Gary Goodyear “believes” in “evolution”

The Canadian science minister who first refused to answer a question about his support for religion because it was querying his personal religion has now flip-flopped and said that he does accept evolution. Only it’s a very twisted version of evolution. What does it mean when he says something like this?

We are evolving every year, every decade. That’s a fact, whether it is to the intensity of the sun, whether it is to, as a chiropractor, walking on cement versus anything else, whether it is running shoes or high heels, of course we are evolving to our environment. But that’s not relevant and that is why I refused to answer the question. The interview was about our science and tech strategy, which is strong.

I’ll tell you what it means: it doesn’t matter whether he believes in any kind of evolution (and trust me, that explanation doesn’t touch the subject), because we can tell right away that the man is an incompetent moron who is going to flush Canadian science down the tube.

I’ve got irony poisoning!

The Vatican astronomer made some strong comments against creationism…but I find them bizarre.

Brother Consolmagno, who works in a Vatican observatory in Arizona and as curator of the Vatican meteorite collection in Italy, said a “destructive myth” had developed in modern society that religion and science were competing ideologies.

He described creationism, whose supporters want it taught in schools alongside evolution, as a “kind of paganism” because it harked back to the days of “nature gods” who were responsible for natural events.

Wait…did a priest of one weird cult full of bizarre ideas just claim that another weird cult was full of bizarre ideas? He’s right, of course, but he seems to have a blind spot for his own superstitions.

This, unfortunately, is complete bullshit:

“Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism – it’s turning God into a nature god. And science needs religion in order to have a conscience, to know that, just because something is possible, it may not be a good thing to do.”

His religion is a superstition, and I don’t believe for a moment that he wants science to keep it close to reality — if that were true, he’d be chucking out all those myths about triune gods, ritual cannibalism, magical transformations of crackers into holy meat, virgin births, miracles, yadda yadda yadda.

The tripe that religion provides a conscience is just a cliche…and one that is completely false. We’ve seen just in this past week that the Catholic church would rather that 9 year old girls die in childbirth, and that Africans should eschew protection from sexually transmitted disease in order to better follow the advice of ancient celibates.

If he wants to talk credibly about morality and conscience, first thing he needs to do is dump the evil archaic religion.

A testimonial

Not all of my email consists of metaphorical daggers hurled my way. I actually get a fair amount of praise and comments about how I’ve won people over to the cause of atheism — I just tend not to post those, because of my awesome modesty and because you all know this stuff, anyway. This one is interesting because I didn’t convince the fellow to be an atheist, but instead made him think…which is what we’re all after, anyway.

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Survivor: Pharyngula! Day Three.

Well, gang, the voting is closed on our first Survivor event. I would never have expected such a dramatic turn-around. From out of nowhere, John Kwok surged out of fifth place in the field — I had written him off as a bad bet — to rally astonishingly by doing one simple thing: commenting. He clobbered Pete Rooke and Simon, even, just by writing one threat (to sic his facebook friends on me), and doing his usual irritating name-dropping nonsense. He showed real heart in this race, and I’m sure that if he just continues to babble, he will eventually win his place in the fabulous Pharyngula dungeon.

In the end, though, he could not stop the juggernaut. One person stood out as a universal target for opprobrium by virtue of her homophobia and her cheerfully evil views. She was described as the Dolores Umbridge of Pharyngula. And for that reason, Barb has been found unfit, and is cast into the dungeon for all time.

Now, on Day Three of Survivor: Pharyngula!, you get to vote on who you’d next like to evict. You may notice some changes in the list.

Africangenesis
Barb
Facilis
John Kwok
Piltdown Man
Pete Rooke
Silver Fox
Simon

A few people on the first list who garnered little enthusiasm have been dropped. On the other hand, a few have been added. It’s a remarkable thing: these threads represent an opportunity for readers to vent their spleens over some of the more obnoxious commenters here, and thus represent a dangerous circumstance for the pesky little goblins — you’d think, if they had an sense at all, that they’d realize this is the time they should be lying low, keeping as quiet as possible. But no! I guess if they had any brains in the first place, they wouldn’t be quite as annoying. Maybe if I’d called this Shark Week: Pharyngula!, they’d have realized that jumping into a well-chummed lagoon full of vicious beasts champing their razor-toothed jaws was not a good idea.

Now vote by leaving a comment here. Or, if you’d rather, you can always send the thread off in unusual directions — the last one seemed to be all about oral sex, lesbians, and bacon. I’ll tally the votes on Friday, if I can manage to pick them out of the non sequitur salad.

How about an immunity challenge for our contestants? Since the last runoff was characterized by an astonishing lack of self-awareness on the part of the victims candidates, we should test that. The challenge for the seven surviving candidates is to write a short comment, 200 words or less, that reveals that they actually understand why their attitudes and pattern of expression have so exasperated readers here, and explains what they will do to change their behavior in the future. This will be a tough one for this crowd, I’m sure. Let’s see if they can wake up enough to do some honest self-assessment.

They have until 1pm tomorrow to complete the immunity challenge, and then we’ll open those up to the crowd for honest evaluation.

Octopods from the Cretaceous!

i-e88a953e59c2ce6c5e2ac4568c7f0c36-rb.png

Several new and spectacular cephalopod fossils from 95 million years ago have been found in Lebanon. “Spectacular” is not hyperbole — these specimens have wonderfully well-preserved soft parts, mineralized in fine-grained calcium phosphate, and you can see…well, take a look.

i-43b532f0c9279d4273f9faa4719ef92e-keuppia.jpeg
(Click for larger image)
Keuppia levante sp. nov. from the Upper Cenomanian (Metoicoceras geslinianum Zone) of Hâdjoula (Lebanon). A,
holotype, MSNM i26320a. B, sketch of the holotype.

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The pope is an evil quack

You’ve all heard the news by now, I’m sure: the pope was traveling to Africa, a continent plagued with widespread sexually transmitted diseases adn also, coincidentally, one of the few places where Catholicism is growing, and he dispensed a little medical advice:

Speaking to reporters on his way to Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, the Pope said HIV/Aids was “a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even increase the problem”.

The solution lies in a “spiritual and human awakening” and “friendship for those who suffer”, the AFP news agency quotes him as saying.

Consistent condom use is associated with a reduction in the incidence of HIV infection of approximately 80%. It does not increase the problem. I know the Catholic church is reliant on the denial of human nature, something demonstrated regularly by the activities of its own priests, but at some point they have to recognize a simple reality: people like to have sex. You aren’t going to talk them out of it without warping their psychology in a truly pathological way (again, witness the Catholic priesthood), but you might be able to get them to practice sex in a way that protects their health.

Claiming that condoms increase the problem is disinformation and outright quackery — it’s a lie that will kill people. That is what the pope is doing on his little tour, spreading lies, doing harm, and setting back efforts to materially help the afflicted. “Friendship” won’t help the children of a woman dying slowly of AIDS, nor will gilt-robed old men whispering about “spirituality” do one scrap of good against a dangerous reality.