all scientific theories. I learned the strengths and weaknesses of everything from Newtonian mechanics to the controversy in the periodic table.
However many people want to do special pleading and stop teachers from teaching the weaknesses of their favorite theory. They even try to change the science standards to prevent teachers from teaching the weaknesses. hat is what the academic freedom bill was designed
facilis, he was past his prime by the time he started work at ISU, producing barely anything, and the trend was towards less and less, and that’s the ONLY relevant part to his tenure at ISU. he was evidently not an asses to the university, why would they give him tenure?
http://scienceblogs.com/strangerfruit/gg2.jpg
W.A. Dembski, The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
Ø. A. Voie, “Biological function and the genetic code are interdependent,” Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, Vol 28(4) (2006): 1000-1004.
John A. Davison, “A Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis,” Rivista di Biologia/Biology Forum 98 (2005): 155-166.
S.C. Meyer, “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories,” Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 117(2) (2004): 213-239.
M.J. Behe and D.W. Snoke, “Simulating Evolution by Gene Duplication of Protein Features That Require Multiple Amino Acid Residues,” Protein Science, 13 (2004): 2651-2664.
D. A. Axe, “Estimating the Prevalence of Protein Sequences Adopting Functional Enzyme Folds,” Journal of Molecular Biology, Vol. 341 (2004): 1295-1315.
W.-E. Lönnig & H. Saedler, “Chromosome Rearrangements and Transposable Elements,” Annual Review of Genetics, 36 (2002): 389-410.
M.J. Denton, J.C. Marshall & M. Legge, (2002) “The Protein Folds as Platonic Forms: New Support for the pre-Darwinian Conception of Evolution by Natural Law,” Journal of Theoretical Biology 219 (2002): 325-342.
D. A. Axe, “Extreme Functional Sensitivity to Conservative Amino Acid Changes on Enzyme Exteriors,” Journal of Molecular Biology, Vol. 301 (2000): 585-595.
Behe, M.J., Self-Organization and Irreducibly Complex Systems: A Reply to Shanks and Joplin, PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 67:155-162 (March 2000)
There are lots of thers listed at this site
http://www.discovery.org/a/2640
There are also peer-revoiewed books such as debating design
I’m not sure if intelligent design is correct. I would not like to force it taught in schools because it still needs more reasearch and scientific support. I just wanted to clear up thos falsehood.
I would also like to add that many Darwinisits control these journals and some do not want to be criticised.
the only people doing the special pleading are creobots, ID is not science, and their “strengths and weaknesses” textbooks are full of lies. you need to stop sopping up creationist propaganda, it’s not good for your health
Facilis Shit PPile for brains. To make it easy for you here is a link that shows exactly how his publishing deteriorated remarkably during his time at Iowa as well as how meagre was his grant allocation compared to others.
http://www.expelledexposed.com/index.php/the-truth/gonzalez
Ignoring the portion of grant money received that was not even for work at Iowa and also the ‘grant’ for writing his book, which was again not related to work at Iowa as such, his actual grant amount for research related to his position at Iowa was less than around a fifteenth of the average of others in his department. Thus, he was not refused tenure simply on one issue alone but on the totally of, or rather lack, of overall relevant performance. Try again, but without the fallacious expelled talking points this time round. And if you are honest, and yes I know how difficult that can be for liars for jeebus, you will see that none of your charges hold water. Though I doubt that will prevent you repeating them ad nauseum, as you do with your other facile arguments on this site.
As for Dawkins, it is believers making the extraordinary claim of the existence of a supernatural god, hence it is up to the believers to need produce evidence for his existence and not up to us to produce evidence against his existence. All we need say is that all of our science works as expected irrespective of the existence of god/gods. Based on that, along with the total lack of empirical evidence, Dawkins and the rest of us can state with total confidence that the existence of god or gods is irrelevant and very improbable.
As to your god precluding the existence of the other gods, again, you need to first show us the evidence for your god before you can make such a claim. Otherwise, as with all your other arguments, you are simply begging the question and trying to bore us into submission.
W.A. Dembski, The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
not primary literature, and one hell of a poor probability analysis besides.
Ø. A. Voie, “Biological function and the genetic code are interdependent,” Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, Vol 28(4) (2006): 1000-1004.
not ID theory
John A. Davison, “A Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis,” Rivista di Biologia/Biology Forum 98 (2005): 155-166.
published in a non-peer reviewed, propietary journal (and only after the DI sponsored it – no regular journal would have it); voted “crankiest” on crank.net (look it up, fucknuts)
S.C. Meyer, “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories,” Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 117(2) (2004): 213-239.
wanking only. all he was doing was trying to reorganize already existing information, and doing a horrible job of it. Moreover, the publication has basically disowned the paper since.
M.J. Behe and D.W. Snoke, “Simulating Evolution by Gene Duplication of Protein Features That Require Multiple Amino Acid Residues,” Protein Science, 13 (2004): 2651-2664.
nothing at all to do with ID
D. A. Axe, “Estimating the Prevalence of Protein Sequences Adopting Functional Enzyme Folds,” Journal of Molecular Biology, Vol. 341 (2004): 1295-1315.
ditto
W.-E. Lönnig & H. Saedler, “Chromosome Rearrangements and Transposable Elements,” Annual Review of Genetics, 36 (2002): 389-410.
ditto.
you know, posting links to publications you haven’t even read doesn’t help your case.
fail.
I just wanted to clear up thos falsehood.
liar.
or delusional.
one or the other.
either way, I’d suggest you see a mental health care professional.
