…and suddenly people everywhere are sending you images from their snail and slug porn collections. You are all just plain weird.
It’s been confirmed: members of the Oklahoma legislature are investigating the suspicious circumstances of Richard Dawkins’ lecture. After all, what possible excuse could UO have for inviting a known rabblerouser who doesn’t happen to believe in gods? Other than his reputation as a world-famous scientist, writer, and speaker, of course.
Sure enough, I just received confirmation today in a letter from the Open Records Office at the University of Oklahoma. The letter confirms that on the day of Dawkins’ speech, Oklahoma State Representative Rebecca Hamilton requested substantial information relating to the speech from Vice President for Governmental Relations Danny Hilliard. Representative Hamilton’s exhaustive request included demands for all e-mails and correspondence relating to the speech; a list of all money paid to Dawkins and the entities, public or private, responsible for this funding; and the total cost to the university, including, among other things, security fees, advertising, and even “faculty time spent promoting this event.”
Rick Farmer, the director of committee staff for the Oklahoma House of Representatives, also wrote the University on March 12, requesting confirmation that Dawkins had indeed waived all compensation for the speech.
It’s actually too bad that Dawkins waived his fee — he was well within his rights to ask for it, and the university had the right to invest in bringing interesting ideas to campus. The issue is not whether speakers should be paid, it’s whether these witch-hunters are overstepping their bounds. Don’t like an idea that’s being expressed at a university? Call out the hounds and make ’em sweat.
In other surprising news, ERV seems to have a low opinion of the investigators.
I’m not the only one who gets crazy email: Pam Spaulding got an excellent example of grade A wackaloonery, and at first I was a little jealous, until I looked more closely. It’s the same mail I got back in February! I’m still the champ!
It looks like somebody taught the poor fellow about paragraphs in the past month, which helps. It’s not in Comic Sans, either — I may have to give Pam a few suggestions.
For the past few years, I have been receiving postcards from Theo Nelson regularly. They are lovely and colorful handmade cards with a poem on the back. I got another one today — all the others are lined up on a wall in my office — and I thought it was about time to mention it. It’s Spring again!
Of course, Spring in western Minnesota doesn’t look much like that: what we have is lots of gray rain, gray dirty snow shrinking into lumps of gray dirty ice, and brown grass poking up through mud…but we’ll take it!
(Reverse of card below the fold)
I’ve received a few queries about the end of the Battlestar Galactica series, and I can’t offer an opinion — I didn’t watch it. Since there seems to be enough fans here, though, I’ll turn you loose on it. Great? Sucked? Eh?
I didn’t watch it because I haven’t watched much of the series at all. There are a couple of reasons: 1) I’m old enough to remember the original BSG, and was not at all interested (I know, it’s radically different, but I didn’t know that at the beginning); 2) it’s on the Sci-Fi Channel, which has become the label of instant recognition for cheesy formulaic crap; 3) I did see a few episodes early in the run, and was turned off by the god-happy nonsense in those few shows — again, I heard that they went off in some interesting directions after that, but the damage was done to my impression, and 4) it’s the kind of series that demands long investment in the full story, and I’ve never had the time to catch up with it all. I may grab the DVD of the whole series at some point, just to give it the attention so many people tell me it deserves.
This is an amusing tale of creationist hypocrisy. Ken Ham is complaining that one of his staff members was “ambushed”, because he wasn’t given a solo interview, but had to share the discussion with a critic (meanwhile, Ham has no compunction about “ambushing”, in the same sense, scientific discussions). What I found most interesting, though, were Ken Ham’s complaints about the BBC.
This past week, Dr. Jason Lisle–our astrophysicist*—was invited to be on a BBC radio program out of Southampton , England (where I spoke a couple of weeks ago). We were told that it was just going to be an “examination of creationism.” Well, we are somewhat leery when it comes to dealing with the British media–by far, British journalists and commentators (and particularly those from the BBC) are the most mocking about biblical Christianity of all the media we’ve worked with over the years. We have had probably 20 different countries send reporters to the Creation Museum since we opened 22 months ago, and most of them have been fair and balanced in their coverage–but not so with the typical British reporter.
Take a bow, any typical British reporters reading this. Could you please come over here and give lessons to typical American reporters?
*You have to giggle at the idea of an astrophysicist who claims that the universe is only 6000 years old.
The Pope is on a grand tour of Africa, where he has been striking up a theme of — brace yourself — opposing superstition. The man who heads an institution with an official top exorcist is asking Africans to “shun witchcraft”, and to reject fear-mongering talk of evil entities…
In his homily, he urged his listeners to reach out to those Angolans who believe in witchcraft and spirits. “So many of them are living in fear of spirits, of malign and threatening powers. In their bewilderment they even end up condemning street children and the elderly as alleged sorcerers,” he said.
Right. Don’t believe in malign spirits, like, say Satan. Has the Pope become an atheist lately?
Oh, I guess not. He’s still demanding that people believe in supernatural occult powers that have battled and defeated other supernatural occult powers.
In his homily, the pope urged Catholics to try to persuade those who had left the Church that “Christ has triumphed over death and all those occult powers.”
If only they would turn their powers of skepticism, critical thought, and rejection of unfounded supernatural phenomena on themselves, the Vatican would implode overnight.
Jerry Coyne says lots of basic (but well-stated) things about evolution, creationism, and education in an interview with American Scientist. Here’s a taste:
Some creationists seem to feel that it’s the scientists who are being dogmatic here–that you’re somehow invested in this idea or want it to be true, or that your training has blinded you to other possibilities. How do you respond to that?
I think they’re the ones who are dogmatic, because the difference between religion and science, which is the difference between religion and evolution, is that we question things. Nobody worships Darwin as a religion. We don’t adhere to a set of dogmas that are unchanging and unquestionable. We all recognize that Darwin was wrong about a lot of stuff. His theories of genetics were wrong, his theories of biogeography were wrong–that’s been corrected by plate tectonics–his stuff on sexual selection is very good but not complete. Evolutionary biology is constantly changing and revising its conclusions. But the main conclusions that Darwin made–that evolution occurred, that it occurred through natural selection, that there were common ancestry and splitting and that it happened slowly–those have all been supported.
Read it all.
This week, I’ll be heading off to Grand Rapids, Michigan for a few days, and more than a few of you have been asking me for the details. Here’s my itinerary:
Wednesday – March 25, 2009
4:00-4:30 pm – Interview with Jeremy Beahan – Reasonable Doubts Radio Show/ Podcast
5:00 pm – Check into Hotel: Days Hotel Downtown GR.
6:30 pm – Meeting Setup @ WCC (Jeff Seaver will pick you up at Hotel at 6:15)
7:00 pm – CFI Featured Event @ WCC Format: 45-60 minute presentation with Q&A following (RSVP here).
9:00 pm – After event Social at Vitale’s Restaurant.Thursday – March 26, 2009
9:30-11:30 am – Breakfast with Science Professors. Discussion topic: Evolution Education Mezze Restaurant – Downtown Grand Rapids (Attendee’s TBA).
11:45-12:15 – Interview with Ed Brayton of Declaring Independence – WPRR 1680
12:30-2:00 pm – GRCC Campus Event: Discussion. Some will have “brown-bag lunch” – we can provide food for you based on your preference or get lunch after this event.
4:00-5:30 pm – GVSU Campus Event: Discussion
7:00 pm – 3 Beer Discussion (RSVP here): Social Event & Dinner with CFI Members (you are invited to join us for as long as you are interested)
Maybe I’ll see a few of you there!
