Archbishop flames on

A while back, I posted about the fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury had unambiguously condemned creationism. While I appreciated the sentiment, I had my doubts about his sincerity, and mentioned that I preferred my religious authorities to say “crazy stupid things”. Perhaps the Archbishop reads my blog, because he has obliged.

The Archbishop hit out against the "two extremes" in the range of theories of how the world began in his Holy Week lecture on Faith and Science last night. He said "Science has more to do than is simply covered by these theories."

Creationists believe in the literal version of creation as told in Genesis, and argue that man walked the earth at the same time as the dinosaurs. Neo Darwinists argue that culture is subject to evolutionary forces which will eventually weed out religion.

Dr Williams admitted that Neo Darwinism, a theory supported by Atheist Professor Richard Dawkins, is "most problematic" to theology, but he called it "a pseudo science" and "deeply vulnerable to intellectual challenge because it is trying to be a theology."

In a sideswipe at evolutionary scientists such as Professor Dawkins, Williams warned "Science can be seduced into making exaggerated claims."  He added "Neo Darwinism of Dawkins’ kind carries with it a rather subjective agenda…It is as vulnerable as Christianity". Both Neo Darwinism and Christianity are telling stories, the Archbishop continued, Christianity acknowledges that fact, Neo Darwinism doesn’t.

Thattaboy, Archbishop. I appreciate the help in exposing the inanity of religion.

For those following along, Rowan Williams clearly has no idea what the neo-Darwinian synthesis says, because nowhere does it claim that evolution will weed out religion; even I, brutal opponent of all things godly, can see reasonable arguments for the adaptiveness of religion, or the absence of selection against religion, or that there are acceptable rationales for religion as an exaptation. But otherwise, the admission that science is a problem for theology, and the ignorant claim that evolution is a pseudo-science, are useful tools for the atheist conspiracy.

In which I concede that some scientists are evil and stupid

The name Satoshi Kanazawa wasn’t familiar to me until I read Cosma Shalizi’s lovely needlework on the guy, but then I remembered … I have his book, Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters, on my shelf. It has a wonderfully provocative title, so I even skimmed a couple of chapters, which sent multiple wtf signals bouncing around in my brain — the premise of the title is the product of statistical shenanigans, and I don’t think the authors would recognize a mechanism if it advanced menacingly on them and threatened them with physical dismantlement — so I set it aside and allowed it gather dust.

Now I learn that Kanazawa has a blog, like everyone does nowadays, and he calls himself the “Scientific Fundamentalist”. I wish I could say that finally we have a target for all those people who complain about fundamentalist atheists and fundamentalist scientism and fundamentalist whatever-they-hateists, but no, Kanazawa does as much violence to the word “fundamentalism” as he does to biology. He’s more like an amoral, principle-free, unconscious reactionary, which isn’t really a fundamentalist mindset. How bad is he? Well, he argues that Americans need to hate a little more.

Here’s a little thought experiment. Imagine that, on September 11, 2001, when the Twin Towers came down, the President of the United States was not George W. Bush, but Ann Coulter. What would have happened then? On September 12, President Coulter would have ordered the US military forces to drop 35 nuclear bombs throughout the Middle East, killing all of our actual and potential enemy combatants, and their wives and children. On September 13, the war would have been over and won, without a single American life lost.

Yes, we need a woman in the White House, but not the one who’s running.

Whoa.

That’s an argument that carries reductionism well past over-simplification, beyond stupid, and deep into the territory of bug-eyed crazy. That’s not a thought experiment, it’s a right-wing masturbation fantasy. Kanazawa must be looking for a gig writing for WingNutDaily.

I have to go take a shower right now, so I’ll leave you with this most excellent rebuttal.

The above, to be sure, is somewhat ambiguous. It could be that what he’s saying is that, were Coulter president, she would have hated her new-found enemies appropriately, nuked the Middle East and thus “won” the war on terror in a day. But it could be that Kanazawa doesn’t think that would have been a good idea, it could be that he’s simply arguing hypothetically without endorsing that course of action. And yet… it really doesn’t read that way. The tone, the context, and the register all suggest to me that Kanazawa would have approved of a nuclear response to 9/11. And this, I submit, is a little extreme. Forget for the moment that killing millions of innocent people is a Bad Thing, forget that the Middle East contains a good proportion of the world’s oil, forget that America’s democratic ally Israel is in the Middle East, forget that the fall-out would do extensive damage to other parts of the world, forget that there are tens of thousands of Americans (and far more other foreigners) living in the area, forget that the environmental damage would be enormous, forget that the Middle East contains innumerable priceless cultural artifacts, forget that there are hundreds of millions of Muslims living outside the Middle East (India, Pakistan, Indonesia, etc.), and forget that 9/11 was planned from Afghanistan, outside the Middle East. Have you forgotten all of these factors (and any others you came up with for yourself)? Good. Now it’s a good idea to nuke the entire Middle East. Now only does it make any sense whatsoever to call the hypothetical nuclear destruction of the entire Middle East a “victory” for America.

