I was sorting out my calendar. It always helps to occasionally figure out where I’m going and where I am, and it’s also helpful for my wife, in case she’s wondering where I got to. These are my travel plans for the next several months, in case anyone wants to hunt me down.
If you ever want to see the typical course of a creationist’s visit to Pharyngula, we’ve got a good example in medic0506, who showed up to argue and then didn’t. I mostly ignored him, but his announcement that he was disappointed caught my eye.
I was told on DDO that there were actual scientists here who would engage in informal argumentation, so since I’ve had my fun with the whineylibs, I’ll scroll through an see if there is any valid posts by someone who wishes to have a discussion rather than just try to scratch my eyeballs out.
This is standard noise from creationists: get thrown lots of evidence, then claim that there was no evidence and they’re all so very tired of it. So I thought I would take a look at his posting history here to see what kind of substantial, thought-provoking, evidence-based arguments he had made.
Surprise. There weren’t any.
He’s very proud to have coined the term “National Coven for the Solicitation of Evolutionism” for the NCSE. He thinks it fits because Eugenie Scott reminds him of the wicked witch
. Why? Because she lied and said Meyer’s awful paper, The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories, didn’t mention ID (what? It was an ID paper; the whole issue with that is that it was smuggled in by a creationist editor friendly to the idea, making a farce of peer review). As evidence, he provided this video:
I really would not want to cite that as favorable to intelligent design creationism. Meyer was disgraceful, Eugenie was patient and calm, and she didn’t say what medic0506 claimed she said.
Then he declares that he is a young earth creationist. In reply to a comment that he’s flat-out denying the overwhelming scientific consensus, he waves away that little problem of contradicting physics, chemistry, and geology by saying it only takes 1 to be right
.
Next we learn That “old book” [the Bible], on the other hand, paints an accurate picture of what nature should, and does look like, so I see no need to disregard it in favor of what others believe.
He then ignores all the comments that point to verses in the Bible that paint a very inaccurate picture of the world. Sometimes the absence of a reply is as damning as the content of a reply.
When confronted with standard evidence for an ancient universe, like the existence of galaxies farther away than 6000 light years, he simply denies it: your belief in deep time is heavy on theory but light on actual evidence
.
The rest is just repetitive noise, and then he starts talking about retreat because there is a dearth of scientists here. He can’t make a single positive argument for his goofy beliefs, and his entire visit was simply an exercise in evasion.
Unimpressed. Bored. That’s why I didn’t bother to engage with yet another asinine fool stopping by — he had nothing to discuss, and he knew that if he brought up any actual arguments for a young earth or creation by divine poofery, he’d have his head handed to him.
Yay! We have a major eruption of kookery from medic0506!
I’m willing to be proven wrong on this, but I don’t believe that starlight is something that actually physically travels to earth, in order for us to see it. I think that light is emitted from an energy source, and if the amount of energy released as light is enough, the object will be bright enough for our eyes to see it from earth. I don’t buy when someone argues that starlight has been traveling for billions of years to get here. Feel free to prove me wrong by proving the current understanding of light travel, but no one else so far has been able to address this without just throwing more theoretical BS at it.
So light doesn’t actually travel at some limited speed, but if it’s really, really bright, it is instantly transported to our eyes. All that empirical evidence, all those measurements of the speed of light…that’s all just theoretical BS. Why should we throw out all of physics? Because a creationist thinks brightness can substitute for velocity.
The tasty sweet tears of rage and frustration. Oh, I am so enjoying the current flood of email into my in-box. It’s not fair to keep it to myself, so I thought I’d share a sample.
Young Republicans
Sad little man, calling kids names . . . There is so much more hate and intolerance on the left it simply isn’t funny.
Look below.
Educator???
Professor Myers,
Have you forgotten that it’s your job to help students learn how to think, and not to bias them to think only like you? Also your demonization of those who don’t share your political views, as shown by the words you choose to describe them (“assholes”), reflects poorly on your education. Scientists never justify their work via fallacious Argumentum ad hominem, which is usually based on emotion, not on facts.
The only reason someone wants to destroy or suppress written information that doesn’t echo their views is that they don’t have any facts to refute it. If you strongly believe in your political views, why don’t you participate in moderated debates and let the students decide for themselves?
You haven’t read the North Star, have you? I’m not the only one shocked at the overt racism in it.
Scientists also do not deny facts clearly in evidence. The students behind the racist rag are young assholes. Are we seriously supposed to debate whether black people are discriminated against? Really?
yes to ends justifies the means
Those on the left these days clearly believe the “ends justifies the means” for liberals everywhere think nothing of physically attacking and physically destroying anyone and any idea they “think” is wrong. Free speech was once an ideal of those on the left – no longer.
It is. But you do understand that free speech has limits, right? Or why are you upset with me exercising my free speech…which is all I’ve done?
Tolerance and diversity.
You sir are a hypocrite. You call conservatives assholes. And conservative youngsters assholes in training. You also compared the north star paper to KKK And yet you have the hypocrisy to say ” treat their scattered papers as hate-filled trash and dispose of it appropriately. ” you are an asshole, communist who preaches hate. You liberals assholes preach tolerance and diversity, and yet you have none for anyone who disagrees with your opinion. You might not be criminally liable for the theft of the North Star papers but you sure as hell are personally responsible. You are not only a pathetic pitiful excuse for a human being but also a scum sucking, hate preaching hypocrite. How many young men and women have you brainwashed by preaching hate and intolerance? Haters like you should not be allowed anywhere near a classroom. People like you have destroyed this country. After listening to you insult people with differing opinions and attacking freedom of speech it’s obvious you would be much happier in a country like North Korea. I can only pray that the university of Minnesota Morris shits cans you out of your cushy little job in academia. And then you would actually have to work for a living. Until such a blessing to humanity occurs you need to shut your fucking mouth until you learn tolerance for other people.
Shut up until you learn to tolerate speech you disagree with!
I think we’re done here.
You are a BITCH!
hey you little man…grow up! what a sad excuse for a human you are…you and OBAMA are both pieces of shit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Did I just get compared to the president of the United States?
I looked up your picture – that’s what an intolerant bigot looks like
Typical of your ideology – free speech only for those who comply with the bigots.
Wait…the conservatives you’re defending are white racists, and I’m the bigot? OK.
