Now I’m embarrassed

Minnesota is a pretty darn good state, usually fairly progressive, but sometimes…sometimes it can plunge off the deep end into the credulous muck of woo. My state has just approved the title of doctor for naturopaths. I imagine the MDs are a bit aghast, and even us Ph.D.s are feeling a bit diminished.

It’s also a law that was pushed by the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party. My party. Minnesota Democrats are responsible for elevating respect for quackery. I’m embarrassed by that, too.

If only I’d known, I would have proposed an alternative idea at the DFL caucus: we should ennoble naturopaths with an even older, distinguished title: “hedge-witch” or maybe “witch doctor”. That last one has “doctor” in it, so it should be acceptable, right?

The Creation Museum is still there

It’s awfully easy to forget Ken Ham’s monument to malevolent ignorance, the Creation Museum, but while we’re not visiting it, it’s apparently doing a bang-up business, and they’re even planning a major expansion. Stupidity sells, especially in America.

So it’s a good thing that some people are still shining the spotlight on it. There’s a new review of the museum from Demonbaby that’s worth a read. This one highlights the creepy and gruesome nature of Ham’s bogus theology.

Sizzle

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Randy Olson has a new movie that is premiering today: Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy. We all know it’s going to be funny, and that because it will also criticize the scientists studying climate change, it will be infuriating and annoying and will draw lots of fire from both sides.

Go ahead and start sharpening your knives, but do keep this in mind: Olson is the only guy we’ve got trying to widen the market for science documentaries beyond the gray-haired, PBS-watching, NPR-listening audience. He’s opening this thing at Outfest, the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, rather than as a collection of droning heads airing in some godforsaken hole of blandness right after the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, so give him some credit, too. While he doesn’t sing in tune with the rest of the chorus, he’s going to force us all to think, which is something we’re supposed to like. If you’re in LA, go to it and give us a review.

Besides, it’s got Muffy Moose in it. How awful can it be?

Sorry, Vox, I don’t debate crazy pipsqueaks any more

A while back, I said, “Somebody somewhere is going to have to someday point me to some intelligent arguments for gods, because I’ve sure never found them. And I know, someone is going to complain that I always pick on the weak arguments…while not bothering to tell me what the strong ones are.”

In a fit of unwarranted hubris, the odious Theodore Beale/Vox Day rushed to arrange a debate on a local conservative radio show. Unfortunately, he didn’t stop to think — how would debating Vox Day, christofascist misogynist, beneficiary of wingnut welfare, prominent freakshow participant, possibly rebut the complaint that I only pick on the weak arguments?

Besides, I learned my lesson in the Geoffrey Simmons radio debate: it’s a waste of time to go up against one of these insane babblers, because all they can do is high-frequency repetition of nonsensical claims. I’ve also acquired a deep distrust of conservative radio — the outcome of that debate, in which Simmons was flattened, was that they merely reinvited him back on the show without me around to puncture his claims. The fact that the Northern Alliance radio show actually thinks Vox Day is a credible voice for conservative thought tells me right away that there is something wrong with them, and no, I’m not going to trust them at all.

I’ve also read Day’s horrible little book, The Irrational Atheist. Well, to be honest, I read a few chapters of dreck, then flipped through the rest rather quickly. It’s actually the “Vox Day Hates Sam Harris” book, with occasional potshots at other New Atheists, and it’s really not very good. You would think that if he had a strong rational argument with evidence for any gods, then he would have put it in there — nothing would more seriously deflate one of us scientific atheists who claim there is no evidence for god than, say, presenting credible evidence for god. That was what I actually skimmed through the book for, but it wasn’t there.

I would think that if he had some zinger of an argument, there would be better ways to reveal it than on an obscure AM radio talk show in a debate with an equally obscure professor at a liberal arts college. He could, for instance, put it right at the top of his web page, where we could all marvel at it before rushing off to our much-neglected church.

Catching up

I’m home after a 10 day absence, which means … catching up with a backlog of work and mail. I just got back from my office, where a stack of packages was awaiting me — publishing companies keep sending me books to review, and it’s getting a little daunting. There was a fine collection of gems in this stack, though, which I’ll get to later, after I’ve read them.

There was also this, though, which I don’t know if I can read, since the tears of laughter and dismay keep getting in the way: several books and pamphlets pushing geocentricity. I’m not joking. These books, including He Maketh His Sun to Rise: A Look at Biblical Geocentricity, by Thomas Strouse, and A Geocentricity Primer and The Geocentric Bible by Gerardus Bouw, are very, very serious. Their primary argument is that the ancient Hebrews can be documented as believing the earth was the center of the universe (which I can accept without hesitation), that the Hebrews got their information directly from God (which I do not accept), and since God wouldn’t lie, therefore the earth must be at the center of everything. Wacky astronomy then follows. I wonder if Phil got copies of these, too, or if they thought a biologist would be gullible enough to fall for their silly reasoning.

But enough about bad books. Here’s the truly important thing I received in the mail this week:

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You’re all so jealous right now, aren’t you? I should heighten the envy by telling you that she is very, very soft and squishy, and she’s going right into my bed.

Unfortunately, there was no name on the box, other than the company that made her! I’ve got email from someone saying they were going to send me something nice, but they weren’t specific, so I need you to confess in the comments. Whoever sent this to me, let me know…and thanks!

If it’s Monday, it must be Morris

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I am back in Morris at last, in time to remind you all that there will be a new Tangled Bank this week at Syaffolee. Send those links in to me soon — we’ve got a few already, but more would be great.

Also, if you volunteered to host in the future, you might want to make sure you check the Tangled Bank schedule and make sure your name is on it. We’ve got hosts lined up through November, and the next available dates are in December and in 2009.