The dog steals the show.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
The dog steals the show.
I’m home from Skep-Tech, and I just have to say that that was one of the better conferences I’ve attended — which is remarkable considering that it was student-run and -organized, and completely free.
It was a good mix, too. There were several people I hadn’t heard from before, Kate Greene and Jessica Kirsner, who brought in fresh blood and interesting ideas. There were surprises: Ian Cromwell is a really good science communicator, and I learned a lot about the technical details of managing a health care system from his talk. You mean black people can talk about things other than race? Spread that news to other conference organizers.
Other standouts were Debbie Goddard, who gave a heartfelt talk about bringing meaning to atheism/skepticism, and Rebecca Watson, who gave an evidence-based and humorous talk about using social media — it’s not all selfies and photos of your dinner plate. Jesse Galef also accomplished a great synthesis of pop culture and a game theoretic approach to morality that explained how it evolved. They were all good talks, not a flop among them (well, I had to miss the last few because I had a long drive ahead of me…but I have complete confidence that Heina Dadabhoy was good, because she always is).
It also had an interesting audience. It was down a bit from last year, as Stefanie explains, but it was a healthy mix of familiar faces from the atheist community in Minneapolis/St Paul, and new strangers who wandered in. I didn’t bother to try and count heads — it was held in a gigantic auditorium, with a lot of flux as people drifted in and out (long breaks between talks encouraged a lot of discussion) — so I only took a quick count on Sunday morning, which is usually the worst time as people are recovering from all the late Saturday partying and increasing conference fatigue, and I saw about 60 people there. Total attendance was either significantly higher than that, or the talks were so engrossing that no one wanted to miss even the one held while they were hung over.
It was well worth the time, and it was held right there in my back yard, which was sweet. You should go next time it’s offered. Or if it’s too far for you to travel, organize your own — this was excellent outreach.
When the Colbert Report twitter account posted that ‘joke’, “I am willing to show #Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever”, I understood exactly what he was talking about: that kind of remark was exactly what you’d hear said by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, in complete seriousness, and since Colbert is in the business of lampooning that kind of crap, I saw it as satire against casual racism.
But at the same time, it really bugged me. It was a lazy ass joke — it relied on a racist stereotype for laughs. And don’t talk to me about context; if you’ve got a joke that thoroughly depends on context, don’t put it on twitter, the worst possible medium for a lengthy build up. It also greatly put me off that Colbert doubled down afterwards. He’s a comedian. Are you going to tell me that comedians don’t understand that sometimes jokes fall flat? Is it a common response for comedians who tell a dud joke to then blame the audience for not appreciating it enough?
Maybe we should ask a comedian. Keith Lowell Jensen has some thoughts on Suey Park and the Colbert Report.
While many people of color defended Colbert, there were enough condemning the joke, even after the context was clear, that I had the choice to either consider the complaint further or assume that THAT large a number of people of color either didn’t understand satire and/or were hysterical and knee jerk and completely irrational. This seemed a poor assumption to make.
And while I considered Colbert’s joke, I don’t mean that I considered whether or not he should be cancelled (never Park’s real goal) or whether he was intentionally being racist (I have no doubt his intent was the opposite) but rather it was a good joke or not, whether this particular joke might have been a miss.
This discussion went on in my brain. I may have talked with a few friends about it, but I did so privately. What I didn’t do, was to immediately publicly condemn Suey Park and everyone else supporting #CancelColbert.
It seems to me that if an Asian woman finds a joke about racism against Asians (and about racism against Native Americans once context is added) offensive, the white guy should probably listen to her carefully and give her argument a lot of thought. The white guy should maybe not be SO quick to assume he knows more about racism than she does and should not be so quick to assume that she doesn’t comprehend or that she is hysterical and irrational. When many other people of color feel the same, this is magnified. I feel like a white guy navigating discussion of racism might want to be slower to respond, more eager to listen, less cocky.
That says it perfectly.
A minister with the silly sounding name of Eric Pickles is insisting that Britain is a Christian nation, the Telegraph is blithely reporting on it as news, and they have a poll which is running neck and neck with the contrasting views. Those of us in the United States can contribute our perspective on the matter: compared to our political apparatus, England is practically satanically godless. Maybe we should all let them know what we think of these wanking faithheads constantly trying to demand that entire diverse nations are ‘owned’ by single religious traditions.
Do you agree with Eric Pickles’ comments?