Tolerance
Just read a story about how you view conservatives as ‘ass-holes’ and that you think that people should not read the campus conservative newspaper at your school.
Nice job being tolerance of people with opposing points of view from your own. Good example to set as an educator.
I guess you are just another one of those liberals who is for free speech as long as it agrees with your views.
And if teaching does not work out for you maybe you might try a different line of work – IRS or BLM agent might be perfect choices for you.
Conservative viewpoints: fine. I might disagree with them, but I agree that they should be allowed to be expressed. Why are you so freely associating “conservative” and “racist”?
Liberals and their hypocrisy
Mr. Meyers:
I saw your comments online regarding conservatives, republicans and Fox News, etc….
You do have a right to say what you think, but to call conservatives “uneducated”, when you must resort to profanities when describing them, shows who lacks an educated mind.
I find it alarming how liberals like yourself feel they have the right to say and do whatever is necessary to advance their views, but won’t tolerate someone that disagrees with them.
Again, another person who hasn’t read the North Star. I’d really be interested to hear from somebody who had, who still wants to claim it as a voice for conservatives.
U
U are on the wrong side of history and life. U must Undo the terrible wrong committed when you were born. U must for the sake of justice abort yourself immediately for Barack’s glory. Be a hero, do not delay.
That doesn’t even make sense.
Piece of shit
That’s all he had. A subject line, and then he was too intellectually exhausted to continue.
Asshole
You call conservatives assholes but you are the one filled with hate.
I didn’t use Trayvon Martin’s dead face as a prop in a crusade against racial diversity.
Being an Alumni of the U of M…
I am 100% offended by your actions against the Morris North Star paper!!!
I read about it initially from this link:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/04/15/did-professor-advocate-censorship-conservative-student-newspaper/
Your criticism of the paper apparently is that it was mocking minority students…Well, you sir went way beyond mocking!!!
Some day I wish folks like you would look in the mirror…I can dream, right?
I won’t return your hate speech with more hate speech (so I won’t call you names), but with a prayer that you can find it in yourself to rise se to a level equal to your education.
I went beyond mocking? The response to that paper has been universal: it is deplorable.
Twerp
So, you think you’re pretty smart!? From the things I’ve read, it sounds like you’re well on your way to setting your pompous liberal ass out for a good kicking. Do a favor for the rest of us in the real sciences – keep your frickin’, misguided political opinions to yourself!
Will you do the same?
ASS HOLE DEMOCRATS
HEY YOU PIECE OF SHIT….CALLING REPUBLICANS NAMES ..NOT VERY NICE…YOU ASSHOLE….CANT WAIT FOR THE REPUBLICANS TO TAKE CONTROL OF THIS COUNTRY AGAIN…OBUMMER HAS REALLY FUCKED IT UP…AND YOU ..YOU PIECE OF SHIT…THEY SHOULD FIRE YOUR ASS…17 TRILLION IN DEBT….NO ONE IN THE WORLD IS AFRAID OF THE U.S. ANYMORE..OBUMMER KEEPS SAYING YOU CROSS THE RED LINE..AND BOY ITS GOING TO BE TROUBLE..EVER COUNTRY OUT THERE JUST LAUGHS AT THE U.S….CANT WAIT TO GET THE REPUBLICANS BACK IN CONTROL …I GUARANTEE YOU PUTIN WOULD NOT BE DOING WHAT HE IS DOING IF WE HAD A REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT WHO IS NOT AFRAID OF HIS OWN FUCKIN SHADOW…..IN THE MEAN TIME ASSHOLE BACK OFF THE YOUNG REPUBLICANS…BECAUSE YOU TIME WILL COME..HAHA…
There’s always one who loves his capslock key.
Why don’t you move to a country that suits your totalitarian ideological worldview?
It’s shameful that you and your pathetic so-called ‘university’ share more in common with Herbert Marcuse and Gramsci than with the intellectual tradition of western liberalism. It’s shameful that your opinion of democracy and liberty is virtually indistinguishable from the perfidious view of Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan. What you have in common with the aforementioned is an illiberal, intolerant, and tyrannical ideology advanced, in Machiavellian and Orwellian fashion, under the label of democracy and liberalism. Once liberalism has served its purpose, facilitating “the long march,” the left’s true ideological bent towards totalitarianism is revealed. And you are quite the exemplar, perched in one of the institutions Gramsci targeted, a western university, preaching a jihad against free speech and intellectual freedom, the very vehicles that delivered you and your ilk to a position of influence in society.
But just think that there are countries fully committed to your worldview. You could move to Cuba, Red China, Venezuela, North Korea, Russia, and Belarus, to name a few. You could trash all manner of authentic, classical western liberal literature and, instead of being taunted, you could be praised and revered by your fellow travelers on the “shining path.” Imagine yourself in the middle of a frenzied crowd of kindred “souls” (yes, we know your religion is atheism) in some Middle East anti-western Shangri-La burning an American flag and a cheap Chinese reproduction of the U.S. Constitution. A true left-wing oasis. No dissent. Lot’s of stupid and pliant drones ready to receive your illiberal instruction and light up the night sky with huge bonfires of western literature. Come to think of it, it’s a lot like the University of Minnesota-Morris.
There’s also always the pretentious one, who drags out obscure figures from history and calls atheism a religion and while complaining about defending free speech, wants me to move to North Korea.
A different view point
Has any conservative ever provided a view point that was contrary to yours yet remained valid in your eyes? If yes, how far off was it? If no, what made yours the most valid? Must students always agree with your viewpoint or do you encourage them to do the research, and reach their own conclusion?
Libel and dead black boys are not points to be argued.
I’m sure there’ll be more. It’s not very interesting, though: they clearly haven’t read either what I wrote, or what the North Star wrote, and are just parroting the twists Fox News made…which actually justifies my comments about Fox News.
Larry Moran has been given a quiz to test our comprehension of Intelligent Design creationism. Unfortunately, it was composed by someone who doesn’t understand ID creationism but merely wants everyone to regurgitate their propaganda, so it’s a major mess, and you can also tell that the person writing it was smugly thinking they were laying some real traps to catch us out in our ignorance.
Larry has posted his answers. I’ve put mine below the fold (I sorta subtly disagree with him on #2). If you want to take a stab at it untainted by our answers, here’s the original quiz, untainted by logic or evidence, so you can view them in their pure naked ignorance.
