Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Now that he’s been drummed off the NY Times editorial pages, I guess Ben Stein can throw restraint to the winds.
We have … an entire party, the Democrats, whose primary constituency, besides the teachers’ unions, is homosexual men and lesbian women. I hope it won’t come as a surprise to anyone that a big part of male homosexual behavior is interest in young boys.
Why, yes, it will come as a big surprise. There is a range of homosexual behavior (just as there is a range of heterosexual behavior), and among both homo- and heterosexual men, there is a significant minority that are focused on youth. Shall we accuse most heteros of being pedophiles, too?
Besides, I think he confused “homosexual” with “Catholic priest”.
Oh, and just for that perfect addition to the above nonsense, here’s the beginning of the very next paragraph.
Don’t get me wrong. My very best friend is gay.
I got a letter from John F — you know, John Flansburgh, of They Might Be Giants — and he says, “We’ve got this new album coming out that you might like, want me to send you a copy?”, and so I nonchalantly type back, “Sure, here’s my address,” which was really hard to do when you understand that I was dancing jigglety-pigglety in my chair, pumping my fists in the air, and shouting “WOO-HOO!” at the same time. It would have been impossible except for my blogging superpowers. (Oh, yeah…I’m a TMBG fanboi.)
I got the album Here Comes Science the other day, and it is fabulous. It’s kids’ music, so it’s catchy and a teeny-tiny bit didactic, but don’t let that put you off — I’ve loaded it onto my iPod and am enjoying it all the time. It’s also contains a CD and a DVD: each song also has an animated cartoon to go with it. They’re great and enthusiastic songs — my favorites so far are “I am a paleontologist” and “Science is real”.
You should buy it. It’ll be available next week, or you can always stop by my house and I’ll put the DVD up on the big screen and we can all rock out in my living room — I’ll push all the furniture to the side so we can all dance. Or if you’re cheap and don’t like me, you can subscribe to the TMBG podcast on iTunes: they’re going to release a song a week.
Can’t wait? You can get a look at “Science is Real” right now.
I should warn you, though, it’s controversial. Yeah, right. Look at the comments on Amazon. The song “Science is Real” contains these lyrics:
I like the stories
About angels, unicorns and elves
Now I like the stories
As much as anybody else
But when I’m seeking knowledge
Either simple or abstract
The facts are with science
The facts are with science
This has prompted a few comments.
I love TMBG more than anybody, but was it really necessary to take a pot-shot at religion?
This guy must be one of those thin-skinned elf worshippers.
As a Christian I’m offended by comparing unicorns, elves with angels. Unicorns and Elves are fiction, and angels are biblical. End of story.
(Shhh. Don’t tell him about Numbers 23:22 and 24:8, Deuteronomy 33:17, Job 39:9,10, Psalms 22:21 and 29:6 and
92:10 or Isaiah 34:7. Unicorns are biblical, too.)
This is why the accommodationist strategy is doomed to failure. There is no gentle demurral from religion that will not offend someone — even fun songs about science are expected to pretend that angels are real.
The Catholic church has instructions for you before you get down to business with your sweetie: you’re supposed to say a little prayer. This one.
Father, send your Holy Spirit into our hearts. Place within us love that truly gives, tenderness that truly unites, self-offering that tells the truth and does not deceive, forgiveness that truly receives, loving physical union that welcomes.
Open our hearts to you, to each other and to the goodness of your will. Cover our poverty in the richness of your mercy and forgiveness. Clothe us in true dignity and take to yourself our shared aspirations, for your glory, forever and ever. Mary, our mother, intercede for us. Amen.
Ooooh. Gets me hot*. Maybe Kristin Maguire can write a story with this little fillip in it.
Hey, wait a minute…what are a bunch of old pseudo-celibates doing recommending prayers before sex? Do they teach this one to the altar boys?
*Actually, it doesn’t. I lied. I think it would be kind of a buzzkill.
The BBC has an article on the recent direct measurement of human mutation rates, and while it’s not a bad article, it does seem to express the view that the result is something novel. It’s not; it’s a confirmation of a standard measure that scientists have known about for a long, long time. We have estimated the number of novel mutations in newborn human individuals to be somewhere between a hundred and a few hundred (best estimates were on the order of 150) based on a couple of facts.
We’ve had measurements of the fidelity of the enzymes that catalyze replication, and since we know both the per nucleotide rate and the number of nucleotides, it’s straightforward to calculate the average number of errors per replication event. We’ve also had estimates from the measured frequency of spontaneous mutations in human disease genes that have given answers in the same ballpark. The only thing new in this recent study is that they sequenced the Y chromosomes of a group of related men and directly tallied up the new mutations, confirming that the previous calculations were roughly correct.
Like I say, it’s not a bad article, but if you really want the best summary of the work, you should be reading Sandwalk.
It’s useful information for the next time you’re in a debate with a creationist, too. They often assert that all mutations are harmful, but clearly, they can’t be: they’re almost entirely neutral. That creationist is carrying over a hundred new mutations that his parents lacked, and his children will each have over a hundred more, and his grandchildren a hundred yet again. What we have going on is a great churn of frequent change, just change, not a pattern of directional variation that either degrades or elevates us.
This peculiar little email is nothing special, but is actually rather representative. It’s interesting because most atheists will read it one way, where I suspect he actually means it another way.
Professor Myers,
My name is Jack Heidman and I am an F15 pilot and commercial airline pilot for American Airlines. I am not a biologist. I was too busy flirting with my cute lab partner to pay attention in high school biology class (by the way, I went to Wayzata High – I bet you know where that is).
