It’s just a frackin’ butt print!

In yet another instance in the chronicles of religious pareidolia, people are flocking to gaze in awe at the wrinkles and bumps in a seat cushion They say it looks like Jesus. Does that make Jesus a butthead?

Antoinette, an 82-year-old parishioner, said the face was a “divine phenomenon” as tears welled up her eyes.

“This church is a holy site,” added Lise-May, another worshipper.

Ladies, you are going into rhapsodies of ecstasy over the dimples in a pillow produced by some old guy’s bony ass. Get real.

Shermer at the Creation Museum

Feel in need of a purgative? Watch this video of Michael Shermer interviewing a creation “scientist” at the Creation Museum. I could only make it halfway through before closing it in disgust.

Ugh. Georgia Purdom is a blind weasel: for example, she berates Christian evolutionists for “interpreting” the bible instead of reading it literally, and then says, “We know from scripture that the earth is no more than 6000 years old:. The bible says nothing of the kind. That is a product of peculiar interpretations of the book.

Then when Shermer presses her on what kinds of experiments she would do to test her assertions, she says, “We wouldn’t do that because we know there’s no point in doing that, because the Bible has the answer.” There’s no science there; that’s a plain admission.

State organizations for science advocacy

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Hey, gang — help me out with this list of states with statewide grassroots organizations working to maintain and improve science education. I’ve found lists at Citizens for Science groups and NCSE, and here’s the roster so far (all the states in blue above have something in place):

If you know of another state group, leave a comment and I’ll update this list. And most importantly, if your state is one of the gray ones up above, start one yourself.

Hypocritical gomers of Oklahoma, unite!

Those creationists sure do love their hypocrisy: on one day, they whine about their version of “academic freedom”, which means demanding that creationism be given equal time with legitimate science in the classroom, and the next they throw a hissy fit because someone they disagree with is speaking, such as Barbara Forrest or Richard Dawkins. After failing to block Dawkins from speaking at OU, the Oklahoma legislature is looking for excuses to retroactively punish the university for spending money on his visit. They seem to have this idea that academics they dislike should always work for free, while the ones they like ought to be unquestioningly showered with honoraria.

That’s not the way the system works. Everyone in academia knows that student groups get small allotments of cash to use as they see fit to promote their organization and ideas; this usually works in the conservatives’ favor, because if you look at any university’s roster of student organizations, there’ll be a dozen or more Christian clubs at the trough and maybe one or two, if you’re lucky, freethought clubs. If they want to play that game, bring it on — let’s make Intervarsity Christian Fellowship and Campus Crusade for Christ squeal when we apply the restrictions uniformly and cut them off. Or perhaps the Oklahoma legislators are intending to apply a religious bias to their disbursement of funds?

Likewise, academic departments have small pots of money for bringing in speakers. Is Oklahoma going to meddle directly in the decisions of every unit on a campus? Is their version of “academic freedom” just a fancy justification for micromanagement?

It’s all moot anyway in this case. Dawkins waived his speaking fee for the Oklahoma event. Meanwhile, recently Ben Stein billed OSU $60,000 to speak — where’s the investigation there?

Come on, New Scientist

This is ridiculous. New Scientist abruptly yanked an article from their web site because they “received a complaint about the contents of the story.” Hmmm. Makes a fellow really want to see what horror was wreaked in the censored item: Pornography? Personal defamation? Embarrassing revelation? Alas, it’s nothing quite so juicy. You can find a copy of the pulled article (isn’t it sweet how the web makes it almost impossible to actually make history disappear?): it’s all about how to spot a religious agenda in so-called science books that the creationists like to peddle — basic stuff like code words, such as “Darwinist” or “materialism”, or the usual spacey interpretations of quantum physics, or the habit of believing that an argument from consequences has any relevance to the truth of a matter.

It mentions some specific examples, such as James Le Fanu, Denyse O’Leary, and Expelled, but these are all perfectly good and accurate instances of religiously-motivated products. Did one of them complain?

I am troubled by the apparent knee-jerk retraction of a legitimate article that is critical of creationism simply because there was a “complaint” (I’d also be concerned if a creationist article was yanked with such ease—more speech, not less speech, is the answer to the idiocy of these yahoos). I hope New Scientist isn’t going to be catering to the whims of popular, uninformed nervous nellies. That kind of timidity is not appropriate to a journal that has “Scientist” in its title.

Uh-oh

I have a horrendous series of connections to get home — Bloomington → Atlanta → Detroit → Minneapolis — and I’m getting these annoying email alerts from the airline every 20 minutes warning me of problems and delays in my various connections. Apparently, there’s some storm in Atlanta that is messing up schedules all over the place. So maybe I won’t get home. Maybe I’ll be trapped in airports for days on end. The best result at this point is that I drag my tired frame home late, late tonight.

So…Open Thread! Fill the void caused by my absence with interesting conversation about whatever you want! I’m sure a creationist or two will show up to hammered at, so have fun.

(On a related note, we do have a surfeit of fools arguing futilely and ignorantly for creationism right now, and maybe it’s time to cull the herd a bit. One suggestion is to play Survivor: Pharyngula for a while and vote off a few. Can you come up with challenges our contestants must meet in order to be permitted to preserve their posting privileges?)

The Purpose of Purpose

It’s another long travel day for me, I’m afraid, and this after a long night of trying to keep up with a lively mob of 20 and 30 year olds at a bar in Champaign-Urbana (and giving a talk yesterday that I think went over fairly well — I even had protesters outside! For a talk on the history and philosophy of embryology!) So I’ll leave you with a link to Wesley Elsberry’s summary of Richard Dawkins’ talk in Michigan. That’ll give you something meaty to argue over until I get back to calm, quiet Morris.

And then, next week…Spring Break! We’re just going to have wild parties every day here on Pharyngula! Bring sun screen and swimming suits.