Except for that chapter in the God Delusion: Why There Is Almost Certainly No God where he lays out a strong case against the creator. An assertion is what you do facilis, it’s a statement on it’s own with nothing to support it. Dawkins devotes an entire chapter to the proposal of the negative (~46 pages) and that’s after spending over 40 pages in the previous chapter picking apart the arguments for God. Not to mention the following chapter talks of religion as an evolutionary construct. So there’s 3 chapters, over 100 pages, dedicated solely to deconstructing the argument for God…
So much for Dawkins making no argument for his position.
facilis wrote:
I’m sorry, I must have missed the part where the Christian god communicated his claims to us, facilis; when was that exactly? Or did you mean it’s written in the Christian bible that the Christian god claims to be the only god? Because that’s a completely different story; much like if you asked the head of Ford Motors which car he thinks is the best.
Funny, I’m sure it’s claimed in the holy books of other religions that their god/s are the only god/s. Why don’t you accept them instead?
So, we should be teaching the strengths and weaknesses of all religions’ creation mythology? Do you have any idea how long that would actually take? This is why science is limited to what we can actually show happens – rather than what might have happened if an invisible magic man in the sky waved his wand and made it happen and then made all evidence of himself disappear.
Was this the ID paper that Behe had ripped apart in the Dover trial? i.e. the one where he rigged it to be as unlikely as possible, but it still demonstrated the evolvability of ID systems very quickly?
Let’s clarify :
Dawkins
neverover many pages substantiates his assertion that God does most likely not exist.Fixed.
@Philip
Here is a link to a site that exposes the site you posted that exposed expelled.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/02/expelled_exposed_exposed_your.html
To say he had a “drop” in publication is meaningless unless you compare his publications to thse of other astronomers. As I showed before his publication rate was still higher.
Plus you are ignoring the wealth of documentation that says that he was fired because of his support of Id.
for example the chair of department of physics (Rosenburg) said ” [his support of ID as a scientific theory] disqualifies him from serving as a science educator.” and called Guillermo a “religious nutcase” and an idiot in his correspondence with Avalos. You can look at the documentation here.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/12/secret_isu_faculty_emails_expr.html
facilis,
can you really not see thay you are desperately trying to make the facts fit your worldview?
Science doesnt work that way,any discussion between 2 parties for that matter,does not work that way,unless you are prepared to constantly make a complete and utter fool of yourself.
Referencing Discovery institute = instant fail.
I think I covered his argument in a previous post.All he really says is god is so complex he is improbable.
Does he define complexity? No. Does he explain how he assigns probability? No.
His reasoning is not very clear.
Dawkins doesn’t really deal with any modern arguments and picks a couple arguments from midevil philosophers.
If that was an argument it would be a genetic fallacy
I don’t think facilis can see anything beyond his own presuppositions. He knows God exists, what else is there to say with him? When he calls Expelled “Fair and Balanced” and uses the Discovery Institute as a valid source of information (you might as well drop the pretence and just go straight for Answers in Genesis) you know he’s got no chance intellectually. He quotes Vox Day ffs!
46 pages in the chapter and you focus on the argument that covers the first two pages? There’s 44 more in there.
And again, it doesn’t really matter because atheism is the “not belief” – the burden of proof is on the ones positing God. Without reason to believe in God, why should one believe?
I can think of quite a simple way that God is “complex” in the way Dawkins uses the world – God is conscious. If you are going to argue that consciousness is not complex and thus does not require an explanation, then we need not explain it in humans and thus no need for God in that department. But if you concede that consciousness requires an explanation in us, then you have to concede that Dawkins’ Ultimate 747 argument is valid as you are explaining complexity with even greater complexity.
Either way, no need for God.
Facilis Shit Pile for brains. First author publication record was actually 5 papers over 6 years. The book doesn’t count, however much he and his supporters like to say it does. Additionally, you also have to look at his grant income. In six years, ignoring a grant that had no relevance to Iowa work and the ‘grant’ received for writing his book as it is not relevant to Iowa, he brought in less than $80,000 over 6 years. This after been told in the three years leading up to his tenure review that he needed to increase this amount significantly. Especially when compared to the much greater amounts brought in by others, whose average was fifteen times his. You also have the almost non existent telescope time he had in his period at Iowa. Thus, taking all into account, it is apparent that, compared to what he had done at his previous unis, both the quantity and quality of his work had deteriorated very significantly coinciding with the time he increased his interest in IDiocy. Thus, it is more than possible, especially when compared to others, that his advocacy for IDiocy was the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak, when it came to deciding on whether to grant tenure or not. If only because it is obvious that what had been a decent level of work prior to his greater interest in IDiocy trailed off drastically with his IDiocy. Not forgetting how the image of a so called scientist advocating IDiocy without evidence or research aimed at providing evidence for IDiocy looks for a science department.
The same decision would tend to be made for anyone whose ‘new’ interest was affecting the quantity and quality of their output. Thus I don’t think anyone is denying that his IDiocy had no effect at all on the decision to not grant him tenure, simply that it wasn’t the main reason, even if it was the main reason for the deterioration in the quality.quantity of his work. I.e. if he had still being doing work of the quality he was doing at his previous unis and had brought in decent amounts of grant money and was publishing decent amounts of papers the decision might have been different. I say might, because tenure is never guaranteed, as you should know. Though at least if his work had been up to scratch he might have had more of justified complaint with regard to his advocacy of IDiocy affecting his tenure. As it is, it was only one factor among many with regards to his overall poor performance.
Thus twist it or lie as much as you like, IDiocy was only responsible for his failure to get tenure because it affected both the quantity and quality of his work nearly the whole time he was at Iowa. I.e. his fault, no one elses. For, ironically, if he had worked as in his previous unis and managed to get his tenure before advocating IDiocy, as Behe did, there would be little Iowa could do about it after the event.
Facilis the Liar bleated:
No, YOU SAID THAT. Rosenburg said THIS:
Rosenburg did not even remotely say what you are ascribing to him.
Now you’re just lying outright. Please go away.
1)crawling back into the closet != “changed to ‘not a gay”‘
2)even if someone became “not a gay”, god’s existence does not follow.
For the newbies:
We are having a training session on “spot the logical fallacy” tonight,feel free to practise your fallacy-spotting skills throughout the night !
