No purposes but those we create for ourselves

Those sneaky rascals at the Templeton Foundation have asked one of those ridiculous questions that gets some otherwise rational people stumbling over themselves to give an inoffensive answer: does the universe have a purpose? Of course, the irrational people have no trouble piping up with a happy “Yes!”, which should clue everyone in, as Larry notes, that it’s a gimmick question designed to provoke a range of waffly answers … and waffles, especially the tepid, limp kind, are the stock-in-trade of the Templeton House of Waffles.

I’d say “no, there is no evidence of universal purpose and no reason to assume one,” and be done with it. Except, perhaps, to ask those who say “yes” to specify exactly what that purpose is, and how they know it.

Near as I can tell, the primary purposes of the universe as discerned from the casual expressions of religion’s proponents are 1) to bias victory in local football games, and 2) to regulate the appropriate orifices into which certain people are allowed to place their penises. How the creation of Betelgeuse, the concentration of planetary material in our solar system in one body which we can’t reach and which is uninhabitable to us, and the ubiquity and success of bacteria all play into these purposes is unknown to me … it must be one of God’s mysteries.

Return Ben Stein’s Money

I’m a bit disappointed with Al Franken. Ben Stein has donated to the Franken campaign, and he has accepted the money — come on, Al, let’s see some principles. Stein is a dishonest fraud who is peddling Intelligent Design creationism in his upcoming movie, Expelled; he’s a former Nixon speechwriter, and he defends Nixon. I know they might be friends in their personal life, but this is politics — Franken should stand up for his liberal ideas and courteously refuse to take money from a stupid right-winger.

Besides supporting pseudoscience in the schools, here’s another reason to reject Stein. There’s a letter that’s been going around for some time, purportedly from Ben Stein. According to Snopes, only part of it is, so I’ll just tackle the part that we can assign to Stein’s feeble brain.

[Read more…]

It’s always much more complicated than you think

I mentioned before Cosma Shalizi’s excellent discussion of heritability; add to that now his summary of g. We’ve got a few pompous no-nothings lurking in the comments who are fond of declaiming that they know that they have proof that the brain works in such-and-such a way, and that we can blithely assert an average stupidity exists in broad swathes of humanity (said broad swathes typically sweep across very diverse groups, united only by the obvious ephemera of skin color), but they need to read and comprehend those articles in order to learn that their certainty of a heritable simplicity is a phantasm.

Reality says that race is a category error, and that IQ foolishly tries to pin complexity into a cramped and tiny corner, and that human minds are both diverse and similar … and the great gross simplifications of racists, scientific and otherwise, are lies to comfort fearful bigots.

Cosma has another post that summarizes the exasperation we should all feel.

The Richard Dawkins Foundation supports DonorsChoose

I am pleased to announce that the Richard Dawkins Foundation has contributed over $2000 to the freethinkers challenge to support science education in American public schools. That brings us close to meeting our goal of $20,000, so we just need a few more of you to sign on.

If you take a look at the leaderboard, you’ll notice that one of the columns lists the dollars donated, but the next column lists the number of donors. We’re again leading the pack, with 152, but I’d really like to be able to say that 200 pharyngula readers were willing to give a few bucks to teachers. 300 would be even better. Donating even a token ten dollars would add up and allow us to say that we godless few could stand up together in our numbers and make a difference.

We’ve had several big donors whose efforts are deeply appreciated. Now lets have everyone else chip in and make those donor numbers spin!

Europeans, Asians, Africans, Canadians, South Americans, Australians, Central Americans, and you scattered few residents of Antarctica: yes, you can donate! We got instructions from a DonorsChoose representative:

non-citizens living abroad can surely donate. When entering their addresses they simply need to enter their city, country, and post code in the “CITY” field, then select “New York” as their “STATE” and enter five zeroes for their “ZIP CODE”.

Note also I mistakenly said you could donate just a dollar; I was wrong, the minimum donation is $10. I know, there go the poor grad students to whom that is a week’s worth of ramen, but the rest of you can cough up a little bit, right? There are still proposals looking for funding!

CSHL acts against Watson

I am distressed at this news: the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has suspended Chancellor Jim Watson over his comments about race.

I disagree with Watson passionately, and he is completely wrong in his opinions about Africa and women and who knows what else…but he has the right to say it, just as we have the right to disagree vehemently and volubly with him. This does the CSHL no good: it’s a declaration that their director must be an inoffensive, mealy-mouthed mumbler who never challenges (even stupidly).

Maybe that’s what they want — someone diplomatic, who’ll woo donors and visitors with soft words — and I can understand that desire. It’s a sign, though, that CSHL will not be administered by anyone willing to assert controversy, and that’s too bad.

I know, his personal opinions were repellent. But what concerns me is that future leaders of the institution will also not be able to be forceful and loud and aggressive, as Watson has always been, in favor of causes I care about. You have to be able to tolerate the tenure of assholes in order to have the possibility of heroes.

Brain food and eye candy for evolutionists

So that’s what Carl Buell has been up to…Donald Prothero and Carl have been working on a new book, Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), containing descriptions of important transitional fossils, and as you can tell from the title, directly countering some of the silly claims of the creationists. This is going to be one of those books everyone must have.

To whet your appetite, Carl sent along one of the many color plates that will be in the book—this is Sinodelphys, a 125 million year old marsupial.

i-540643750132feb6037c86e01d5232bb-sinodelphys.jpg

You’re already drooling, aren’t you? You want this book. You must have this book. It’s less than $30 at Amazon; it’s not available just yet, but any moment now…so pre-order it already!

How sweet

That nice but batty lady, Denyse O’Leary, is teaching a course in intelligent design. At the University of Toronto. Woe, the devaluation of a great research university…!

Oh, but wait. It’s actually taught at St Michael’s College, a Catholic institution within the University of Toronto. And you have to look at the course entry to believe it. It’s a non-credit course under the category of “Scripture, Spirituality & Pastoral Care”, and the listing is buried in the middle of a lot of theology, mysticism, New Age nonsense, and gibbering madness.

it fits in perfectly.

Einstein to join Darwin in the pantheon of despised scientists

Physicists, do you feel left out? Some nobody biologist from the Middle-of-Nowhere, Minnesota gets featured in a crackpot movie, but all you get is incoherent dumpster-diving schizophrenics making tirades about your work, and never anybody who has heard of venture capital? Rejoice! Your loons are getting more professional, too!

Feature Length Doc “Einstein Wrong” Looking for Executive Producer

Two Oscar Winning Distributors Wanting a Rough Cut

LONG BEACH, Calif, October 16, 2007 – Bootstrap Productions is currently
looking for an executive producer for it’s feature-length documentary
“Einstein Wrong – The Miracle Year” due out in 2008. The documentary is
about a suburban house wife who takes on the icon of 20th century physics
to see if in fact relativity is wrong. Shot over the past 3 years, the
film has two Oscar-winning distributors interested in the project. The
film is directed by David de Hilster who has invested 13 years studying
scientists and their efforts to show Einstein wrong. It is co-produced
and edited by Andrea Tucker, and Nick Tamburri and is due out in
2008. For more info, go to
http://investing.einsteinwrong.com.

Contact:
David de Hilster
Long Beach, California
http://www.einsteinwrong.com

I hope they get that financial backing soon, because I think it would be perfect if this movie came out in February 2008, and went head-to-head with Expelled.

This could be almost as bad as that dreadful What the bleep do we know? movie. By the way, you can search all over their website, and you won’t find anything that explains what Einstein got wrong, how they figured it out, or what alternative they propose. The similarity to Intelligent Design creationism is perfect.