Politics
illconsidered | March 4, 2010This is interesting. I have mixed feelings about it but it is probably a necessary step in forcing the reality of this issue into the correct legal and political context. Actions have consequences and actors have responsibilities.
The only question I have is that the respnsibility is really shared by all of us as consumers of fossil fuels, in some sense it is not fair to place all the respnsibility on the fossil fuel companies.
Of course when they intentionally create misinformation to avoid addressing the problem, the face a corresponding increase in culpability.
Read it below:
Katrina…
pharyngula | March 4, 2010This is old news. The NY Times has an article on the expanding agenda of creationists to include denial of lots of other phenomena that make them uncomfortable. We've known this for years! It isn't just creationism; those beliefs have a surprisingly high correlation with denial of climate change, denial of HIV's role in AIDS, anti-vax nonsense, rejection of the Big Bang, dualism, etc., etc., etc. At the root of these problems is discomfort with modernity and change, resentment of authority, anti-intellectualism, and of course, goddamned religion, which is little more than a rationalization…
grrlscientist | March 4, 2010tags: humane society of the united states, HSUS, H$U$, Yellow Tail wine, Casella Wines Pty Ltd, animal rights, animal welfare, animal shelters, Wayne Pacellestreaming video
Yellow Tail wines are produced by Casella Wines Pty Ltd., based in Yenda, Australia. The Casella family produced wine in their native Italy since the 1820s, but moved to Australia to pursue a better life. But Yellow Tail has failed in their goal to pursue the better life in at least one way: they donated $100,000 to the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). This was a huge mistake, Yellow Tail. If you'd done your…
emjohnson | March 3, 2010Yesterday the BBC aired an investigative report documenting how American "vultures," such as New York-based Eric Hermann at hedge fund FH International, bought up debt from Liberia for pennies on the dollar and are now forcing Liberia's impoverished government to pay in full. This is at the same time that Western governments have been erasing this odious debt from years past.
The effect of Hermann's financial maneuvers earns few applause in Liberia. In that African democracy, diplomat Winston Tubman tells us what he would say to vulture fund operators, "'Do you know you are causing babies to…
pharyngula | March 3, 2010Texans can do things right, I tell you: they just booted Don McLeroy off the state board of education in the primary election. Yay!
It's a step forward, although the rest of the board is still a muddled mix of creationist loons and cautious conservatives.
pharyngula | March 2, 2010Or you will be exterminated! You know, Texas has a reputation of being a nasty place full of particularly ignorant rednecks, which I don't blindly agree with — I know too many smart Texans, and it does have many good organizations, like the Texas Freedom Network — but this is a blight that smirches even that already sooty name. I am speaking of a vicious vigilante organization called Repent Amarillo. Look upon that link and quiver with disgust.
It's saturated with military imagery: men in uniform, humvees, helicopters, helmets; they compare themselves to special forces; they call themselves…
emjohnson | March 2, 2010In light of the recent discussion on animal testing and animal rights I thought a few additional points would be valuable. It is a fact that animal testing leads to some necessary medical advances that save lives. Anyone who would say differently doesn't have the slightest clue what they're talking about and should be dismissed out of hand. The question is an issue of how many, especially given the ethical concerns. It is also a fact that the vast majority of animal testing serves more peripheral goals, categorized as applied studies that include cosmetic, chemical and pharmaceutical…
razib | March 1, 2010Update: Also see follow up post.
My previous post where I point to Satoshi Kanazawa's finding that liberals & atheists are smarter than conservatives & the religious was a little drop in the bucket in the blogospheric debate. I made it rather obvious that I wasn't too interested in the evolutionary psychological model of why these patterns exist, rather, I was curious about the patterns themselves. The reason is the one Tom Rees elucidates:
What's got people talking is the correlation between atheism and intelligence, although that isn't what the paper is actually about. It's already…
jstemwedel | February 28, 2010I take it that a good number of animal rights supporters feel that their position is philosophically well-grounded, intuitively appealing, and compatible with the flourishing of humans as well as of non-human animals.
As such, I would argue that animal rights supporters can, and should, advance their position without resorting to tactics that depend on harassment, intimidation, or violence. (At least some animal rights supporters agree.) Especially since the hope is to win the hearts and minds of the larger public to the cause of animal rights, supporters of this position might want to hold…
grrlscientist | February 27, 2010tags: comedy, humor, funny, fucking hilarious, religion, cults, institutionalized mind-control, streaming video
The meaning of christiantiy -- in their own words. Rather damning, in my opinion.
jstemwedel | February 27, 2010Earlier this week, I related a situation I found alarming in which a scientist and his children were targeted for harassment because he dared to express the view that research with animals plays an important role in answering scientific questions that matter to scientists and to the public. I was not alone in decrying these tactics. At least one animal rights group also condemned them.