I really don’t hold any hope for facilis to actually learn anything on here. He’s got his mind made up, and thanks to the internet he can select any “authority” that he agrees with to back him up.
facilis, if you were really serious about understanding science you would watch The Ascent Of Man, Cosmos, the Nova series Evolution, and read the two books by Ken Miller on Intelligent Design – Finding Darwin’s God and Only a Theory?. Maybe reading some Francis Collins’ The Language Of God would do you well. Science is a process of following the evidence to whatever conclusions it takes, ID is the opposite – it’s a conclusion that people make the evidence fit to. Go read the Wedge Document if you don’t believe this fact.
Wow, sImOn the Banned managed to make a new argument that doesn’t exist here (262, 447 and 545 don’t apply):
http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm
591. ARGUMENT FROM “NOT A GAY”
(1) You are changed to “not a gay”.
(2) Therefore, God exists.
Given that Richards “Ultimate 747 argument” is primarily a parody/turning around of the ancient and crusty 747 argument of creationoids, it doesnt need to be any more complete than that.
What the conservative Bush appointed God-fearing judge said about ID after the trial –
Have you watched the Nova show Judgement Day: Intelligent Design On Trial and Horizon’s The War On Science yet?
creationoids
Im so going to steal that !
Wow! Is being so assholishly dumb the THANG somewhere I never go and have never been? Rooke at least dropped his load early for others to hose away, but Facilis is determined to highjack the thread.
Both now have my vote next time the stables are to be cleared, but F has the first round vote by a full horse’s ass.
@Kel
I did watch that episode of NOVA: Judgement Day.
It is obvious that those writers of the Panda book and the school board had a religious agenda. I agree with Judge Jones that it was inappropriate for them to give schoolchildren the book (even though that statement was only a couple seconds and seemed modest).
However I was talking aout a different issue which is the “strengths and weaknesses” teaching of scientific theories. why do proponents of evolution want to change science education to stop weaknesses of evolution from being taught?
facilis,
Please name 3.
Copy and paste doesnt count.
Facilis Shit Pile for brains. Apart from the obvious AiG talking points which have been correctly and ruthlessly refuted time and time again, what are these weaknesses.
Because at a high school level, there are no “weaknesses” like creationists are making it out to be. I argued above why the “academic freedom” is bogus – it does not apply to high school students as high school students don’t have the knowledge and training to be able to understand the intricate information that is given.
Firstly, I should ask you this. What general weaknesses are there in evolutionary theory that should be known at a high school level? Evolution is one of the most well-grounded theories in science. The evidence for it is overwhelming. That’s why it’s taught. We know more about the mechanisms behind evolution than gravity. Yet we don’t hear about the “strength and weaknesses of the theory of gravity.” Those bills are designed for one purpose – to undermine the theory of evolution by presenting a controversy where there isn’t one>
All scientific ideas have weaknesses. We still don’t have a proper model for the atom yet and what children are being taught we know to be wrong. But these bills misunderstand science – deliberately as the purpose of those bills is to undermine evolution. That’s what those bills are. If you want controversy where the strengths and weaknesses of theories are being discussed, go to academia. These controversies are played out there by people who are qualified to look at the evidence. That’s what academic freedom is. Pretending that high school students are involved in that process is just double-talk there to undermine one of the most well-grounded ideas in science.
Facilis:
If you knew anything about science then you would not have to be told that scientists make a living of spotting weaknesses and/or gaps in existing theories and knowledge. Unlike you they have learnt to think for themselves.
@Kel
The “Strengths and weaknesses” approach is for all scientific theories, not just evolution.
As an example, Texas science standards included teaching students strengths and weakness of all scientific theories for 20 years.
However some Darwinists became worried that they should not teach the weaknesses of their particular theory. So they decided to change the science stanards and have the lanuage removed.
http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Texas_Board_of_Education_Drops_20_Years_Old_Mandate_About_Science_33904.html
http://www.strengthsandweaknesses.org/NewsletterArchive/PR2008.11.19.htm
@clinteas
Area ACLU secretary Steve Schafersman
Eugenie Scott of Berkeley, California
TFN’s Kathy Miller
Were in texas with the SBOE members doing just that to the science standards.
“Ø. A. Voie, “Biological function and the genetic code are interdependent,” Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, Vol 28(4) (2006): 1000-1004.”
Chaos, Solitons and Fractals is also a well known crankjournal, setup mostly for the glory of the former editor, just google it a bit. So ID or not, everything published there should smell a bit funny.
Science already teaches the strengths and weaknesses of anything that’s taught. Science is a self-critical process. To mandate “strengths and weaknesses” for all science is redundant because science already does it. Which comes back to what the bills are really for – undermining evolution. You can pretend it’s not, but all those bills are about undermining the teaching of otherwise non-controversial scientific concepts, and for what? Where the controversies in evolution lie are taught at the college level. As a theory, there is no controversy – evolution happened. How it happened is up for debate and that’s where the controversy lies.
These academic freedom bills are not to promote science, they are to undermine the scientific process. Stop taking your news from the propaganda outlet that is the Discovery Institute and actually open your eyes.
*facepalm* Fuck you are a stupid one facilis. If you knew anything about the creation / evolution controversy you would know damn well what these bills are all about. The scientists involved have seen it all before, it’s been happening for decades. Please stop pretending we are oblivious idiots facilis, we are acutely aware of the political attacks on evolution because the scientific attacks fail so spectacularly. Read this and begin to inform yourself.
Key Concepts:
* Creationists continue to agitate against the teaching of evolution in public schools, adapting their tactics to match the roadblocks they encounter.
* Past strategies have included portraying creationism as a credible alternative to
evolution and disguising it under the name “intelligent design.”
