Culture Wars
tfk | January 9, 2012Ophelia Benson has an odd idea about how identity is constructed:
beliefs arenât actually a matter of identity and shouldnât be treated as if they were.
This claim seems so obviously false that I can't really imagine how she could have written it.
We can see how this plays out in religion: there are religions know as orthoprax, where membership is defined by your practices, and others are known as orthodox, where membership is defined by your beliefs in central doctrine. Christianity is (generally) an orthodox religion, while Judaism and Islam are (generally) orthoprax. The Torah sets out…
tfk | January 9, 2012ThinkProgress reports, Kansas House Speaker Won't Apologize For Praying For Obama's Death:
Kansas House Speaker Mike O'Neal (R) has apologized for forwarding emails from his personal account referring to First Lady Michelle Obama as "Mrs. YoMama," but he has not apologized for another email using a Bible verse to essentially call for President Obama's death. Psalm 109:8 became a conservative meme in 2009 to symbolize making President Obama a one-term President, but it speaks to ending his term of office by ending his life: "Let his days be few; and let another take his office." The following…
tfk | December 19, 2011If he does, he might remember that he already wrote this blog post. That was less than a year ago. I responded then, so have little to add.
One thing is worth noting. Coyne's complaint is that the government is funding "accommodationism" because one page on the award-winning and widely loved Understanding Evolution website addresses misconceptions about evolution, including the idea that evolution is at odds with religious belief.
Coyne is hardly the first person to think that this somehow gets the government in trouble ("funding theology" is his phrase). In 2003, creationist Larry…
tfk | December 13, 2011 Satanism" title="Richard Dawkins -> Satanism" />Richard Dawkins has a new book out â for kids no less â and Casey Luskin is on the case. Luskin, you'll recall is the Disco. 'tute's chief pettifogger (in the classical sense), and his tendency to work himself into uncanny heights of excitement over every new creationist argument has earned him the affectionate nickname "fainting dachshund."
Dawkins's book is about myths, how we tell stories to explain things, but that sometimes those stories aren't true, and how science offers a way to tell stories that are true, and how kids can tell…
tfk | December 4, 2011Just under a year ago, I quoted and endorsed Stephen Post's argument that lack of civility isn't the problem we face in society, that incivility is a symptom, not an end unto itself.
Civility matters, and there are good reasons to urge people to be more civil in their interactions, and to model that behavior ourselves. It's no accident that many uncivil styles of discourse are also informal logical errors. And there's a reason that deliberative venues - like the Senate floor - impose a standard of decorum and civility. Uncivil discourse often replaces substantive exchanges about ideas…
tfk | November 21, 2011The Discovery Institute is celebrating the 20th anniversary of Darwin on Trial, the mediocre book that inspired their movement. As part of the celebration, David Berlinski pounded out one of his typical droning missives from his recliner in Paris. As happens so often with the Disco. 'tute, there's little novelty to the argument, but along the way he managed to stick a thumb in the eye of anyone living with a disability:
In Darwin on Trial, â¦[i]t was the great case of Darwin et al v. the Western Religious Tradition that occupied his attention. The issue had been joined long before Johnson…
tfk | November 10, 2011Disco. 'tute president Bruce Chapman is upset. There are ladies with their bloomers in a twist over something or other that they claim Herman Cain said. Let's read Chapman and see if we can guess what Cain is supposed to have done:
A number of significant insights are emerging from the charges of sex harassment lodged against Herman Cain. It may be wise to withhold judgement [sic] about the particulars so far. There are a number of groups operating behind the scenes to drive the story one way or another.
Aha! Charges of sexual harassment were filed, but we should be dubious because shadowy…
tfk | November 9, 2011A month ago, I posted a link to an op-ed in the LA Times which referred to as-yet unpublished research which purported to show no difference in science literacy between people who don't take part in religion and evangelical Christians. Then I did my own analysis of the data, which found significant differences between evangelicals and the nonreligious.
Now, in a special issue of Social Science Quarterly,Darren Sherkat again shows that evangelicals are less science literate than other groups. The analysis I reported in my previous blog post is actually a bit more sophisticated, and Sherkat's…
tfk | October 28, 2011After Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Faye Flam took the Discovery Institute to task for their Hitler obsession and constant violations of Godwin's law, Disco. 'tute fellow Richard Weikart struck back, insisting, "I have spoken with intelligent Darwinists who admit point-blank that they do not have any grounds to condemn Hitler." This is patent bullcrap, but that's nothing new for the Seattle-based belief tank. Weikart didn't, of course, say which scientists he'd heard say this, so there's no way to independently verify his claim.