Yes, Britain is a Christian nation 50.08%
No, Britain is a secular country and religious beliefs should be kept private 49.92%
Dana publishes the simple, brilliant solution to abortion. I can’t see any downside to it. We already live in a culture where pointless surgical alterations to boy’s genitals are common, and this just adds one more.
I’m thinking we could also make it a ritual of passage into manhood. You aren’t really a man until you’ve had The Procedure.
I visited Brighton, once. I took a pleasant stroll down along the beach, dipped my toe in the water, and I liked it! Therefore, my current physiological state is entirely compatible with swimming the English Channel, and how dare anyone criticize my lack of swimming practice and stamina and strength as somehow incompatible with being a successful English channel swimmer. Didn’t you see in my first sentence that I liked it?
That’s how I read Sana Saeed’s article in which she declares that Richard Dawkins is completely wrong about the incompatibility of science and religion. Her reasons are remarkably superficial and trivial, and she manages to kill her own case midway through. Here’s why she thinks they’re compatible:
I spent my childhood with my nose firmly placed between the pages of books on reptiles, dinosaurs, marine life and mammals. When I wasn’t busy wondering if I wanted to be more like Barbara Walters or Nancy Drew, I was busy digging holes in my parents’ backyard hoping to find lost bones of some great prehistoric mystery. I spent hours sifting through rocks that could possibly connect me to the past or, maybe, a hidden crystalline adventure inside. Potatoes were both apart of a delicious dinner and batteries for those ‘I got this’ moments; magnets repelling one another were a sorcery I needed to, somehow, defeat. The greatest teachers I ever had were Miss Frizzle and Bill Nye the Science Guy.
I also spent my childhood reciting verses from the Qur’an and a long prayer for everyone — in my family and the world — every night before going to bed. I spoke to my late grandfather, asking him to save me a spot in heaven. I went to the mosque and stepped on the shoes resting outside a prayer hall filled with worshippers. I tried fasting so I could be cool like my parents; played with prayer beads and always begged my mother to tell me more stories from the lives of the Abrahamic prophets.
That’s all very good — it’s a great start to have a childhood in which she was enthusiastic about science, and perhaps she could have even gone on to be a practicing scientist when she grew up (she didn’t) — and she could have even continued to be a practicing Muslim. There is nothing in her story that rebuts any claim of the incompatibility of science and religion.
But here’s where there is an incompatibility: she could do experiments with magnets and potatoes, but did she ever ask herself if those long prayers really worked? Did she ask her grandfather how he knew heaven existed, and would she have been content if he’d simply said it was a tenet of their religion? Did she ever examine those stories of the Abrahamic prophets and ask if they were really true?
No, she did not. She comes right out and says it: magnets and potatoes, sure, but there are some things you are not allowed to question.
In other words: There’s plenty of wiggle room and then some. On anything that is not established as theological Truth (e.g. God’s existence, the finality of Prophethood, pillars and artic
les of faith), there is ample room for examination, debate and disagreement, because it does not undercut the fabric of faith itself.
She’s so blinkered by her faith that she doesn’t even realize that setting boundaries on what you may question is completely antithetical to science, and that her religion compels her to accept counterfactual nonsense. The only way she can say religion is compatible with science is by imprisoning a broken science within the limited boundaries of what the patriarchs of her faith will allow.
You may not question god, angels, the Qu’ran, Mohammed, the existence of the afterlife, or God’s will, but hey, as long as you unquestioningly accept everything the antique holy book says about the nature of the universe, it’s totally compatible with science.
She gives an example of how Islam and science are compatible, but it’s enough to make one cry in despair.
Muslims, generally, accept evolution as a fundamental part of the natural process; they differ, however, on human evolution – specifically the idea that humans and apes share an ancestor in common.
Well, then, that means you don’t accept evolution. There is no good reason to single out humans as exceptional — the science says one thing, religion defies the evidence, and Saeed accepts the religion.
In the 13th century, Shi’i Persian polymath Nasir al-din al-Tusi discussed biological evolution in his book “Akhlaq-i-Nasri” (Nasirean Ethics). While al-Tusi’s theory of evolution differs from the one put forward by Charles Darwin 600 years later and the theory of evolution that we have today, he argued that the elemental source of all living things was one. From this single elemental source came four attributes of nature: water, air, soil and fire – all of which would evolve into different living species through hereditary variability. Hierarchy would emerge through differences in learning how to adapt and survive.