* Other tactics misrepresent evolution as scientifically controversial and pretend that advocates for teaching creationism are defending academic freedom.
facilis, can you please stop acting like we are oblivious when it comes to the creationism / evolution debate? Think of it like the bible, just because we don’t believe it doesn’t mean we are ignorant of it.
Again, it’s to be stressed that a) science is a self-critical process and b) high school is not the place for serious academic discussion. These bills exist for one purpose – to undermine evolution, and if you fail to recognise that facilis, you fail to grasp what this fight is all about.
Facilis @161:
Yes, and it’s been ripped to shreds again and again. Unfortunately (but thoroughly expected) Dembski has not changed his arguments one whit.
Not exactly – for the universe as it exists now to suddenly come into existence would indeed seem highly improbable. You are, however, forgetting that today’s universe is not yesterday’s universe – a messy, disordered sea of fundamental particles with almost no order/complexity at all.
Your TAG/presuppositionalist crap in #163 was dealt with mercilessly so let’s move on…
@169:
Are you really that naive or just happy to lie for Jesus?
@184:
His reasoning is perfectly clear to anyone willing to engage with the text rather than desperately seeking reasons to dismiss it.
Every complex thing we see today has come about either by a long process of cumulative selected modifications or has been brought into being by creatures (usually humans) that are themselves the product of a long process of cumulative selected modifications. Saying that God doesn’t have to fit that profile is simply special pleading, as well as assuming what you want to be true. We have no good reason to accept the existence of complex beings that do not have a developmental history – therefore we have no good reason to accept the God idea.
Good grief…
No it isn’t – it would be a genetic fallacy if Dawkins were saying ‘x is natural therefore x is right/good/correct’. Aren’t you supposed to be some sort of ‘expert’ when it comes to logic…?
Kel @208
Hear Hear!! Thought that was worth posting again since Facilis doesn’t seem too able to catch an idea the first time ’round.
facilis, just what do you feel are the weaknesses of evolutionary theory? What do you feel the theory is inadequate to explain? Go on, please spell it out for us…
Oh no! Look out, it’s the Thought Police and the Morals Squad. These clowns are a waste of taxpayers’ money – vote ’em out. Better still, drum the idiots out of town.
Really? Then how the fuck did they get elected?
No. Probability is a mathematical concept. One does not get to define ones own version of probability. Also, an omnipotent being would have to be infinately complex. It’s not exactly rocketscience.
Yes. We call them creationists. Except they don’t have a theory. For all the time and money they’ve spent they have yet to come up with a coherent hypothesis, and the weakness of their position is so obvious, highschool kids are bound to notice straight away.
They don’t. The theory of evolution encompasses quite a lot. That’s why becomming an evolutionary biologist is like 7 years of study at the University level. Attempting to cram that amount of information into a highschool semester is futile, and real scientists understand this. It is not the purpose of highschool to make you a scientist. It is the purpose of highschool to prepare you to become a scientist, should you wish to do so, and give you some insight into different scientific fields, to better give you an idea of which interests you the most.
Sometimes what’s known to be right is ignored for practicality. I’ve taught celestial navigation. One of the first things I tell students is: “We will assume the Earth is fixed in the center of the universe and the sky rotates.” The math is much easier using that assumption.
Facilis #204
There shouldn’t be limits on what can be questioned, but the science teacher should be accurately portraying the current understanding of scientists. The problem with “teach the debate” is that a science teacher who is charged with hosting a debate becomes effectively gagged: it’s hard to imagine a science lesson in which superstition-dictated ideas are given credence in the debate and then, in the second half of the lesson, are dismissed as falsehoods. Science lessons have to accurately portray scientific consensus, which is that evolution is a fact and ID is nonsense. The debate would therefore be completely unworkable.
In religious education lessons, you could debate creationism, alongside other cutting-edge religious issues such as “Did I see Jesus’ face in my slice of toast this morning and, if so, what does it portend?”
Simon – grow up, you diseased fuckwit.
Facilis the Fucktard said that he would drop the presuppositionalist arguments, in order to stick around.
I knew that wouldn’t last long, and lo, we have the proof of it here. Oh, he’s trying to make it seem like he isn’t, probably taxing the greater IQ in his toenail clippings for help, but it’s there.
Now I can start calling him Facilis the Fucktard Fibber.
SimoN: You really are a true example of puerile.
Facilis:
You have to be deliberately ignoring the goals of “teach the controversy” godbots. There is no such outrage over the Bohr atom for example. Light is taken to be a wave – no protests there, either.
The root of the entire TtC movement is that people think things should be “fair”. This just in: science is not fair. If something is wrong, it is wrong – no participant ribbons or anything.It is a heliocentric solar system and geocentric models are not given equal credence or time. Demons are not given equal time with pathogens. Astrology does not get treated “fairly” in astronomy classes. Why so unfair?? Because there is no fucking evidence. What kind of a theory can ID put forth? Godidit – end of discussion. You might as well claim the orbiting tea kettle – can’t see it either and you can ascribe whatever wondrous powers needed to support your weak ass position.
Facilis is still showing us he is a Fallacious Fool. Facilis, never forget the people who regularly post here are smarter than the godbots that visit like yourself. You have presented no new information, and in attempting to do so, splattered yourself with the mud of stupidity. Not checking your facts prior to posting. Cutting and pasting from refuted sources. Absolutely no reason and logic being shown by you. You sound desperate. Take a few days off from this site to clear your head. It should be spinning at about 300 rpm after last nights slap-down.
You people have moved on too fast! I just wanted to share my only experience (as an Australian) with Oklahoma.
On the way back to SF from visiting my in-laws in Arkansas, I had to spend one night with my brother-in-law (who is a biker-for-Christ), in his trailer-home (no less) in Tulsa. I thought I was in a David Lynch movie – plush Spanish furniture, velvet art on walls – you get the picture. My BIL actually opened a filing cabinet in order to pull out his joke file to read them to me.
I almost believed in hell.
Que?
The mind boggles.
