Atheists don’t get credit if we give to religious charities. We don’t get credit if we give to simply secular causes. Now, though, we’ve got a new explicitly godless charity that works to improve education and knowledge of science: the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. It’s my kind of place — and best of all, money going there isn’t going to be mistaken for support for ignorance and superstition.

Read the announcement. It’s cleared all the legal hurdles in both the US and Great Britain and has been granted charitable, tax-exempt status, and is going to be my favored choice of a charity from now on.

To be quite honest, I’ve never written for a blog before. That seems as good of a sentence as any to start off with. Each week my fellow neurobiology students and I will be writing about something to what we’re studying in class. We may write thoughts on our discussions of the non-fiction books we’re reading, or perhaps things in our everyday lives that pertain to neurobiology that we may not have noticed before. The only instructions we’ve been given are to have fun writing about anything that relates to neurobiology.

Backtracking a bit, I’m a college sophomore majoring in chemistry and biology. The reason I’m taking neurobiology is that I would like to learn more about the biophysics behind nervous systems. So far our neurobiology class is very interesting and enjoyable. I hope that everyone enjoys reading and/or critiquing our compositions over the next few months.

I have been chastised for hating framing and shown an example of “framing” done right. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like framing at all, at least not the kind Nisbet has been pushing, and what I actually hate is the way framing is being used as a stalking horse for irrelevant atheist-bashing.

The example is exemplary. Carl Safina took a group of evangelicals to Alaska to show them first-hand the ecology of the area and the effects of climate change. This is great stuff, and a beautiful instance of public outreach and education, and I am all in favor of it. Do more! However, it’s not framing. It doesn’t resuscitate Nisbet/Mooney’s argument — it says more about the importance of engagement between scientists and the community. The power of the lesson isn’t that Safina spins it to suit a political agenda, or that he panders to the biases of his guests (although he does do that), it’s that he shows them directly what they will lose if people don’t act to preserve the environment. The learning comes from the experience and the reality, not the “frame” he throws around it.

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Everyone needs to go try and cheer up that poor lonely atheist, Tangled Up In Blue Guy. It was his birthday yesterday and everyone in the world forgot.

I can’t console him. He’s an atheist, which means it is entirely true that most of the people in the world hate him and want to strap him to a big stick and set him on fire, and I’m an atheist which, as we all know, means I’m insensitive and uncaring. Sorry. I hope one or two Christians, the only people capable of being nice, stumble across this message and find their way over there to offer him some friendship.

And invite him to their big house on Sunday morning for some “fellowship”.

Now he has gone and won a Hugo!

I’ve wondered since security has gotten so arbitrary and weird — do the Hugo winners have trouble getting home, since they have to fly with what looks like a small metallic missile in their luggage?

I’ve heard of Hirschsprung’s Disease as an academically interesting instance of a developmental failure of nerve migration, but you really must read about the human cost of the disease — innocent little babies (and their parents) should never have to suffer this much. Chris Chatham is spreading the word about an expensive nutritional product, Omegaven, that has the potential to alleviate one symptom — liver failure due to the need for sustained IV feeding — and the idea is to encourage clinical testing so the treatment can be more widely used and supported by insurance companies. Let’s raise the profile of this work and try to get some media attention; reducing the need for infant liver transplants sounds like a worthy cause.

Last April, I received this nice letter from Mark Mathis.

Hello Mr. Myers,

My name is Mark Mathis. I am a Producer for Rampant Films. We are
currently in production of the documentary film, “Crossroads: The
Intersection of Science and Religion.”

At your convenience I would like to discuss our project with you and to see
if we might be able to schedule an interview with you for the film. The
interview would take no more than 90 minutes total, including set up and
break down of our equipment.

We are interested in asking you a number of questions about the
disconnect/controversy that exists in America between Evolution,
Creationism and the Intelligent Design movement.

Please let me know what time would be convenient for me to reach you at your
office. Also, could you please let me know if you charge a fee for
interviews and if so, what that fee would be for 90 minutes of your time.

I look forward to speaking with you soon.

Sincerely,

Mark Mathis
Rampant Films
4414 Woodman Ave. #203
Sherman Oaks, CA 91423
www.rampantfilms.com

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Fabulous news: the Palestinian and Bulgarian health care workers who were falsely accused by the Libyan government of infecting children with AIDS, who were sentenced to death, and who had their sentence then commuted to life in prison, have been given a pardon and released. They are currently in Bulgaria, out of prison, and safe. The various governments involved say no money changed hands, but that a deal was worked out for release in return for closer ties to the EU, whatever that means.

I just got home a short while ago, and it’s 90°, my shirt is soaked through with sweat, and the feeble breeze here isn’t strong enough to provide any relief at all, but it is from precisely the right direction to stir the thick olfactory stew from the nearby swine farms to sluggishly settle on bucolic Morris. Then, to add to the clammy stink, I just had to read Norwegianity’s flensing of the rotting carcass of Michael Totten. I needed something light and airy and sweet, Mark — is this your revenge for being trapped in a library listening to me drone on yesterday?