Given that the post was pretty clearly directed at the question of tactics, I am frankly puzzled by this comment from Douglas Watts:
When I see mainstream "science" commit itself to a program which phases…
razib | February 26, 2010For a hot-button issue which is arguably the social lodestar for American culture-wars people make a lot of unfounded assertions and assumptions about abortion. For example, poking around the GSS data set it's pretty evident that there isn't a sex difference in regards to the legal status of abortion. What I have found is that there may be an intensity difference between men an women among the educated pro-choice segment of the population, which might give pro-choice women the impression that there is a general difference (as people tend to extrapolate inordinately from their social milieu).…
pharyngula | February 26, 2010Another day, another outraged Christian. Parents in a Utah school district were horrified to discover a link on the district web page to an evil essay:
The new battle centers on a link on the district's Web page that was quietly removed on Feb. 16. Titled "America: Republic or Democracy?" the link led directly to an essay by William P. Meyers, a California-based writer who heralds his belief that Jesus Christ is one in a long string of "historic vampires."
I, too, am deeply offended. Meyers doesn't know how to spell his own name, and everyone knows Jesus wasn't a vampire — he was a zombie.…
emjohnson | February 26, 2010(updated below)
My piece for The Huffington Post has just gone up concerning the latest incidents involving neuroscientist Dario Ringach and the targeting of his children by animal rights extremists. For more on this see Dr. Free-Ride, PZ, PalMD, Scicurious, MarkCC, Nick Anthis, Drugmonkey and Orac.
Dear ALF,
I address you not because your organization is directly behind these latest abuses, but because your organization is emblematic of the radical approach that some animal rights activists have been inspired to take. I want you to know that I support your goals at the same time that I…
oracknows | February 25, 2010As much as I hate to bring more attention than I did a couple of days ago to the truly evil animal rights extremist website run by a truly despicable animal rights terrorist wannabe Camille Marino, a website whose very title, Negotiation Is Over (NIO) tells you everything you need to know about the attitude of the loons running the site, especially given their targeting of researchers' children for harassment, I can't help but notice that the efforts of fellow science bloggers and myself have been noticed, both at NIO and another animal rights site Thomas Paine Corner.
Good.
The reaction of…
pharyngula | February 25, 2010The South Dakota senate has been wrestling over an important resolution, HCR 1009. Here's the original text. It will look rather familiar to anyone who has seen creationist bills roll through a legislature.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, by the House of Representatives of the Eighty-fifth Legislature of the State of South Dakota, the Senate concurring therein, that the South Dakota Legislature urges that instruction in the public schools relating to global warming include the following:
(1) That global warming is a scientific theory rather than a proven fact;
(2) That there are a variety of…
pharyngula | February 25, 2010The Canadian government is planning to help a fundamentalist Christian group, Youth for Christ, to proselytize. They've offered to contribute several million dollars to the construction of a youth center in downtown Winnipeg, which sounds like a wonderful, useful idea…except for the fact that the group building it has this as their mission:
To impact every young person in Canada with the person, work and teachings of Jesus Christ and discipling them into the Church.
They also openly admit to their plans:
Sharing the person of Christ with every young person within our target group in Canada (…
oracknows | February 24, 2010I have to admit, this one made me chuckle.
In an earlier post today, in which I expressed my outrage at animal rights terrorists targeting an investigator's children for harassment at their school, I asked the following question:
That reminds me: Where were these animal rights loons when "Andrew Wakefield was torturing baby Macacque monkeys in the name of horrendously bad science designed to be used as a "made for court" study against vaccine manufacturers?
Paul Browne responded in the comments:
Perhaps crank magnetism also acts as a force field that protects cranks from other cranks.
I…
jstemwedel | February 24, 2010We don't have to agree about whether animal research is ethical or scientifically valuable to agree that some tactics for pursuing your view are harmful to civil society.
Bruins for Animals, the student organization at UCLA that was instrumental in organizing the recent dialogue about the science and ethics of animal based research, understands this, and they are not afraid to call out the people "on their side" who opt for threats and intimidation:
Joint Statement by Bruins for Animals and Pro-Test for Science
In an effort to establish a dialogue between those holding different opinions on…
jstemwedel | February 24, 2010When I told you about the infuriating tactics extreme animal rights activists are turning against Dario Ringach for even daring to express his view that animal research can be important, a number of you asked in the comments, "What can we do besides signing petitions and writing blog posts?"
David Jentsch offers some concrete ideas about where to start making your stand:
For those that support research or researchers, I offer a number of possibilities that will allow you to become involved in this struggle:
1) Participate however you can in supporting science and scientists. This may…