Aren’t Canadians just adorable?

Paul Hellyer was the Canadian Minister of Defence in the 1960s, and I now think he’s one of the reasons we’ve haven’t been worrying about Canadian Panzers rolling southward to crush the United States beneath their very polite bootheels. He explains what he really, really believes.

There are about 80 alien species visiting the earth through a portal in the Andes, and some of them look like people from Denmark and have been disguised as nuns (I KNEW IT!). The astronomers will be thrilled to learn that there is a new planet orbiting Saturn called Andromedia.

One thing: never play poker with the woman presenter of this show. She maintains an absolutely straight face throughout the interview. Of course, Paul Hellyer is saying the most ridiculous things in a dead serious tone, too.

Maybe Canadians are actually kind of creepy.

The cure for rape: Universal Ordination

Creationist John Mackay gave a talk at the University of Western Australia, and as these wackaloons are wont to do, also expressed lunatic opinions beyond his belief that the earth is only a few thousand years old. In particular, creationism seems to be rife with misogynistic and homophobic twits.

After the lecture many of the attendees stayed for a BBQ and to talk to John Mackay. He made various homophobic comments, including using homosexuality as his go-to example of “immorality” in modern society. In a conversation about the Bible after the lecture, a student pointed out that the Bible condones rape in the following passage from Numbers 31:

“17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that has known man by lying with him. 18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.”

Mackay argued that this is not rape, because the girls were forced to enter a “legitimate Jewish marriage” first (after having their family murdered by their soon-to-be husbands), and obviously you can’t rape your own wife. Not only is it not rape, but Mackay believes this is apparently not even immoral for God to command this and for the Israelites to carry it out.

Typical. Although it does suggest a new strategy for wanna-be rapists: get ordained first, or have an ordained wingman. Say a few words over your unconscious victim, grab her head and make it nod in agreement, then go to town. One of the results of marriage is the complete loss of volition by the bride, turning her into a meat puppet for your convenience.

Be sure to pick a religion that lets your priestly types say a few words afterwards to annul everything!

Or maybe we should just take religion out of marriages, and all relationships, altogether. It doesn’t seem to be a very good guide for moral behavior.

War on Everything

We’ve just begun a temporary cease fire in the War on Christmas (have no fear, Bill O’Reilly will start firing salvos of hot air again next October), which was a ridiculous contrivance: atheists aren’t fighting against Christmas, we’re just here. We’ve also lately seen that the Republican party is becoming increasingly creationist — they’re signing up for a War on Evolution. What’s really going on, as Charles Blow explains, is that the fanatical right has found the war metaphor a useful tool for rallying idiots.

But I believe that something else is also at play here, something more cynical. I believe this is a natural result of a long-running ploy by Republican party leaders to play on the most base convictions of conservative voters in order to solidify their support. Convince people that they’re fighting a religious war for religious freedom, a war in which passion and devotion are one’s weapons against doubt and confusion, and you make loyal soldiers.

They need a War on Something to feel commitment, whether it’s a War on Terror or a War on White People or whatever. The important things are that 1) it has to be a war on an abstraction, so there isn’t actually any risk of sacrifice, 2) the promoters of this “war” hasten to reassure everyone that they are going to battle to pander to The People, and 3) The People are eager to reciprocate by affirming their support for the promoters. It’s a good game.

Now the latest: there is a War on Shakespeare, announced on the incredibly credible pages of the Wall Street Journal opinion section, where reason always goes to die.

Until 2011, students majoring in English at UCLA had to take one course in Chaucer, two in Shakespeare, and one in Milton —the cornerstones of English literature. Following a revolt of the junior faculty, however, during which it was announced that Shakespeare was part of the "Empire," UCLA junked these individual author requirements. It replaced them with a mandate that all English majors take a total of three courses in the following four areas: Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Disability and Sexuality Studies; Imperial, Transnational, and Postcolonial Studies; genre studies, interdisciplinary studies, and critical theory; or creative writing.

It’ll be interesting to see if this one gets any traction. The People would rather not read Shakespeare — only out-of-touch liberal elitist academics who attend the MLA do that — but I suspect that won’t matter. They don’t have any real commitment to Christianity, either, but nothing will rile ’em up more than criticizing religion, so I can imagine them happily putting some old Elizabethan dude on a banner and waving it. It also has the virtue of being a totally imaginary war, just the way they like it.

For a good corrective, just read this article on what the UCLA English department actually did. They still teach Shakespeare — I imagine that there are many faculty who actually like Shakespeare.

Never mind that UCLA probably got rid of the three single-author course requirements because single-author courses are tough to teach, and can be murder to take (guess what? Not everybody likes Chaucer enough to spend 15 weeks on him, and that’s OK). Never mind that the UCLA English major still requires plenty of historical literature classes, including Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Milton. Never mind that students don’t actually have to take a gender or race studies course, as they’re two of several options for fulfilling the breadth requirement. Those are but irrelevant facts, but since said facts involve giving students a choice to take a course on Queer Literature since 1855 (Tennessee Williams? James Baldwin? Gertrude Stein? Oh no!), they surely herald the continuing descent into Gomorrah.