Also, another thing: the person who composed the quiz clearly expected simple yes/no answers, yet wrote questions that demand explanation. Yet again, the idiocy of the IDiots is exposed. I’ve actually troubled to explain my answers.
Here’s my talk on the Cambrian from Skepticon 6.
Oh, hey, I just realized I could post the content of that text-heavy slide I flashed, showing the sources I used. So here you go:
Web reviews from Donald Prothero, Nick Matzke, Larry Moran.
Briggs, D.E.G.; Fortey, R.A. (1989). The early radiation and relationships of the major arthropod groups. Science, 246(4927), 241-243.
Budd, G. E., and S. Jensen. 2000. “A critical reappraisal of the fossil record of the bilaterian phyla.” Biological Reviews 75:253-295.
Erwin D and Valentine J (2013). The Cambrian explosion : the construction of animal biodiversity. Greenwood Village, CO, Roberts and Company Publishers.
Marshall, Charles R. (2006). “Explaining the Cambrian ‘explosion’ of animals.” Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. 34: 355-384.
Smith MP, Harper DAT (2013) Causes of the Cambrian Explosion. Science 341:1355.
Long M, Betran E, Thornton K, Wang W (2003) The origin of new genes: glimpses from the young and old. Nature Rev Genet 4:865.
Knoll AH, Carroll SB (199) Early Animal Evolution: Emerging Views from Comparative Biology and Geology. Science 284:2129.
Erwin DH, Laflamme M, Tweedt SM, Sperling EA, Pisani D, Peterson KJ (2011) The Cambrian conundrum: early divergence and later ecological success in the early history of animals. Science. 334(6059):1091.
Peterson KJ, Dietrich MR, McPeek MA (2009) MicroRNAs and metazoan macroevolution: insights into canalization, complexity, and the Cambrian explosion. Bioessays. 31(7):736.
I got a strange phone call today, from a fellow who was very polite, so I was polite in return, but it was weird — he kept asking me strange questions about the energy involved in breaking up supercontinents, and how much water could be stored under a supercontinent (which had me suspicious right there), and he was also complaining about how none of the geologists anywhere ever seemed to study this stuff. I told him repeatedly that what he needed to do was talk to a geophysicist, which I wasn’t, and that I really couldn’t help him. He had a few very basic question about plate tectonics that I could answer, but otherwise…this is not my field.
He seemed like a somewhat confused layman trying to get rationalizations for some preconceptions. And then he wrote to me.
He claims to be a Ph.D. student, and he’s getting these questions from Walt Brown. The creationist Walt Brown. Hydroplate theory. Flood creationist. Etc.
Dear Dr. PZ Meyers [sigh],
I’ve been reading your book and enjoying it. I know you aren’t a geophysics professor, but mentioned Walt Brown stating a coalescing of hydrogens and oxygens above perhaps a single, vast continent brought on 40 days and 40 nights of rain, but having taken a look at his website he seems more emphasizing that our colleges and labs take no interest at all in delving into the most size and strength of a Supercontinent planet Earth could (possibly) have broken up above where it lifted up its mid-ocean range by way of the most water it which could have had under pressure below it. Volcano interiors sometimes generate inner lightnings. Earthquaked continent sometimes do. Perhaps our planet made its record inner lightning intensities dividing a Supercontinent into its seven continents. I find it hard to believe, from what a few of my Earth science professors pointed out to me, that anyone is in possession of the absolute truth about how the Earth went from not having to having its mid-ocean range.
Thank you for being friendly to me on the phone. Please tell me if you were aware of this information on how the Earth’s heavy radioactive elements are distributed?
“The Earth’s continental crust occupies 41.2% of the surface area but represents only 0.35% of the total mass of our planet.”
(Hugh Richard Rollinson, Ph.D.[geochemistry], Early Earth Systems [Blackwell Publishing: Malden, MA, 2007], p. 134)
“90% of uranium and thorium are concentrated in the continents.”*
*Dan F. C. Pribnow, Ph.D.(geophysics), “Radiogenic Heat Production in the Upper Third of Continental Crust from KTB,” Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 24, 1 February 1997, p. 349.
“Earth’s radioactivity was confined to the crust, a few tens of kilometers thick.”
(John D. Stacey, Physics of the Earth, 3rd edition (1992), p. 45)
“Uranium, thorium and potassium are the main elements contributing to natural terrestrial radioactivity.. All three of the radioactive elements are strongly partitioned into the continental crust.”
(J. A. Plant and A. D. Saunders, Oxford Journals, Vol. 68, p. 25)
“The molten rock oozing from midocean ridges lacks much of the uranium, thorium, and other trace elements that spew from some aboveground volcanoes.”
(Sid Perkins, “New Mantle Model Gets the Water Out,” Science News, Vol. 164, 13 September 2003, p. 174.
Continental crust is roughly a hundredfold more concentrated with radioactivity than ocean-floor crust is.
“Surface rocks show traces of radioactive materials, and while the quantities thus found are very minute, the aggregate amount is sufficient, if scattered with this density throughout the earth, to suppy, many times over, the present yearly loss of heat. In fact, so much heat could be developed in this way that it has been practically necessary to make the assumption that the radioactive materials are limited in occurence to a surface shell only a few kilometers in thickness”
(Leonard R. Ingersoll, et al., Heat Conduction : With Engineering, Geological and Other Applications, revised edition [University of Wisconsin Press: Madison, WI, 1954], p. 102)
“Heat production rate is well correlated to lithology; no significant variation with depth, neither strictly linear nor exponential, is observed over the entire depths of the [two German holes].”
(Christoph Clauser, et al., “The Thermal Regime of the Crystalline Continental Crust: Implications from the KTB, Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 102, No. B8, 10 August 1007, p. 18,418)
Germany’s Deep Drilling Project discovered variations in heat-exuding radioactivity related to the rock types, not to depths.
Thank you, Rick Keane
P.S.
I’m working toward getting a Ph.D. in geophysics with respect to how lightnings can synthesize and disintegrate (e.g. via building up free neutron density and interactions) heavy atomic weight radioactive elements. It is known to science: the magnetic forces between electrons associated with a billion volt; million amp lightning channel are extremely significant relative to their electrostatic forces so their magnetic pinch effects are consequential when they are shooting between, through and around certain light and medium weight nuclei as far as pulling and pushing them together into proximities wherein their strong nuclear forces interact and overcome their Coulombic barriers. The channel radius decreases with larger lightning currents, e.g., 1 billion volts or more.
