An honest admission from Senator Harkin

Democratic Senator Tom Harkin is the pol who pushed a major “alternative medicine” proposal through congress that led to the formation of the NCCAM, a hotbed of government-sponsored quackery. He now regrets the effort, but for all the wrong reasons. It’s hard to imagine a more damning statement that reveals an utter ignorance of how science should work than this one:

Sen. Tom Harkin, the proud father of the National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine, told a Senate hearing on Thursday that NCCAM had disappointed him by disproving too many alternative therapies.

“One of the purposes of this center was to investigate and validate alternative approaches. Quite frankly, I must say publicly that it has fallen short,” Harkin said.

The senator went on to lament that, since its inception in 1998, the focus of NCCAM has been “disproving things rather than seeking out and approving things.”

Skeptics have complained all along that Harkin and his allies founded this office to promote alternative therapies at public expense, not to test them scientifically. Harkin’s statement at the hearing explicitly confirms that hypothesis.

He’s unhappy because the research didn’t give him the answer he wanted. Does he think science is a magic wishing well?

Maybe we need to establish a new political party, the Rationalists, to replace both the Democrats and Republicans. It would be a wonderful idea, but I fear it would never get more than 0.001% of the American vote.

Oh, come on, American Atheists

The American Atheists web site includes a very silly poll. Is Blasphemy a crime?

Yes: 3268
96%
No: 94
2%

Sure, it’s going in a strongly sensible direction, but wouldn’t a short paragraph explaining why blasphemy is not an actionable crime be more informative? Just asking atheists to state that their existence is not criminal is a no-brainer. And I sure hope they never try to claim that these results support the contention that blasphemy is not a crime.

Oops, wait…as is pointed out in the comments, I read this wrong — the poll was going in the wrong direction. I guess I just couldn’t believe that such a strong majority was actually endorsing such a ridiculous position.

I failed this test

It’s hard, you try it: it’s the Religion 101 final exam. I sure hope they post the answer key sometime.

Although…if it’s evaluated in the same way religion is, maybe any answer will do, and I’ve actually aced it.

Oh, wait — I answered it the atheist way, which is to leave it blank. That’s probably the one way you’re guaranteed to get stern angry looks from the teacher and expulsion from the whole school.

Movie star for a day

The last time I was interviewed on location here in Morris was the fateful day that I was taped for a little movie that became Expelled…and we know how that turned out. It’s happening again, only this time it’s not some secretive intelligent design proponent coming in on false pretenses: it’s Josh Timonen of the Richard Dawkins Foundation stopping by. I think I’m fairly safe this time, and don’t expect to be turned into the villain of the documentary they’re putting together.

It takes some dedication to do this. We’re a long 3 hour drive from the nearest airport, reached by way of a notorious series of speed-traps, it’s -10°F, snow is piled high in deep drifts all around, and once you get here, well, you’re in the tiny town of Morris. It’s a pleasant place to live, but it isn’t exactly renowned for its tourist appeal. I think it’s easier to get to Ulan Bator than here.

The greatest break-up story ever told

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Long timers here may recall that I mentioned this cool video by Nina Paley called Sita Sings the Blues several years ago. At that time, all that was available were some short but very pretty clips.

Good news! Sita Sings the Blues is done, and available on the web. It’s Saturday evening — go ahead, set aside an hour and a half to watch it. How often do you run across Hindu myths animated and set to the 1920’s jazz?

Speaking of Hindu myths, have you ever read any of their creation stories? Here’s one version:

Before time began there was no heaven, no earth and no space between. A vast dark ocean washed upon the shores of nothingness and licked the edges of night. A giant cobra floated on the waters. Asleep within its endless coils lay the Lord Vishnu. He was watched over by the mighty serpent. Everything was so peaceful and silent that Vishnu slept undisturbed by dreams or motion.
From the depths a humming sound began to tremble, Om. It grew and spread, filling the emptiness and throbbing with energy. The night had ended. Vishnu awoke. As the dawn began to break, from Vishnu’s navel grew a magnificent lotus flower. In the middle of the blossom sat Vishnu’s servant, Brahma. He awaited the Lord’s command.

Vishnu spoke to his servant: ‘It is time to begin.’ Brahma bowed. Vishnu commanded: ‘Create the world.’

It’s silly and magical, but it’s also beautiful. We hear that awful tinny poetry of Genesis so often that I think it’s worth looking around at other cultures just to see how petty and third-rate the Western bible is. Not that I want anyone believing in Vishnu and the lotus growing out of his navel, but at least it’s much more lovely and imaginative than the repetitive nonsense we’re used to.

