All posts by Andrew Arensburger

Denyse O’Leary: Embarrassingly Ignorant?

Over at Dembski’s wankfest, Denyse O’Leary is having an outragegasm over her favorite PZ Myers quote. So nothing new to report in that respect.

But a few sentences caught my attention:

Myers, who teaches at a Minnesota liberal arts university that is proud of its status […]

But most Americans do not know even about it, let alone contemplate what it means that a teacher at a “liberal arts” university should express himself in this way.

Thus, a person who writes as Myers does is nonetheless viewed as a mild-mannered gentleman and scholar, worthy a place at a liberal arts university.

The only way I can imagine this making sense is if O’Leary thinks that a liberal arts college is a politically left-leaning school.

Denyse, if you happen to stumble upon this post, allow me to quote from a source you might trust: Conservapædia:

Liberal arts refers to the non-technical disciplines ordinarily taught as part of a baseline college education at American colleges. These include philosophy, history and English literature, and sometimes Latin, which lay the foundation for a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree. As such, many American colleges are referred to as “liberal arts institutions.” Technical fields of study are common, but not included under the aegis “liberal arts.” In Europe and Canada the Liberal arts are generally called the ‘Humanities’.

The term bears no connection with the modern political ideology of liberalism, save in the classic, historical sense.

Monique Davis Concedes Every Religious Argument

(Update, Apr. 10: Rep. Davis has apologized to Rob Sherman. Good on her. Oh, and the hearing described here wasn’t about the moment of silence thing.)

Eric Zorn reports an exchange in the Illinois General Assembly between State Rep. Monique Davis and Rob Sherman, an atheist who opposes Illinois’s law mandating a moment of silence:

Davis: I’m trying to understand the philosophy that you want to spread in the state of Illinois. This is the Land of Lincoln. This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children. […] What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it’s dangerous—

Sherman: What’s dangerous, ma’am?

Davis: It’s dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists!

(Emphasis added. Oh, and the audio is also available.)

Stop right there. Reread what she said. She said it’s dangerous for kids to even know that there’s such a thing as atheism.

Davis conceded right there that religion has nothing going for it. If your viewpoint is so weak that it can’t tolerate so much as the existence of an opinion that you’re wrong, then you’ve lost; your viewpoint isn’t worth having.

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A Love Song

The What Have We Learned crew present a song about the very special love between a man and his aluminum picnic table:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcHVYCG6VRM&hl=en]

The guy on the right is Mike Argento, the H.L. Mencken of the Dover Panda Trial.

Is It Too Much to Ask For?

Maybe I’m being too demanding, but five years after the start of the war in Iraq, wouldn’t it be nice if people at the US embassy, in the heavily-fortified Green Zone, didn’t have to worry about being killed by rocket and mortar fire? I’m sure their families would also rather not take time out from their busy days to receive a flag-draped package at the airport.

‘Cos, you know, people might not realize just how much progress we’re making. Some might even mistake our success for a clusterfuck.

Masturbation Etiquette

Every so often, I run across an Internet forum where people discuss how to stop masturbating. Now, I happen to think these people are misguided, but neither do I think everyone should just jack off whenever they feel like it. So here are my recommendations on how, where, and when to masturbate. These are written from a heterosexual male perspective; please adjust for your preferences.

It’s okay. Masturbation is sex with someone who knows exactly what you like and is always in the mood when you are. But since you’re not going to marry yourself, it’s not premarital sex, so it’s not even a sin.

Don’t do it in public. Masturbation is like defecating: we all know you do it, and we’re fine with that, but we just don’t want to watch you doing it. Or if we do, we can find the right web sites.

Don’t do it in the morning unless you’re sure that you have time to wash up, get dressed, and make it to work on time.

Don’t do it too often. If you’re feeling sore, stop and try again in a few hours or days.

Don’t masturbate instead of having sex. This is the most important rule. If your SO might be looking forward to dinner with you, it would be rude to come home and say, “No thanks, I stopped for a burger on the way home.” Likewise, it’s rude to masturbate if your sweetie might want to make love. If, on the other hand, she’s sound asleep after you’ve gone at it three times and you’re still horny, then hey, have at it (assuming she’s okay with it, of course).

Fundamentalist Education

Over at Pharyngula, PZ presents this appalling video:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUeoem1gR3s&hl=en]

and points out

The really awful pedagogy. Over and over again, the creationist says some stock phrase and then pauses, waiting for his kids to fill in the missing word. This is simply demanding rote learning. Similarly, he leads the kids in asking a good question — “how do you know?” — while training them to ignore any answers. Right there on the wall is a description of radiometric dating methods, for instance, and they turn their back on it.

This seems to be of a piece with other fundamentalist traits. The oft-repeated assertion that morality and human rights come from God. Appeals to the Bible. Attempts to disprove evolution by discrediting Charles Darwin (or Richard Dawkins, or PZ Myers, or whoever’s the antichrist this week).

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Great Christina

Allow me to pimp Greta Christina’s Blog, for no other reason than that she’s worth reading, including a few articles that I wanted to write, but she beat me to it:

Why Religion Is Like Fanfic compares religious apologetics (why does the Bible say that Judas hanged himself in one passage, but that he exploded in another?) to fans coming up with explanations for incongruities in their favorite TV shows and book series.

