Survivor: Pharyngula! Day Two.

Today, we have to assess whether any of our contestants have met the immunity challenge. Very few have tried; I’m afraid this is very much like Monty Python’s Upper Class Twit of the Year contest, in which the competitors are lucky to stumble onto the field at all. Here are all the attempts to answer this question:

In a comment that isn’t longer than about 200 words, that is grammatically correct and logically coherent, and that does not cite the Bible or other religious authorities (and does not rely on tales about who you went to high school with, or tortured analogies involving necrophiliac pedophilic milkmen), explain how evolutionary biologists resolve the trivial conundrum represented by the common question, “If evolution is true, why are there still monkeys?” Remember, answer as a biologist or intelligent layman would, not like Pat Robertson or Ken Ham.

First, there is an entry from Barb. However, even if we didn’t see the sarcasm dripping from it, a check of the email address reveals that it actually isn’t from Barb. Disqualified!

Next up: John Kwok takes a stab at it, and gives a somewhat pompous but correct answer. His reply is notable for two things, however. It is accompanied by possibly the most empty threat I have ever heard — “PZ – If I am bounced off Pharyngula, then you may find yourself losing some friends over at Facebook.” — which immediately prompted a surge of voting to throw Kwok out. Then there is the fact that I specifically said there should be no talk of high school acquaintances, yet Kwok managed to squeeze in mentions of Abbie Smith, Ken Miller, his high school creative writing teacher, and the wife of his high school creative writing teacher. It is truly a marvel, and a beautiful example of exactly how he got on this list in the first place. The oblivious violation of the rules, however, means he must be disqualified.

Finally, Facilis. In an utterly stunning upset, he actually managed to turn out a brief, accurate, two-sentence explanation. The audience was stunned. The judge was frantically checking IP addresses and the validity of the entry, so miraculous was this short, and probably very temporary, flare-up of cogency. It stands, however. This twit has actually managed to complete the first section of the course!

If we’d had a few more entries, I would have opened the discussion up to judge who won. However, since we only have one standing entry, I must officially declare that Facilis is the winner of the immunity challenge. Shock! Horror! Drama!

Now, since I did have to close the previous thread, you can continue voting in this one. Do me a favor, though, and if you change your vote, please clearly say who you are retracting your vote from, and who you are now giving it to…this one may drive me insane trying to tally.

Kent Hovind is still in jail, and he’s going to stay there for a long time

Hovind’s followers, however, are still treading the long and candy-sprinkled road of self-delusion. I’ve been sent a letter pleading for help in his case — they want to take it to the Supreme Court. I will be very surprised if this gets anywhere.

Greetings from Adrienne Gilbert in Kentucky…

An alarming situation with Dr. Kent Hovind of Creation Science Evangelism is putting every American’s first amendment rights in jeopardy. I have been following this case since its beginning, so I wanted to share with you briefly what needs to be done and why.

Summary of situation: Dr. Kent Hovind is in prison for practicing his first amendment right of free religion, and his case needs to go to the Supreme Court. We need everyone united together to overcome the oppression we’re facing.

Summary of needs:
$25,000-$35,000 in the next 2-3 weeks
specific prayer
lots of publicity about the problems with this case

Summary of action:
listen to conference call
send money
pray
spread the word

Details:
First, visit Dr. Hovind’s website, drdino.com, for an explanation of the situation.
http://drdino.com/legalupdate.php
This explains the ministry, what has happened, and what the plans are so far. It also gives the conference call schedule, which will give you the opportunity to really dig deep into the issue and understand why Dr. Hovind is innocent and his case is full of lies. The most shocking to me is at the end of the trial when the judge changed the law saying “more than $10,000” to read “less than $10,000.” Multiple horrors like that stack up to a case that needs to be heard and overturned by the Supreme Court.

Second, make the conference call. (Next call is Monday, March 16, 7:00 p.m. CST, check http://drdino.com/legalupdate.php for updates.)
Besides just learning this case and what we need to do, it will be an amazing time of digging into our government and our Constitution beyond anything you ever imagined.

