Kent Hovind writes

I staggered out of bed this morning, feeling much better — my guts are making some very peculiar noises and I have no appetite, but otherwise I’m getting by — and what do I find at the top of my inbox but a letter from Kent Hovind via some guy claiming to be his proxy. I’ve been challenged to a debate!

PZ Myers,

Recently, while researching items for Dr. Kent Hovind, I happened to stumble across your many mean-spirited attacks against him. I read on as you and your minions showed yourselves to be as the apes you claim to descend from (probably your best evidence for evolution). Since you, and most of your ape-like readers, have no point of reference for justifying morality within yourselves, you should be notified that your behavior is downright shameful.

Anyway, I have been informed by Kent Hovind personally that he is ready at any time to consider your best evidence for evolution (in writing). Further, since you have zero capacity to understand even the smallest of spiritual concepts, he is ready to also present empirical evidence in rebuttal to support his position.

While you excel at insult and insensitivity, we wonder how much actual empirical evidence feeds this pompous attitude of yours. For years evolutionists have desired to get Kent Hovind into an “email debate” and he always refused, preferring rather to meet face to face.

However, as you so joyously gloat, that is not currently possible, so you are now being given that opportunity. Kent is officially challenging you to an email debate (**white gloves smacking your face**) under the condition that only one topic at a time be discussed and that it begin with your most empirical, straightforward, undeniable evidence for evolution.

I will number the paragraphs for ease of reference and will post the debate online. I will forward said evidence verbatim to him and then I will return his rebuttal verbatim back to you. I will, that is, should you actually accept the challenge.

This challenge is posted online at www.2peter3.com

Jonn Mooney for Kent Hovind

Kent Hovind can’t write to me directly, of course, because he’s in prison and won’t be getting out until August 2015.

And no, I’m not interested in a ‘debate’ with Hovind. I’ve been following his poisonous trail for years, and one thing I’m absolutely certain of is that he knows absolutely nothing about evolution, so there would be nothing to argue about. Ignorance is not a credible side in a debate.

But I have a counteroffer, since I do have some sympathy for a guy who’s probably going stir-crazy right now (and started out in the position of the proverbial shithouse rat). Kent Hovind has lots of time to read right now. He can put down his Bible now and then and instead read some basic evolutionary biology, and then when he gets out in three years I’d be willing to have a conversation about it. Not about the Bible, but about a decent, informative text on evolution.

I recommend Why Evolution is True, by Jerry Coyne. It covers a wide range of the evidence for evolution, and would give us lots to talk about.

If Mr Mooney would send me Hovind’s prison address, I’d even be willing to buy and ship a copy to him. It would give him something useful to do to pass the time, too.

Why I am an atheist – j.

My story begins at a very young age.  In my earliest memories my family, and in particular my father, were very religious.  I was initially raised in the Lutheran church. It seems now that the Lutheran church we attended was really quite vanilla and innocuous. However, when I was 12 the church’s new youth minister had an idea: Christian Youth Camp. Mom and Dad ponied up the nominal fee and I was sent to a christian bible camp for two weeks in the summer. All my friends went. Heck, we jumped at the opportunity. It was a chance to get out of town and be preteens away from our parents and bond as budding adults.. It was something different for kids my age stuck in a small industrial town of northern Iowa in the stagnant early 70’s . Every kid that went to Trinity Lutheran Church looked forward to this excursion. For two weeks we were sent to a rural setting that for the most part, looking back, resembled a military boot camp. Cabins, mess hall, summertime activities, a canteen (yes, they called it that) and “counselors” for each cabin of 6 attendees. Every morning there was a revelry, breakfast, bible study and then you were left to your own devices (supervised of course) until lunch. Then more bible study and then you were again left to entertain yourself with canoeing, swimming, volleyball etc. etc until dinner, followed by another hour of bible study and then were freed to explore the woods, go to the canteen for a snack,  or nap if you cared to. At nightfall , however, the nefariousness began. We would all be called to a large hill next to an A-frame chapel. A massive bonfire would be constructed and the proselytizing would intensify. Now it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on here was a well orchestrated manipulation of young minds. The glowing fire, the singing, mass recital of prayer…… preteen and teen boys and girls, hormones…… very powerful stuff. Not to violate Godwin’s Law, but it was very much a nightly authoritarian rally. Flags flying, drums beating anon anon.  Being a child, it took…….. for about two weeks. Then it was back to being a preteen and summer baseball, eating apples from the neighborhood trees and generally coming home only when I was too tired to do anything else. Very, very bucolic.

