The next question is, how many of them moonlight as ministers?

Larry Moran sneers at the creationist habit of stoking their numbers by claiming that M.D.s are “science professionals”, and therefore bolster their generic claim that ‘growing numbers of scientists are defecting from the Darwinist camp’.

I’ll make Larry’s sneer even fiercer by pointing out that many of them are dentists.

(I have nothing against doctors and dentists, of course, and have nothing but respect for their important skills. Most are not scientists, however, and don’t think like scientists, and don’t even pay much attention to the basic scientific literature. Claiming scientific legitimacy by tallying up your fan base among dental hygenists is like claiming Al Gore should have been the president because Canadians liked him better than Bush. Worse, because scientific conclusions are not determined by popular vote.)

Shades of Haryun Yahya!

The Turkish creationist sunk a whole lot of money sending an elaborate creationist book to thousands of biologists. I’m sure he felt he was doing us a favor in sending us the light, but most of the recipients were feeling something less pleasant — it’s like receiving a gilded dead rat in the mail. Now the conservative Christians are going to get in the act, and in a low-rent version of the game are going to send a few hundred thousand cheap bibles to newspaper subscribers.

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The Pharyngula chat room has moved

Urgent news for the chatty among you: Skatje tells me the Pharyngula chat room has been playing musical chairs lately, and it is now located on channel #pharyngula on irc.synirc.net. If you want to try it out, just click on the link above, and it’ll launch a java-based irc client and you can type away in real time to human beings.

Creationists and fundies are especially welcome to go witness to the regulars.

Don’t panic if your doctor is godless

The researcher behind this study is “surprised and disappointed,” but I’m neither.

Although most religious traditions call on the faithful to serve the poor, a large cross-sectional survey of U.S. physicians found that physicians who are more religious are slightly less likely to practice medicine among the underserved than physicians with no religious affiliation.

In the July/August issue of the Annals of Family Medicine, researchers from the University of Chicago and Yale New Haven Hospital report that 31 percent of physicians who were more religious–as measured by “intrinsic religiosity” as well as frequency of attendance at religious services–practiced among the underserved, compared to 35 percent of physicians who described their religion as atheist, agnostic or none.

Charity, service, self-sacrifice, generosity, and kindness are human properties, not religious virtues. I wouldn’t expect a group of people from a common culture to show much substantial variation in empathy and public service along religious lines.

Despite the fact that he is disappointed in the result, I do have to commend the author for making a positive policy recommendation:

Policy makers and medical educators hoping to increase the physician supply for underserved populations should take these results into account cautiously, said the authors. “No one knows how to select medical students in a way that would actually increase the number of physicians eager to serve the underserved,” Curlin said, “but our findings suggest that admissions officials should ignore both the general religiousness of candidates and their professed sense of calling to medicine.”

Bang your own drum, but please do bang it

Richard Dawkins defends the Out Campaign. I really have to stress to everyone who complains that they don’t like the design, that it’s too bold, that it’s too timid, that they don’t believe in joining anything, etc., that this is not about conformity — you don’t have to wear the big red “A” t-shirt, and no one is going to draft you into the Atheist Army. This is a plea for everyone to get loud and make your beliefs known. Atheists generally are not joiners or conformists or big fans public displays of unity, but we have to start forming some kind of loose interessengemeinschaft — a fellowship of interests — if we want to stop being marginalized. This is nothing but a start.

It’s not as if you’re being asked to join the Atheist Alliance or American Atheists, although those are good organizations — the only thing you have to do to join this particular movement is to be vigorous in asserting your godlessness, in whatever way you choose. Here in the US, we must make it clear that there is a significant slice of the electorate that wants our government kept entirely secular.

And if you don’t like the scarlet letter, Dawkins points to the CafePress site where you can pick from 9,430 atheist designs. Pick one or design your own. It’s not dogmatic adherence the campaign is looking for, it’s independence and some slight measure of dedication to increasing secularism.