Third, follow the Lord’s leading.
We are up against spiritual oppression, so there is no textbook-format to follow to make this situation work out. God knows it and can tell each of us what to do.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me any time. I am a super-busy person already, but this project has to take priority because it is a 90-day window to save our freedom. So please pass this along to anyone else who can help as well!

Blessings, Peace, Freedom,
Adrienne Gilbert

The entire sad defense story is built on lies. Hovind is not in jail for practicing his religion — he’s in jail for tax evasion. If you read his legal update, you will discover that he has several feeble arguments that will not hold up. He claims that he was advised by legitimate lawyers that he did not have to pay taxes, and that he did not knowingly structure cash transactions to avoid reporting requirements. Unfortunately, he lives in a country where everyone knows of the 15 April deadline for filing their taxes, where tax cheats are publicly excoriated (especially by the right wing, of which he is a member), where it is well known that tax fraud is an avenue for arresting criminals — Al Capone, for instance — and where we have a prominent public institution, the IRS, which is inescapably well known, again especially among right-wingers, who love to shake their fists at it. When you get a lawyer who throws around terms like “subornation of false muster” and claims that taxation of any kind is unconstitutional, in complete defiance of the obvious operational reality surrounding him, you should know that you’re not working rationally (although, of course, Hovind’s entire professional life is wrapped up in denying reality, so perhaps this is no surprise.) And finally, Hovind and his wife made a whole series of bank withdrawals that were just slightly under the $10,000 limit that would trigger reporting of the activity. They knew. They knew very well what they were doing.

So sure, pray, pray, pray. It’s a complete waste of time, and I encourage the Hovinds to engage in that activity all they want. That con artist has received the punishment he deserves; sadly, it looks like his son, Eric Hovind, is planning to follow in his footsteps — I suspect because he isn’t smart enough to do anything productive with his life.

Science, with its rational methodology and fact-based process, undermines the American way of life

You have our sympathies, Canada

We other Americans, the ones down south in the United States, have been wrestling with this problem for a long time. Sometimes, you just get flaming idiots in charge of important bureaucracies. Sometimes they even get handed the keys to the administration of important scientific institutions. And then they open their mouths and show off how stupid they are, and we poor peons get to sit back and watch the spectacle of money being shoveled into the hands of the incompetent for a while.

Canada has Gary Goodyear, the chiropractor who has been vaulted into the position of minister in charge of science and technology. He does not have a good reputation — his management style leaves much to be desired, and likes to accuse scientists of conspiring to lie to the public — and there are suspicions that he is a closet creationist, so he was recently asked outright if he believed in evolution.

“I’m not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don’t think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate,” Gary Goodyear, the federal Minister of State for Science and Technology, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail.

I think the answer to that one was, “No, no I don’t, Bob.” The giveaway? He wasn’t asked if he was an atheist, he was asked if he accepted a basic scientific fact, and he immediately ran to hide behind the robes of whatever flavor of clueless cleric he favors. That’s creationist behavior, alright.

So, Canada, how long until you give this sorry sad sack the boot?

The fertilized egg is not a human life

A while back, I got a letter from a student at the University of Texas named Mark, who had been confronted by a group of those typically hysterical anti-choice people on campus. They made an assertion I’ve heard many times, and he asked me to counter it.

So there I was, walking along the University of Texas campus, enjoying an absolutely gorgeous day (it was 75 and sunny!) when all of a sudden I’m accosted by a huge structure covered with gigantic (10+ ft) pictures of 5-20 week old fetuses. Surprise! I’d forgotten all about our annual day of political theatre hosted by some pro-life group on campus. I started having a very cordial conversation with a couple of (very cute!) pro-lifers when one of them makes the astounding claim that “Every biologist would agree absolutely that life begins at conception”. I let it pass and then I call her on it after she says it a couple more times. Eventually she explains that she’s very confident in this statement because their ‘executive director” always says it, and claims that if someone proves him wrong he’ll eat the paper it’s written on.