Egnor gives away the store

Michael Egnor has made a blatant tactical error, and Larry Moran catches him on it. Note what Egnor says about evolution, that it is “obviously true”.

Dr. Wells pointed out that research on antibiotic resistance wasn’t guided by Darwinian evolutionary theory. That evolution occurred — that is, that the population of bacteria changed over time — is obviously true, and obviously was relevant to the antibiotic resistance research. Dr. Wells made the observation that the research owed little to Darwin’s theory that all biological complexity arose by natural selection without teleology.

Larry challenges the IDiots to ‘fess up and agree that they’ve conceded on the facts of evolution and are reduced to rhetorical sophistry, squabbling against this “Darwinism” thing of their own invention. I don’t expect they will; they’ll either pretend it was never said, or begin a little evasive dance, which will at least be entertaining.

I’d like to see the creationists do something else. Egnor’s redefinition shows that their objection is to the absence of teleology in evolutionary explanations, so let’s see them counter it with evidence for teleology. In those bacteria that evolved antibiotic resistance, for instance — show me the hand of a god reaching in and tweaking those genes.

An end to war?

That John Horgan fellow — he’s always going on and on about the end of something or other. This time, it’s about the end of war. There’s a little bit of “duh” about it — modern science can end war, all it has to do is end scarcity, or as it says, “Given adequate food, fuel, and gender equality, mass conflict just might disappear” — but also a good question. Are people intrinsically warlike by nature, or will they favor peace if given the opportunity?

I’m inclined to agree that people would rather avoid war, and that ending resource scarcity (which I’m not convinced that science can do) would reduce the incidence of war, but I think the article ignores one central source of conflict: ideology. Baboons and bonobos don’t seem to have it, but we do, and it can trigger wars for that other resource, human minds. We want people on our side. The Thirty Years War, the American Civil War, the Cold War … were those fought because one side wanted the other side’s food or land or minerals? Or over the spread of ideas that weren’t satisfied by science?

I have a suspicion that if we had a world of peace and plenty, where everyone was brought up to abhor war, and in which there was no biological imperative for conflict, we’d still have people coming up with ideas they’d be willing to die for … and we’d conjure up new tribes out of the contented hordes and set them to battling with one another.

Two wrongs don’t make a right

A far right wing wanker is suing Ohio State University for discrimination. I hate to say it, but if this account is at all accurate, he might have a case.

In 2006, Savage agreed to serve on a committee to determine required reading for incoming freshmen at the Mansfield campus.

Savage said the books considered by the committee were too liberal and suggested The Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian.

Professors James F. Buckley and Norman W. Jones filed a sexual-harassment complaint against Savage, saying he was homophobic for suggesting the book. The complaint was dismissed as unfounded.

Because he continued to be harassed, Savage said, he was forced to resign.

Kupelian is a vile, dishonest hack, and his book, which is the usual tripe about a gay conspiracy to force college students to become atheist abortionists and communists, is unadulterated garbage of the sort peddled by Wing Nut Daily. To even suggest such a bad book reveals that Scott Savage is an incompetent ideologue, and that yes, he most certainly is a homophobe. I’d be socially snubbing such a person at my workplace, just as I would if he were to show up wearing KKK robes.

But being a homophobe isn’t a crime, and suggesting a rotten book (a suggestion that I’m sure was shot down without hesitation by the other members of the committee) isn’t sufficient grounds for a lawsuit. Unless there’s an awful lot more to Savage’s actions than are revealed in this story, it sounds like people did try to drive him out of his job.

Of course, my sympathy for the clown has limits. This exceeds them:

The suit says he is a devout Christian, married for 18 years and the father of eight. It says he has struggled to find library work since leaving OSU.

Lots of people at universities are Christian, many of them have been married for a long time (my 28th wedding anniversary was just yesterday), and although 8 children may be a little excessive, you’ll also find lots of people who love kids at universities — and you’ll also find gay communist atheists who love children and have long term relationships. That claim is irrelevant to his lawsuit and is the protest of a close-minded bigot who likes to toss out these nice testimonials to his purported goodness while denying that the people he demonizes might have very similar values.

So no sympathy for the ugly little hater from me, but I have to concede that at least one of the actions against him also crossed the line.

I think I’ll skip it

Everyone is telling me I ought to read this new piece in Harper’s magazine, on the pretensions atheism. James Hrynyshyn has seen it; I don’t think I’ll bother. It’s by David Berlinski, which tells me all I need to know.

I will grant him his due, though. Berlinski is probably the world’s greatest expert on pretentiousness, to the point that his name and the word are practically synonyms.