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Cats, skepticism and MRAs

It struck me this weekend as I was arguing with my cat that the conversation was remarkably like some I’ve had over the last years online with so-called Men’s Rights Activists. I say “so-called” for a few reasons. First because the word “Men” implies “adult,” and part of being an adult is taking pains to see others’ points of view; second because what they advocate for  are actually ossified privileges and not “Rights,” and third because “Activists” implies something other than being on the Internet all day.

But my typical exchange with an MRA, at least when I’m in an optimistic frame of mind and don’t engage in mockery, generally runs like:

MRA: [unsupported assertions stated as bald facts, often with an unwarranted tone of assumed superiority]

Me: “Well, now, the problem with that is that [data] and thus [logical inference], especially seeing as [more data].”

MRA: “Yes, but what you fail to realize is [word-for-word repetition of the statement I just argued against, as if I hadn’t said anything at all]

Which for some reason came to mind this weekend as I walked into the kitchen to get some water. The cat came racing into the kitchen, nudged at the cupboard door where we keep the treats, and the following conversation ensued:

Cat: “MEOW.”

Me: “I just fed you your lunch. You have perfectly good food in your bowl you haven’t touched. And when I gave you treats this morning you barfed them up in twenty minutes. I’m not giving you more until you eat some real food.”

Cat, looking at cupboard and  then glaring at me: “MEOW.”

Thus engaging in a typical example of argumentum ad NOMiNOM.

It’s probably unfair to compare online arguments with MRAs to me aimlessly talking to a house pet. It may also be needlessly insulting. I mean, one of the two conversations involves a pointless attempt to communicate with a not-precisely sentient being with a brain the size of a walnut, who is mainly motivated by base, unthinking desires which he is unable to cover with a veneer of rationality. And the other involves me talking to my cat.

But the similarity is there: one person trying, in however flawed and ineffective a fashion, to communicate some data and nuance and logic, to actually move the discussion in one way or the other, and the other there only to convey his opinion without listening.

I can’t say as I really blame them. If you’re not used to it, thinking is hard work.

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In which the co-blogger attempts action at a distance

Dinosaur v. Mammal. Photo taken from my back porch.

Our fearless leader is down, so it’s time to put on our Sixpak Chopra outfits for a little visualization. Imagine the Audubon’s cottontail in the image as the demons that have possessed PZ’s gastrointestinal system, and the jay as our Waves O’ Healing Energy® preparing to kick the rabbit’s butt. It’s guaranteed infinitely more effective than the most popular homeopathic remedies commonly available.

Spoiler: half a second after this image was taken, the jay hopped on to the rabbit’s butt, chasing him away from the sunflower seeds.

Secular charities are almost there

It takes something really important to get me to burrow up out of my sickbed, especially when I was so enjoying the dark coolth nestled in a web of soft fungal mycelia and was busily contemplating the various flavors of soil. But this issue matters. It’s the final two days of the Chase Giving campaign, with multiple tiers of donations depending on the ranking. Last time I listed the three secular candidates, you all dutifully put the first two in a solid position…because each of you had two votes.

so Foundation Beyond Belief is securely on a high tier. Poor Camp Quest has the lowest number of votes. If you didn’t see the original posting and didn’t vote before, click on that link and give them a little love. Well, cash. Even better — it mulches.

The Secular Student Alliance is doing OK, but they’re teetering right on the edge of a tier. If you’ve got a second vote, make sure they don’t fall off the edge by clicking on that link!

I also want you to think about how hard it was to type this post with only a pair of tiny paired anterior ganglia and no arms. I had to do it by writhing elaborately. And now my keyboard is a slimy mess, just like the rest of me. If I can make this sacrifice, you should be ashamed for not bothering to click, you with your endoskeletons and your digits and your image forming eyes.

The usual daily workflow around here will be temporarily diverted

Did you get my message? HELLO? I spent the whole night howling into the giant white porcelain telephone we keep in the bathroom, trying to let you know I wasn’t feeling well and probably wouldn’t make it in to work today, and that you’ll have to get your internet entertainment somewhere else.

Hello? HELLO?!? Maybe it was a really bad connection. There was this ghastly background echo of gagging and retching. I also wasn’t firing smoothly on all circuits: I was delirious and dehydrated, and I think I briefly turned into a worm, all endoderm and smooth muscle and peristalsis. The hindbrain emesis circuitry was working just fine, though, and was doing a fabulous job of moving my dinner through my digestive tract. Backwards. Let me tell you, I really regretted all those jalapenos I’d put on my salad.