Easy. I sent back a quick reply…I daresay that no competent biologist would take the position that these anti-choicers claim is universal among us.

Life does not begin at conception.

It’s an utterly nonsensical position to take. There is never a “dead” phase — life is continuous. Sperm are alive, eggs are alive; you could even make the argument that since two cells (gametes) enter, but only one cell (a zygote) leaves, fertilization ends a life. Not that I would make that particular claim myself, but it’s definitely true that life is more complicated than the simplistic ideologues of the anti-choice movement would make it.

I recently received more email from someone in this organization; the mail is from a David Lee, but is signed “R.”, so I’m not sure who I’m talking to. Whoever it is, they don’t quite get it, but are trying desperately to weasel out of the bargain now.

Dr. Meyers,

I’m in possession of correspondence between yourself and a University of Texas at Austin student by the name of Mark. Mark handed me a copy of his email addressed to you, and your email response addressed to him dated February 25, 2009, as citing evidence that would require me to eat the page upon which your response was printed.

Mark presented me your remarks as said evidence to be eaten because during the Justice For ALL Exhibit (www.jfaweb.org) presentation at UT-Austin several weeks ago I was heard to offer to eat the page of the biology textbook in use on the UT-Austin campus that asserts that “someone having human parents can be something other than biologically fully human, at any point in their existence.”

I proffered my eating-the-page challenge that day in response to numerous students’ claim that the offspring of two human parents was not biologically human until birth (in their defense most of them were not science majors).

I did not eat the page that Mark handed me that day because it did not contain the evidence I requested. Which is why I now write to you. You claim to have knowledge of such documentation.

In fact you make the bold assertion in your correspondence with Mark that “[Human] life does not begin at conception” followed by “…There is never a ‘dead’ phase — life is continuous. Sperm are alive, eggs are alive; you could even make the argument that since two cells (gametes) enter, but only one cell (a zygote) leaves, fertilization ends a life. Not that I would make that particular claim myself… .” (my bold and italics)

I’m encouraged that you don’t make the claim that human fertilization ends a human life; however in postulating the argument you seem to grant nebulous scientific credibility to those who might make such a claim? For what purpose? Surely not to discredit my position.

Unless you believe in the possibility of an extra-physical or metaphysical existence, I seriously doubt that you believe your own assertion that “…There is never a ‘dead’ phase — life is continuous.”

On what evidence do you base your assertion that “life is continuous?” Do you believe in life after death in some physical or metaphysical sense? If you mean by your assertion that at least one human self-directing organism must contribute living genetic material in order for a new member of the human species to come into existence I quite agree.

But you have labeled my assertion “simplistic” and “nonsensical” that sexually reproduced human life — I’ll go further than that — all new mammalian species members, have a beginning, and that that beginning is the conception of the species member.

So professor, you’re on the record; from a biology or human embryology textbook in use on an accredited university campus (your own University of Minnesota-Morris campus would be fine), please cite chapter and page that unequivocally states that “human life does not begin at conception.”

I look forward to your reply. Respectfully,

R.

Talk about complete, blind incomprehension…no, I’m not talking about life after death, since I don’t believe in that, either. I’m saying that it is absurd to talk about a life beginning at conception because it didn’t begin then: the precursors to the zygote were also alive. The only “beginning” of life that we could talk about occurred a few billion years ago, and even that wasn’t discrete, but the product of a gradual progression from chemical replicator to functioning cell, a cline upon which there was no point where one could say that everything before was dead, and everything after was alive. Life is a very fuzzy concept.

One thing you’ll notice is the frantic attempt to qualify everything by inserting the qualifier “human” before every mention of the word “life”, to the point where they are even adding it when quoting me! Alas, it doesn’t help them at all. I’m also confident that the freshly fertilized zygote is not human, either. There’s more to being human than bearing a cell with the right collection of genes.

