I blush to mention it

Declan Butler has a short article in this week’s Nature on the “Top 5 Science Blogs”. This was determined by identifying blogs written by scientists and determining their rank on Technorati. The top five are:

  1. Pharyngula, at #179
  2. The Panda’s Thumb, at #1647
  3. RealClimate, at #1884
  4. Cosmic Variance, at #2174
  5. The Scientific Activist, at #3429

Declan asked each of us to say a little bit about why we were succeeding in this medium, and that’s given in a short summary. It’s seriously edited down, though—I have no complaints at all about what he wrote, but he didn’t use one part I wrote to him. I can’t blame him, since it undercuts the premise of the article, but I wanted to mention it here, at least.

Hmmm, reasons for my “success”…well, first of all, I have to say that I don’t measure success in terms of Technorati rank or traffic. There are great science blogs out there (check out the list at scienceblogs.com) that are more focused than mine and certainly do a better job of more sharply elucidating the niche they occupy. I’d say I have wider popularity because I do tend to wander off into many different topics, so there is a more diffuse field of potential interest, tapping into the broader areas of liberal politics and atheism. I think, also, I’ve tapped into a fair amount of resentment against the reactionary religious nature of American culture—to some, I suspect I’m one representative of opposition to the excesses of our dominant political regime. This country is strongly polarized, and my position makes it easy for many to identify with me…and those who disagree find it easy to characterize me.

Nature has made available a list of the top 50 science blogs, which will make for a useful start for anyone trying to fill up a blogroll. As Sciencebase notes, though, it does have some omissions.

Coturnix turns up a publicly accessible copy of the article.

Butler D (2006) Top five science blogs. Nature 442(7098):9.

Dire warnings

Reading some of my favorite blogs today, I can’t help but feel the looming hand of fate preparing to destroy us all.

  • Jon Voisey is praising a director of the Oklahoma ACLU, Joanne Bell. You’re in Kansas, Jon. It’s not that far from Oklahoma. What happened to Bell could happen to you.
  • Ophelia Benson is saying harsh words about Mother Theresa. An uppity woman criticizing an icon of Christian charity? Someday, you could be in a hospital with a hatchet-faced nun looming over you, contemplating how best to chastise your body before your immortal soul meets the god who will fling you into the flames of Hell.
  • General JC Christian dares to mock those who would sic Jew-haters on the home of the Dobrich family. You’re anonymous, old boy—wouldn’t it be a fine coup for some winger somewhere to publish your home address and phone number? Let’s see how funny you are when a manly Christian fellow shows up at your door with a demand to give your inner Frenchman a workout.
  • Cream Pickle Pups? Oh, no—it’s fair time in the Midwest, when the most obscene foods appear in greasy carts on dirt paths in places that reek of farm animals. We’re all gonna die.

Despite the horrible possibilities, though, I can’t help but hope that everyone keeps it up. Well, except for Diablo Cody—no one really needs to OD on fried fats in grease, do they?

Creationist email to the fraternity

One more piece of creationist email for you: this one was addressed to me and all of my fraternity of Godless Atheists, which I think means you readers here. Never mind protesting that some of you are Christian—get used to it, to these guys you will never be truly Christian.

Anyway, it’s not a very entertaining letter. It was, as usual, amusingly formatted (Outlook Express is evil software), but I’ve stripped all that gunky Microsoft html out of it to simplify posting it. It’s your usual argument from poorly understood physics: the Big Bang is evidence of Jesus, really tiny numbers prove Jesus, mangled information theory proves Jesus. It does have one novel argument I haven’t seen before, that a kitchen spray bottle proves Jesus, but I don’t think it’s going to get much traction in the scientific community. I haven’t bothered to reply to it, but if anyone wants to shred the nonsense in the comments, maybe the authors will find it online.

Oh, and welcome to the Atheist Fraternity! Remember, we’re getting together with the Atheist Sorority on Friday night for a Toga Party!

[Read more…]

True patriots are apostate and infidel!

