Salt of the earth

Perhaps you thought that glossolalic freak I highlighted the other day is unrepresentative of religious attitudes in America. How about these people, though?

They’re probably good, decent people who care about their families, but listen to what they are saying — they are picking a president on the basis of his dedication to the Bible. They are advocating a foreign policy based on biblical prophecy. They measure patriotism by whether someone “worships” (interesting slip, there) the flag and Jesus. They parrot lies, such as that Obama is planning to be sworn in on the Koran.

Like I said, probably good people…but the whole problem here is that their brains have been poisoned by religion, a lying, dishonest, corrupting religion that has turned them into deluded fools. Lay the blame for this criminal distortion of human minds right at the feet of religious belief.

Oh, and lest anyone think I’m not an equal opportunity rejecter of religion—be entertained by this Iraqi kook who thinks the earth is flat. Blame that idiocy on religion, too.

Full-Time, One-Year Faculty Position at UMM Biology

Full-Time, One-Year Faculty Position in Biology
University of Minnesota, Morris

The University of Minnesota, Morris seeks an individual committed to excellence in undergraduate education, to fill a full-time, one-year position in biology beginning August 18, 2008. Responsibilities include: teaching undergraduate biology courses including an introductory level survey of organismal biology (with lab) and a core ecology course (with lab); advising undergraduates; and sharing in the governance and advancement of the biology program as well as the campus at-large.

Candidates must be at least A.B.D. in ecology, organismal biology or a closely related field. One year experience teaching undergraduate biology is required. (Graduate TA experience is acceptable.)

The University of Minnesota, Morris (UMM) is a nationally-recognized, small, selective, residential, undergraduate liberal arts campus of the University of Minnesota. It has an enrollment of about 1650 students with 120 faculty members. The campus is located in west-central Minnesota, 160 miles from Minneapolis, in a rural community of 5000 people. The college is organized into four academic divisions, of which Science and Mathematics is one. Disciplines represented in the division are Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Geology, Mathematics, Physics, and Statistics. The college attracts excellent students many of whom go on to graduate or professional studies. Visit www.morris.umn.edu/positions/ to learn about other open positions at UMM.

Excellent fringe benefits and a collegial atmosphere accompany the position. Appointment will be at the Assistant Professor level for those having the Ph.D. in hand and at the Instructor level for others. The standard teaching load is twenty credit hours per year.

Applications must include a letter of application, resume, transcripts, a teaching statement (in which teaching goals and methods are discussed), and three letters of reference. Send applications to:

Biology Search Committee Chair
Division of Science and Mathematics
University of Minnesota, Morris
600 East 4th Street
Morris, MN 56267-2128

Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. Screening begins March 14, 2008. Inquiries can be made to Ann Kolden, Executive Office and Administrative Specialist, at (320) 589-6301 or koldenal@morris.umn.edu.

The University of Minnesota is committed to the policy that all persons shall have equal access to its programs, facilities, and employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, age, marital status, disability, public assistance status, veteran status, or sexual orientation.

I am underwhelmed

Perhaps I’m not as disappointed as Greg, but I am unimpressed with the ‘presidential’ debate at the AAAS. What we had was two assistants to the Clinton and Obama campaigns (the Republicans were complete no-shows) pop in to run through some canned promises. There was no debate. There was no commitment from the candidates themselves.

I think that the ScienceDebate2008 idea is a great one, and the failing is really on the part of the candidates and the parties themselves. Obama will happily leap to appease the faith-heads of an organization like Call to Renewal; Clinton thinks the Decorah First Methodist Church is an appropriate campaign venue; the Republicans traditionally kowtow to training grounds for anti-science morons like Bob Jones University; but none of them could invest a day speaking to scientists at one of the biggest science conferences in the country, sponsored by a prestigious organization like AAAS? Their priorities are clearly screwed up.

A presidential science debate is a grand idea. What we need to do now, though, is not praise them for a pathetic, back-handed, minimal effort, but rake them all over the coals for their inadequacies.

More empty posturing from Ruloff and Mathis

The producers of Expelled aren’t exactly the brightest bunch. Their latest blog entry is a silly whine about me.

Paul is one of the stars in the film EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed. He’s probably remembering all of the things that he said on camera, when we interviewed him and faithfully recorded it all. That couldn’t be making him feel very good.

Their movie is doomed if they’re relying on my star power to draw in the audiences … and I’ve noticed that all the early reviews found my performance so unmemorable that they failed to remember what I said. (Trust me, it’s the only thing I’m looking for in the reviews, and I even wrote to ask one reviewer if he’d noticed me — he hadn’t.) And actually, I don’t remember precisely what I said in the interview, nor am I concerned about it. I get interviewed on this stuff all the time, and I say what I think without concern. If they’d like to release the complete recording of my interview, I’d be happy to host it unedited; if it’s so damning, they should be thrilled to do so.

