I guess that giant platter of cheese called Megashark vs. Giant Octopus was not enough — now the SyFy Channel has commissioned a new project, Sharktopus. I don’t want to know any more.
The worst part is…yes, I will watch it.
When I was visiting Iowa, I learned about the UNIFI blog, and the students told me that they have a weekly series called Blasphemy Friday, sort of like the Friday Cephalopod, only with heresy instead of molluscs. I thought that was brilliant, so I decided to steal their idea (it’s OK, atheist, you know), and just change it around a little, and do it on Sunday instead of Friday for extra sacriliciousness, and I’m going to focus on blasphemous imagery.
There’s real peril here. After all, if these images are so horrific that they make gods weep in anger, then think what they’ll do to minds of mere mortals: they will blast your brain and sear your soul, and turn you into gibbering feral fiends wandering the streets and committing acts of rapine, robbery, and ruffianism. Now I know most of you are already atheists so that won’t change anything for you, but there could be innocents wandering by…so I’ll always put these blasphemous pictures below the fold. It’ll be your choice. Pass by, or click through and…suffer the consequences.
Desiree Jennings was a young woman with some peculiar symptoms: after getting a seasonal flu shot, she was diagnosed with dystonia. Her speech was slurred, she couldn’t walk without going into painful-looking spams…except that she was fine when she walked backwards or ran. It was very odd, and the blame was being placed on vaccinations.
Now, though, she’s been caught by a camera crew, walking normally, driving, and just generally looking perfectly fine. Her only remaining symptom seems to be that she is afflicted* with an Australian accent. She claims to have been treated by some quack with needles and electrodes and vitamin supplements.
I call shenanigans.
I am going to stop taking vitamins for a while, though, just in case they might make me talk funny, mate.
*I’m going to be pilloried in the comments for that choice of word, aren’t I?
There’s a serious problem with my post-talk sessions at local bars with attendees: I loosen up and start spilling secrets, and you never know when some sneaky blogger listening in might post them to the Intertubalwebs.
NO, people, I will not show you my butt-crack.
That last open thread has been closed. I am deeply offended. People were jibber-jabberin’ about sidekicks and crime-fighting duos and no one mentioned The Avengers. I will not tolerate such slack and neglect.
Let’s begin this one with some appreciation for Diana Rigg as Emma Peel, please.
That sad creationist, Professor Dendy, has been banned from this site, but he still rails against us in prolific obsession from his website. His latest diatribe is irresistible — he claims that atheists can’t handle the truth, and you’ll be surprised to learn that the “truth” is that Charles Darwin denied the efficacy of natural selection. “Oh, really,” you might ask, “He’s not going to trot out the hoariest old quote mine in the universe to back that up, is he?” And the answer is that yes, he certainly is. I had to laugh aloud. This is only second in the list of ridiculous but common claims made by creationists (first, of course, being “if evolution is true, why are there still monkeys?”).
He thinks he’s got us up against the wall with the terrifying truth of the complexity of the eye.
The truth of the matter is that even Charles Darwin himself said it would be absurd to think that the complex eye could been formed by natural selection.
Then he lists a few eyeball facts just to make us squirm. I’m sorry, Professor Dendy, but someone else has done this with far more detail and style than you ever had. I give you the inestimable William Paley, who made the same argument 208 years ago.
Were there no example in the world, of contrivance, except that of the eye, it would be alone sufficient to support the conclusion which we draw from it, as to the necessity of an intelligent Creator. It could never be got rid of; because it could not be accounted for by any other supposition, which did not contradict all the principles we possess of knowledge; the principles, according to which, things do, as often as they can be brought to the test of experience, turn out to be true or false. Its coats and humours, constructed, as the lenses of a telescope are constructed, for the refraction of rays of light to a point, which forms the proper action of the organ; the provision in its muscular tendons for turning its pupil to the object, similar to that which is given to the telescope by screws, and upon which power of direction in the eye, the exercise of its office as an optical instrument depends; the further provision for its defence, for its constant lubricity and moisture, which we see in its socket and its lids, in its gland for the secretion of the matter of tears, its outlet or communication with the nose for carrying off the liquid after the eye is washed with it; these provisions compose altogether an apparatus, a system of parts, a preparation of means, so manifest in their design, so exquisite in their contrivance, so successful in their issue, so precious, and so infinitely beneficial in their use, as, in my opinion, to bear down all doubt that can be raised upon the subject.
William Paley, Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, 1802
Oh, gosh…Paley and Dendy, double-teaming us with two-century-old opinions. However shall we cope?
This really is an old and moldy argument. Charles Darwin dealt with it effectively 150 years ago, and I strongly urge Dendy to read beyond the first sentence he quoted, since from the second sentence on he shows that the supposition is false.
Just to be sure no one misses it, I’ve included the entirety of the section from Chapter VI, “Difficulties of the Theory: Organs of extreme Perfection and Complication” below the fold. The point of his argument is not, “Oh, no, selection fails!” but “Oh, look — selection can explain even these organs that seem absurdly complex.”
Tenure reviews are extremely stressful: imagine a job evaluation in which you may be told that you’ve been doing a fine job, you’re doing interesting work, but you aren’t quite as dazzling as your employer would like…so you’re fired. And then, because academic jobs in your specialty are scattered very thin on the ground, you get to spend a year struggling to find a new position (with the same horror show finale possible), and pack up and move to a completely different part of the country, uprooting all your connections that you may have built up over the last 5 or 6 years. What makes it even worse is how much you lose, since if your tenure committee approves you, you get a secure job for the rest of your life.
