Pointless polls
pharyngula | January 20, 2010Apparently, polls are now the proper way to settle metaphysical issues. This guy claims to have evidence of life after death, based on claims about near-death experiences (NDEs), which are so convincing…not. People experiencing trauma and physiological shock, whose brains have received a nasty jar and have had the continuity of experience abruptly terminated, are not the best people to accurately describe the objective nature of the phenomenon; also, the mind is pretty darned good at filling in gaps in our experience with confabulations.
It's an untrustworthy basis for believing in magical…
pharyngula | January 19, 2010You'll need a Twitter account to crash this poll. There are these things called Shorty Awards being given to popular twitter users in various categories, like health. Unfortunately, as you can imagine, a medium with almost no content, restricted to 140 character brief comments, is easily dominated by the shallow and the superficial, so alt med quacks are having a grand time running up the score.
Let's see if we can do a little readjustment. A skeptic, Dr. Rachel Dunlop, is also in the running, currently at #16 (she's being beaten by Dr House). All you have to do is get onto Twitter and enter…
pharyngula | January 13, 2010They taunt me. Really, I know I'm an old lump, it's OK, you can stop mentioning how I'm not on the poll but all the young cool groovy atheist kids are. And then Hemant has to gloat that at last he can win without me around — yeah, and Potsie might have stood a chance of scoring when the Fonz was out of sight.
Just for that, I voted for Laura.
Hemant (makes me want to add stuff - like him to me) 26% (33 votes)Laura (makes me want to play car-wash...with nothing but her hair) 46% (57 votes)Luke (makes me wish I was cougar....wait a minute) 2% (2 votes)Skepticcat (makes me wish I was a cat…
pharyngula | January 8, 2010I wouldn't let one of those quacks get near my neck, let alone any other body part, but apparently Connecticut chiropractors are fighting hard to suppress the information about risk of serious injury from cervical manipulation. And it's poll time!
Chiropractic Warning: Should chiropractors be required to tell their patients about the remote risk of a stroke from cervical manipulation?
Yes (505 responses)
28%
No (1155 responses)
63%
Depends (163 responses)
9%
Nice spin in the question, too. It's only a "remote risk" of paralysis, stroke, and death from an ineffectual 'treatment'. Maybe…
pharyngula | January 6, 2010New Jersey lawmakers are waffling over a bill to allow gay marriage. The story is depressing: lots of reps busily weaseling and straining to find an excuse to vote it down. There is also a poll at the site: I trust readers here to be a little more decisive.
Do you support the gay-marriage bill up for a vote in the New Jersey Senate?
Yes 30% (1,334 votes)
No 70% (3,173 votes)
Get in there an demonstrate some positive activity, without excuses.
pharyngula | January 3, 2010Don't be bitter, Hemant!
Who is the most godless atheist of 2009?
PZ Myers 61% (361 votes)
Everyone else in the universe combined 39% (226 votes)
pharyngula | January 2, 2010I sicced you on this poll to identify the most vocal atheist of 2009: don't be surprised, I won. Of course, the real problem there was that the winner was determined in an open online poll — if it had been a poll to determine the most vocal Christian of the year, I also would have smashed into it hard.
Now try something a little less biased: a poll to determine the most influential female atheist. My name is not on it, so I'm safe from messing this one up.
Ophelia Benson 7% (76 votes)
Greta Christina 21% (237 votes)
Annie Laurie Gaylor 6% (68 votes)
Tracie Harris & Jen Peeples 3% (29…
pharyngula | December 27, 2009It's like taunting the bull while standing in the middle of his field. It's just not smart. Anyway, there's another of these online polls ranking atheists, and Hemant Mehta has come out on Twitter threatening to destroy me in the voting. You know I can't stand for that. Go vote!
Who is the Most Vocal Atheist of the Year?
Richard Dawkins
49 (25%)
PZ Myers
52 (26%)
Christopher Hitchens
33 (17%)
Bill Maher
21 (10%)
Dan Dennett
4 (2%)
Sam Harris
4 (2%)
Victor Stenger
3 (1%)
Michael Shermer
6 (3%)
Dan Barker
10 (5%)
Hemant Mehta
90 (46%)
pharyngula | December 25, 2009It's just a silly online poll, and I don't have a stake in how it comes out one way or the other, except for one thing: I must defeat Brad Pitt. I like the guy, and I've enjoyed his movies, and I'm happy that he's come out as an atheist, but you know…I'm looking forward to being able to go into the bedroom and tell the Trophy Wife™ that I'm better than Brad Pitt at something. And she will say, "I know, baby, I know," no matter what, but it would just be nice to have some statistical backing for the claim.