Since it is the Fourth of July, it seems only right to post something from the Revolution. Our reading for the day is the Age of Reason, by that fierce freethinking firebrand, Thomas Paine.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.

It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. He takes up the trade of a priest for the sake of gain, and in order to qualify himself for that trade, he begins with a perjury. Can we conceive any thing more destructive to morality than this?

Of course, Paine died abandoned and spurned by the Republic he had inspired for these views…if deists could have a martyr, here he is.

Creationist e-mail

I’m going to go fire up the grill in a little while, so here’s something for those of you not yet doing the traditional Fourth of July thing to chew on…a tasty scrap of the kind of email I get.

EVOLUTION IS ENTIRELY
FALLACIOUS.

MEIOSIS CASTRATES
EVOLUTION.KARYOTYPES DISPROVE
EVOLUTION. THE
BASIC MECHANISMS SAID TO BE DRIVING EVOLUTION ARE ENTIRELY INADEQUATE,UTTERLY
INCAPABLE OF PRODUCING NOVEL KARYOTYPES,NOVEL FEATURES,NOVEL
FUNCTIONS.
1)EVOLUTION’S
PHYLOGENIES ARE TOTALLY INCOMPATIBLE WITH
KARYOTYPES;
2)THERE IS NO MECHANISM TO GENERATE NOVEL
KARYOTYPES THAT ARE FERTILE(meiosis,homology,synapsis,centromeres etc.); MEIOSIS
CASTRATES EVOLUTION BY FAILING TO PROCEED IF ANY CHROMOSOMES FAIL TO PAIR
UP WITH HOMOLOGOUS PARTNERS.SEXUALLY REPRODUCIBLE KARYOTYPES THEREBY
FIXED!EVOLUTIONARY PROGRESSION OF CHROMOSOME NUMBERS IS TOTALLY INCOMPATIBLE
WITH THE MECHANISMS OF MEIOSIS.

“Wha…,” you may be saying as you taste that little sample. He goes on and on, though, in some of the most ghastly html ever. I’ve stripped out quite a bit here; if you really want to see the whole incredible indigestible thing, I’ve sequestered it and put it in a separate file you can view (no way am I pasting it intact here—the formatting would almost certainly scramble the page. I know for sure there are unbalanced div tags in it.)
Click on this link to see the whole crazy rant in a new window.

My eyes glazed over and I scrolled quickly through the whole mess—although the section where alternate letters of his screed were in different colors did briefly catch my eye—to his closing babble.

In the beginning was the LOGOS and the LOGOS was
with the THEOS.All things came into being through him and without him not even
one thing came into being.
Evolutionism is a pseudo-religion masquerading as
science.The science of evolution is defective
EVOLUTION HAS BEEN UNEQUIVOCALLY DISPROVEN BY
FACTS!
THE ONLY LOGICAL CONCLUSION IS THAT SPECIES DID NOT
ORIGINATE BY EVOLUTION.
“BLUNDER”-of Scandinavian
origin,compare Old Norse blunda ‘to close one’s eyes’ ,Norwegian
dialect  blundra ; see BLIND

P.S.if you have noticed any factual errors in
this presentation please inform me of them

Well. Factual errors? Sure, I noticed a few. So I sent him a one-liner back that said his whole premise was in error, and included a link that shows karyotype variation occurs all the time.

It was a mistake, as you’ll all tell me now. He’s since sent me two more letters insisting that I’m all wrong and that I’m trying to “intimidate” him “with typical evolutionary bluster.”

I’m not going to bother with him, but since he’s feeling like he now has permission to pester me, I’m going to let you have fun with him instead. You can email him at jacksprat@netconnect.co.zw. Be nice, but show no mercy. Watch out, though…he throws a mean word salad, and he won’t shut up.

I think I’d rather go fix some steaks and chicken breasts and corn on the cob.

By the way, he claims to be a “medical practitioner.” I’m guessing, oh, chiropractor. Or maybe an iridologist or reflexologist.