Simon, I very rarely post here, but I read Pharyngula and the comments every day and I can’t tell you how utterly depressing it is to come across a comment from you. You erode my basic sunny dispositions; you make me doubt that humans as a whole will ever pull themselves out of their infancy; you make me squirm with contact embarrasment upon reading your unbelievably fucking stupid and crass schoolyard taunts – the though that a grown adult out there in the world could be so… BASIC… is just awful.
Then I remember that you believe in hell and live your life in fear and I feel a little better.
You have been banned from this site, as well being asked to go away/told to go away/told to fuck off/told to fuck yourself/told to get fucked/received recommendations of professional help/told to crawl away and die in a gutter/etc. Why the fuck do you keep coming back here?
It’s the abuse, isn’t it? You’re just a pathetic ugly little pervert sitting alone in a smelly room with the curtains drawn while you frantically masturbate as people pour deserved scorn upon your pimpled sweaty brow.
Please just go away, find yourself an obliging S&M whore (male or female), and I will get back my daily relaxing/reading/enlightenment time and happily go back to mostly lurking.
Yours in utter contempt
Lee
Lee, overall, comment #224 was great, but this here:
made my whole morning. Thank you.
Yawn, banned trolls keep showing us why they were banned. No smarts, so imagination, no people skills.
Rebecca Hamilton should move to Louisiana. Our Governor will make her feel right at home.
simoN:
Best hurry up and get your things together – the school bus is almost here.
I am abso-fuckin-lutely certain I have seen this shit before from middle school kids. You are the sorriest sack of steaming syphlytic sheep shit I’ve seen in a while. We all await the next round of your rapier wit.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/banned
You’re welcome.
SimoN #229
Better known as “throwing down the gauntlet.”
Along with honesty, wit, sense, intelligence, decency, veracity…
That’s a pretty seriously abridged dictionary you’ve got there, fuckwit.
@228
“sorriest sack of steaming syphlytic sheep shit”
best alliteration ever
Welease Wawjer!
simoN:
Don’t flatter yourself – I view you as a chance for me to work on my alliterative insults.
Fellow Pharyngists may wish to join in and find creative ways to describe this boil on the buttocks of humanity, the festering fistula of fucktard, this scabrous scat who just loves his/her/it’s abuse.
Well, it’s about as much as you can expect from someone in government. You didn’t think they were there for the public good did you?
Oh no, it’s SimoN of the anal fantasies.
PZ, watch your ass around SimoN. I’m not being metaphorical either.
He was insulting you, you fucking simpleton.
Please everybody. Remember only to use small words so SimoN can keep up. We don’t want to handicap him by actually using an unabridged dictionary. His brain cell might short out.
Maybe PZ should hire moderators just so he isn’t the one who always has to take out the trash (and no, I’m not volunteering for such a position – I hardly ever read the comments, but when I do I always see some fucktard like Simon or Facilis trolling the other visitors).
Lee Harrison at #224:
With respect, I don’t let SimoN erode my own (relatively) sunny disposition, simply because that would be giving him power he neither has nor needs. I just laugh, not because SimoN is funny, but because he’s absurd, like many things in human experience, and if we can’t laugh at the absurd, what can we laugh at?
It also helps (me, at any rate) to stop reading his posts. SimoN isn’t here to learn, to engage, to contemplate, to consider, to think, to grapple with challenging information, to adapt, to evolve. SimoN just comes here to shit on the rug, leering in delight at the shocked reaction. Periodically PZ closes the door to the gathering, until SimoN finds a different grubby overcoat to don, sneaks back in, and does it again.
I’m all for confronting ignorance, because doing so is critical to minimizing the superstitious nonsense that so frequently influences policy and education around the world, but at this point I’m long past seeing SimoN as simply ignorant. He’s willful, and that’s something else entirely. This is an individual that DOES NOT WANT TO KNOW. Moreover, he’s an individual that does not want to know and WANTS IT KNOWN.
He’s been banned. Perhaps if he were also summarily ignored, he might realize that no one’s paying attention when he shits on the rug, and then the party’s no fun anymore.
But I’m wrong as often as I’m right.
No kings,
Robert
Desert Son, I agree about simple simon. However, it is also rather ironic that someone who professes to be a xian only manages to show us what a sick and sad little pervert he is.
The second part is probably right, in too many locations; the first part is, for all practical purposes and most impractical ones, wrong. Counterintuitive does not imply improper.
Dribbling lunacy, based on arguments by deliberate misunderstanding, nothing more.
Without OK, you’d lose Texas, too: It’s a well-known fact that the only thing preventing Texas from sliding into the Gulf of Mexico is that Oklahoma sucks.
Then again, would also losing Texas really be a loss… or just a two-fer?
Maybe it’s time to give Simon the silent treatment.
I have a book that might provide simoN with some new hobby suggestions instead of coming here to bug everyone:
http://i568.photobucket.com/albums/ss130/evangelatheist/retardbook.jpg
Other people have already posted links to a definition. If you still do not understand, it is your fault. But I would suggest taking the time and effort you spend morphing here, go out and get a new Funk & Wagnalls dictionary.
I have never met PZ and it is unlikely I ever will but he seems like a decent guy. But who appointed you as his guardian angel? Are you hearing voices? Why are you responding to them?
And just what is your job as guardian angel? To show off your misunderstanding of sex? To somehow through your sentence fragments, lead PZ and his horde of followers to the truth? Does this “job” provide anything tangible for your well being? Or is your job to natter away and be ineffectual?
No one worries about you. It is just that coming upon your verbal vomit is rather distasteful. As for the barking comment, well, I have meet dogs that are more articulate than you.
Evangelatheist, nice try. But I think it would be a pornagraphic pop-up book full of penises and anuses. You can guess what is happening. siMon’s fascination and disgust would get the wretched creature’s brain in a loop, keeping the whackaloon away from teh intertoobz.
