Culture Wars
tfk | February 25, 2011The Wonkroom's Brad Johnson takes on USA Today's Dan Vergano over geoengineering. Geoengineering is the idea that we could combat global warming by pumping sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere, thus blocking some solar radiation and keeping things cooler.
Vergano is a sharp science writer and his take is hardly boosterish, but Johnson dings him for having:
failed to accurately interpret the scientific literature. The only risks he has depicted â ones that involve the potential deaths of millions if not billions of people â are the âknownâ ones, the ones easily modeled by imperfect…
tfk | February 24, 2011Jerry Coyne is confused:
Iâm surprised that accommodationists and the National Center for Science Education donât criticize [other] evolutionists for describing the evolution and natural selection as âpurely natural and materialistic processes,â for that steps on the toes of the faithful just as hard as saying that evolution is âunguided and purposelessâ. In both cases divine intervention is explicitly ruled out.
Not sure why he omitted the word "other," but the first sentence doesn't make sense without it.
That he would find this confusing is simply further evidence that Coyne does not…
tfk | February 23, 2011Not that Glen Beck's wankery is a surprise, but Mark Chu-Carroll has a nice takedown of Beck's culturally illiterate attack on the rabbis who think he's an antisemitic wanker. Enjoy.
tfk | February 22, 2011Barry Kosmin, whose American Religious Identification Survey is one the basic datasets for anyone trying to understand religion in America, isn't convinced higher education causes people to become atheists:
Undoubtedly, educational attainment is closely associated with intelligence. So any link between intelligence and atheism seems persuasive. â¦
As regards atheism, one mistake often made, even by many experts, is a failure to differentiate atheism from disbelief and indifference to religion. Certainly, higher education since the days of the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment has…
tfk | February 19, 2011Shorter Jerry Coyne:
Wanting gnu atheists not to be dickbags is the equivalent of telling them to STFU. Jeremy Stangroom's claim that gnus use ad hominem attacks is wrong because, look, he tried to defend a 28 year-old woman having sex with a 14 year-old boy. If you need further proof that I'm focused on substance not ad hominem argument, consider this: Stangroom must be wrong because I don't want to have a beer with him.
Coyne's whole piece is a marvelous example of the ad hominem tendencies Chris Schoen pointed out (quoted and discussed yesterday). Stangroom is supposedly wrong about…
tfk | February 18, 2011Chris Schoen:
before we ⦠endorse Coyne's self-congratulation for never having "criticized an evolutionist, writer, or scholar in an ad hominem manner," it's worth taking a quick glance at his blog, where it's hard to find a post that doesn't devolve into ad hom (unless it's about kittens). Starting with the most recent example, earlier this week Coyne called Deepak Chopra (not someone I particularly admire, but a writer nonetheless) "Deepity Chopra," whose significant wealth he calls "an indictment of America."
Prior to this he suggests that the critiques ("tripe") of Phil Zuckerman--writer…
tfk | February 17, 2011Martin Cothran â proponent of patriarchy, hyper of the heteronormative, crusader for creationists, water-carrier for women-haters, doyen of defenders of Holocaust deniers, troubadour of traitors â thinks I should insult him more classily. If he's serious about that, he needs to do different sorts of offensive things. How many ways are there to call him out for defending â at length! â Pat Buchanan's anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial? How many ways are there to say that he's a doctrinaire conservative who (therefore) wants to drag Kentucky back to the 18th century, where men were men,…
tfk | February 17, 2011Wonk Room's Brad Johnson interviews the man behind HB 549. Rep. Read explains that he didn't seek scientific comment before drafting his bill, and that he decided the legislature had to declare that global warming is not happening, is not caused by humans, and is good for Montana anyway because:
We canât wait for this issue to be settled. So the legislature is going to come in, and prevent something that potentially could destroy the economy of Montana and the United States.
He tells Johnson that he was reacting to federal climate policy, including forthcoming EPA regulations, as well as…
tfk | February 17, 2011John Pieret on Russell Blackford on Accommodating Incompatiblism. Russell writes:
religion needs to be constantly reinterpreted to maintain even logical consistency with our empirically-based secular knowledge. This process in itself leaves religious beliefs looking ad hoc and implausible.
John notes:
But, wait a minute, doesn't science constantly reinterpret itself to maintain consistency with empirically-based knowledge?
So, is the complaint that those forms of theism that try to reconcile empirical knowledge and religious faith are being too damn much like science?
Seriously, if you aren'…
tfk | February 16, 2011HB 549, introduced by Rep. Joe Reed, has been referred to the state legislature's Natural Resources comittee:
A BILL FOR AN ACT ENTITLED: "AN ACT STATING MONTANA'S POSITION ON GLOBAL WARMING; AND PROVIDING AN IMMEDIATE EFFECTIVE DATE."
