Kooks
pharyngula | June 30, 2007I have to go catch a plane to Seattle, so I'll leave you all with a little exercise. This random bit of creationist email just sailed in over the transom—it's simple and to the point, and isn't even afflicted with the usual random font stylings I get. It's still just as kooky in its substance, though. Can you spot the logical error? Can you explain it plainly and simply?
Entropy tells us that each system in nature tries to find its state of least energy, or simply rest. Nature contains a lot of structures we could define as having order like a snowflake. But his are just states of…
pharyngula | June 27, 2007The omnipotent and omniscient Lord of the Universe, Creator of All, charged with the detonation of supernovae, the majestic movement of whole galaxies, the grand march of all of history and all of time, spoke.
New Kensington resident Joey Salvati, 39, a father of two, was in the shower about a month ago when he first heard God speak to him about the matter. Whether it was an external or internal voice, he wasn't sure. He tried to ignore it, but it kept coming back, day after day, until he realized he had to do something about it. The message was for Salvati to make wooden paddles for corporal…
pharyngula | June 26, 2007Poor Deepak Chopra is crying again at the nastiness of the blogosphere's reaction to his idiocy.
I'm pausing at the end of a long series of posts on the mind outside the brain to reflect on science, bad manners and objectivity. Bad manners are the norm in the blogosphere, and no one who dips into that world should bring along a thin skin. Salt air stings but it's refreshing at the same time. There's a raffish lack of respectability to blogs, however, that drive away good people and good minds. Insulting boors abound here, and it's easy enough to go elsewhere and enjoy a civilized debate.
We…
pharyngula | June 25, 2007A Lutheran pastor in Germany has been jailed. What for, you might wonder? It depends on who you ask. The Free Republic claims it is because he was a Christian saying what he believes; others are saying it's because he's anti-abortion; surprise, surprise, Bill Dembski says it's because he was an advocate for teaching Intelligent Design, and sees this as jailing creationists.
Unfortunately for their causes, they're all wrong. He was jailed for being a holocaust denier, which is a crime in Germany. I'm not too keen on that law myself, but the evidence is clear—there are quotes at that link where…
pharyngula | June 24, 2007A "visionary" is recommending a new way of seeing "visions" of the Virgin Mary: stare directly into the sun. It works! Sort of.
Zackey reportedly advised a Gauteng woman, Amal Nassif (37), earlier to look at the sun, and if she had faith, the Virgin Mary would appear.
Nassif stared at the sun for about a minute and lost her sight.
"I can't seen anything. There is a large dark blind spot," she was quoted as saying.
I have a "vision," too — if you hit yourself in the head with a hammer really, really hard, you'll see Jesus! That makes about as much sense as Zackey's. Who, by the way, is…
pharyngula | June 24, 2007Here's your course of action. First, tune up your brain with Encephalon #25. Feeling smart now?
Next, browse The Carnival of the Godless #69. Now you're smart and aggressively, skeptically godless. Sharp as a knife.
Now you're ready to read Revere's Sunday Sermonette. You will be entertained. It's an account of a Georgia pastor wrestling with theodicy, and he refreshingly concludes that a) yes, god is screwing with you and making you suffer, and b) his explanation is that god is making sure you don't forget him. God is a petty tyrant who torments you to remind you that he exists.
You should…
pharyngula | June 22, 2007George Gilder, that pompous poseur, has a new interview in the Jerusalem Post. It's more self-serving nonsense and hardly worth noting, except that he does include a short summary of his position on everything.
Your life's work has been eclectic, to put it mildly. What do the relations between men and women, supply-side economics, microchips and intelligent design have in common?
I believe that the universe is hierarchical, with creation at the top - the idea that there's a creator and that we, at our best, act in his image. This top-down model is what all of my work has in common. I sensed…
pharyngula | June 17, 2007Bill Dembski is touting some strange ID-positive blog as a sign that there is a "growing number of non-religious ID proponents" — alas for poor Bill, when you glance at the blog, it's some random guy making a post about once a month, whose background is as a musician and professional crackpot. His sole qualification as a "scientist" seems to be that he signed up to post on that ID web forum, ISCID. You should read more on Stranger Fruit, and Afarensis reveals that rather than touting his non-religious credentials, his unique claim to fame is as an "ID Pleasurian," believe it or not. How will…
pharyngula | June 15, 2007Egnor's at it again, trying to support his idea of dualism. His latest example is much less insane than his last one, so this won't be as entertaining. There's actually a serious question imbedded in it.
He's using an analogy with a cell phone (personally, I think he'd have made much more sense if he'd just gone straight to his explanatory metaphor for the brain; the comparison of the mind with a cell phone has too many distracting details that don't fit.) What he is proposing is that, rather than being a local generator of the mind, all that elaborate stuff in the circuitry of the brain is…
pharyngula | June 14, 2007Michael Egnor, tiresome little lackey of the DI that he is, is asking his readers to help me find out where altruism is located. I'm not going to link back to him—sorry, but I'm afraid it would only encourage him, and I don't want to be an enabler—but I will try to address his flawed question.