The stresses do not excuse Amy Bishop, however, who attended her tenure review meeting and when it did not return a favorable result, pulled out a gun and murdered and wounded her colleagues. Three are hospitalized with injuries, one is in critical condition; these three are dead.
I’m horrified. Good people with years of training and years of productivity ahead of them, with families and loved ones left behind, all wiped out in a flash of insanity, and leaving a body of students who are going to be scarred by this one awful event.
I’m also dismayed — I’ve been at meetings like that many times, where we walk in with trust in our colleagues that the worst we will face is a bitter intellectual argument. I’ve sat at tables with my fellow faculty lined up around them, and never before thought how easy we’d be as targets for one mad person to fire upon. The ease of access to handguns is a great social evil, one that too easily simplifies the conversion of disagreement into lethal combat.
Express your anger and grief here, or on Drugmonkey’s open thread.
Abel has more on her academic status — she seems to have had active grants and a foothold in industry.
And holy crap — Bishop shot and killed her brother in a shotgun accident in 1986! Or maybe not so much an accident — some reports say it was during an argument.
Would you believe that Answers in Genesis has an iPhone app? Yes, they do, and as you might expect, it’s really, really bad. Not bad as in poorly programmed, that looks fine; bad as in now you can get the dishonest trash Ken Ham peddles streamed straight to your phone.
The only reason to download it is so you can give it a bad review. And you have to wonder about Apple’s quality control on iPhone apps—they classified it as educational? Seriously?
I’m still digging out from under the pile of neglected email that accumulated during my extended travels. I’m also still dealing with my disrupted physiology from all the zipping and the flying and the carousing and the glaven-hey, so cut me some slack, OK? Anyway, here are a few things that popped up that looked interesting, but that I’ll have to just quickly announce to clear them from my to-do list. I’ll let you sort through them.
The city council of Fresno is feeling some heat: the Central Valley Alliance of Atheists and Skeptics is trying to end the practice of prayer before meetings. This isn’t just generic non-denominational prayer, either; it’s very jesus-christy.
Wait a minute…the mayor is named Swearengin? I wonder if they have another problem…
From 22 February to the 26th, Oxford University is holding a series of free lectures called Think Week. Looks provocative. Wish I could be there.
The NCSE has posted a short article listing Five Reasons Why Evolution Is Important. It’s a nice article on some medical motivations to study evolution, but the Huffington Post? That den of lunacy and woo? I feel tainted now. NCSE alongside the likes of Robert Lanza and Dana Ullman? They should feel dirty, too.
Remember that very stupid article about how liberals are so condescending? It turns out that wasn’t just some wingnut penning a screed and sending it in to the Washington Post and getting lucky: the Post actively commissioned the right-wing brain-puke. Gotta love that liberal media.
Lindsay Beyerstein has a well-balanced piece on a recent accusation that 18th century pioneers of obstetrics were butchers who murdered women. I’m inclined to say that they were — birthing wards of that era were horrors, where doctors with no knowledge of hygiene would wander from bed to bed spreading pus and filth around. But this specific accusation that Hunter and Smellie had pregnant women intentionally murdered to provide cadavers for their textbooks doesn’t sound likely.
Although I would never say doctors are automatically innocent. A doctor in Texas was peddling herbal crap on the side, got reported, and retaliated by charging the whistleblowers with a crime. Oh, well…at least we can console ourselves with the idea that he wasn’t really a doctor, but just a fraud with an M.D.
Worst. Journalist. Ever. Suzan Masur is back, sowing her own peculiar brand of indignant cluelessness about science.
I complained about UM’s Center for Woo and it’s promotion of homeopathy. The U daily paper published a brief complaint about the insanity of supporting homeopathy. There was one response from a supporter of homeopathy whose argument was basically that it’s all a matter of opinion, and we ought to encourage all kinds of diverse opinions. Total silence from the administration. I expect they’re quietly working behind the scenes to create a new Center for Astrology.
Speaking of editorial exchanges on newspaper letter pages, here’s a Canadian opposing creationism. Followed by a cretin defending creationism. Followed by a pastor peddling NOMA. If this turns into a 3-way contest, I’m going to feel really queasy aligning with the sky-pilots.
Apparently, there’s a British evangelical channel where the announcers read out testimonials to faith, which is ripe for satire. Someone sent in the opening rap to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and a sneaky paean to the Force which was a rewrite of the Star Wars narrative…and the announcer read them out before catching on. This could be a fun habit.
An interesting analysis of the linking patterns in Facebook profiles shows that the US is broken up into 7 broad domains. Hang on there—I’m living in Stayathomia, where most people link to nearby friends? I wish! I’m feeling a bit strained from all the recent Gosomewhereelsia.
That service that offers to care for your pet if you get raptured? They’ve got over 100 clients who are actually paying money for it! I thought the hypothetical pet-salvation service was a funny idea, but if they’re actually making money off the delusions of others, that’s awfully close to fraud.
How very useful: if you’ve got an iPhone, you can download an app with rebuttals to common denialist arguments.
Also, if you enjoy that kind of thing, you will certainly enjoy Tim Lambert’s demolition of Monckton in a debate.
