Policy and Politics
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 12, 2011I closed my reflections on Egypt with the title's Ben Franklin quotation. And I want to expand on that point briefly, because there's often confusion about what it takes to make a republic. We sometimes think that a nation has become a democratic republic because it elects its leaders and has a constitution that checks the right boxes. But we know that some of history's greatest monsters first came to power through legitimate elections, seizing and consolidating power through constitutional means, until their republic atrophied into dictatorship. Examples of this process stretch back at…
tfk | February 11, 2011From Nadia El-Awady's twitter feed on this first full day of freedom in Egypt:
An amazing thing happened yesterday. My country is free. For the first time in its history it is free. (cont)
This came about in the most wonderful way. We did not have a military coup. A foreign country did not invade us to bring us democracy (cont)
Normal people like you and me went out to the streets peacefully and demanded their freedom. An amazing thing happened yesterday.
Those normal people were faced with tremendous hardship in the process. At times they were attacked with brute police force and some died…
tfk | February 11, 2011Former Egyptian Vice President Suleiman, 4:02 pm, local Egyptian time, 2/11/2011:
In these difficult circumstances that the country is passing through, President Hosni Mubarak has decided to leave the position of the presidency. He has commissioned the armed forces council to direct the issues of the state.
Statement From the Supreme Council of the Egyptian Armed Forces:
Due to the consecutive developments in current incidents and which define the destiny of the country, and in context of continuous follow up for internal and external incidents, and the decision to delegate responsibilities…
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 10, 2011Somehow, this passage from John Rawls Political Liberalism seems relevant to Egypt, to anti-creationism, to the disputes over gnu atheism, and even to a forthcoming reply to Martin Cothran on the nature of human rights:
Now the serious problem is this. A modern democratic society is characterized not simply by a pluralism of comprehensive religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines but by a pluralism of incompatible yet reasonable comprehensive doctrines. No one of these doctrines is affirmed by citizens generally. Nor should one expect that in the foreseeable future one of them, or some…
tfk | February 9, 2011Scott Aikin and Robert Talisse are not accommodationists. At least, they say they aren't, and that's hard to evaluate, because "accommodationist" is a bad word, and to ensure that it stays a bad word, critics of accommodationists give it protean meanings. Sometimes it's supposed to mean the belief that science and religion are compatible. Sometimes it's just about atheists working with religious people toward shared goals. Other times, "accommodationist" seems to constitute the subset of anti-creationists who oppose gnu atheists. The label "accommodationist" has been thrust upon me…
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 7, 2011Jason Rosenhouse takes a level-headed look at a brewing coynetreversy (a coynetroversy, like the verb, to coyne, involves adding heat, not light, while casting maximal aspersions, ideally to create a controversy where none need exist). Jason explains the situation:
Jerry Coyne and P. Z. Myers (here and here respectively) have taken note of a session at the upcoming AAAS Annual Meeting entitled: Evangelicals, Science, and Policy: Toward a Constructive Engagement. They object to this intrusion of religion into a science meeting. In the comments to their posts, Nick Matzke has been gamely…
tfk | February 6, 2011For the last 13 days, Tahrir Square has been the seed of a free Egypt. Within that square, which I recall filled 7 lanes deep with honking cars even late at night, the architects of Egypt's democratic revolution have created their own democratic nation. The protesters police themselves, maintain their own defenses at the entries to the square, feed the hungry in makeshift kitchens, care for the sick in makeshift hospitals. Yesterday, a couple was married in the square, the first wedding ceremony in a free Egypt. On Friday, Coptic Christians protected the square while the Muslims prayed,…
tfk | February 6, 2011Martin Cothran, the bigoted, anti-semite defending, Holocaust-denial whitewashing, misogynistic, homophobic, creationist, authoritarian, logic-impaired mouthpiece for the Kentucky theocracy movement wonders Is Internet access a human right?:
In what sense is Internet access as a "right"?
I listened to this week to an interview on NPR in which a guest--some expert on the Internet--was telling the NPR interviewer that Internet access is a "right"--not just any right but a "basic human right."
This is the sort of incisive reporting we read Cothran for. "Some expert" said something or other, and…