Culture Wars
tfk | October 19, 2006A repost from the old blog, first published in July, and lightly edited. This is in part a response to critics of my criticism of Richard Dawkins, but also a chance to break the first rule of Fight Club.
Blog Meridian brings us a discussion of Fight Club. John quotes someone quoting a review which says:
Quite honestly, if I didn't believe in God, I would join Tyler Durden in his philosophy. If God didn't exist—if Christ didn't offer salvation—then Tyler would be right [to reject morality and consequences]... and to live otherwise in this mad world would be hypocritical, and a waste of air.…
tfk | October 19, 2006Or rather, why can't they just be honest about what they don't like?
This is the summary of a new ad running against the Missouri stem cell research amendment:
The ad features a woman talking about her daughter, who needed money for college. She “sold her eggs to a fertility clinic,” the woman says. “The surgery was painful. They give you powerful hormones to produce more eggs. And now, she may never have children.” The ad ends with the warning that Amendment 2 will increase the need for human eggs for research.
As the KC Star's Election Central (linked above) notes,
the ad never claims that…
tfk | October 17, 2006The bulk of Richard Dawkins' speech at KU last night was taken almost verbatim from the text of his book. His focus was on what I considered the best parts of the book, an explanation of the flaws of intelligent design creationism and the intellectual poverty that it encourages, as well as an excellent presentation of the error inherent in treating religious beliefs as a property of geographic regions or genetic bloodlines.
The parts of the book I objected to most strongly in my review didn't come out until the question and answer period at the end, and I encourage interested readers to…
tfk | October 16, 2006Tonight, Richard Dawkins will speak at KU's Lied Center from 7:30 to 9, followed the next morning with a less formal Q&A. In preparation for that, here are some thoughts on The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.
In responding to Atrios' comment that "When people start invoking religion in discussing issues …it's utterly meaningless to me personally," slacktivist points out that "Sectarian language isn't much use when trying to communicate with people outside of the sect." Fred continues:
This is why it's necessary for religious believers to adopt the common language of others when…
tfk | October 7, 2006The "ID Report" has a post up full of "breaking news": "So much is happening nowadays in the ID controversy..." writes Denyse O'Leary. For instance, she sez "Ann Coulter, who had kind words for the ID guys, has been accused of plagiarism, but Talking Points Memo (no friend of hers) did not find the smoking gun, after a staff day working on it."
First of all, this alleged news is from ... July 7, 2006. But that isn't what's so egregious. What's so egregious is that, what they found is roughly what IDolators believe to be the smoking gun that proves the existence of God! Josh Marshall…
tfk | October 7, 2006Billy Bragg called Abel Pharmboy to commemorate Stetson Kennedy's 90th birthday.
Bragg performs the song Stetson Kennedy on Mermaid Avenue, Volume 2, a collection of lyrics by Woody Guthrie that Bragg and Wilco put to music in two phenomenal albums.
Abel met Stetson Kennedy a while back, and that's how he and Bragg got to talking. Stetson Kennedy infiltrated the KKK way back when, and his exploits are recounted in the best-selling Freakonomics, where Kennedy is presented as essentially a proto-blogger, a "citizen journalist" in the very best sense – someone who went out and reported on the…
tfk | October 5, 2006The DI's Johnny West complains:
Last year, Bill Dembski reported on how he was contacted by the New Scientist's Bob Holmes, who assured him:It seems to me the media coverage of intelligent design has mostly failed to present your case on scientific grounds, and I'd like to remedy that.
Of course, Mr. Holmes had no intention of covering the scientific case for design, and his resultant article was little more than your standard anti-ID hack job.
The problem is, presenting ID's "case on scientific grounds" inevitably means attacking ID. Even ID advocates acknowledge that there's no theory, and…
tfk | October 5, 2006I doubt that the research that produced Nobel prizes in Chemistry and Medicine/Physiology cost $4 million combined. I don't really know for sure, but some of the most fundamental discoveries cost quite little to make.
I point this out only because the DI's "Mr. Suave" aka Rob Crowther, is bragging that the "Discovery Institute Has Put Over $4 Million Towards Scientific and Academic Research into Evolution and Intelligent Design in the Past Decade":
“In 1996, it was almost impossible to receive funding to do scientific research related to intelligent design,” says Bruce Chapman, President of…
tfk | October 4, 2006
Answers in Genesis hosts a version of the image above. Is there any plausible reading of this in which AiG isn't threatening to blow you away?
Good that Ken Ham can take time away from his busy schedule of getting busted for tax evasion feuding with the international branch of his group to threaten anyone who wanders into his little corner of the interweb.