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MONTANA:
NEW SECTION. Section 1. Public policy concerning global warming. (1) The legislature finds that to ensure economic development in Montana and the appropriate management of Montana's natural resources it is necessary to adopt a public policy regarding global warming.
(2) The legislature finds:
(a)…
tfk | February 16, 2011
Last Sunday, I talked at Kol Hadash, a secular Jewish community, about NCSE's recent work in the creation/evolution trenches. Our intrepid communications director Robert Luhn was there to film it, and has posted video of the talk to our Youtube channel. The Q&A will follow.
A big shout out to a South Dakota student who comments:
Wow. I live in South Dakota. We just learned about global warming. We were taught it was fact. I'm sure in a lot of the small towns the kids are being taught that global warming is only a theory. I hate that this is an actual resolution. I wouldn't vote for…
tfk | February 12, 2011If you haven't seen Kansas v. Darwin, the documentary about the Kansas science standards fight from 2005, you can stream it for free from the filmmaker's website.
Why not invite some friends over, stream the movie, and talk about what you'd all do if it happened in your neck of the woods? NCSE has some resources to help that discussion along. Don't be afraid to write or call if you want a hand organizing something.
tfk | February 10, 2011A while back, Martin Cothran (who, in keeping with long tradition here, it must be noted remains a bigot in a staggering diversity of realms, not least his apparent desire to defend a dictator's decision to cut internet access to his nation in hopes of stymieing a revolution) declared:
A person should be legally required to read Edmund Burke before publicly identifying himself as a conservative. Of course, it would be anti-Burkean make such a legal requirement, but you get my drift. Modern conservatism starts with Burke, and should end with him.
I'd modify this to say "should have ended,"…
tfk | February 8, 2011Ophelia Benson doesnât see how the ontological argument for the existence of a perfect god even begins. The ontological argument basically argues that we imagine god to be perfect, and that something that doesn't exist can't be perfect, thus by imagining a perfect deity, we show that such a thing must exist. Or something. I've called it an awful argument before, and still think it is.
Benson's post is in the context of a new book coming out from Scott Aikin and Robert Talisse (on which more soon), where they use the ontological argument as a litmus test for how seriously atheists are…
tfk | February 5, 2011Popular Mechanics asks Bill Nye about anti-evolution efforts in schools:
It's horrible. Science is the key to our future, and if you don't believe in science, then you're holding everybody back. And it's fine if you as an adult want to run around pretending or claiming that you don't believe in evolution, but if we educate a generation of people who don't believe in science, that's a recipe for disaster. We talk about the Internet. That comes from science. Weather forecasting. That comes from science. The main idea in all of biology is evolution. To not teach it to our young people is wrong.â…
tfk | February 2, 2011John Pieret â who is to blame for the recent kerfuffles here â surveys the trouble he started:
As usual, there is much talking past each other.
I think Russell Blackford has, perhaps unintentionally, hit on the problem that we "accommodationists" see with the "incompatibleists." In defending Coyne, Russell says: the "anti-accommodationist camp ... see a genuine and serious difficulty in reconciling a worldview based on science and reason with worldviews based on religion." I agree!
But the question really is whether "a worldview based on science and reason" is the same thing as "science." I…
tfk | February 1, 2011PZ has decided he hasn't peeved enough people, and made a list of atheist arguments he dislikes. And he's right. For instance, he's down on:
Dictionary Atheists. Boy, I really do hate these guys. You've got a discussion going, talking about why you're an atheist, or what atheism should mean to the community, or some such topic that is dealing with our ideas and society, and some smug wanker comes along and announces that "Atheism means you lack a belief in gods. Nothing more. Quit trying to add meaning to the term." As if atheism can only be some platonic ideal floating in virtual space…
tfk | January 31, 2011Sean Carroll reads Jerry Coyne so you don't have to. His summary of Jerry Coyne's post about his talk at the First United Methodist Church of Chicago is decidedly kinder than John Pieret's, or my own last post, and so it serves as a good starting point for the promised kinder, gentler reaction to Coyne's piece.
As you recall, Coyne went to the church to talk with a book group there about his book Why Evolution Is True. Sean summarizes:
You can guess what happened â or maybe not. There was a productive two-hour conversation in which both sides learned something.
There was indeed a lot of…
tfk | January 31, 2011John Pieret reads Jerry Coyne so you don't have to. He notes that Coyne's experience at a moderate church reading group sounds awfully accommodationist, and it does!
Of course, "accommodationist" is a highly mutable term, so I'm sure Jerry will say he isn't really, and the label doesn't really matter. The important thing is that Coyne's experience seems to have planted at least a little doubt in his mind about the need to undo all religion. There's a lot in there that I can agree with, and I'll have another post about that shortly.
But rather than bridge from snark to praise, I'll just…