On The Amazingness of Atheists… And Why It’s Doomed is about why the contemporary atheist movement will blow over, and why this is a good thing.

Go and show her some love.

What’s Up With “Expelled”?

On Saturday, I signed up for a screening of Expelled, and got a confirmation by email (two, actually, but that’s a different and altogether less interesting story) for the Apr. 1 showing in Owings Mills, MD.

Now, however, that show doesn’t appear on the RSVP web site. In fact, right now that site doesn’t list any upcoming shows, only past ones.

The confirmation message gave the address of a person at Motive Entertainment, so I wrote to her to ask what was going on. Owings Mills is a bit of a haul for me, so I’d rather not schlep out all the way to Baltimore if the screening’s been cancelled.

She wrote back saying that due to “scheduling changes”, the screening had been “postponed”.

I also can no longer find the link from the movie’s main site to the RSVP section. If I had to guess, I’d say it looks as though they’re trying to avoid a repeat of the PZ Myers/Richard Dawkins kerfuffle or something.

The Life-Dinner Principle and Creationism vs. Evolution

I recently ran across the “life-dinner principle“. In evolutionary biology, two groups (whether different species, or groups within a species) are often in competition with each other. But the selection pressure may not be equal between groups: a fox that can’t catch up to a rabbit may die of starvation, though it may have time to reproduce before it dies; but a rabbit that gets caught by a fox will not reproduce. Hence, the rabbit is running for its life, but the fox is only running for its dinner.

I wonder whether something similar is going on in the meme war between science and creationism. Those of us on the science side are fighting for education, for scientific literacy, for the future of scientific research in whichever country one happens to be.

But for many people in the creationist camp, the stakes seem much higher: the Truth™, their self-worth as important beings in the eyes of the creator of the universe, basic social cohesion (the “evolutionism implies no moral standards” argument), and even the risk of genocide (see the various attempts to tie “Darwinism” to the Nazi holocaust and Stalin’s purges).

If this is so, then the creationists have much more motive to defend their position by any means, including deception.

While there are parallels between memetic and biological evolution, there are significant differences as well, so I won’t try to apply to a clash of ideas the lessons learned from biology.

I do take heart, though, in the fact that I’ve run across two threads recently on Uncommon Descent where IDists have expressed disappointment with ID: one was when PZ Myers was a guest on a Christian talk radio show and utterly trounced the other guest, a creationist who claimed that there are no transitionals in whale evolution, to which PZ was able to name several of these “nonexistent” transitional species. The rout was so complete that one commenter at Uncommon Descent suggested that “In my opinion we should just close our eyes and pretend that this debate never happened.” His wish was granted when the entire thread was deleted.

The other was in the discussion of Richard Dawkins seeing Expelled. Although many are still pushing the idea that Dawkins somehow snuck into the theater under false colors, others have realized the breathtaking hypocrisy of the situation, and fear that it’ll make their side look bad.

So maybe the solution is what people have been advocating for years: educate the public. Have scientists get out of the ivory tower and talk to the public about science (let ten thousand Carl Sagans bloom!). Show people what despicable liars the creationists are.

Flipping the Argument Around

A while back, I suggested that one way to see whether an argument for some religion is any good is to turn it into an argument for some other religion, and see whether it sounds convincing. I was just thinking about this the other day, when lo and behold, Ray Comfort came along and provided perfect fodder to try it out:

Ray:

There is a very good reason that [the atheist] isn’t giving up the argument. It is because each night he has a habit of going on the Internet and surfing his favorite sites. He has an addiction he loves. He drools over pornography that is so pleasurable, it takes his breath away. Literally. Besides that, he has incredible sex with his gorgeous girlfriend, any time he wants. He didn’t know that life could be so good.

Flipped around:

There is a very good reason that the non-Muslim isn’t giving up the argument. It is because each night he has a habit of going home and drinking his favorite wine. He has an addiction he loves. He gushes over wine so delicious, it takes his breath away. Literally. Besides that, he can have pork sausages for breakfast, bacon for lunch, and pork chops for dinner, any time he wants. He didn’t know that life could be so good.

Ray:

Think of it now. A stranger has just come along who wants to put an end to all that pleasure. All of it. If he gives up the battle, he won’t be allowed to even look at a woman with lust, let alone have sex with her. This religious nut wants to make him celibate. Horrors! He wants him to sit in a boring church, singing old hymns, listening to a deathly boring priest, and mindlessly clutching a book filled with fairytales. Give up? Are you kidding?So the unbeliever is going to fight this battle with tooth and nail.

Flipped around:

Think of it now. A stranger has just come along who wants to put an end to all that pleasure. All of it. If he gives up the battle, he won’t be allowed to even look at a woman’s face, let alone her hair, hips, or legs. This religious nut wants to make him celibate. Horrors! He wants him to kneel in a boring mosque, kneeling on a musty rug five times a day, listening to a deathly boring imam, and mindlessly cluthing a book filled with fairy tales. Give up? Are you kidding? So the unbeliever is going to fight this battle with tooth and nail.

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