Update: As my excellent commenters remind me, Ken Ham and Kent Hovind (similar as they may seem) are not the same person. I'm sure there's an interesting post in this about how we remember names, since I tend to mix up people with the…
tfk | October 4, 2006In response to a candidate for Michigan governor endorsing ID, someone or other writes to the Detroit News Evolution theory relies on faith, too. Which means we don't even get past the title before the first error. But it gets worse:
Both creationists and evolutionists have logically derived hypotheses for the origin of our world and its inhabitants. Creationists believe in an Intelligent Designer who set nature in motion, and evolutionists believe that nature itself is the infinite being and the source of all we know.
No. Whatever "evolutionists" might be, the theory of evolution simply…
tfk | October 4, 2006This week seems like the wrong time to write a pro-ID post titled "ID guys aim directly at youth." We've seen what it looks like to "aim directly at youth." IDolator O'Leary writes:
In a long-awaited move, the intelligent design guys are attempting an end run around the interminable school board controversies by appealing directly to young people.
Can ID can compete with X-boxes and text messages about edgy TV?
Maybe. Young people love excitement. As long as YOU are not the person who is about to lose your tenure, job, teaching position, or access to lab facilities and specimens - the ID…
tfk | October 3, 2006Like Jason Rosenhouse I Grow Weary of ID. The song and dance hasn't changed since I started vaguely paying attention to it in 1999. I still read the ID blogs, and I see stupidity run amok, but I can't get myself excited about explaining the stupidity. It's tiring, and it doesn't seem to fix anything.
I felt a little the same after Kris Kobach lost in 2004. The fight against the religious authoritarians lost its excitement. The cast of characters I tracked for that story haven't been any more successful elsewhere than they were in Kansas. Maybe they'll make a return, but I couldn't…
tfk | September 28, 2006Billy Dembski's "research assistant" weighs in on Judge Jones at the Wichita Eagle's blog.
tfk | September 27, 2006According to the Tom Sawyer campaign for the Ohio Board of Ed, Deborah Owens-Fink said in a radio appearance: "If you are Christian, vote for Debbie. If you believe in evolution, abortion and sin, vote for Sawyer."
No mention was made of who Indian Jim or members of the whitewashers' guild should vote for. A spokesman for the Sawyer team tells us "For the record, as a campaign for State School Board we are in favor of teaching evolution and take no position on abortion. As for sin, we are agin' it."
tfk | September 24, 2006Happy Year 5767 everyone! As this article from the Westchester Journal News observes, precisely what that number means remains somewhat unclear:
at a time when growing numbers of evangelical Christians are thumbing their noses at science -- insisting that the Bible says the earth is really 6,000 years old -- what do modern-day Jews think their calendar year means?
As with so many other things in Judaism, there is no simple answer. Mainstream interpretations of the calendar year range from the purely metaphorical to, in Orthodox circles, the semi-literal.
The lack of clarity comes from the…
tfk | September 22, 2006Thanks to the Angry Astronomer for pointing out Captain Occam, a webcomic that treats creationism with the respect it deserves.
tfk | September 13, 2006Responding to Ed and PZ, EvolutionBlog writes of the speech Ken Miller gave at KU (previously discussed here):
According to the account given by Hayes, Miller did not say simply that conclusions about God are non-scientific and philosophical. He also informed his audience that creationists are “shooting at the wrong target.” The clear implication is that there is a correct target to be shooting at, and it is clear from the rest of Miller's remarks that that target comprises atheists and humanists.
Indeed it does suggest that there is a correct target, but Miller doesn't direct people against…
tfk | September 12, 2006I've always been a big fan of Steve Case. As head of the committee appointed to draft the science standards for the state of Kansas, he's been at the center of an often blistering battle, but I've never seen him anything but calm and friendly. Whatever smears are aimed at him personally, he's risen above it and addressed his commentary to the broader community, drawing people in rather than pushing them away. Even when his hard work is shredded by ideologues on the state Board of Education, he keeps his cool.
His Op-Ed in today's KC Star does the same thing, pointing out how ID divides us…
tfk | September 10, 2006I couldn't make the speech by Ken Miller, the inaugural speech in KU's series on "Difficult Dialogues." Fortunately, the audio is out there so I can catch up on the controversy.
The controversy seems to center mostly on the section of his talk described like this by the Journal World:
Miller said the root of the portrayal of religion and evolution as opposites may come from scientists who have an “anti-theistic interpretation of evolution,” a stance he disagrees with.
“People of faith are shooting at the wrong target. They should not be shooting at evolution itself,” he said.
Miller, a…
tfk | September 8, 2006Akron's Beacon Journal explains how the attacks on science by creationists are expanding to climate change and stem cells.
There's a lot that has to be unpacked about that, but one thing stands out: evolution, climate change and stem cells are not scientifically controversial. All exist, and are well-documented. Scientists discuss the details, but the basic understanding is consistent.
To mark these as "controversial issues" in a science class is to blur the distinction between scientific controversy and social controversy. The causes of the hump-shaped relationship between productivity…