“A lightning bolt is an example of a Z-pinch discharge. . . A Z-pinch operating at 600 kV and I = 100 kA in hydrogen at 500 Pa pinched from an initial radius of 5mm down to a pinch radius of a = 1.5 mm, and remained stable for 100 nanoseconds.*”
*P. Choi, et al., IAEA Conference, 1978.
(Thomas J. Dolan, Ph.D.[nuclear engineering], Fusion Research [Pergamon: Oxford, UK, 1982], p. 312)
“It is possible for the magnetic pinch effect to occur if the lightning current is high enough while the channel radius is small. For example, for a channel radius of 1 cm, a current of 8 x 104 amp must flow before the magnetic pressure at the surface of the channel exceeds 10 atm. For a channel radius of 0.1 cm, the current must exceed 8 × 103 amp.”
(Martin A. Uman, Ph.D.[electrical engineering], Lightning [McGraw-Hill: New York, NY, 1969], p. 241)
The electrons’ negative charges repel each other. When close < 3 fm, their repulsion gets strong. Hence their electrostatic forces try to blow outer electrons away from the clusters. But there's a velocity-dependent magnetic force always acting in a direction perpendicular to their magnetic fields. Magnetic forces between electrons will produce magnetic pinch effects counteracting Coulomb repulsions between electrons acting in the opposite direction.
So, with respect to the magnetic fields encircling electrons in a counterclockwise direction, they’re velocity-dependent magnetic forces. They depend not only on the positions of the particles through the value of the magnetic field, but also on the velocities of the particles. The magnetic (Lorentz) force on a charged particle involves the velocity vector of the particle and the speed of light. It’s perpendicular to the velocity and the magnetic field.
An electron emits a velocity-dependent magnetic field akin to the magnetic field encircling a current carrying wire (a magnetic force vector perpendicular to the direction of the field). Its magnetic force exerts on any other electrons traveling near to it in the same direction (directed radially inward to the first electron by which a a bunching up of the outer electrons occurs).
“In 1895 he [Hendrik Lorentz] demonstrated that a moving charged particle would experience a force in a background magnetic field, because moving charges produce magnetic fields, and are therefore magnets and so also experience forces due to other magnets.”
(Lawrence M. Krauss, Ph.D.[physics], Hiding in the Mirror [Penguin: New York, NY, 2005], p. 30)
“. .a magnetic field generates a force at right angles to the field’s direction. Also, unlike electric forces, magnetic forces depend on the charges’ velocities.”
(Paul Halpern, Ph.D.[physics], Collider [John Wiley & Sons: Hoboken, NJ, 2009], p. 57)
“More current means a stronger magnetic field.”
(Don Lincoln, Ph.D.[physics], The Quantum Frontier [John Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, MD, 2009], p. 76)
The Lorentz forces/ampere/magnetic-pinch effects/self-focusing of the electrons in extraordinarily intense lightnings keeps their electrostatic repulsive forces from blowing up their beams. The electrons’ Lorentz forces attract each other with Ampere effects strong enough to overcome their Coulombic repulsive forces and thermal expansions.
One might wonder the most atomic weights of nuclides that can be magnetically pinched into 2 femtometer proximities by the most densities; velocities of beams of electrons that a 1 billion amp; 1 million volt lightning might be able to shoot between, through and around nuclides which are shooting through it in the opposite direction coming from the side of it that has a condensation of positively charged ions. (Two nickel nuclei; for instance, have a 99 MeV Coulombic repulsion.)
Physical Review paper by the pioneer in magnetic pinch effect research, Dr. Will Bennett: http://astrophysics.fic.uni.lodz.pl/100yrs/pdf/10/002.pdf
LIGHTNINGS (even average voltages and amperages–not even close to 1 billion volts and 1 million amperes–have been observed and measured making nuclear reactions, e.g. inverse beta decays, build ups of free neutron densities; interactions with magnetic pinch effects):
“It will be shown that the observations of near-ground AGR [atmospheric gamma radiation] following lightning are consistent with the production and subsequent decay of a combination of atmospheric radioisotopes with 10-100 minute half-lives produced via nuclear reactions on the more abundant elements in the atmosphere.”
(Mark B. Greenfield et al., “Near-Ground Detection of Atmospheric Rays Associated with Lightning,” Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 93, 1 February 2003, p. 1840)
“Immediately after lightning crackled through the atmosphere, the detectors would register a burst of gamma rays, followed by about 15 minutes later by an extended shower of gamma rays that peaked after 70 minutes and then tapered off with a distinctive 50-minute half-life.”
(Kim Krieger, “Lightning Strikes and Gammas Follow?” Science, Vol. 304, 2 April 2004, p. 43)
“Observations of > 10 MeV gamma rays observed in NaI detectors within 10s of meters from and coincident with rocket-triggered lightning at the International Center for Lightning Research and Testing suggest that charged particles accelerated in intense electric fields associated with lightning give rise to photons with sufficient energy to initiate nuclear reactions.”*
*Joseph W. Dwyer, Ph.D.(physics), et al. “Energetic Radiation Produced During Rocket-Triggered Lightning,” Science 31 January 2003, Vol. 299, no. 5607, pp. 694-697.
(Greenfield, M.B.; Sakuma, K.; Ikeda, Y; Kubo, K., “Delayed gamma radiation from lightning induced nuclear reactions,” American Physical Society, March Meeting 2004, March 22-26, 2004, Palais des Congres de Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, MEETING ID: MAR04, abstract #D39.003)
“The generation of neutrons in thunderstorm electric fields is related to photonuclear reactions in gigantic upward atmospheric discharges caused by relativistic runaway electron bremsstrahlung.”
(Leonid P. Babich, Sc.D.[physics], “Neutron generation mechanism correlated with lightning discharges,” Geomagnetism and Aeronomy, Springer, 1 January 2007. Dr. Babich is the head of the Plasma Physics Laboratory at the Russian Federal Nuclear Center All Russian Institute of Experimental Physics, Sarov, Russia)
“Nuclear transmutations and fast neutrons have been observed to emerge from large electrical current pulses through wire filaments which are induced to explode. The nuclear reactions may be explained as inverse beta transitions of energetic electrons absorbed either directly by single protons in Hydrogen or by protons embedded in other more massive nuclei.”