This is a “theory” that is not founded on evidence and experiment, propagates archaic ideas about the structure of the universe (water, air, soil, and fire are not the fundamental attributes of nature), contains erroneous statements about biology (al-Tusi endorsed a hierarchical ladder of life, and also set humans apart as a special case), and completely lacks the population thinking that was the core of Darwin’s insight. He was a smart fellow who did some brilliant things, but he was also a person of his times and his biological explanations were most definitely not comparable to what Darwin came up with 600 years later.
That Saeed thinks they are is just another sign of her ignorance.
Al-Tusi’s discussion on biological evolution and the relationship of synchronicity between animate and inanimate (how they emerge from the same source and work in tandem with one another) objects is stunning in its observational precision as well as its fusion with theistic considerations. Yet it is, at best, unacknowledged today in the Euro-centric conversation on religion and science. Why?
Because it was wrong? Because it did not lead to greater understanding of how biology works? Because it was all tangled up in ridiculous religious beliefs that you were not allowed to question?
I think Saeed understands her religion very well. But despite some early promise in childhood, it’s clear that she doesn’t understand science at all.
This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
Status: UNMODERATED; Previous thread
It is only appropriate that now, while I’m at Skep-Tech 2, we should get an article about the influence of technology on religion. It seems to be primarily corrosive.
Back in 1990, about 8 percent of the U.S. population had no religious preference. By 2010, this percentage had more than doubled to 18 percent. That’s a difference of about 25 million people, all of whom have somehow lost their religion.
(By the way, I’m not a fan of graphs that mislead by having different scales: the percent change in the adoption of the internet is far, far greater than the percent change in the adoption of atheism — this chart illustrates a similarity in timing, only.)
A computer scientist, Allen Downey, has dissected these trends to identify the major components affecting religiosity, and has narrowed it down to three big ones: upbringing, education, and access to the internet.
He finds that the biggest influence on religious affiliation is religious upbringing—people who are brought up in a religion are more likely to be affiliated to that religion later.
However, the number of people with a religious upbringing has dropped since 1990. It’s easy to imagine how this inevitably leads to a fall in the number who are religious later in life. In fact, Downey’s analysis shows that this is an important factor. However, it cannot account for all of the fall or anywhere near it. In fact, that data indicates that it only explains about 25 percent of the drop.
He goes on to show that college-level education also correlates with the drop. Once it again, it’s easy to imagine how contact with a wider group of people at college might contribute to a loss of religion.
Since the 1980s, the fraction of people receiving college level education has increased from 17.4 percent to 27.2 percent in the 2000s. So it’s not surprising that this is reflected in the drop in numbers claiming religious affiliation today. But although the correlation is statistically significant, it can only account for about 5 percent of the drop, so some other factor must also be involved.
That’s where the Internet comes in. In the 1980s, Internet use was essentially zero, but in 2010, 53 percent of the population spent two hours per week online and 25 percent surfed for more than 7 hours.
This increase closely matches the decrease in religious affiliation. In fact, Downey calculates that it can account for about 25 percent of the drop.
That’s a fascinating result. It implies that since 1990, the increase in Internet use has had as powerful an influence on religious affiliation as the drop in religious upbringing.
I think there’s more to the story than this, though. The internet is too big and messy to be simplistically causal: there are also a great many sites dedicated to reinforcing the lies of religion, obviously, and there are Chrisians and Moslems who use the internet as a tool for evangelism and tribe-building. A more interesting question would be about how people use the internet. I don’t think a person’s faith would be challenged by the internet alone, but only if they use the internet to explore and compare conflicting views.
I have been informed that the courts in Australia are making anti-biological rulings. This is horrible news.
Now they are even making rulings on biology, and in a new case, informing us that they can also trump reality.
Oh, my.
We have just been informed by our enlightened justices that biology no longer exists, but is simply a social construct.
I am outraged!
Biology is now simply a matter of judicial decree.
This abuse of good science must end!
After all, biology does not exist anyway. We just make these things up to suit our fancies.
No!
So the courts can now determine whether reality exists or not. Those are certainly some sweeping powers. Of course these activist judges have been playing God for quite some time now.
This abuse of biology and science is terrible. So, Bill Muehlenberg, defender of science, what exactly have these wicked activist judges done in defiance of all evidence?
A Sydneysider has won a High Court case to be recognised as gender-neutral. Norrie, who was born male but underwent gender reassignment to become a woman, identifies neither as male or female and has taken legal action against NSW’s Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages to be granted a non-specific certificate.