Christian mental health care: positively medieval

Here’s a real horror story: a place called Mercy Ministries claimed to offer psychiatric help to people in Australia, and what they offered instead was nightmarish religious discipline and doctrine. There’s something subtle in there, too, that ought to make us ashamed: the Australian reporter calls it an “American-style ministry”. Isn’t it sad to see that our country is becoming an adjective for idiocy?

Anyway, here’s one woman’s summary of her “treatment”.

Nine months without medical treatment, nine months without any psychiatric care, nine months of being told she was not a good enough Christian to rid herself of the “demons” that were causing her anorexia and pushing her to self-harm. After being locked away from society for so long, Naomi started to believe them. “I just felt completely hopeless. I thought if Mercy did not want to help me where do I stand now?

And here’s another account:

Careful and articulate, her struggle with the horror of her descent into despair at the hands of Mercy is only evidenced by the occasional tremor in her hands and voice as she describes her experience. She was sharing the house with 15 other girls and young women, with problems ranging from teenage pregnancies, alcohol and drug abuse, self harm, depression, suicidal thoughts and eating disorders.

“There were girls who had got messed up in the adult sex industry – a real range of problems, some incorporating actual psychiatric illness, others just dealing with messy lives, and the approach to all those problems was the same format,” Johnson says.

Counselling involved working through a white folder containing pre-scripted prayers.

“Most of the staff were current Bible studies or Bible college students, and that is it, if anything. You just cannot play around with mental illness when you do not know what you are doing. Even professionals will acknowledge that it is a huge responsibility working in that field, and that is people who have six years, eight years university study behind them.”

And while there was nothing that was formally termed “exorcism” in the Sydney house, Naomi was forced to stand in front of two counsellors while they prayed and spoke in tongues around her. In her mind, it was an exorcism. “I felt really stupid just standing there – they weren’t helping me with the things going on in my head. I would ask staff for tools on how to cope with the urges to self harm … and the response was: ‘What scriptures are you standing on? Read your Bible.”

This is the bottom line.

And yet Mercy continues to operate without the scrutiny of government authorities, under the radar and with impunity.

Of course. A lot can be forgiven if you just label it “religious”.

Subtle sexism in science?

From among our most German friends, I found this article on WeiterGen on women in science that led to an article by one of my favorite scientists, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, that I found rather disappointing.

She describes her experiences as a woman in science of a previous generation, in which the discrimination was much more overt. She experienced seeing her work given to the credit of her male peers, of working under bosses who told her that women couldn’t do as well in science, and of working to the top of her profession to find a paucity of female colleagues and to find herself as the exception that proves the rule. You’ve got to admire her for overcoming all that to achieve far more than most of us privileged males.

The end of the article is also good, in which she urges men to be more aware of gender issues, and points out that there are persistent differences in women’s roles in society that we need to actively overcome; I’m also impressed that she’s putting her money where her mouth is and has founded the Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard Foundation, which provides fellowships to women scientists specifically to help them balance conventional family obligations with research.

There’s a part in the middle that bugs me, though. She’s arguing that it’s OK that we don’t necessarily get that perfect 50:50 ratio in every field, and I agree with that … I just find why she thinks that should be so to be troubling.

Men and
women are different by nature, not
only because of their education or
the roles traditionally ascribed to
them by society. Of course, I do not
think that women are in any way
less intelligent than men or do not
have the capacity to do excellent
science in principle. It is not a matter
of skills or talent, but according
to my observations the strengths,
aims and interests of women differ
from those of many of their male
contemporaries, at least on average.
I know many women who share
my disgust for the personal pride,
vanity and narrow focus of some
successful male colleagues and in
turn appreciate the more considerate,
broad-minded way some female
colleagues do their science. I
understand women who hate to push
themselves forward, or who are not
willing to narrow down their spectrum
of interests, including family and
friends. I have often experienced
that women in my family — much
more so than men — have a hard
time understanding my passion
for science, while they are more
interested in social issues, art and
music.

Men and women are different, obviously, and there may well be intrinsic differences that will steer the sexes in different directions. That’s not a problem. But you know, claiming that women have a “more considerate, broad-minded” approach to science really isn’t that much different from a Larry Summers claiming that boys play with trucks and girls play with dolls. It’s not necessarily true, even in average or in natural inclination, and it perpetuates a stereotype.

An individual woman ought be able to be ambitious, pushy, vain, and focused and succeed in science without her approach being considered in conflict with her gender. It isn’t. Similarly, an individual male researcher can be considerate and giving and helpful without betraying his sex. I want women to succeed in science because I don’t want anyone to be hindered in their careers by the imposition of stereotypes, and let’s not have women graduate students walk into a lab under the shadow of an expectation that they have to be the liberal nurturers of the research group, the ones who’ll be interested in art and music more than the nerdy males. It’s a nice reputation to have, I’m sure, but it’s also an imposition of an unfair expectation on women that we don’t place on men.