Flam flew to the fracas again, wondering why creationists…
hrynyshyn | October 25, 2011My review of Shawn Otto's new book, Fool Me Twice
Fighting the Assault on Science in America, is up over at the relatively new sustainability-oriented blog/resource site, Planet 3.0. Here's how I start:
Shawn Otto is a big name in the campaign to restore science to its rightful place as a major player in the public sphere. He spearheaded the first "Science Debate" effort in 2008 to get the presidential candidates to address scientific issues, and has been working, tirelessly but not entirely successfully, it would seem, since then to keep the home fires burning. The frustration that comes…
tfk | October 15, 2011Earlier this week, I quoted this from an op-ed in the LA Times:
I recently conducted survey research comparing the most conservative of Protestants â those who identify with a conservative Protestant denomination, attend church regularly and take the Bible literally, or about 11% of the population in my analysis â with those who do not participate in any religion. The conservative Protestants are equally likely to understand scientific methods, to know scientific facts and to claim knowledge of science. They are as likely as the nonreligious to have majored in science or to have a scientific…
tfk | October 10, 2011Sociologist John Evans talks about his research on evangelical attitudes toward science. Writing for the LA Times, he says:
I recently conducted survey research comparing the most conservative of Protestants â those who identify with a conservative Protestant denomination, attend church regularly and take the Bible literally, or about 11% of the population in my analysis â with those who do not participate in any religion. The conservative Protestants are equally likely to understand scientific methods, to know scientific facts and to claim knowledge of science. They are as likely as the…
tfk | September 21, 2011Elaine Howard Ecklund has a new paper out, building on her survey of scientists' views on religion, research she reported in a book last year, and in a series of papers over the last few years. In this paper (press release for those of you who haven't got access to the journal), she looks specifically at how scientists perceive the relationship between science and religion.
As she reported in the book, 15% of scientists she and her colleagues interviewed reported seeing an inherent conflict between science and religion. Another 15% saw no conflict at all, while the remaining 70% saw some…
tfk | September 21, 2011A couple weeks ago, Fox News released a new poll asking about evolution and creationism. It didn't strike me as especially noteworthy, though it does show a statistically significant rise in acceptance of evolution (21% think "the theory of evolution as outlined by Darwin and other scientist" is "more likely to be the explanation for the origin of human life on earth") since they last asked the same question in 1999 (when it was just 15%).
That matches the small but statistically significant rise in support for unguided evolution seen in the nearly 30 years that Gallup has been polling on…
tfk | September 14, 2011The problems with the latest reply from Disco. 'tute's David Klinghoffer begin in the title. He claims: "National Center for Science Education Defends Its Association with James Fetzer, Peddler of Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories." NCSE did not address Klinghoffer's specious and slanderous claims; I wrote a blog post on my personal blog. The blog clearly states in the sidebar:
The opinions expressed here are [my] own, do not reflect the official position of the NCSE.
Lest that leave some ambiguity, I added in the post Klinghoffer is responding to:
On this blog, I don't speak in my capacity…
tfk | September 12, 2011Shorter David Klinghoffer: Strange Bedfellows at the National Center for Science Education:
Has NCSE stopped beating its wife?
He's writing in reply to my post a couple days ago. I had criticized him for comparing 9/11 "truthers" to scientists who advocate for evolution, when it's easier to find a prominent anti-evolutionist who thinks 9/11 was an inside job.
Anyway, Klinghoffer spent his 9/11 decennial writing about how it's totally the other way because he found this one guy who totally proves his point. James Fetzer, a professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, is a…
tfk | September 8, 2011David Klinghoffer of the Disco. 'tute wants to draw links between evolution and 9/11 conspiracies. In his usual long-winded way, he makes a lot of efforts to link evolution to anything evil, but doesn't offer much beyond hand-waving to back the claim up. This must be the best he can do for the 9/11 memorial week, since I doubt even he can find a way to link al Qaeda to Darwin. After all, Islamic fundamentalism isn't known for its love of Western science!
It'd hardly be worth noting, if not for the fact that the only 9/11 "truther" I've seen pop up on either side of the creationism/…
tfk | September 8, 2011Yesterday's post on Rick Perry's Galileo gaffe has gotten a lot of attention, much supportive, but some critical. On twitter, historians of science Rebekah Higgit and Thony Christie have helped me sort out some of the threads. I don't think this alters any of the basic results, but it's worth teasing out some of the history, both for its own sake, and for whatever relevance it may actually have to contemporary politics.
The contentious lines argued that Perry's "opening passage, like his comments on evolution, seem to forthrightly endorse the legitimacy of letting religious and political…
tfk | September 7, 2011In the last few weeks, and at tonight's Republican debate, lots of national politicians have been asked their views on evolution, and lots of politicians have answered embarrassingly.
We should bear in mind, as I pointed out before:
Like the Miss USA contestants, most politicians (excluding those on local school boards or state boards of education) will have little opportunity to influence how evolution is taught. In answering questions about evolution during campaigns, their goal is rarely to indicate a clear conception of how science works and why evolution is central to modern biology.…
tfk | August 25, 2011The other day, I quibbled with John Derbyshire's contention that liberals are optimists and with Joel Mathis's objection that his liberalism is pessimistic. Today, CMatt Yglesias writes:
One of the bigger systematic differences between the left and right in America is that progressives have a realistic view of human behavior while conservatives at times seem unhealthily obsessed with moral hazard.
Sounds right: liberals aren't optimists, but conservatives sure are pessimists! (I.e, conservatives think If you don't punish everyone for taking needless risk, like not carrying earthquake…