Atheists now rule most of the world

Who knew that all you had to do is change the definition of “atheist”? Put on your sunglasses and visit this site—the color scheme is classic fluorescent kook—and you will discover that atheists are people who deny the divinity of Jesus Christ. Period. Which means…

  • James van Praagh, loopy psychic medium and newager, is an atheist!
  • All Jews…atheists!
  • Muslims…atheists!
  • Martin Luther King…atheist! (Wait, what?)

I like this game. Atheists also deny the divinity of Thor, which means…Christians are atheists!

There. Now that we’ve taken over the world, I think I deserve to go have some ice cream.

Hey, is the blog still here?

Tap, tap. Can you hear me?

You sure? I heard that International Authorities were going to disappear me.

If you hadn’t heard that, you missed one of the most hilarious comment threads ever. After we made light of a pointless poll about the afterlife, various fans of that site were so horrified that many complaints were launched…and of course, the owner was so deeply committed to free speech that he simply deleted our contribution. One fellow was so indignant that he charged off to the Richard Dawkins forums to complain. He lists his grievances, and, boy, are you readers wicked people. You use rude language, you aren’t sufficiently respectful of loony ideas, and when people come here to tell you to shut up if you can’t say anything nice, you insult them.

I think I love you guys.

I am also very evil, because I link to sites with which I disagree, and then you loud, rude, skeptical hooligans go off and laugh at them. This was too much for Jonny-Boy, who wants us silenced.

Having failed to get this man to accept a single shred of responsibility for dragging his offensive website in the direction of other people who haven’t in any way requested its presence, and also for allowing deliberately offensive personal attacks to both appear and remain online in concern of me, I’m now wondering who I should start complaining to?

I’ve taken snapshots of all the content I’ve mentioned–including PZ’s remarks here–and I’m going to start emailing this stuff out to any relevant ISP’s, internet watchdog groups and scientific bodies in the States and Europe. Let’s see what other people make of it.

I also think it’s intellectually dishonest and harms the atheist cause–both points which I happen to care about.

I had hoped he’d be nice enough to cc this damning letter to me, since I’m sure it would put me in a very jolly mood, but I haven’t heard anything yet. The Western Civilization Internet Police haven’t dropped in on me yet, either. I’m facing a long afternoon of lab maintenance, the really dreary stuff that isn’t exciting at all, so being hauled off to the Hague for fomenting rowdiness on the internet would be an exciting and welcome relief.

How often have you heard the phrase, “harms the cause”? It’s getting a bit old; the only time it comes up seems to be when some over-cautious WATB gets worked up over someone who is trying to change the status quo, and especially when anyone actually dares to criticize bourgeois convention in the pursuit of a goal. It’s not a phrase I use, but it’s as good as donning a uniform for recognizing those timid souls who intend to stand in our way.

The “intellectually dishonest” accusation is a peculiar one. He’s applying it to me because I won’t go into your comments and edit them to remove profanity, harsh accusations, or worst of all, insults directed at Jonny-Boy. I’m not making this up — he actually suggests that I remove all the comments that offend him.

So that aside, please attend to those offensive comments aimed at me on your site (perhaps do it only as a one-off courtesy if you like) and feel free to replace those unwarranted, derogatory posts with animated pictures of little bunnies skipping around and eating grass–if it makes you feel better. That way you can still kind of rub my nose in the content when it’s gone and have another chuckle, only this time fully on me.

Poor fellow. He doesn’t understand that free speech means you let people say things which you find disagreeable, and that intellectual honesty doesn’t involve censoring everyone who disagrees with you. He also doesn’t seem to understand me at all — why would I feel good about shredding other people’s comments and replacing them with fluffy bunnies? Why do I need to censor other people’s ideas to laugh at him? Why do I owe him any courtesy at all?

I hope you see this. You might not. Jonny-Boy has big dreams of deleting the whole site.

Anyway we’ll see how this turns out. Don’t be surprised if you end-up wondering where Pharyngula went.

Because that would be intellectually honest and would help the atheist cause.

Amusing:

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Greg, the host of the Daily Grail, speaks, and confirms that he is an idiot. Why was he unhappy that I linked to a poll on his site?

My take is that you intentionally vandalised my site.

Take away his license to use the interwebs — I am gobsmacked that someone that stupid is actually contributing to it. (Oh, well, that’s hyperbole: I’ve read youtube comments and myspace pages, and I’m actually aware of how stupid you can be and get away with putting stuff on the web.)