Policy and Politics
tfk | June 3, 2010Ophelia and Larry are upset. In particular, they are upset that Chad Orzel and I thought it was OK to have a panel about how scientists reconcile their religious faith and their scientific work but not to include panelists who reject the panel's premise.
This was the point that Chad and I were raising, at least, but it is not quite clear that Ophelia and Larry realize what we were saying. Thus, Larry writes:
Chad Orzel at Uncertain Principles [Extremists Aren't Interesting] and Josh Rosenau at Thoughts from Kansas [Talking Sense] take the same position. Non-accommodationist atheists shouldn…
tfk | June 2, 2010Chad Orzel, responding to Sean Carroll, is absolutely right. The question is whether a panel at the World Science Festival (funded by Templeton, ZOMG!) should include incompatibilist atheists in a discussion about science and religion. Chad argues that doing so would derail the discussion:
In the end, I'm not convinced you need anyone on the panel to make the case that science and religion are fundamentally incompatible. That idea is out there, coming from both sides of the science-religion split (and you'll notice they don't have any young-earth creationists on the panel, either). The…
tfk | June 2, 2010People are idiots. Who looks at megatons of toxic goo being spewed out of a pipe and thinks: "I know, let's make that toxic sludge radioactive!"
tfk | May 31, 2010Daily Kos asks 1200 voters:
Most astronomers believe the universe formed about 13.7 billion years ago in a massive event called the Big Bang. Do you think that's about right or do think the universe was created much more recently?
Saints be praised, 62% of the public accepts the Big Bang and a 13.7 billion year old universe. Democrats are the most positive, with 71% accepting that, while only 44% of Republicans agree (38 think it's more recent, the rest are undecided). I've said it before and I stand by it: conservative Republicanism is incompatible with science.
But looking at the finer…
tfk | May 31, 2010A year ago today, George Tiller was murdered in cold blood. Tiller was a Wichita OB/GYN known for being one of the few doctors who would perform third trimester abortions. Scott Roeder came into Tiller's church, where Tiller served as an usher, and shot him to death before his family and friends.
In memory of Tiller's death, here's a repost from a year ago.
Medgar Evers was a civil rights activist in Mississippi. Growing up black in a state where dark skin was a crime, he had the courage to stand up for his rights and the rights of his friends and family. He organized boycotts, sued for…
tfk | May 30, 2010Shorter Billy Dembski: BEACON comes home with the bacon!:
Why doesn't the NSF give meeeeee $25 million?
"Wah!" would've been even shorter, but would limit my ability to distinguish this whine from every other post at Dembski's blog.
tfk | May 28, 2010My review of Elaine Howard Ecklund's Science vs. Religion is online and will be in the print edition of your Washington Post this Sunday. I'm unaccustomed to reviewing books in 300-400 words, so there's a bunch I'd have liked to say but couldn't, and I felt like I should wait to blog the book until the Post review was out.
The very short version of the review is that the book is good. It's written mostly as guidance for scientists trying to sort out to deal with science and religion in their own lives, but there's valuable insight for nonscientists as well. I rather like the opening:…
tfk | May 24, 2010Shorter Martin Cothran: How Whiteliberaldemocrats voted on the Civil Rights Act of 1964:
Rand Paul can't be a racist for opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in 2010 because there were racist Democrats who opposed it in 1964.
Cothran doesn't know why everyone is beating up on Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul for saying he'd vote against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I mean, sure, the Civil Rights Act does a bunch of stuff that Cothran has no intention of actually discussing, but look how the voting pattern in 1964 doesn't tell a clean story about how one party is a bunch of Freedom…
tfk | May 24, 2010Before they discovered Casey Luskin, the Disco. 'Tute's legal nerve cluster resided in Seth Cooper. Cooper offered his sage advice to the school board in Dover, PA, then left first for the staff of a state legislator, and then high-tailed it to a conservative legislative activism group in DC, leaving Disco. to Casey. Disaster ensued.
This is only relevant because I came across Seth Cooper's website, which includes this summary of his earlier career:
Prior to his work with ALEC, Seth worked in 2007 as a contract attorney in Washington State. He also served as a Caucus Staff Counsel in the…
tfk | May 24, 2010From Eric Hovind's twitter feed, we get a photo and a caption:
Hanging out with Dr Stephen Meyer from the Discovery Institute. Wow, smart guy!
For those who can't keep track, Hovind is the son of Kent Hovind, currently serving time in a federal prison on charges related to tax evasion. Hovind created "Dinosaur Adventure Land," a young earth creationist theme park, and adopted the stage persona "Dr. Dino" for his speaking tours. Hovind claims a doctorate from a diploma mill: Patriot Bible University. He also claims that creationism is excluded from schools because of a secret conspiracy…
tfk | May 23, 2010Rand Paul is a wuss.