(A.Widom, Y.N. Srivastava, L. Larsen, “Energetic Electrons and Nuclear Transmutations in Exploding Wires,” Physics Faculty Publications, Vol. 174, January 01, 2007)
“In 1992 Gurevich et al. [1992] described how a relativistic avalanche mechanism that they termed relativistic runaway breakdown would work in the electric field of a thunderstorm and it became clear that the lightning discharge could take on an entirely different character than previously envisioned [Dwyer, 2005]. Subsequent theoretical and observational work has supported the notion that relativistic runaway breakdown plays a significant role in the lightnings process. As will be shown in this paper the measurements of enhanced neutron fluxes in association with lightning can only serve to further confirm this notion.”
(Leonid P. Babich, Sc.D.[physics], Robert A. Roussel-Dupre, “Origin of neutron flux increases observed in correlation with lightning,” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 112, 6 July 2007)
http://crdlx5.yerphi.am/files/thunder/2007Babich0.pdf
“Quite analogouse correlation of the neutron enhancements with electric discharges is seen in other events. Taking into account that the atmospheric discharge lasts for a few hundred milliseconds while the neutron detectors have a 1-min time resolution we see that the additional neutron flux generated in every discharge should be really giant!”
(A.V. Gurevich, et al., “Strong Flux of Low-Energy Neutrons Produced by Thunderstorms,” Physical Review Letters , Vol. 108, 19 March 2012)
“Photonuclear reactions are capable of accounting for the possible amplifications of neutron flux in thunderstorm atmosphere since in correlation with thunderstorms gamma ray flashes were repeatedly observed with spectra extending high above the threshold of photonuclear reactions in air. By numerical simulations, it was demonstrated that gamma ray pulses detected in thunderstorm atmosphere are capable of generating photonuclear neutrons in numbers sufficient to be detected even at sea level. . . It would seem that, for neutron generation, in thunderstorm atmosphere, strong nuclear interaction is responsible.”
(L.P. Babich, E.I. Bochkov, I.M. Kutsyk, and A.N. Zalyalov, “On Amplifications of Photonuclear Flux in Thunderstorm Atmosphere and Possibility of Detecting Them,” Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics, Vol. 97, May 2013, p. 291)
Thank you,
Rick Keane
Just another tip here, Mr Keane: real scholars and students don’t simply concatenate a whole bunch of quote fragments and say, “explain this”. You’ve cited a bunch of geology texts; have you read them to get clarification on those scattered quotes? That’s where you start. Not by phoning up biologists and asking them to explain geophysics to you.
But maybe there are some readers here who know that field better than I do (which is not a high hurdle to cross) and they can address a few of the points. Given that they’re from Brown and the Center for Scientific Creation, though, I don’t think you’re going to find any answers here to fit your presuppositions.
Dealing with various creationists, you quickly begin to recognize the different popular flavors out there.
The Intelligent Design creationists believe in argument from pseudoscientific assertion; “No natural process can produce complex specified information, other than Design,” they will thunder at you, and point to books by people with Ph.D.s and try to tell you they are scientific. They aren’t. Their central premise is false, and trivially so.
Followers of Eric Hovind I find are the most repellently ignorant of the bunch. They love that presuppositional apologetics wankery: presuppose god exists, therefore god exists. It’s like debating a particularly smug solipsist — don’t bother.
The most popular approach I’ve found, though, is the one that Ken Ham pushes. It’s got that delightful combination of arrogant pretense in which the Bible-walloper gets to pretend he understands science better than scientists, and simultaneously allows them to deny every scientific observation, ever. This is the argument where they declare what kinds of science there are, and evolutionary biologists are using the weak kind, historical science, while creationists are only using the strong kind, observational science. They use the distinction wrongly and without any understanding of how science works, and they inappropriately claim that they’re doing any kind of science at all.
A recent example of this behavior comes from Whirled Nut Daily, where I’m getting double-teamed by Ray Comfort and Ken Ham (don’t worry, I’m undaunted by the prospect of being ganged up on by clowns.)
According to Ken Ham’s blog at Answers in Genesis, Minnesota professor PZ Myers, who was interviewed by Comfort, said: “Lie harder, little man … Ray Comfort is pushing his new creationist movie with a lie. … What actually happened is that I briefly discussed the evidence for evolution – genetics and molecular biology of fish, transitional fossils, known phylogenies relating extant groups, and experimental work on bacterial evolution in the lab, and Ray comfort simply denied it all – the bacteria were still bacteria, the fish were still fish.”
But Ham explained that Comfort “asks a question something like this: ‘Is there scientific evidence – observable evidence – to support evolution?’ Well, none of them could provide anything remotely scientific. Oh, they give the usual examples about changes in bacteria, different species of fish (like stickleback fish) and, as to be expected, Darwin’s finches. But as Ray points out over and over again in ‘Evolution vs. God,’ the bacteria are still bacteria, the fish are still fish, and the finches are still finches!”
Isn’t that what I said? I gave him evidence, which he denied by falling back on a typological fallacy: the bacteria are still bacteria. What he refuses to recognize is that they were quantitatively different bacteria, physiologically and genetically. To say that something is still X, where X is an incredibly large and diverse group like fish and bacteria, is to deny variation and diversity, observable properties of the natural world which are the fundamental bedrock of evolutionary theory.
But the giveaway is that brief phrase “scientific evidence — observational evidence”. That’s where the real sleight of hand occurs: both Comfort and Ham try to claim that that all the evidence for evolution doesn’t count, because it’s not “observational”. “Were you there?” they ask, meaning that the only evidence they’ll accept is one where an eyewitness sees a complete transformation of one species to another. That is, they want the least reliable kind of evidence, for phenomena that are not visual. They’re freakin’ lying fools.
All scientific evidence is observational, but not in the naive sense that all that counts is what you see with your eyes. There is a sense in which some science is regarded as historical, but it’s not used in the way creationists do; it does not refer to science that describes events in the past.
Maybe some examples will make that clearer.
We can reconstruct the evolutionary history of fruit flies. We do this by observation. That does not mean we watch different species of fruit flies speciate before our eyes (although it has been found to occur in reasonable spans of time in the lab and the wild), it means we extract and analyze information from extant species — we take invisible genetic properties of the flies’ genomes and turn them into tables of data and strings of publishable code. We observe patterns in their genetics that allow us to determine patterns of historical change. Observation and history are intertwined. To deny the history is to deny the observations.
