The joke of O’Donnell has got to be wearing thin soon, right?

It’s one of the oldest, most ridiculous canards creationists use: “Why aren’t monkeys still evolving into humans?” And here’s Christine O’Donnell thinking it’s a valid argument.

I think she was also about to claim that Darwin retracted his theory, before she got cut off…and that’s another creationist lie.

Maher also misses the point in his answer. This isn’t an issue of evolution being too slow at all; it’s a creationist misconception that evolution is directed towards a goal, and that that goal is humanity. Monkeys are evolving into monkeys, not people.

Maher is also astonished that someone like this could be a viable candidate for the senate. What’s the matter with him? Hasn’t he looked at the Republican senatorial roster lately? She’ll fit right in!

(via Climate Progress)

So that’s why I can’t be a Jehovah’s Witness

Elders of the Jehovah’s Witnesses are not allowed to have beards, because it makes them look like dirty rotten gay communist hippies.

In the 1950s, in the the USA, beards were widely unpopular among the general public and most men who wore one were immediately perceived as beatniks (and later, hippies). In that American, Cold War climate, a young man who didn’t sport a military-esque brush cut and bare chin was out-of-hand labeled a communist or homosexual.

I just thought it made me look cuddly!

This vileness has been going on for a long, long time

When I visited Australia last year, the media was all gaga over the idea of an Australian saint — the Catholic church was going to canonize Mary MacKillop (the people I hung out with while I was there, though, didn’t give a good goddamn for the nonsense). Well, now there’s some ironic news going around: during her lifetime, Mary MacKillop had been temporarily banished from the Catholic church and thrown out on the street. What had she done, you might ask.

Go ahead, guess.

A hint: she had complained about and reported some priests in the church. Can you guess what they had done?

Sure you can. Catholic priests doing something wrong, getting angry for being reported? It’s the same old story as always.

Yep, they’d been raping children, nuns made complaints to the Catholic hierarchy (apparently not to the secular authorities), and the church responded as it always does…by transferring the offending priests to a new diocese, a fresh hunting ground.

This was all in 1871.

It’s as if child-rape is a hallowed tradition within Catholicism.

Texas Board of Education: Hey, that’s an awfully big beam in your eye

I don’t know how they do it. The Texas BOE has a new ‘controversy’ to fret over:

At a three-day meeting that started Wednesday, the board is scheduled to consider a resolution that would require it to reject textbooks that it determines are tainted with teaching “pro-Islamic, anti-Christian half-truths and selective disinformation,” a bias that it argues is reflected in current schoolbooks.

I really missed the public school education in Islam — we never learned much of anything about anything outside the borders of the US, I’m afraid. And I rather doubt that in the current political climate that Islam is suddenly getting a lot of positive press in school textbooks. This is just another stunt by the kooks running the educational system in Texas, who would regard a statement mentioning that Muslims exist and they also happen to be human beings as a disgusting slam against True ‘Murcans™.

They should worry more about the pro-Christian, anti-science half-truths and selective disinformation that are promoted by the fundamentalist/evangelical movement.

But of course, if you want the actual story, ignore the idiots at the BOE: the Texas Freedom Network has documented the falsehoods in their claims, and is following the hearings.

Who do you trust?

SciAm has a nice report on a survey of people’s trust of authority figures. On a scale of one to five, with five being the most trustworthy, they were asked who would provide accurate information on a range of scientific issues. Look at these results: scientists are highly regarded, while religious authorities are deeply distrusted.

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Before you get too happy about this, though, check out the source of the survey: this was taken of readers of Nature and Scientific American. Can you say sampling bias, boys and girls? That’s disappointing; I’d rather see how the general public views these authorities, since we can already assume that fans of science would rate scientists most highly. It’s rather like posting a poll about the greatest musician of the age on a Justin Bieber fan site…you couldn’t really rely on the results for much of anything.

I notice that the views of scientists on evolution get the highest trust scores, and I can explain that. No matter what you hear from church pulpits, evolution is settled science — any debate on that matter has been resolved for almost a century. This is entirely why the evolution ‘debate’ today is so hot and furious, because it takes remarkable ignorance and fanaticism to disagree with it anymore. It’s also the case that of all the topics listed, evolution actually has the oldest, most firmly established answer among the bunch, so yes, informed people are comfortable with the views of pro-evolution scientists. It’s only the denialists who have to be crazy.

The rest of the article discusses more details of international views on various issues, and mostly they are positive. Just keep in mind — these data are from a well-educated and science-friendly audience, and probably aren’t representative of the citizenry as a whole.

UM backs down

Those must have been some interesting meetings: the University of Minnesota administration was trying to suppress an environmentalist documentary about abuses of the Mississippi river, but every faculty member I’ve heard from on this issue was a bit outraged by the censorship…and now, the university has backed off, and the movie will be screened on 3 October at the Bell Museum. If you’re in the area, stop by and watch it!