It might still play with the crowds, though. Gays and women and blacks replacing white English guy? As good an excuse for an apocalypse as any.

Sikivu tells it like it is

She tears into a phenomenon that bothers me, too: white evangelical ministers jumping ship for atheism, being embraced by atheists, and tainting atheism with the Christian culture. In particular, there’s this awful parasite, Ryan Bell, who’s only just trying out atheism for a year, which is simply ridiculous — it’s not a set of superficial practices, it’s a mindset. What’s he going to do at the end of the year, erase his brain?

A thriving brand of secular tourism can now be definitively filed under the category “stuff white people like”:  Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta has sponsored a crowd-funding campaign for a white male former pastor named Ryan Bell who—in a bit of brilliant PR stagecraft—“decided to…give atheism a try” for a year.  As a result of his “experiment” Bell was fired from two Christian schools.  Currently the campaign has far exceeded its $5,000 goal, generating over $16,000 from 700 plus donors in one day.  Bell joins a jam-packed, largely white, mostly Christian cottage industry of religious leaders who are capitalizing off of untapped reserves of atheist dollars, adulation and publicity by jumping onto the “maverick ex-pastor” bandwagon. 

But there’s more to it than that. American culture as a whole tends to be racist, and atheists are following the majority.

In studies conducted by Princeton University researchers, white job seekers with criminal records were slightly more likely to be called back for and/or offered entry-level jobs than African American job seekers with no criminal record. According to lead researcher Devah Pager, “Even whites with criminal records received more favorable treatment (17%) than blacks without criminal records (14%). The rank ordering of (these) groups…is painfully revealing of employer preferences: race continues to play a dominant role in shaping employment opportunities, equal to or greater than the impact of a criminal record.”

That’s the problem: that racism cuts people off at the level of denying them opportunities, so they don’t get a chance to demonstrate competence, providing a self-perpetuating basis for the myth that they’re less qualified. It’ll never end unless everyone consciously opens the doors and encourages more participation; unless we recognize the handicap that assumed white dominance places on all others who have slightly more melanin.

She also points out one egregious example of failure by atheist organizations:

For example, although many atheists profess a commitment to ‘science and reason’ there are still no atheist STEM initiatives that acknowledge the egregious lack of STEM K-12 and college access for students of color. In their zeal to brand predominantly religious communities as backward, unenlightened and unsophisticated in the exceptionalist ways of Western rationality, atheist organizations are MIA when it comes to discussions about STEM college pipelining, STEM literacy and culturally responsive recruitment and retention of STEM scholars and professionals of color in academia.” While white atheists give jobs, “atheist” pulpits and big bucks to American secular tourists numerous black churches support STEM tutoring, mentoring, college access and scholarship programs to confront the gaping educational divide between white and black America.

There are, unfortunately, a substantial number of atheists who declare that anything beyond simply stating there is no god is ‘mission creep’. They can cheer when a prominent scientist like Richard Dawkins endorses atheism, but recognizing that a commitment to science means a heck of a lot more than clapping really hard at a talk is too much for them. They like science, and isn’t atheism supposed to be just about affirming what they already like? Oh, and of course, affirming how stupid people are who don’t like the things we do.

But taking that next step and realizing that a commitment to science means investing and working towards expanding knowledge of science is hard. Exercising political will is hard. Demanding social change is hard. But that’s what atheists need to do if they are to be something more than an empty label.

I’ve been seeing first-hand what it takes to expand an idea, and atheism isn’t doing it. Science is. I’ve had the opportunity to talk to people at HHMI and NIH, and their focus is crystal clear. They prioritize getting science done, and they don’t give a damn whether it is a white hand or a brown one doing it.

The demographic trends are perfectly obvious: America is going to become a majority-minority country in the next few decades (states like California and Texas are already there), which means white people aren’t going to be the dominant default anymore. At the same time, when these grant agencies look at who is doing science, they’re mostly white and minority populations are largely excluded. They can do the math, they’re scientists. It means we can’t afford to discriminate against the largest subpopulation as a pool of potential scientists.

So there are programs in place at all the big science funding agencies to encourage an expansion of that pool, before the trends kill us. Even my little HHMI grant is designed with the goal of giving underserved populations a chance to do science at the undergraduate level.* These represent commitments of money and time to give those who are denied by default assumptions an opportunity to prove themselves. That’s what we need more of, not just lip service.

I know all the major atheist organizations either have a narrower goal, or are making major efforts to grow the atheist community. If your goal is to just grow your membership, it’s always tempting to just focus on the people you’ve already got, and just try to get more. But grabbing a greater share of a shrinking subpopulation is short-term thinking. Long term, you have to invest in recruiting from the faster-growing subset — and the atheist organizations that are still going to be here in the future need to make that commitment now.