The point that some folks are missing is that this isn’t something that’s being done to Dawkins. The OKCIA isn’t going to go snatch Professor Dawkins off the streets of London and waterboard him at a black site somewhere near Two-Egg, Texas.
Instead, this is an attack on the thinking people of Oklahoma (a persecuted minority if ever there was one), and a threat of more attacks in the future. This is just a way of saying “book speakers we don’t like and we’ll make your life a living hell.” As the linked HuffPo column points out, such investigation based on nothing more than the ideas of the speaker inherently violate the 1st Amendment, because of their potential chilling effect on free discourse.
Out of curiosity: Is there anything about this “request” that is legally binding? Or is it an option for the administration of OU to “request” of these people, in a polite and professional manner, to stuff it?
“Does anyone else wish that Lincoln had lost the civil war? Not because of slavery, but just so the south would be their own problem?”
Already done. See the first link on this page:
http://www.annotatedrant.com/
Didn’t want to post the first link directly, as it might have triggered a word-usage reject.
The article’s a few years old but still rings true.
Raven:
Ahh, but they don’t surrender their citizenship when they get elected to the leg, and in most cases, ANY citizen can FOIA a wide range of public information… and the governance of a public university is arguably public information.
In addition, I don’t know exactly what the rules are in OK, but legislatures generally can hold hearings on whatever-the-hell they can squeeze under the remit of one committee or another; if it were not so, would we have ever had Congressional testimony concerning what Brian McNamee did or did not jab into Roger Clemens’ buttocks?1
So I think the proper line of attack is not to claim that they don’t have standing to ask for the information, but to insist that “investigating” this based on nothing more than the ideas expressed at the talk amounts to an unconstitutional attempt to stifle the free exchange of ideas.
1For non-‘murricans who don’t recognize this reference, consider yourself lucky. Baseball and steroids, doncha’ know.
Simon reminds me of nothing so much as the leeches that I have often encountered while doing fieldwork in Asia. They are lurking in the vegetation until they can attach themselves stealthily to a passing scientist to suck his blood. No matter how many times you throw them away, they keep crawling back to you. You can even step on them – they keep crawling back. Leeches are remarkably persistent and unpleasant, just like Simon.
Not for nothin’, but for Minnesotans who’re feeling smug about OK’s stoooooooopidity, I offer Exhibit A. Can you guys not get this woman a pickup truck with a gunrack and point her in the direction of Montana? Ah, but maybe even the militia crazies would think she’s nuts, eh?
Jebus H. Christ on a frackin’ stick!!
The few papers listed as being in _mainstream_ journals in support of ID always make me think of the old “bumblebees can’t fly” stuff.
When scientists do a calculation that shows that bumblebees can’t fly, they conclude that their calculations are incomplete, and something could be missing. When idiots see the calculation, they insist that bumblebees can’t actually fly.
IOW, if Behe did some analysis that concluded that evolution couldn’t happen, you first have to wonder if the calculation was done properly. To be fair to Behe, it’s a complex subject and he could be forgiven for not getting everything handled properly. But then again, he would not be forgiven for insisting that it told us about anything except his inability to identify everything involved.
Please stop with the Oklahoma bashing. We don’t all drive pickup trucks and hate gay people and atheists. Most of the people I know in my generation (mid 20s) are rational, open minded people. We just have a lot of crazy old people here, problem is they are still in government while most of the rest of you guys shipped yours to Florida.
I have my tickets and travel arrangements to see Dawkins, Hawking, et al and Arizona State in a couple of weeks. Seeing as how I have to travel a couple thousand miles, I really hope there is less of this nonsense in AZ than OK.
wow.. I seriously need to install Firefox so I can set up a killfile especially for Simon.
Simon has been officially banned, and is just morphing in a frantic attempt to keep ahead of PZ, who, I have no doubt, will retrash him as soon as he finds the time.
Zac – we all realize that not everyone in Oklahoma is whacko (hey, my sister-in-law is there!). However, there is an important issue here. While you may not be one of the loons, what are you doing to stop them? How many letters have you written to your legislator(s) asking them to slap down the idiots? How many political campaigns have you worked with to try to get worthwhile people in office? What have you done to try to limit the impact that these old guys have on your state’s image?
No, you may not be like them, but unless you are actively working against them, then you are really not doing much to stop them. Now, you may counter that this is a tall order, and you can’t/won’t do it for whatever reason, and hey, so be it. But then again, if that’s the case, then you really can’t complain that they are making you look bad, either.
Yes, you can wait for the old guys to die and hope their seats are filled by young, new ideas. But if that is what you are going to do, then you are stuck being judged by your representatives.
Zac (@251):
I’m certainly sympathetic to your concerns about having your home state bashed: I spent a large fraction of my life in Florida (where I was born and to which I returned for the first decade of my current career) and Texas (where I was raised and educated), and I don’t want to be lumped together with the anti-intellectual gomers those states are famous for any more than you want to be thought of as a stereotypical Okie. That said, though…
…people in most states could say the same (I think there’s a broad generational movement toward rationality and tolerance), but to pretend there’s no geographical component to the distribution of superstition, religious oppression, and general right-wing nutbaggery would be naive. What’s going on throughout the so-called “Bible Belt” (see also the current “How Did We Get to This Point?” thread about Texas’ BoE) is a concerted effort, on the part of the people you correctly identify as still be in power, to delay, if not reverse, the very generational change you so hopefully point to.
And this stuff causes too much harm in the here-and-now to wait for it to fix itself in the sweet by and by. If you want people to stop dumping on OK, go volunteer and get more progressive people — ones who reflect the younger, better values you point to — elected to the legislature and state government. (I don’t mean to be presumptious here: If you’re already active, I salute you and beg forgiveness for thinking otherwise.)
Facilis said: “However some Darwinists became worried that they should not teach the weaknesses of their particular theory. So they decided to change the science stanards and have the lanuage removed.”