I mean canceling his appearance on Meet the Press just means we won't be treated to his explanations for opposing widely beloved government programs like the EPA, Civil Rights Act, FHA, minimum wage. Have some courage of your convictions, Rand!
tfk | May 21, 2010l cannot fathom why Robert Gibbs, the President's Press Secretary, would dispute that the animal scurrying past the President's feet is a vole. The short tail, the shape, the fur, all scream meadow vole (Microtus pennsylvanicus). And yet:
"Where I'm from, that's a rat" Press Secretary Robert Gibbs declared Friday, a day after whatever-it-is scurried from one set of bushes to another in the Rose Garden right in front of the President Barack Obama's podium as he spoke to reporters.
It's a vole. The AP quotes a Cornell biologist saying the same, but I've trapped enough voles to know, too.…
tfk | May 20, 2010Panel moves âReligious Freedom Actâ:
A Senate panel narrowly approved legislation Tuesday whose supporters say reaffirms constitutional guarantees of freedom of religious expression.
Approval came over the objections of those who contend Senate Bill 606 is unnecessary because the U.S. Constitution and the Louisiana Constitution already protect religious freedom.â¦
The measure, sponsored by state Sen. Danny Martiny, R-Metairie, also had support from Baptist and Catholic church representatives as well as the head of a group that promotes a pagan church.
Valli Henry, president of the…
tfk | May 20, 2010For a long time, the Disco. 'tute insisted that "intelligent design" is science, and that questions about who did the designing are theological and beyond ID's scope. IDolators insist that ID can be evaluated without knowing anything about the nature of the designer.
This never made sense.
So in defending ID against a negative book review, Disco. Fellow Jay Richards distracts himself from denying global warming to launch a defense of ID as good theology:
Letâs imagine someone who does explicitly invoke God in explaining some feature of nature, someone like Thomas Aquinas. Does "inserting God…
tfk | May 20, 2010Martin Cothran, staffer with the Family Foundation of Kentucky and generally awful person, is excited about Rand Paul's recent primary victory in the Kentucky Senate race. "Is Rand Paul the de facto leader of the Tea Party?", he asks:
In fact, one of the Tea Party's long-term problems is that it doesn't have a single, recognizable leader. It may have just found one.
Paul has the intellectual ability to articulate the Tea Party case in a way Palin can't.
(Palin is "the fairy godmother of conservative politics," in Cothran's telling.)
Anyway, the question then is what this intellectual leader…
tfk | May 19, 2010First, my very favorite creationist in the wide world has an appropriately snarky (but optimistic) take on a new ID journal. He opens by noting, "The last time ID supporters tried their own journal was PCID, which seemed to whither and die five years ago." Indeed, they appear to have been unable to generate sufficient submissions to even complete their final volume.
I and others have taken this as a sign of the intellectual vacuity of ID. Even their own house organs cannot manage to maintain an appearance of vibrant research. And what papers they generate are simply absurd. But Wood, a young…
tfk | May 19, 2010Bruce Chapman, head Disco. DJ, thinks we're going through global cooling:
It certainly seems so this spring. Winter on the East Coast was grim and summer temperatures are hard to find now in the West. Snowfall also higher than in decades past. It doesn't mean anything except this: there is (and should be) a real debate.
In fact, NASA found this to have been the hottest April on record, and the hottest January-April on record. Which is to say, this was not a notably cool spring. April also saw the lowest snowfall on record for that month.
In other words, it doesn't matter that Chapman…
tfk | May 19, 2010Right-wing Israeli activists threaten to protest Rahm Emanuelâs sonâs bar mitzvah in Jerusalem:
Last year, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel announced at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America in Washington that he was planning to take his son Zach to Israel for his bar mitzvah. âThis memorial break, I am taking my son, my nephew Noah with Ari my brother, so they can have their bar mitzvah in Israel,â said Emanuel. Now, right-wing Israeli activists, who consider Emanuel a âtraitorâ to Israel because of the Obama administrationâs stance against new settlement…
tfk | May 18, 2010Recent weeks have brought a steady stream of interesting reports about Israel's internal politics and how those politics relate to the rest of the world.
To whit: Israel Roiled After Chomsky Barred From West Bank:
Front-page coverage and heated morning radio discussions asked how Mr. Chomsky, an 81-year-old professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, could pose a risk to Israel and how a country that frequently asserts its status as a robust democracy could keep out people whose views it found offensive. â¦
The decision to bar him from entering the West Bank to speak…
tfk | May 18, 2010In Pennsylvania, retired admiral and current Representative Joe Sestak won the Democratic primary against former Republican Arlen Specter; Sestak will face failed Senate candidate Pat Toomey in November. In Kentucky, Jack Conway will be running for the Senate seat currently held by Jim Bunning. Rand Paul, whose claim to fame is absolutely not being named after Ayn Rand, defeated Trey Grayson, who had been hand-picked to replace Senator Bunning by fellow Kentuckian Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Blanche Lincoln was forced into a runoff in her primary campaign against Arkansas' lieutenant…