Paleontology is often labeled a historical science, but it doesn’t have the pejorative sense in which creationists use it, and it is definitely founded in observation. For instance, plesiosaurs: do you think scientists just invented them? No. We found their bones — we observed their remains imbedded in rock — and further, we found evidence of a long history of variation and diversity. The sense in which the study of plesiosaurs is historical is that they’re all extinct, so there are no extant forms to examine, but it is still soundly based on observation. Paleontology may be largely historical, but it is still a legitimate science built on observation, measurement, and even prediction, and it also relies heavily on analysis of extant processes in geology, physics, and biology.
The reliance on falsehoods like this bizarre distinction between observational and historical science that the Hamites and Comfortians constantly make is one of the reasons you all ought to appreciate my saintly forebearance, because every time I hear them make it, I feel a most uncivilized urge to strangle someone. I suppress it every time, though: I just tell myself it’s not their fault their brains were poisoned by Jesus.
I know you’re thinking we’ve had more than enough discussion of one simplistic umbrella hypothesis for the origin of unique human traits — the aquatic ape hypothesis — and it’s cruel of me to introduce another, but who knows, maybe the proponents of each will collide and mutually annihilate each other, and then we’ll all be happy. Besides, this new idea is hilarious. I’m calling it the MFAP hypothesis of human origins, which the original author probably wouldn’t care for (for reasons that will become clear in a moment), but I think it’s very accurate.
FACIAL FEATURES
Lightly pigmented eyes common
Protruding, cartilaginous mucous nose
Narrow eye opening
Short, thick upper lip
Philtrum/cleft lip
Glabrous mucous membrane bordering lips
Eyebrows
Heavy eyelashes
Earlobes
FEATURES RELATING TO BIPEDALITY
Short, dorsal spines on first six cervical vertebrae
Seventh cervical vertebrae:
– long dorsal spine
– transverse foramens
Fewer floating and more non-floating ribs
More lumbar vertebrae
Fewer sacral vertebrae
More coccygeal vertebrae (long “tail bone”)
Centralized spine
Short pelvis relative to body length
Sides of pelvis turn forward
Sharp lumbo-sacral promontory
Massive gluteal muscles
Curved sacrum with short dorsal spines
Hind limbs longer than forelimbs
Femur:
– Condyles equal in size
– Knock-kneed
– Elliptical condyles
– Deep intercondylar notch at lower end of femur
– Deep patellar groove with high lateral lip
– Crescent-shaped lateral meniscus with two tibial insertions
Short malleolus medialis
Talus suited strictly for extension and flexion of the foot
Long calcaneus relative to foot (metatarsal) length
Short digits (relative to chimpanzee)
Terminal phalanges blunt (ungual tuberosities)
Narrow pelvic outlet
ORGANS
Diverticulum at cardiac end of stomach
Valves of Kerkring present in small intestines
Mesenteric arterial arcades
Multipyramidal kidneys
Heart auricles level
Tricuspid valve of heart
Laryngeal sacs absent
Vocal ligaments
Prostate encircles urethra
Bulbo-urethral glands present
Os penis (baculum) absent.
Hymen
Absence of periodic sexual swellings in female
Ischial callosities absent
Nipples low on chest
Bicornuate uterus (occasionally present in humans)
Labia majora
CRANIAL FEATURES
Brain lobes: frontal and temporal prominent
Thermoregulatory venous plexuses
Well-developed system of emissary veins
Enlarged nasal bones
Divergent eyes (interior of orbit visible from side)
Styloid process
Large occipital condyles
Primitive premolar
Large, blunt-cusped (bunodont) molars
Thick tooth enamel
Helical chewing
BEHAVIORAL/PHYSIOLOGICAL
Nocturnal activity
Particular about place of defecation
Good swimmer, no fear of water
Extended male copulation time
Female orgasm
Short menstrual cycle
Snuggling
Tears
Alcoholism
Terrestrialism (Non-arboreal)
Able to exploit a wide range of environments and foods
RARE OR ABSENT IN NONHUMAN PRIMATES:
Heart attack
Atherosclerosis
Cancer (melanoma)
First, the author of this new hypothesis provides a convenient list of all the unique traits that distinguish humans from other primates, listed on the right. It falsely lists a number of traits that are completely non-unique (such as female orgasm and cancer), or are bizarre and irrelevant (“snuggling”, really?). It’s clearly a selective and distorted list made by someone with an agenda, so even though some items on the list are actually unusual traits, the list itself is a very poor bit of data.
But set those objections to the list aside for a moment, and let’s consider the hypothesis proposed to explain their existence, the MFAP Hypothesis of Eugene McCarthy, geneticist. I will allow him to speak for himself at length; basically, though, he proposes that the way novel traits appear in evolution is by hybridization, by crosses between two different species to produce a third with unique properties.
Many characteristics that clearly distinguish humans from chimps have been noted by various authorities over the years. The task of preliminarily identifying a likely pair of parents, then, is straightforward: Make a list of all such characteristics and then see if it describes a particular animal. One fact, however, suggests the need for an open mind: as it turns out, many features that distinguish humans from chimpanzees also distinguish them from all other primates. Features found in human beings, but not in other primates, cannot be accounted for by hybridization of a primate with some other primate. If hybridization is to explain such features, the cross will have to be between a chimpanzee and a nonprimate — an unusual, distant cross to create an unusual creature.
…
For the present, I ask the reader to reserve judgment concerning the plausibility of such a cross. I’m an expert on hybrids and I can assure you that our understanding of hybridization at the molecular level is still far too vague to rule out the idea of a chimpanzee crossing with a nonprimate. Anyone who speaks with certainty on this point speaks from prejudice, not knowledge.
…
Let’s begin, then, by considering the list in the sidebar at right, which is a condensed list of traits distinguishing humans from chimpanzees — and all other nonhuman primates. Take the time to read this list and to consider what creature — of any kind — it might describe. Most of the items listed are of such an obscure nature that the reader might be hard pressed to say what animal might have them (only a specialist would be familiar with many of the terms listed, but all the necessary jargon will be defined and explained). For example, consider multipyramidal kidneys. It’s a fact that humans have this trait, and that chimpanzees and other primates do not, but the average person on the street would probably have no idea what animals do have this feature.
