Spanking New Scientist

If you open your latest issue of New Scientist (unless, of course, you threw away your subscription), you’ll find a nice little letter from three luminaries — Dennett, Coyne, and Dawkins — and one other guy explaining that Darwin was actually mostly right, contrary to a certain recent cover. Here’s a taste:

What on earth were you thinking when you produced a garish cover proclaiming that “Darwin was wrong” (24 January)?

First, it’s false, and second, it’s inflammatory. And, as you surely know, many readers will interpret the cover not as being about Darwin, the historical figure, but about evolution.

Nothing in the article showed that the concept of the tree of life is unsound; only that it is more complicated than was realised before the advent of molecular genetics. It is still true that all of life arose from “a few forms or… one”, as Darwin concluded in The Origin of Species. It is still true that it diversified by descent with modification via natural selection and other factors.

The flagellation continues.

Creedocide

I wish I were a Republican, so I could just make stuff up

Carl Zimmer is a little bit peeved at the ever flexible standards of the media. If you’re a science writer like he is, your articles get fact-checked until they bleed. If you’re George Will, conservative pedant and pundit, not so much. The Washington Post seems to basically accept whatever he says as gospel truth, even when he gets the scientific facts completely wrong.

Oh, for the day when our media wake up to the fact that they are supposed to be reality-based, not faith-based.

Ray Comfort has a new book

I don’t recommend reading Comfort’s book, but I can whole-heartedly recommend the reviews of You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can’t Make Him Think: Answers to Questions from Angry Skeptics as worthy and entertaining. As you might guess, they aren’t kind.

The best review, though, gives the book five stars. But then, what else would you expect from General JC Christian, Patriot?

Quote of the day

This is a real letter from Muskegon, Michigan.

On the Feb. 8 “60 Minutes” program, we were captivated while viewing the Katie Couric interview of the crew and passengers of Flight 1549.

However, we were struck there was not one mention of God, who directs pilots of planes and secures the safety of passengers.

We have written CBS and asked them for more realistic programming. Help protect our freedoms. Write CBS about this.

It was fine right up through “not one mention of God”, then swoooosh, it plummets off the cliff of insanity into the sucking sludge-pit of unreality. God keeps planes safe? More god = realistic programming? Fawning over a deity protects our freedoms? Nuts.

One reassuring note, though, is that most of the comments on the letter are scathing. Not everyone in Muskegon is quite so wacky, apparently.

I’m having flashbacks to sixth grade, and it isn’t pretty

Diagramming sentences — I remember that, and not at all fondly. I’m sure there’s a sensible purpose to it, but the English language is such a tangle that it was easy to say something trivial that would take ages for me to dissect and diagram. Don’t ask me to do it now, I’ve forgotten every bit of it.

It’s still amusing, though, to see these articles that diagram sentences spoken by a couple of well known people. Examine one of Obama’s sentences, and compare it to Sarah Palin’s words. Obama is “professorial”, always a good thing in my book, while Palin defies analysis.

I have to take their word for it, though. I see those diagrams and want to run back to my math class, which was much more comfortable.

Not just the War on Christmas

I speculated that the Washington state ballot proposal was motivated by the recent noise over atheist displays in the state capitol, and I was wrong. An interview with the woman behind the proposal reveals several things: 1) she really is something of an incoherent dingleberry, and 2) the primary impetus for this idea was — don’t be surprised — creationism. Here’s what she says:

“I think probably at least that more creation science is overlooked as not belonging in the public school system because of the religion (aspect),” she said.

She was impressed by Tom Hoyle (he has a Ph.D. in Christian Apologetics!) of a Northwest creationist ministry, which sort of tells you all you need to know.

Washington state kook wants a law to discriminate against atheists

While Arkansas takes a small step forward, a few people in my home state of Washington want to take a great leap backwards. Some crank named Kimberlie Struiksma, who is apparently associated with education, has proposed to put a remarkably clueless measure onto the ballot. Behold Initiative Measure No. 1040:

Ballot Title
Initiative Measure No. 1040 concerns a supreme ruler of the universe.

This measure would prohibit state use of public money or lands for anything that denies or attempts to refute the existence of a supreme ruler of the universe, including textbooks, instruction or research.

Should this measure be enacted into law? Yes [ ] No [ ]

Ballot Measure Summary
This measure would require state government not to use public funds or property for anything that denies or attempts to refute the existence of a supreme ruler of the universe, including but not limited to appropriations for displays, textbooks, scientific endeavors, instruction, and research projects. The measure would provide that no person shall be questioned based on their personal values, beliefs, or opinions regarding the existence of a supreme ruler of the universe.

That’s just the abstract, and if you’re a masochist, you can read the whole thing; it’s long and tedious. You can get the gist of it, though, in a few paragraphs. It’s a weird document that tries to explicitly silence atheists and cut off any representation of godlessness, but at the same time flounces about and insists that this isn’t discrimination. It’s going to exclude atheists from everything.

Respecting no establishment of religion, yet with respect to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, whose existence has been declared in the preamble to the Constitution of the state of Washington, the state shall make no appropriation for nor apply any public moneys or property in support of anything, specifically including, but not limited to, any display, exercise, instruction, textbook, scientific endeavor, circulated document, or research project which denies or attempts to refute the existence of the Supreme Ruler of the Universe.

There’s a clue to the motivation here in the restriction against “any display”: I bet this is aimed directly at the people who dared to put up an atheist sign alongside the Christmas tree at the Washington state capitol this past year. Many people fulminated against that, and here’s Ms. Struiksma trying to make it illegal for atheist ideas to be presented, while anyone who endorses a god will not be discriminated against.

Then it gets expanded to cover just about anything that might offend a devout Christian. If you read the definitions, for instance, you discover that one of the targets of the ban, “scientific endeavors”, is defined as “any act, idea, theory, intervention, conference, organization, or individual having to do with science.” Apparently, the state cannot support any atheist who is a scientist. There goes a large percentage of the faculty of the University of Washington!

There are also lots of frantic clauses to assure everyone that this is not a “government sponsored witch hunt” and that it wouldn’t “limit or infringe upon religious freedom” — which, of course, simply highlights the fact that that is exactly what it is intended to be and do, and that the author is fully aware of it.

Don’t panic yet, Washingtonians! This is only a proposed initiative. Ms. Struiksma must gather the signatures of 241,153 registered voters by July in order for it to actually be put on the ballot. There aren’t that many crazy stupid people in the state, are there?

On second thought, maybe you should worry a little bit.