He wants to know precisely where altruism resides, and he bizarrely illustrates his question with this diagram.
That makes the answer easy.
Are we done now?
Of course not. We must plumb the depths of lunacy … because it is there! Especially since Michael Egnor gives the worst rationalization for…
pharyngula | June 13, 2007And now Kent Hovind has transcribed one for us.
I don't know. God sounds like a condescending, sanctimonious dick to me. I think I'm rather glad we aren't friends.
pharyngula | June 11, 2007George W. Bush is having private conversations with an invisible friend. Back in 2003 he met with the Palestinians and told them all about it.
Nabil Shaath says: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, "George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan." And I did, and then God would tell me, "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …" And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, "Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East." And by God I'm gonna do it.'"
Let's…
pharyngula | June 5, 2007Mike S. Adams is pretending to knowledge of evolutionary biology again, in service to his insane ideas about feminism. It's ugly and stupid.
My understanding of (and disrespect for) the underpinnings of modern feminism was actually fostered by a biologist who once made a very candid remark about the foundation of his support of Darwinism. When asked about the lack of evidence supporting Darwinism — the fossil record, etc. — he confessed there was a very human reason for his faith in evolutionary theory despite the lack of scientific evidence. He confessed that if Darwinism were not true, he…
pharyngula | June 4, 2007Egnor, the smug creationist neurosurgeon, is babbling again, but this time, it's on a subject that he might be expected to have some credibility: the brain (he has one, and operates on them) and the mind (this might be a problem for him). It's an interesting example of the religious pathology that's going to be afflicting us for probably the next century — you see, creationism is only one symptom. We're seeing an ongoing acceleration in scientific understanding that challenge the traditional truisms of the right wing religious culture warriors, and represent three fronts in our future battles…
pharyngula | June 3, 2007Hey, theistic evolutionists, you have a new pal and representative: Dinesh D'Souza. Doesn't that just make you want to reevaluate your philosophical foundations?
Don't worry too much about it. D'Souza is a spectacular twit of a theistic evolutionist. He reveals his endorsement of evolution because he likes Sam Brownback (Strike 1!). He's not at all informed about the debate because he thinks there are only two possibilities — you either accept evolution, or you're a Young Earth Creationist (Strike 2!). And he endorses a particularly shallow form of NOMA—"Evolution provides a convincing…
pharyngula | May 31, 2007Laura Mallory wants to ban the Harry Potter books from public schools, and she took her case to court. This is a perfect example of a mixed message:
At Tuesday's hearing, Mallory argued in part that witchcraft is a religion practiced by some people and, therefore, the books should be banned because reading them in school violates the constitutional separation of church and state.
"I have a dream that God will be welcomed back in our schools again," Mallory said. "I think we need him."
Everyone will be relieved to know that she lost.
pharyngula | May 30, 2007Minuscule, even. Flea-sized. How else am I to interpret Dinesh D'Souza's challenge that he should pick on someone his own size, meaning D'Souza? I've heard D'Souza. He's a babbling pipsqueak. But now he thinks he is a worthy opponent to confront Hitchens, because all the pastors that Hitchens knocks aside as if wielding the jawbone of an ass are such weak and timid little flowers.
Besides, Hitchens is tough and mean. Pastors are inhbited because of their position. They can't respond in kind. So Hitchens can call them names but they can't call him names because they have to show Christian…
pharyngula | May 29, 2007Falwell may be dead, but his legacy continues. In fact, if I believed in demonic possession, I'd say his fiendish soul has popped into the body of a Polish woman (Kinky! Perhaps he had sublimated desires which he now indulges), Ewa Sowinska. Sowinska is a "chilren's rights watchdog", and she is concerned about a certain popular children's program.
In comments reminiscent of criticism by the late U.S. evangelist Jerry Falwell, she was quoted as saying: "I noticed (Tinky Winky) has a lady's purse, but I didn't realize he's a boy."
"At first I thought the purse would be a burden for this…
pharyngula | May 28, 2007By "we", I mean me and Richard Dawkins. I can't even imagine the volume of tripe that has to be flowing into his mailbox, but sometimes people send their important missives to both Dawkins and me (of course, I'm just an afterthought; the body of the letter is usually addressed to you-know-who). I've put the latest example below the fold—it is mildly amusing and definitely weird.
The formatting of the text is exactly as received.
Dear Richard, so easily you use the word "God" to spread your religious belief that He the Creator of All is simply a delusion.
For to be an 'atheist' as you claim…
pharyngula | May 26, 2007He told on me! That wicked rat-fink hasreported me to the provost of my university, and now I'm a-tremblin' in my pajamas. Here's the text of the letter he claims to have sent in, revealing my perfidy to the administration.
Dear Tom Sullivan, Provost, University of Minnesota,
My name is John A. Davison. I am a retired Professor Emeritus of Biology from the University of Vermont. I earned my Ph.D. in Zoology at the University of Minnesota in 1954. While I am retired, I am still writing papers and engaging in internet discussions concerning the mechanism of organic evolution, a phenomenon I…