I thought science fiction was supposed to be a creative, imaginative genre

Star-trek-logo

All day long, my social media have been pinging with jubilant people repeating the message that a new Star Trek series is coming out in 2017. Now don’t get me wrong — I was once a 9 year old boy who begged his parents to let him stay up late to watch Star Trek — but I felt a despairing groan deep inside me.

Let it die.

The series came out 51 years ago. We don’t need another rehash, reboot, repeat, whatever of the same stories. It’s not as if this is the only science fiction future we can imagine, it’s not even as if this was the best framework for telling stories ever. Inspire me with something new. Do something brash and wild and surprising.

I know, this is commercial television, which lives for the predictable and bland, the lowest common denominator that will draw in the largest audience. I will point out two things: 1) in its time, Star Trek was that weird wild card that network executives didn’t understand, and 2) now its virtue to television producers is that it is an entirely known quantity with a built in audience, and is therefore the precise opposite of what good science fiction ought to be.

They’re on to us

Freethoughtblogs has an email address dedicated to receiving your technical complaints…like, for instance, the annoying outage that occurred earlier today, for several hours. It is also a destination for mythical, cave-dwelling beings depicted in folklore as either a giant or a dwarf, typically having a very ugly appearance, and we also get complaints that are not technical in nature, and therefore not fixable by our usual procedure of kicking the box, or jiggling the wires, or flipping it off and on, or other such arcane rituals of the informational technologists who control our lives. And those non-technical problems fall into my domain.

Here, for example, is a Technical Complaint™ transmitted to us today by one Elliott.

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Unhappy apes tend to gather in groups and groom each other

12-Steps

If you think we aren’t apes, how do you explain the popularity of Alcoholics Anonymous? Lance Dodes takes a sobering look at the data behind the success of 12-step programs. The short answer: they don’t work, and they do harm.

There is a large body of evidence now looking at AA success rate, and the success rate of AA is between 5 and 10 percent. Most people don’t seem to know that because it’s not widely publicized. … There are some studies that have claimed to show scientifically that AA is useful. These studies are riddled with scientific errors and they say no more than what we knew to begin with, which is that AA has probably the worst success rate in all of medicine.

It’s not only that AA has a 5 to 10 percent success rate; if it was successful and was neutral the rest of the time, we’d say OK. But it’s harmful to the 90 percent who don’t do well. And it’s harmful for several important reasons. One of them is that everyone believes that AA is the right treatment. AA is never wrong, according to AA. If you fail in AA, it’s you that’s failed.

I was most entertained by the commenter on that article who attempted to rebut those claims. Read this, and wonder:

I’m a recovering addict/alcoholic with over 5 years of continuous sobriety. I attend AA meetings regularly, and I take exception to Dr. Dodes statement, “AA is never wrong, according to AA. If you fail in AA, it’s you that’s failed.” I have never attended a meeting where this sentiment was expressed. The AA Big Book says, “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.” It does not claim any infallibility on the part of the 12 steps. I’ve heard it said around the tables many times that the success rate is around 5%.

So he’s actually confirming exactly what Dodes said: low success rate, and AA says the 95% failures don’t count because they didn’t “thoroughly follow” the path.

AA should be a subject of great interest to atheists, because it demonstrates a common phenomenon: vast numbers of people gladly and even desperately following a pattern of behaviors that do nothing to help them, and are even proven ineffective. Sound familiar?

An anthropologist who thinks we aren’t apes

badtaxonomy

Jonathan Marks has written a terribly wrong-headed article — it’s embarrassingly bad, especially for someone who claims to be writing popular anthropology articles. He’s adamant that humans aren’t apes. He’s not denying evolutionary descent from a common ancestor, he just seems to fail to understand the nature of taxonomic categories.

What are we? We are human. Apes are hairy, sleep in trees, and fling their poo. I should make it clear: Nobody likes apes more than I do; I support their preservation in the wild and their sensitive treatment in captivity. I also don’t think I’m better than them. I’m smarter than they are, and they are stronger than I am. I’m just not one of them, regardless of my ancestry. I am different from them. And so are you. You and I have 46 chromosomes in our cells; chimpanzees have 48. They are indeed very similar, but if you know what to look for, you can tell their cells apart quite readily.

Wow. So wrong.

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Humans are not from Earth?

ellissilver

Ecologist Ellis Silver says…hang on. Who? Anyone can call themselves an ecologist, so it’s strange that when I tried to find out who this guy is, no one is saying. Try it. Google the phrase “ecologist Ellis Silver, and that association is everywhere — some even refer to him as “leading ecologist” or “important ecologist” — and many also call him “Professor Silver”. “Professor” implies a university affiliation, but they never bother to state where he’s employed as a professor. It’s a mystery.

This cipher of a human being is saying something, as I was about to mention: he’s claiming that he has scientific evidence that humans are actually from another planet, and he’s written a book about it, titled Humans are not from Earth: a scientific evaluation of the evidence. Oooh, provocative. And best of all, if you are subscribed to Kindle Unlimited, it can be read for free! So I did.

It’s drivel.

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Bangladesh government ministers: irresponsible, corrupt, or ignorant?

You may have heard that there have been more murders in Bangladesh — once again, fanatics are butchering atheists, and people who publish atheist works, with machetes. You may think this is unconscionable, that these are barbaric acts, but don’t you worry. Representatives of the government of Bangladesh have made a statement.

Yesterday’s attacks are isolated incidents and such attacks also occur in other countries of the world.

Really? I’m an atheist blogger. Should I be worried that someone will break into my house and chop me to death? I don’t think so.

As for the isolated incidents claim…that’s a very strange thing to say about a series of murders, for which there is a published hit list. It’s also very strange to say when the latest killing of Faisal Arefin Dipan, and attempted murders of Ahmedur Rashid Tutul, Tareque Rahim, and Ranadipam Basu were synchronized and coordinated. It’s also strange when religiously motivated terrorists are claiming credit and threatening to kill again.

These secular and atheist publishers waged war against religion of Islam in every possible ways, it said, threatening to annihilate anyone who would dare stand against Islam.

Planned, coordinated, openly intended to intimidate critics of religion…but the government has decided that these are just isolated incidents? I don’t think you need to be Sherlock Holmes to be able to connect the dots on these cases. Maybe we should loan Bangladesh a couple of 9 year old kids who’ve played the game Clue to help them figure it out. As a special bonus, they could probably help Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal find his own ass.