Now this person wants a specific quote from a biology text that has the words “human life does not begin at conception” in it. That would be tough, because it’s a sentence that rather boggles the brain of any developmental biologist — we also tend not to write sentences like, “human beings are not flies”. We kind of expect that anyone intelligent enough to read the textbook doesn’t need their hand held in superfluous explications of the bleedin’ obvious. But you will find us saying simple things like that in email and conversations and even popular lectures to lay people…such as this talk by Lewis Wolpert.

Wolpert is, of course, one of the best known developmental biologists on the planet. He is also the author of a very good introductory text in developmental biology (Principles of Development(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll)
), one that I use in my classes at UMM, and in this lecture (which you really should watch and listen to in its entirety, it’s very good), he does come right out and say the bleedin’ obvious.

What I’m concerned with is how you develop. I know that you all think about it perpetually that you come from one single cell of a fertilized egg. I don’t want to get involved in religion but that is not a human being. I’ve spoken to these eggs many times and they make it quite clear … they are not a human being.

There, that should help. When you go reaching for an authority in development, a professor at a small liberal arts college isn’t the sine qua non of the field (well, unless maybe you’re talking about Scott Gilbert…), but you really can’t pull rank higher than Lewis Wolpert.

Survivor: Pharyngula! Day One.

I mentioned before that we’re a bit full up on commenting kooks, and it’s time to purge a few. Here’s a short list of our contestants this week, a few of the obnoxious people who are lurking about in the comments right now. We’re going to get rid of some of them, one at a time.

Barb
Alan Clarke
Facilis
John Kwok
Pete Rooke
RogerS
Simon

Everyone gets to vote them off the blog — just leave a comment with the name of the competitor you like least, and I’ll tally them up on Wednesday morning, and the winner gets evicted.

But wait! There’s more! We have to have an immunity challenge, don’t we? Our 7 intrepid dingleberries have an opportunity to save themselves by meeting an appropriate challenge by 1:00pm Central time tomorrow. After 1:00, I’ll ask the readers here to vote on who best and adequately met the challenge (and you’ll all be fair and honest about it, I hope), and that winner will be exempt from eviction this round. Sounds fun, right?

Here’s the challenge. In a comment that isn’t longer than about 200 words, that is grammatically correct and logically coherent, and that does not cite the Bible or other religious authorities (and does not rely on tales about who you went to high school with, or tortured analogies involving necrophiliac pedophilic milkmen), explain how evolutionary biologists resolve the trivial conundrum represented by the common question, “If evolution is true, why are there still monkeys?” Remember, answer as a biologist or intelligent layman would, not like Pat Robertson or Ken Ham.

Go! Voting will continue until Wednesday morning, our contestants have until 1:00pm Central on Tuesday to meet the immunity challenge.

Who put the hallucinogens in Pat Boone’s ovaltine?

Pat Boone had a dream. He dreamed that he was president. It would be our nightmare; after going on and on about the usual far right anti-tax tripe and militaristic fantasies, he gets to education.

As a man who intended to be a teacher myself, I issued an ultimatum to the teachers’ unions: They would return to basic math, including arithmetic, and basic English (the mandated official language), and basic science devoid of unproven theories like evolution, sticking instead to factual evidence and not discounting “intelligent design” as the more scientific basis for life and existence. All history books would again detail the reasons America was founded, and tell the stories of our Founding Fathers and national heroes – not latter day revisions. Teachers’ pay and advancement would depend on the test scores and comprehension of their students.

Yikes. Delusional incompetence on display!

And then he ends his goofy reminiscence of a trivial dream with this:

I woke up tingling with excitement – only to find I’d been dreaming. But I can’t get it out of my mind.

It’s a dream, Pat. I know you loons have a tough time sorting out reality from fantasy, but it’s nothing to be excited about. And forget about running for the presidency: you’re a crazy ol’ coot with no skills or talent, and the time for your kind is over.