…
Norrie stopped taking hormones after surgery, preferring to live as neither male nor female. Counsel for Norrie said it is the register’s purpose to record the truth. “Norrie’s sex remained ambiguous so that it would be to record misinformation in the register to classify her as male or female,” a judgment summary reads. Sitting in Canberra on Wednesday, the bench unanimously found in favour of Norrie.
What? Well, that was a bit of a damp squib.
Sorry, Bill, biologically, that is a perfectly reasonable decision. Sex is complex, and gender layers another unfathomably difficult welter of complexity on top of that, so, speaking as a biologist, I have to say there is nothing in the science to defend your black and white, absolutist, rigidly binary view of human behavior. Men aren’t all one way, and women aren’t all another way, with the empty set between them. The court wasn’t being ‘activist’ or defying the science, but actually making a rather sensible decision in accord with reality. Norrie would know better than you or a judge that they don’t fit neatly into your limited and limiting pigeonholes.
But hey, Bill, you have another problem. It’s very kind of you to rush to defend ‘science’ (or rather, your unfortunately ill-informed version of it), but if you’re so enamored of it that you wield it as a shield and bulwark to defend your personal bigotry against homosexuals and transgendered people, how come you’re also attacking evolutionary biology?
The entire framework of Darwin’s theory leads inevitably to the gas chambers and the concentration camps. The biologically inferior had to be exterminated in order for humanity to survive and flourish. “If one society crushes another, that is not wrong. That is not even a shame. That is natural selection at work.”
And outright advocating creationism (and bad theology, too)?
The Judeo-Christian worldview is unique among the religions and philosophies of the world in affirming that human beings are made in the image of God. It is the uniqueness of humans that sets these two religions apart from all others.
And then to also be a climate change denialist…tsk, tsk.
But this makes sense, since the warmists and their media stooges really have embraced a new religion here. The religion of climate change requires as much faith – if not more – than most other religions. It is an article of faith to believe the warming hysteria, and anyone who dares to question it is branded a heretic and an apostate.
Evolution and anthropogenic climate change are actual facts, Bill; why do you think your twisted views trump reality, and that you can pretend biology and the science of our environment no longer exist? When it suits you, that is.
It’s sweet that science has become the assumed default standard of truth, but it’s not so cool that wingnuts seek to appropriate it to defend clearly anti-scientific positions.
Mississippi has horrific rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, so they’re slowly waking up and realizing that they have to have better sex education in the schools … and they’ve actually adopted a sex-ed curriculum in some of their school districts. Unfortunately, it’s not what most of us would consider good education.
Marie Barnard was delighted when, after decades of silence on the topic, Mississippi passed a law requiring school districts to teach sex education. But the lesson involving the Peppermint Pattie wasn’t what she had in mind for her sons.
The curricula adopted by the school district in Oxford called on students to unwrap a piece of chocolate, pass it around class and observe how dirty it became.
"They’re using the Peppermint Pattie to show that a girl is no longer clean or valuable after she’s had sex — that she’s been used," said Barnard, who works in public health. "That shouldn’t be the lesson we send kids about sex."
Oh, no! I’ve been having sex for about 40 years now, so I pictured a piece of candy — in my case, a Tootsie Roll — getting passed around and stuffed into various damp places and given a hot shower every day, for forty years, and I’m sorry, it didn’t even make it a week before it had melted away and gone down the drain. Now I’m having castration anxiety.
Wait! It only applies to girls? What a relief, for me, at least — my wife is going to be dismayed, though. Maybe we can change the message a bit: lady bits are just like a piece of sweet chocolate candy that never ever disappears, no matter how much you nibble on it.
Unfortunately, the dirty scary chocolate trick still doesn’t work. The outcomes they want to prevent are actually being worsened by their evasive silly little abstinence-only games. So they have a new threat that they make:
Johnson thought he had made a good case for contraception education when he shared disturbing statistics: The local birthrate was 73 out of 1,000 females between 15 and 19; the national rate is 29.4 per 1,000.
He encountered the usual gasps of shock when he revealed that the rate of chlamydia, at 1,346.8 per 100,000 people, was nearly double the rest of Mississippi, and approaching triple the U.S. rate.
But later Johnson got a call from someone who had attended the board meeting — telling him that people who have sex before marriage don’t go to heaven. The board voted for abstinence-only.
Apparently, most of the state of Mississippi is damned to hell, so why is anyone paying attention to those sinners?