But mainly, I’m baffled. They’ve got Eugenie Scott and Richard Dawkins in the movie — and they’re playing up the role of some obscure guy with a blog? And it’s a “modest science-blog” at that!

Now it appears that the associate professor Myers is regretful, and lashing out against the film again in his modest science-blog, “Pharyngula,” attempting to mitigate the inevitable criticism of his performance, in advance. His latest is a vein-popping, eyes – bulging, 3,000 word, eleven-screen diatribe posted on his website, a “critique” of a simple eight-hundred word editorial that the producers of EXPELLED wrote on Darwin Day.

From his lengthy, over-the-top screed, we can’t really sort out what it is that upset him so, but one thing is painfully obvious: he is literally sweating over the upcoming release of our film.

Hmmm. That “vein-popping, eyes – bulging, 3,000 word, eleven-screen diatribe” actually went through the false claims in their mere editorial fairly thoroughly, pointing out the errors. If they want to complain that they made so many egregious mistakes that it took 3,000 words to document most of them, that’s fine by me.

They don’t seem very perceptive, though. I am not at all “upset” or “sweating” over their movie, or my interview. There was a lot of similar babbling after the movie was announced that I was going to sue them, which was similarly incomprehensible and completely divorced from what I was actually thinking; they seem to believe that I’m sitting here raging over having my words reported in a movie, when every day I’m openly and immoderately arguing against religion right here on the web, without a pseudonym and without reservation. Their movie can only fall far short of portraying the depth of my contempt for the charlatans of creationism. I know full well what criticisms I’m going to get about my performance in this movie: I will be told that I don’t come across as sufficiently fire-breathing in person.

The reason I wrote that criticism of their editorial was simple. They’re liars. They lied. They’re ignorant. They made up crap.

It’s actually rather funny how often the purveyors of nonsense make complaints that someone has made a lengthy criticism of their distortions, in which the whole issue is not the substance of the criticism, but the mere fact that a criticism has been made. Go ahead, search in vain throughout their blog entry, and you’ll discover that they completely ignored every point I made, and their entire argument is reduced to the fact that there were 3000 words in my article.

The 2008 Twin Cities Creation Science Fair

I’m sorry to say that I didn’t make it to the Twin Cities Creation Science fair this weekend, and Greg Laden didn’t either, which must explain why the TCCSA wasn’t afraid to post photos of the 2008 Creation Science Fair this time around. One UM professor did stop by, though, and we have his personal account.

As a perfect example of ID inanity, one student demonstrated irreducible complexity by taking a motor apart and showing that it didn’t work any more. Thank you, Michael Behe, for trying to make your feeble “insight” a part of the science curriculum.

It was the usual mixed mess we get even in secular science fairs: a lot of clueless students who don’t know how to do science, exhibit failures of logic, and who don’t really understand what they are doing, mixed up with a few kids who have the potential to be real science stars. This particular event is especially depressing, though, because the organizers impose all kinds of bizarre unscientific constraints on the kids (A bible verse on every poster? Come on.) and it doesn’t really matter how much potential a kid has — it’s going to be poisoned and stunted by a carefully fostered environment of ignorance that favors the appearance of science over any attempt at genuine inquiry.

I tell myself every year that I should go see this thing. Every year I feel the same sad discouragement at the prospect — it’s like going to witness a famine of the mind, with young children as victims, and I don’t think I could bear it.

Perks!

sci-blog.png

This is actually a disappointment. I was sure that scienceblogging gave one lightning quick driving reflexes, phenomenal sexual performance, the powers of the anti-christ, and the ability to write perfect copy with the first draft, but this comic seems to be implying that scienceblogging only gives you an excuse for falling short in those areas. Of course, I already have all of those abilities even without the scienceblogging biz, so this comic must be referring to all those other bloggers. Yeah, that’s it. I’ll keep telling myself that.

(via Chris Rowan, who got it from aphantic)

Lusty atheism

Greta Christina hosts the Carnival of the Godless this week, which means the atheism is laced with sex. This is an avenue for recruiting people to the atheist cause that has not been adequately pursued.

Although there is something to be said for goddesses: the Sunday Sermonette is a hymn from Janis. Whoa, but she could sing. We also learn that the Reveres were young doctors in 1969, had a chance to go to Woodstock, and skipped it because it was going to rain. I missed it, too, but my excuse is a little better: I was 12 years old and on the opposite side of the country. I was a fan of Janis at that time, though, and I swear, that woman accelerated the onset of puberty for me by at least two years.

A familiar pattern

Apparently, there was some panel on the repellent practice of “framing science” at AAAS recently, which I’m sure the principals will consider a triumph, despite their refusal to have any dissenting voices there to speak.

It reminds me of something.

Recall the recent episode with the creationist, Geoffrey Simmons? He had a strategy for winning arguments: it was to get an exclusive hour on the radio to make his case without those troubling critics. He crowed victory afterwards, too.