*By the way, women are not considered an underserved population in undergraduate education any more. We have no problem getting women involved in entry-level science — the problems come later for women, when it’s time for promotion and moving on to professional status. That’s a ceiling minorities hit as well; these are problems that have to be addressed at multiple levels.

He’s not really filling me with confidence

Bill Nye comments on his upcoming debate with Ken Ham:

Oh, dear.

Let’s see, what’s in Nye’s favor here:

  • He’s got the science on his side. He really is arguing from the only rational position.

  • Ken Ham is a palooka with no reputation as a debater himself.

Then there is the stuff that makes me worry:

  • Nye has no clue what he’s in for. Absolutely no clue. I hope he prepares by watching lots of creationist debates, or he’s in for a surprise.

  • Maybe it was an off night, but he didn’t respond well when confronted with Greg Laden’s objections. He needs to be ready with fast, succinct replies to a hell of a lot of different tactics…or he needs to be much quicker on his feet.

  • If his only approach is to talk about the economic advantages of good science, Ham is going to be prepared. I don’t think the people he’s trying to persuade are going to care much about those wicked jobs, anyway — they know you can get filthy rich making duck calls.

If I were making odds on this matchup, I’d say Nye’s chances just slipped a bit with that performance. My own personal bet would be that this is going to be an event in which both sides spend most of their time talking past each other, and that they’ll both flop hard except with their most fervent proponents.

I hope Eugenie Scott and Nye are having conversations right now. Serious conversations.

Aron Ra understands the nature of the show; maybe Nye should have conversations with him, too.

In the proud tradition of Expelled

Gosh, where do the kooks get their money? Watch this slick trailer for a fancy new “science” documentary called The Principle. There’s Michio Kaku…oh, wait, he’s always getting cheerfully dragged into woo…and Lawrence Krauss? Krauss is one of those hard-headed rational types who wouldn’t be a knowing part of any nonsense. But just watch, and the subject of this movie will gradually emerge.

It’s a pseudo-documentary about geocentrism. Zeno tells me he heard about on that weird Catholic zealot Michael Voris’s show. It’s being made by weird uber-kook Rick Delano, who’s sole claim to fame seems to be advocating geocentrism, and showing up in the comments of every blog that ever laughs at the subject (so don’t be surprised if he appears here).

What isn’t at all surprising is that Lawrence Krauss has already repudiated the movie.

It explains so much

This is a beautiful explanation of a key property of human evolution: we evolved to be catapulted as infants.

I can tell, though, that Weinersmith has not had direct experience with raising babies, at least not yet, or he would have cited another significant factor: instinctive parental urges to place small children in catapults. Our first child was one of those colicky babies, and I can tell you that there were many late nights when I was trying to comfort the squalling infant that I would be bouncing him on the balcony of our apartment, and thinking that a good powerful trebuchet to launch him out over the Willamette River towards Springfield would be a good thing.

The lack of handy siege instruments was the only thing that saved him, but clearly that would not have been a problem in more primitive cultures.

One of the Steubenville rapists has been freed

And his lawyer has released a statement on his behalf. Got your puke bucket handy?

Ma’Lik Richmond recently completed his designated time at the Cuyahoga Hills Juvenile Detention Facility. The past sixteen months have been extremely challenging for Ma’Lik and his extended family. At sixteen years old, Ma’Lik and his family endured hardness beyond imagination for any adult yet alone child. He has persevered the hardness and made the most of yet another unfortunate set of circumstances in his life. As with each other obstacle, Ma’Lik has met it squarely, lifted his chin, and set his shoulders; he is braced for the balance of his life.  While away, Ma’Lik has reflected, learned, matured, and grown in many ways.  He is a better, stronger person and looks forward to school, life, and spending time with family.  At this point, Ma’Lik wants most to be a high school teenager. In conjunction with his release, Ma’Lik, his family, and guardians ask that the media respect their privacy in this matter, as we all need to heal and move on with our lives. We will have you know that Ma’Lik will be taking all the time necessary to focus on his academic and personal goals. We ask for your support and prayers as we move forward, Thank you.

He endured, he persevered, he grew, and become more mature and learned — why, raping an unconscious young girl has made Mr Richmond a better fucking person. What a great thing for his character, and the character of any teenager who wants to improve himself.

There’s also a statement from the lawyer for the victim.

Although everyone hopes convicted criminals are rehabilitated, it is disheartening that this convicted rapist’s press release does not make a single reference to the victim and her family – whom he and his co-defendant scarred for life. One would expect to see the defendant publicly apologize for all the pain he caused rather than make statements about himself. Rape is about victims, not defendants. Obviously, the people writing his press release have yet to learn this important lesson.

What he said.