I would seriously like your opinion on another stupid creationist question I have. I know that you know your origins view is correct and I am wrong. I also know that you know us creationists (especially young earth creationists) are incredibly misinformed and/or stupid. I am not trying to be sarcastic. You are obviously a very educated individual and I am quite certain you are much more intelligent than I am.
My stupid creationist question is simple: What if you’re wrong? Pascal once said “Are you willing to wager eternity?” Is it possible that where you go when you die might be as important as where you came from (in your case – primordial soup)? Don’t you think your eternity might be worth a little consideration? I’ve seen your picture on the internet and I notice a few grey hairs in your beard. Unfortunately I’m getting a few myself which reminds me every morning when I shave to consider my post-death living quarters (you might want to ask yourself…smoking or non?)
The walls of your Neo-Darwinian Jericho are crumbling around you. You know it. You’ve known it for a long, long time. The problem is, now other people are figuring it out as well. A lot of other people!
Sir, please think about my stupid creationist question. I eagerly await your reply.
Respectfully,
Lt Col Jack Heidman
F15 Pilot and…
A Colossally Stupid Bible Believing Creationist
Most of you are probably thinking that he was being extremely sarcastic, in spite of his disavowal — he starts off by telling me how smart I am and how stupid he is, and winds up asserting that I’m wrong about everything, and he knows it…and then he emphasizes how stupid he is. If you read it aloud, you’d probably adopt a mocking, sneering tone.
However, he probably is entirely sincere and not at all sarcastic (emphasis on “probably” — he could be trying to be obnoxious, but I’ve talked to enough creationists to suspect that he isn’t.) There’s a key to understanding his intent.
This is classic American anti-intellectualism. He honestly believes that intelligence is not a virtue, so in a weird twist of values, he is venting a bit by accusing me of being intelligent, and bragging about himself when he says he is stupid. Heidman is a prideful man with a huge ego; it’s why he starts off with the announcement that he is an accomplished pilot. That isn’t a contradiction with his anti-intellectualism, either: learning to fly an F15 is not an exercise of the brain to him, but a God-given talent. He didn’t believe in wasting time learning in high school, when he could instead make time with the girls. He’d probably also deny being egotistical, because it’s OK to gloat over one’s abilities if they are a gift from God.
He’s also entirely correct. He is Colossally Stupid, because he doesn’t think. He’s happy to toss around Pascal’s Wager even though it is a pathetic argument, because it feels good to his gut, and he’s already blindly confident that his particular faith is entirely true. You can tell him that he is stupid, and he will be unfazed, and will probably take considerable pride in the label — people who think, think, think get in the way of unreasoning acceptance of his blithe confidence. We could easily rip his ‘argument’ to shreds — it doesn’t address any of the issues of origins, it’s little more than a fallacious argument from consequence, and it is non-specific and can be used equally well to defend any random religious belief, from the Amish to Zoroastrianism — but that doesn’t matter. He’d smirk happily through any dissection, because he didn’t use his brain to come up with it, anyway.
It’s sad. There are a lot of people who believe this way, on feelings and gut impressions and simple, stupid confidence in what they already “know”, where “knowing” in their case is nothing but unquestioning acceptance of what they’ve been told.
Be aware. This attitude is more common than you can imagine.
If you’re going to build a massive con to defraud people out of $50 million, you want to pick your marks carefully. You want people who are gullible, don’t demand a lot of evidence, and are willing to go along with you as long as it takes to milk them dry, as long as you promise bliss. Where would you go to find a large number of such people? It’s obvious: go to church, like Tri Energy did.
Like those caught up in other get-rich scams — from Bernard Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme, which initially snared wealthy Jews, to an alleged $4.4 million fraud aimed at deaf people — Tri Energy’s investors had something in common. Many were Mormons and born-again Christians who shared dreams and prayers on nightly conference calls. They vowed to use the profits for charitable works and kept raising funds, at times taking out second mortgages, draining retirement accounts and recruiting relatives.
No one deserves the fleecing these victims got, though. Elderly people had their savings cleaned out; at least one committed suicide after he realized how thoroughly he had been ripped off.
Let’s hear it for the arts!
The detestation of Genesis is universal, but hey you Brits! Instead of nagging on our creationist creepazoids, maybe you need to pick on the creationists in your backyard. Although, I have to say, the English creationists seem much less unpleasant than Ken Ham.
It’s time for some monkey music, composed from patterns in tamarin monkey calls. The ‘fearful monkey music’ is irritating to even this ape, and the ‘happy monkey music’ doesn’t make me happy at all. Maybe we’re not so related after all. Especially since the monkeys seem to like Metallica.
I also can’t dance. But you can now watch science-based dance, with ballet compositions built around Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition (I wonder if it ends with everyone frozen motionless?), animal courtship dances, and the Big Bang, which must be very hard on the dancers.
When we hit that poll at Sedalia the other day, the newspaper noticed — they actually have a news story on their poll being crashed.
Richard DeFord, The Sedalia Democrat interactive systems manager, said Saturday’s online paper had 25,118 page views, Sunday had 22,096 and as of 4:40 p.m. Monday had 70,939.
If views continue at the current rate, DeFord said, it will reach 90,406 before the night is done. DeFord said Monday’s views indicate the story is viral, or has become popular in a short period of time.
Of those views, many originated from as far away as London, England; Sydney and Melbourne, Australia; Dublin, Ireland; Stockholm, Sweden; Helsinki, Finland; Oslo, Norway; and Auckland, New Zealand, DeFord reported.
Good work, you globe-spanning rascals. I think it’s immensely useful to let small town America know that one of the effects of the internet age is that the whole world can pay attention to you. No one gets to be provincial anymore.