I tried to warn you. I was sending out warnings to every one of you every 45 minutes all night long. I was pretty frantic. Oh, well, maybe they’ll show up in your voicemail later.

Uh…one thing. I might have accidentally uploaded an attachment. I pushed the button on the upper right of the porcelain phone’s console, and it made a wooshing sound like it was sending something big off into the world.

You might not want to open that.

Why I am an atheist – Mitchell Hayden

I consider myself lucky that I never really had a faith to lose. I was raised in a Christian family, but I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t questioning the things I heard in church. I made the firm decision to reject any organized religion in third grade when the leaders at my first and only Awana meeting told me (and most of the other children) that we would burn in hell for eternity if we continued to read Harry Potter. Luckily my family is not so ridiculous that they’d keep me in such an environment, and I was free to never have to go back. From that point until late into my high school career I considered myself a Deist. Just because organized religion was awful didn’t mean there wasn’t a kind loving god right? I was happy to think this until I began identifying as a skeptic. Even after my mother also rejected organized Christianity there were still a multitude of woo filled beliefs to contend with. The more educated I became the more I began to doubt all the things I had grown up with. “The Secret,” “Angel Therapy,” tarot cards. It didn’t take long for the idea of a god to follow the other foolishness down the drain. I’m now a proud and active atheist. There was a time when I thought leaving all the comforting ideas behind would be hard, that their absence would bother me. The exact opposite is true. The more I see how harmful those ideas are, the more sure I am I’m right. I could never go back to supporting beliefs that would keep people miserable because they think that their actions will lead them to a salvation that doesn’t exist.

Mitchell Hayden

Is it time to bury Mitt yet?

In a meeting Mitt Romney had with a gang of millionaires, one class traitor dared to secretly record his words…and then turn the recording over to that pinko commie rag, Mother Jones. Mitt Romney unleashed is a thing to behold, the plutocratic beast revealed.

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.

You know, I think Mitt Romney paid a much, much smaller percentage of his income in taxes than I did last year, or the year before, or the year before that. Who is the moocher here? Who isn’t doing his fair share to support the American government?

There’s much more at the link, and more to come…the magazine is trickling out the juicy stuff. Here’s their summary:

Here was Romney raw and unplugged—sort of unscripted. With this crowd of fellow millionaires, he apparently felt free to utter what he really believes and would never dare say out in the open. He displayed a high degree of disgust for nearly half of his fellow citizens, lumping all Obama voters into a mass of shiftless moochers who don’t contribute much, if anything, to society, and he indicated that he viewed the election as a battle between strivers (such as himself and the donors before him) and parasitic free-riders who lack character, fortitude, and initiative. Yet Romney explained to his patrons that he could not speak such harsh words about Obama in public, lest he insult those independent voters who sided with Obama in 2008 and whom he desperately needs in this election. These were sentiments not to be shared with the voters; it was inside information, available only to the select few who had paid for the privilege of experiencing the real Romney.

It ought to demolish his campaign.

It won’t. The Republican faithful will all delude themselves into thinking they all belong to his club of millionaires, or that they will be, once the mighty Rethugs get power and sweep away all those obstacles to their ascendance, like taxes and black and brown people and all those damn foreigners.

Wondering where all those moochers live? Oh, look: a map.

Hey, isn’t that the Republican base?

Mark your calendars, desert folks

The California Desert office of the National Parks Conservation Association is sponsoring a series of free talks on desert environmental issues, especially as they relate to climate change, and they’ve asked me to present one this month. Here’s the description from the NPCA’s email alert:

Tuesday, September 25, 6 p.m.

In the Old Growth Desert
Join environmental journalist and natural history writer Chris Clarke on a journey through the California Desert’s old growth! In this presentation, Clarke weaves striking photography and decades of scientific research to convey a stunning fact: millennia-old plants are all around us in the desert, lining freeways and reigning over vacant lots.

The venue will be the Palm Springs Public Library, 300 South Sunrise Way off Baristo, Palm Springs, California. Come on by and say hello.

Godlessness gives strength

Ain’t this the truth?

So that’s my story in a nutshell. I highly doubt you’ll be seeing it on your current affairs television show as they tend not to like defiant, questioning, atheist cripple stories. They’re not very inspiring for the viewers.

But at least you can read Holly Warland’s story online. She was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy when she was 12, and realized it wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t god-given, it wasn’t there for a purpose: she was the unlucky loser in a cosmic lottery. And she found strength in herself. Now that’s inspiring!