The folks in question were the committee covened by the Texas Education Agency for the express purpose of examining the science standards and recommending changes.
The “Darwinists” were the scientists and science educators INVITED BY THE TEA to improve the science standards!
They made their recommendations; removing the bogus “strengths and weaknesses” language was one of them.
You can read all about it at the Texas Freedom Network and Texas Citizens for Science websites.
Leigh, you’re actually suggesting a creationist READ? Don’t you know that learning makes baby jebus cry?
Facilis doesn’t care about the facts, even acknowledging the existence of facts is against his religion. Making shit up is his way of glorifying his imaginary god.
Pablo at #255 is full of..ehem…advice.
“However, there is an important issue here. While you may not be one of the loons, what are you doing to stop them? How many letters have you written to your legislator(s) asking them to slap down the idiots? How many political campaigns have you worked with to try to get worthwhile people in office? What have you done to try to limit the impact that these old guys have on your state’s image?”
And what have you done in your own community before you start handing out free advice to people you have never met?
As a native Oklahoma and fourth generation Atheist may I cordially invite you to blow it out your ass.
I am active in every political campaign. I am outspoken, as an atheist, to the extent I can be in the support of moderate candidates, without compromising their chances against the whack jobs. I hold fund raisers, buy and distribute books,knock on doors, distribute signs, write proposed legislation, investigate expenditures and actions that violate the separation clause and am in constant contact with the legislators in my district that I know personally.
I donate a substantially to causes that support the sciences and give every child (on their sixth birthday) of every one of my friends a membership to the Natural History Museum that Dawkins praised during his visit.
I host and have hosted for over twenty years a discussion group devoted to the promotion of agnostic and atheist concerns. I buy loan and maintain equipment for scouting and 4-H fossil hunts of the Arbuckle mountains and Marathon outcropping.
Shall I go on……
or perhaps people from ‘more enlightened climes’ would like to continue to look down their noses and keep telling us we are dropping the ball.
Prometheus (@259):
So you’re already doing what Pablo advised someone else to do. Good on ya’, mate… but how does that constitute a “blow it out your ass” moment? At worst, Pablo was a bit presumptuous (spelled it right this time!) in his manner, but the advice he gave is validated by the experience of your own life… s perhaps you could get down off your high horse and give him some more constructive feedback.
We’ve got enough trouble with the stoneheaded enemies of rational thought — wherever they happen to live — without the “friendly fire.” If you’re going to style yourself after the firegiver, try bringing some light along with the heat.
Abbie was at the last Oklahoma Atheists dinner 1 week ago today but I didn’t know it was her until later. Kind of funny because I hadn’t attended those things for a while and didn’t link ERV and her together until later! Hopefully she comes to those things again.
See, it ain’t so bad being an atheist in OK. At least you end up meeting everyone of them ;)
Bill Dauphin @#260
I am sorry to sound so hateful. I am exhausted by the Oklahoma bashing and the implication that anyone in this state in opposition to these legislators has the luxury of sitting on their thumbs.
It is dishonest to call us all idiots and dismiss us as being poorly represented because we “haven’t done enough”.
It is a lazy position adopted because it is easier than supporting those of us who choose to stay here and fight this crap where it actually counts.
Everybody I am not a proponent of any kind of creation science and I never said I wanted any kind of religion or creation taught in schools.
I just went to the Discovery institute website and became concerned about academic freedom and I thought their “strengths and weaknesses” approach was quite a reasonable one in teaching science.
The thing is exactly what you people are pointing out. A teacher can point out a weakness in modern atomic theory or string theory. However point out a weakness in evolutionary theory and everyone is in an uproar. Why does evolution get a free pass?
facilis slimed:
Of course you did, facilis. That’s just the kind of thoughtful, open-minded fellow you are, isn’t it? It has nothing to do with your religion-fueled anti-reality bias, does it?
For what is probably the umpteenth time, what weaknesses? You have to list some if you’re going to keep insisting that such things exist. Here’s a hint: something a person ignorant of the science simply can’t understand does not count as a weakness in the science.
Disagreements over how evolution works does not constitute as a weakness in the theory.
Facilis says:
You went there, and only THEN became concerned. See, they snookered you–that’s what they do. Explaining how they do that, to you, would take too long. Teaching strengths and weaknesses is fine, of course, and is even good science education–but not when the “weaknesses” are trumped-up nonsense from the likes of the Disco ‘Tute.
A teacher can teach the scientific strength, or weakness, of a theory, as imparted to the teacher by the scientists who are familiar with the subject. For a teacher to rip on atomic theory, just from his own incredulity or ignorance, is not teaching science, it is grandstanding for personal reasons. To make up false weaknesses in evolution for personal reasons, is not teaching science, it is personal opinion. A teacher passing on nonsense from the Disco ‘Tute is just as wrong, and is not teaching science.
Evolution doesn’t have a special status among theories and sciences. It does have a special status among wackaloons, who attack it for religious reasons. It is not getting a free pass, it is undergoing systematic attacks.
There are plenty of crazy books attacking relativity, atomic theory and almost everything else in science. But those books are not passed out at churches, nor are they religiously motivated. Evolution does not get a free pass, attacking evolution gets a free pass.