Looking at a subset of the listed traits, however, it’s clear that the other parent in this hypothetical cross that produced the first human would be an intelligent animal with a protrusive, cartilaginous nose, a thick layer of subcutaneous fat, short digits, and a naked skin. It would be terrestrial, not arboreal, and adaptable to a wide range of foods and environments. These traits may bring a particular creature to mind. In fact, a particular nonprimate does have, not only each of the few traits just mentioned, but every one of the many traits listed in th sidebar. Ask yourself: Is it is likely that an animal unrelated to humans would possess so many of the “human” characteristics that distinguish us from primates? That is, could it be a mere coincidence? It’s only my opinion, but I don’t think so.
Look at the description of the putative non-primate parent in the last paragraph above. What animal are you thinking of? It’s probably the same one McCarthy imagined, which is why I’ve decided that this explanation for human origins must be called the Monkey-Fucked-A–Pig hypothesis, or MFAP for short.
Let’s be perfectly clear about this. McCarthy’s hypothesis is that once upon a time, these two met and had sex,
And that they then had children that were…us.
That’ll learn me. I thought this South Park clip was a joke.
One thing that struck me in reading McCarthy’s claim is how they are so similar to the claims of the soggy ape fans — they even use the very same physiological and anatomical features to argue for their delusion. For instance, I’ve read aquatic ape proponents’ arguments that the shape of our nose is adaptive for streamlining and for preventing water from flowing into the nostrils while propelling ourselves forward through the water…but compare that to the MFAP.
Neither is it clear how a protrusive cartilaginous nose might have aided early humans in their “savannah hunter lifestyle.” As Morris remarks, “It is interesting to note that the protuberant, fleshy nose of our species is another unique feature that the anatomists cannot explain.” This feature is neither characteristic of apes, nor even of other catarrhines. Obviously, pigs have a nose even more protuberant than our own. In a pig’s snout, the nasal wings and septum are cartilaginous as ours are. In contrast, a chimpanzee’s nose “is small, flat, and has no lateral cartilages”. A cartilaginous nose is apparently a rare trait in mammals. Primatologist Jeffrey Schwartz goes so far as to say that “it is the enlarged nasal wing cartilage that makes the human nose what it is, and which distinguishes humans from all other animals.” The cartilaginous structure of the pig’s snout is generally considered to be an “adaptation” for digging with the nose (rooting). Rooting is, apparently, a behavior pattern peculiar to pigs. Other animals dig with their feet.
Point, MFAP. Of course, just as I would point out to aquatic ape people, we do have an explanation for the nose: recession of the facial bones associated with reduced dentition, along with retention of the bones associated with the respiratory apparatus. The protuberant nose is simply a ridge made apparent by the receding tide of our chewing apparatus. McCarthy uses evidence as badly as does every wet ape fan.
Now, why won’t this hybridization claim work? Well, there are the obvious behavioral difficulties, even if it were cytogenetically possible. We’d have to have pigs and chimps having sex and producing fertile offspring, and those human babies (remember, this is a saltational theory, so the progeny would have all the attributes of a third species, ours) would have to be raised by chimps. Or pigs. I don’t think either is a reasonable alternative, and a band of chimps would probably be no more charitable to a helpless fat blob of a baby than Mr Wu’s pigs.
However, no one reasonably expects pigs and chimps to be interfertile. The primate and artiodactyl lineages have diverged for roughly 80 million years — just the gradual accumulation of molecular differences in sperm and egg recognition proteins would mean that pig sperm wouldn’t recognize a chimpanzee egg as a reasonable target for fusion. Heck, even two humans will have these sorts of mating incompatibilities. Two species that haven’t had any intermingling populations since the Cretaceous? No way.
But further, even if the sperm of one would fuse with the egg of another, there is another looming problem: chromosome incompatibilities. Pigs have 38 chromosomes, chimpanzees have 48. Cells are remarkably good at coping with variations in chromosome number, and even with translocations of regions from one chromosome to another; and further, pigs and people even retain similar genetic arrangements on some of their chromosomes. There are pig chromosomes that have almost the same arrangement of genes as a corresponding human chromosome.
But there are limits to how much variation the cell division machinery can cope with. For instance, with fewer chromosomes than we primates have, that means you need to line up multiple primate chromosomes to match a single pig chromosome (this pairing up is essential for both mitosis and meiosis). Look at pig chromosome 7, for instance: it corresponds to scrambled and reassembled bits of human chromosomes 6, 14, and 15.
Blocks of conserved synteny between pig and human. (a) Pig SSC7 to human chromosomes 6, 14 and 15. (b) HSA13 compared to pig chromosome 11. Block inversions between pig and human are denoted with broken lines. Contig coverage is depicted by bars in the center of SSC7 and HSA13.
Maybe that would work in mitosis within the hybrid progeny — you’d have three chromosomes from the human/chimp parent twisted around one chromosome, but they would be able to pair up, mostly, and then separate to form two daughter cells. But meiosis would be total chaos: any crossing over would lead to deletions and duplications, acentric and dicentric chromosomes, a jumble of broken chromosomes. That would represent sterile progeny and an evolutionary dead end.
But we wouldn’t have to even get that far. Human and chimpanzee chromosomes are even more similar to one another, and there are no obvious chromosomal barriers to interfertility between one another. If hybridization in mammals were so easy that a pig and a chimp could do it, human-chimp hybrids ought to be trivial. Despite rumors of some experiments that attempted to test that, though, there have been no human-chimp hybrids observed, and I think they are highly unlikely to be possible. In this case, it’s a developmental problem.
For example, we have bigger brains than chimpanzees do. This is not a change that was effected with a single switch; multiple genes had to co-evolve together, ratcheting up the size in relatively incremental steps. So you could imagine a change that increased mitotic activity in neural precursors that would increase the number of neurons, but then you’d also need changes in how those cells are partitioned into different regions, and changes in the proliferation of cartilage and bone to generate a larger cranium, and greater investment in vascular tissue to provide that brain with an adequate blood supply.
Development is like a ballet, in which multiple players have to be in the right place and with the right timing for everything to come off smoothly. If someone is out of place by a few feet or premature by a few seconds in a leap, the dancers could probably compensate because there are understood rules for the general interactions…but it would probably come off as rough and poorly executed. A hybrid between two closely related species would be like mixing and matching the dancers from two different troupes to dance similar versions of Swan Lake — everything would be a bit off, but they could probably compensate and muddle through the performance.
