Come on, New Scientist

This is ridiculous. New Scientist abruptly yanked an article from their web site because they “received a complaint about the contents of the story.” Hmmm. Makes a fellow really want to see what horror was wreaked in the censored item: Pornography? Personal defamation? Embarrassing revelation? Alas, it’s nothing quite so juicy. You can find a copy of the pulled article (isn’t it sweet how the web makes it almost impossible to actually make history disappear?): it’s all about how to spot a religious agenda in so-called science books that the creationists like to peddle — basic stuff like code words, such as “Darwinist” or “materialism”, or the usual spacey interpretations of quantum physics, or the habit of believing that an argument from consequences has any relevance to the truth of a matter.

It mentions some specific examples, such as James Le Fanu, Denyse O’Leary, and Expelled, but these are all perfectly good and accurate instances of religiously-motivated products. Did one of them complain?

I am troubled by the apparent knee-jerk retraction of a legitimate article that is critical of creationism simply because there was a “complaint” (I’d also be concerned if a creationist article was yanked with such ease—more speech, not less speech, is the answer to the idiocy of these yahoos). I hope New Scientist isn’t going to be catering to the whims of popular, uninformed nervous nellies. That kind of timidity is not appropriate to a journal that has “Scientist” in its title.

Uh-oh

I have a horrendous series of connections to get home — Bloomington → Atlanta → Detroit → Minneapolis — and I’m getting these annoying email alerts from the airline every 20 minutes warning me of problems and delays in my various connections. Apparently, there’s some storm in Atlanta that is messing up schedules all over the place. So maybe I won’t get home. Maybe I’ll be trapped in airports for days on end. The best result at this point is that I drag my tired frame home late, late tonight.

So…Open Thread! Fill the void caused by my absence with interesting conversation about whatever you want! I’m sure a creationist or two will show up to hammered at, so have fun.

(On a related note, we do have a surfeit of fools arguing futilely and ignorantly for creationism right now, and maybe it’s time to cull the herd a bit. One suggestion is to play Survivor: Pharyngula for a while and vote off a few. Can you come up with challenges our contestants must meet in order to be permitted to preserve their posting privileges?)

The Purpose of Purpose

It’s another long travel day for me, I’m afraid, and this after a long night of trying to keep up with a lively mob of 20 and 30 year olds at a bar in Champaign-Urbana (and giving a talk yesterday that I think went over fairly well — I even had protesters outside! For a talk on the history and philosophy of embryology!) So I’ll leave you with a link to Wesley Elsberry’s summary of Richard Dawkins’ talk in Michigan. That’ll give you something meaty to argue over until I get back to calm, quiet Morris.

And then, next week…Spring Break! We’re just going to have wild parties every day here on Pharyngula! Bring sun screen and swimming suits.

They are out to get us

The animals have had about enough of us, I guess. The latest weird story of animals attacking:

An Indonesian villager had to be rushed to hospital after a horse bit off one of his testicles during a freak attack.

The 35-year-old man was unloading sand from a horse-drawn cart at a construction site in Sulawesi earlier this week when the attack occurred, Indonesia’s state-run news agency Antara reported.

A witness said the animal suddenly lunged at the man, sinking its teeth into his crotch.

Shocked bystanders loaded the man into a car to take him to hospital, before one noticed a piece of flesh on the pavement.

“Luckily the horse did not chew up or swallow his testicle, but spit it onto the pavement,” the bystander was quoted as saying.

That last little detail just hammers home the contempt that horse had for the human.

So…is about half my readership cringing and doubling over in sympathetic agony right now?

Islam hates women

A young man is languishing in an Islamic prison right now, for a terrible crime. Look at this travesty of justice, this product of primitive morality.

Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, the student journalist sentenced to death for blasphemy in Afghanistan, has been told he will spend the next 20 years in jail after the country’s highest court ruled against him – without even hearing his defence.

…

It later emerged he was convicted by three mullahs, in secret, without access to a lawyer. The sentence was commuted to 20 years on appeal. At that appeal, in October, the key prosecution witness withdrew his testimony, claiming he had been forced to lie on pain of death. The prosecution then appealed to the Supreme Court to reinstate the death sentence. The defence appealed to quash his conviction altogether.

Meanwhile, the student has been languishing in a Kabul jail, fearing for his life. Islamic fundamentalists have been baying for his blood while moderate groups have led marches countrywide demanding his release.

What was his crime? This is as bad as the criminality of the kangaroo court that convicted him.

Mr Kambaksh was found guilty of blasphemy and sentenced to death last year for circulating an essay on women’s rights which questioned verses in the Koran.

Don’t question. Don’t support women. We’ll kill you if you do either. Is that the message?