Well said. I’m really not sure if facilis is genuinely ignorant or he understands and is acting oblivious, but surely it should be obvious to anyone who even glances at the issue that evolution is constantly and unfairly under attack – not because the theory has genuine problems with it’s validity, but because of a religious rejection of the interpreted implications that are associated with the theory. Those attacking evolution are not doing it on scientific grounds, they are doing so on religious grounds and it has been this way ever since the theory first came out.
facilis needs to understand how the scientific process works, because all his comments on the topic stem from a profound ignorance of the scientific method. Worse still he thinks that it is us who have that ignorance and he’s here to enlighten us about the brave scientists who are victims of the big bad conspiracy…. Yet if he knew how science actually works, then he would know that strengths and weaknesses are taught as part of the process, that science isn’t a doctrine of absolute truth but the fallibility is part of the process. If he knew how science actually works, he would know that science needs to follow the evidence to tentative conclusions, not come to a conclusion then find a couple of bits of evidence to support it. He would know that when an idea is falsified it is discarded, and that if an idea persists in the public arena as opposed to the academic, it means that the idea was long discredited.
facilis, falsifiability is the key to science. Any claim in the scientific field needs to be falsifiable, because you can never prove by example – only disprove. Intelligent Design was a rebranding of “creation science” and the focus of the movement has been to push it in the public arena. The few scientific claims that have been presented (irreducible complexity, specified complexity) have been refuted time and time again in academia, yet the public evangelising of those ideas persists. Surely you can recognise propaganda when you see it!
Facilis, there is a whole scientific literature out there. Go and search through it to find the “weaknesses” in the theory of evolution. That is the only place they are found. ID and creationist groups are religious groups. Their ideas can be taught in religious classes, no problem. But to be taught in a science class means that the material needs to be in the peer reviewed primary scientific literature. So, what is stopping them from publishing except that their ideas and theories are unscientific? Nothing, absolutely nothing, except the ideas are unscientific. Hence the lies they tell.
When will facilis come back to this thread and answer all the lines of argument he began?
..and just how much of the taxpayers money are they spending on this frivolous, hypocritical investigation, staged to suppress those who would speak out against the Magic Grand Poohbah King of the Woo Fairies?
Come on facilis, can you please lay out just what the “weaknesses” of evolutionary theory are and what makes them important to teach at a high school level…
I don’t know what the weaknesses are but I know that if there were any I would want them taught, just like we teach weaknesses of other theories.
And that’s what happens with evolution. At the high school level, what is taught has about as much weakness as the idea that the earth is round and that it orbits the sun. At the university level, there are still ideas within evolution that are being disputed – the importance of genetic drift, the role of punctuated equilibrium, methods of speciation, the role of horizontal gene transfer, hybridisation between humans an neanderthals, etc. But those things are far more advanced than any high school student is facing.
Evolution doesn’t shield itself away from it’s flaws, do you think that The Origin Of Species was published and everything stopped there? The theory has undergone revision, been susceptible to change are more evidence has come to light, and as it covers such a huge scope, facts within biology are being worked out and revised as time goes on.
Just think how controversial this idea has been in the public arena. It’s had 150 years of intense scrutiny and challenges, yet the theory has not had a single piece of falsifying evidence against it. By scientific standards, evolution is about as true as you can possibly get, up there with heliocentric orbit. This is the pretence of the movement for “strengths and weaknesses” and “academic freedom”, all science is held to that standards and evolution is no exception – so the only reason those bills come about is to undermine the science behind the theory of ideological reasons.
Evolution happened, it’s still happening and has been observed countless times both in the lab and in the wild. The morphology of animals, the genetic code, the geographical distribution of life, and the fossil record all attest to evolution happening. Common ancestry is well established, natural selection acting on variation is well established and speciation is well established. We may not know all the little details as to how it all happened, but the general idea that life has emerged through common ancestry and speciation – the very definition of evolution is the only idea that can explain the facts. And natural selection has and still does play an important role in that process.
I don’t know what the weaknesses are but I know that if there were any I would want them taught, just like we teach weaknesses of other theories.
I don’t know what logic is, but I know that if there is any such thing, I would want it taught that it couldn’t exist without gawd, so that I could mangle logic to “…make it sound as though a theory is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.”
How about the theory that god exists. Major weakness, no physical evidence.
I don’t know what the weaknesses are but I know that if there were any I would want them taught, just like we teach weaknesses of other theories.
We do?
I took AP Physics in high school, and I cannot recall ever being taught that quantum mechanics and the general theory of relativity had yet to be united in a fully consistent quantum field theory, let alone that a theory of quantum gravity would rule out closed timelike curves.
There are plenty of “weaknesses”—we scientists consider them research subjects—in every theory, but they’re not taught at the high school level because the discussion would typically take students far beyond their level of expertise.
Why make an exception for the alleged “weaknesses” of evolutionary biology when most adults have trouble fully comprehending the subject?
If you don’t know what the weaknesses of Evolutionary Biology are, then please explain why would you want to have these alleged weaknesses taught?
Furthermore, what weaknesses of other theories are taught? What are the weaknesses of Chemistry? What are the weaknesses of Physics?
What makes you think evolutionary biologists wants anything different? Scientists love flaws; that’s where Nobel Prizes come from.
Austalian Barry Marshall won his Nobel for going against accepted beliefs; from his Wikipedia page:
Trust us, facilis – if there were the flaws in evolution Ben Stein would like you to think there is, it’d be being pointed out by actual scientists, not second-rate shills.
they already do. the only reason you think otherwise is because you believe the propagandist who things all scientists are nazis
In the end it comes down to this: evolution, despite all the creationist objections, is not a theory in crisis. It has survived 150 years of scientific rigour (remember that science works by falsification) in which time the public scrutiny has been astoundingly intense. No other scientific theory has come under so much criticism. Yet in that time scientists have sought to understand the process, and in that time the body of evidence supporting the process has kept piling up.
To tell students that it’s a theory in crisis or that it has weaknesses is being misleading to the students. It’s one of the strongest theories we have in science today for all those reasons above. It’s been tested and tested, and each time a new piece of evidence comes up it has survived falsification. The evidence that evolution happened is as clear as day, to argue otherwise is either to be ignorant or to lie.
What right does a state representative to request those records? They are not law enforcement. He should sue them and anyone that divulges personal information about him to her. This is absurd. Politicians have no more right to spy on people and request information about them than you or I do. Though they do not believe it, politicians are just citizens. They are not above the law (in theory, in practice they usually are, sad to say).