Atheist of the Year 2009
Richard Dawkins
32%
Bill Maher
15%
PZ Myers
17%
Greg…
pharyngula | December 23, 2009Last night, Larry King Live (without Larry King, who was off getting his internal organs stuffed into canopic jars or something) was all about life after death, and guess who they brought on? Deepak Chopra, new age nutcase; Dinesh D'Souza, dithering moron; and Sanjay Gupta, their usual token MD, who was completely ineffectual and didn't say one word to criticize the pair of loons sharing the screen with him. They did bring out Michael Shermer in the middle of the show to say a few words, but again, he was too busy being nice to actually hammer on the Chopra/D'Souza BS.
They have a poll. I'd…
pharyngula | December 19, 2009What kind of idiot decided to put this poll on CNN?
Should information about women who get abortions be posted online?
No 93%
Yes 7%
What kind of information are they thinking of? Home addresses, phone numbers, that sort of thing?
If you read the associated article, you discover that an even bigger idiot in the Oklahoma senate, Todd Lamb, wants women in his state to fill out a 10-page, 37-question questionnaire before allowing them to get an abortion, and that information would be published online.
It's good to see the poll is going the right way, but jebus…this is another low in the long…
pharyngula | December 18, 2009The Joliet Jackhammers, a baseball team in Illinois, have put up an interesting sign to get people to buy tickets.
Some people are unhappy and want it taken down.
"It's in very poor taste," Councilwoman Jan Hallums Quillman said. "To have God tell you to buy tickets? Give me a break."
I wonder if Quillman felt the same way about the serious billboard campaign that had God announcing his will and intentions? There was one that read, "Let's Meet At My House Sunday Before the Game -God." Was that in poor taste? It seems to me that many people think it's perfectly alright to put words in their…
pharyngula | December 17, 2009A judge in that hotbed of liberal godlessness, Arkansas, recently decided that atheists have just as much right to publicly discuss their ideas as theists. Isn't that nice? So of course the local newspapers have to put up a poll to find out how unhappy that makes their subscribers.
A judge ruled in favor of the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers, allowing them to erect a Winter Solstice display at the state captiol. Do you agree with the judge's decision?
Yes 34.1%
No 66%
Maybe some more freethinkers ought to contribute, I'm sayin'.
pharyngula | December 16, 2009At least to me, this poll in the Baltimore Sun looks like a no-brainer. Which would imply that 59% of the people in Maryland have no brains. Think of the zombies, and do something to correct this problem!
Recognizing same-sex marriage
The D.C. City Council voted Tuesday to allow same-sex marriage, which means many gay couples from Maryland and elsewhere may soon travel to the District to get married. Should Maryland recognize the marriages of same-sex couple who get married out of state?
Yes
39%
No
59%
Not sure
2%
pharyngula | December 16, 2009I was all prepared to criticize a young atheist who refused to read the bible as literature in an English class.
Newton South High School officials dropped a requirement to read excerpts from the Bible for one student last month, after he refused to read the Biblical passages as a literature assignment because he is an atheist.
Jack Summers, a 15-year-old sophomore, said he objected to reading the religious text as part of an honors English class that also includes writings by William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, among others.
"This is the word of God. People take this literally ... I…
pharyngula | December 14, 2009Someone is putting out feelers to see about building yet another creation museum in Peoria, IL. They're looking for information about how much support they'd get, so they've made a creationist survey, asking if people would be willing to contribute to it. I don't quite get the point of a survey for that; I presume they would only send the link to a friendly audience to get an appearance of broad support.
Of course, now the link has fallen into my hands, heh heh heh. And I've passed it on to you. I wonder what the final statistics on their survey will look like?
pharyngula | December 14, 2009The theists are on a crusade to deny a legitimately elected city council member in Asheville, NC, his office because he is an atheist. His policies don't matter, his competence doesn't matter, the only issue being used to prevent Cecil Bothwell from taking his position is his disbelief in god, and that just isn't right.
Fox News apparently think the rights of a minority should be determined by the prejudices of a majority, since they're running a poll on the issue. Given that it is Fox news, the results shouldn't be surprising…but they do need adjusting.
Should Atheist Councilman Step Aside?…
pharyngula | December 10, 2009New Zealand will be getting signs saying "there's probably no god" slapped onto buses trundling about, and naturally, the newspapers want to hear what you think about that.
Is there a God?
Yes 37.2%
No 49.0%
I'm not sure 13.6%
I don't know. I would have thought New Zealanders could do better than that. Maybe if I close my eyes and wish real hard, those numbers will change.
pharyngula | December 4, 2009Good thing it's an easy one. I was up way too late last night with all those young people in the Twin Cities, so I can't think too hard right now.
Should New Jersey legislators legalize same-sex marriages?
Yes 50%
No 50%
Not sure 0%
I suspect we can tip this one way or the other rather easily.
pharyngula | November 29, 2009Those kooky climate change denialists are at it again — we've been beaten to the poll-skewing punch on this one, a site that is collecting votes to use in demanding a strong response by the government to the challenges of global warming. We're behind by many thousands already, so it may take some work to bring it up — but give it a shot.
"I've seen the evidence. And I want the government to prove they're serious about climate change by negotiating a strong, effective, fair deal at Copenhagen."
5477 agree
8423 disagree