Hybridizing a pig and a chimp is like taking half the dancers from a performance of Swan Lake and the other half from a performance of Giselle and throwing them together on stage to assemble something. It’s going to be a catastrophe.
But here’s the deal: maybe I’m completely wrong. This is an experiment that is easily and relatively cheaply done. Human sperm is easily obtained (McCarthy probably has a plentiful supply in his pants), while artificial insemination of swine is routine. Perhaps McCarthy can report back when he has actually done the work.
Humphray SJ, Scott CE, Clark R, Marron B, Bender C, Camm N, Davis J, Jenks A, Noon A, Patel M, Sehra H, Yang F, Rogatcheva MB, Milan D, Chardon P, Rohrer G, Nonneman D, de Jong P, Meyers SN, Archibald A, Beever JE, Schook LB, Rogers J. (2007) A high utility integrated map of the pig genome. Genome Biol. 8(7):R139.
Gang, don’t try this at home. I’m a trained professional, so I can get away with it, although I do face extreme risk of brain damage.
I am reading two books at once. OK, that part isn’t too scary, I’m actually just alternating between the two — an hour with one at lunch time, an hour or two with another before bed. I trust you all are able to do this, no problem.
It’s the pairing that is the killer. In one corner, I’m reading the marvelously detailed, juicy, thought-provoking The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity
Some would say I’m mad to do this; others would say the shock of the combination will drive me mad. They are both right, I fear.
I’m only a few chapters into each so far. The Erwin & Valentine book is terrific — a bit dense and technical, but full of the right stuff. I’m learning a great deal; it starts with material I’m not at all familiar with, the geochemistry of the pre-Cambrian. The point is to set the stage, to explain the environment in which the Cambrian explosion will occur, and also most importantly, to explain how scientists know what the world was like between a billion and 500 million years ago.
It also discusses real controversies and real science. For example, there was a world-wide shift in ocean and atmospheric chemistry during this period: was it primarily an abiotic process, or did the expansion of bacterial forms and the emergence of multicellular life contribute significantly?
We haven’t even gotten to the fossils yet, let alone the biology! I’m appreciating the education, though — the story simply cannot be understood without this background material. It’s also fueling an interest in, of all things, geology. I may have to read more about this subject.
The Meyer book, on the other hand…maybe it’s best that I am reading it in conjunction with some real science. The contrast is jarring and enlightening.
The first bit of this book is an extended whine about how no one understood his last book, Signature in the Cell, which was another gloppy bit of tripe from a mediocre mind with a magnificent ego. That book was entirely about the origin of life, he says, and how it’s impossible to create new information with undirected processes; everyone thought it was about how undirected processes can add information to existing organisms, but it wasn’t, and this new book about the Darwin’s Doubt and the Cambrian explosion is the one that is going to show that’s impossible, too. So he begins by repetitively reciting the same bogus assertions he made in his previous book.
The type of information present in living cells — that is, “specified” information in which the sequence of characters matters to the function of the sequence as a whole — has generated an acute mystery. No undirected physical or chemical process has demonstrated the capacity to produce specified information, starting from “purely physical or chemical precursors”. For this reason, chemical evolutionary theories have failed to solve the mystery of the origin of first life—a claim that few mainstream evolutionary theorists now dispute.
Simply rebutted: random peptides exhibit catalytic activity. There’s a process that starts from “purely physical or chemical” precursors and uses the information defined by the sequence of amino acids to produce a naturally selectable function. And I’m sorry, but what is an example of a non-physical, non-chemical process in biology?
Are we done yet?
Of course not. Meyer is going to drool out a few hundred pages of drivel that will only convince the gullible, the ignorant, and the already dedicated creationists. There is not one bit of substance in the book so far; just rehashed Intelligent Design creationist talking points. This “specified information” of which he speaks is undefined and unmeasurable — it’s the phrase they flap at anyone who challenges their claim of have concrete evidence against evolution.
Meyer then dives into more misleading statements, such as that the Cambrian biota just erupted abruptly into the fossil record, with no precursors — surely you don’t expect a creationist to explain the geological and biological context of the pre-Cambrian/Cambrian, as Erwin and Valentine do? That would take work and knowledge, which Meyer lacks. Nick Matzke at the Panda’s Thumb has torn into the superficiality and wrongness of Meyer’s arguments already — go read that if you want to see ID arguments taken down a notch.
Otherwise, wait a bit and somewhere in my looming frantic schedule I’ll be reading deeper into The Cambrian Explosion…and I see that the next section is titled “The Record of Early Metazoan Evolution”. I think I’ll trust Ervin and Valentine’s competence over Meyer’s religiously driven ignorance.
If this combo does not hurl me down the stairs of madness into the abyss of total chaotic brain-scrambling, there’s a third book gazing ominously at me from the bookshelf. I’ve been asked to consult with Tony Ortega, who runs an anti-scientology website on a public evisceration of Scientology: A History of Man
Melissa McEwan has written two more posts on misogyny in atheism. They’re both good and highly recommended, but I have to clarify something.
McEwan takes exception to something I wrote.
And then there were the atheist men, in most cases ostensibly sympathetic to my position, who piped up to let me know that I wasn’t talking about them, that they were one of the Good Ones. Even Myers linked to my list with the curious line: “Melissa McEwan has some Advice to Atheist Men. The long list sounds very good, but I do have one reservation: none of it is exclusive to atheists or men. I think it’s more Advice for Decent Human Beings.”
I’m not sure why my “long list” (of 18 suggestions) would engender reservations simply because it is not “exclusive to atheists or men,” unless one is keen to deflect accountability for being part of the group being urged to decency.
And one commenter interpreted that to a remarkably vicious degree.
Where the HELL does Meyers get off asking for advice and then saying “oh, well that doesn’t apply to me.” Uh yeah. It does.
So let me clarify. I was not saying I disagreed with the list in any way. I was not saying that McEwan was not talking about us ‘good atheists’. I was not trying to deflect accountability away from atheists. Most importantly, I was not saying it doesn’t apply to me — a bizarre charge, since I most certainly aspire to belong to the category of decent human beings, and I would hope that being decent human beings would be one of the goals of all atheists.
It was a reservation that wasn’t really a reservation — it was an appreciation of the universality of the suggestions, and a comment that the title of McEwan’s post was not adequate to describe the usefulness of the content.
I would definitely hope that more atheists would pay attention to her work.
