Culture Wars

Point of Inquiry: Our guest this week is Josh Rosenau, the Programs and Policy Director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), and writer of the blog "Thoughts from Kansas" at ScienceBlogs.... In this interview with Karen Stollznow, Josh presents the "Three Pillars of Creationism", the beliefs and claims of creationists. He describes their rhetoric and propaganda, and the setbacks they cause for science, from legal cases to creationist theme parks. Josh also talks about some recent successes for science. The NCSE works tirelessly to battle creationists and improve the public…
...Or "What I've been up to for the last week or so." Last week was a busy travel week. I was in West Virginia for the first half of the week, on a whirlwind tour of the Morgantown area, speaking in the geology department at West Virginia University, then twice at a symposium on science communication, and then at a local freethought group (meeting in a beautiful Unitarian church with a view of the valley). The video above is a slidecast from a talk NCSE's Steve Newton and I gave about the Process of Science and Scientific Controversy. Steve didn't record his talk, so you miss the lead-in,…
In my post about Pastor Jones and the Quran burning, I wrote that I'm a First Amendment maximalist, and so defend the right of someone to burn a Quran, but noted also that Jones' actions were clearly intended as a provocation, and that a smart lawyer could probably convince a court that Jones' actions fall into the "fighting words" exception to the First Amendment. Jones has a right to express his distaste for Islam and for Muslims, but he hasn't got a right to inspire a riot, and it isn't inherently unfair to hold him accountable for the predictable results of his actions. Setting aside…
John Pieret reads Jerry Coyne so you don't have to, and catches Jerry Coyne rewriting history. Pieret notes in particular that Coyne is insisting that "faitheist" was never meant as a pejorative, when it clearly was, and has always and exclusively been used as such. For Coyne to try to rewrite history and claim otherwise is shameful, especially from someone who insists he is the great defender of the principle that "the truth matters." Speaking of which, Pieret closes by noting: "As an aside, Coyne accuses [Center for Inquiry VP John] Shook of 'redefining' "accommodationism." Where, exactly…
Sam Harris has a brand new blog, and already has managed to lard it with roughly what you'd expect: tendentiousness, insistence that religious is wrong because it won't change (and that religions which do change are illegitimate for doing so), and the usual pro-repression politics. Referring to Florida's Pastor Jones, who finally burnt a Quran after spending the last year threatening to do so, and who inspired (as predicted) violence in Afghanistan as a result, Harris asks Do We Have the Right to Burn the Koran?. To which the simple answer is: Sure, but that doesn't mean anyone should do so…
From Denial Depot, Jaws: A movie review: A group of so-called government funded "experts" whip up alarmist fears of a killer shark off the coast of Amity, a sea side town. Their goal is to destroy the local tourist industry, send Amity back to the dark ages and thus achieve their underlying socialist agenda of wealth redistribution. The heroes of this tale are the local major and business leaders who lead a successful audit of the alarmist claims and by doing so manage to delay action long enough that the beach remains open. In the end it turns out a shark has been eating people. Read the…
Via the Monkey Cage, a study which used an interesting survey technique to assess just how wingnutty the teabaggers really are. They did a survey focusing on issues involving race and politics, especially in states where Tea Party candidates did well last November, and along the way managed to tease out some important differences between various branches of conservatism. For instance, they found that 76% of self-identified teabaggers want President Obama's policies to fail, compared with only 32% among conservatives not affiliated with the Tea Party. Four in ten non-teabag conservatives…
In the course of talking about other things, Jason Rosenhouse raises a tricky issue: Fundamentalists are rightly excoriated for pretending that theirs is the only acceptable form of religion. But it is hardly an improvement when academics suggest that real religion is high-minded and metaphorical and intellectually deep, with the more commonplace version being a distracting side show. This idea of "real religion" is tricky, and is at the heart of a lot of the disputes between gnu/New/extreme atheists â who think religion is bad and favor eradicating it â and "accommodationists" â who don't…
Jerry Coyne then: Rules for life: If two friends tell you the same thing about yourself, it's probably true. Jerry Coyne now: thinks the several friends saying the same thing about him must be wrong: more Gnu Atheist-bashing from fellow atheists... inspired by Michael Ruse's rants equating Gnus with Tea Partiers... Jacques Berlinerbrau at the Chronicle of Higher Education... R. Joseph Hoffman at his own website... Both level the same old charges at Gnus: we're strident..., politically impotent, and motivated solely by a desire for publicity, fame, and money. But they also level a new charge…
In my twitter feed, I commented briefly on the election results in Egypt. The vote was on a package of constitutional reforms. As I understand it, more liberal Egyptians opposed the amendments because they wanted more wholesale reform of the constitution. But the amendments passed overwhelmingly. I noted: 18.5 million votes were cast in #egypt, 77.2% favored the amendments, including a nativist requirement on presidential spouses. And added: It was the first election in #egypt when people didn't know the outcome beforehand. Lots of people voted for the first time ever. I also retweeted…
The problem of evil has become a topic of discussion again. I don't think I've blogged about theodicy in any depth since 2006, so I guess it's time to take it up again. In brief, the problem of evil is classically posed as a question of why evil should exist in the world if there is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent deity. By straightforward logic, one can argue that the existence of evil is evidence against the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent deity. As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes, there are a lot of theodicies - attempts to defend the…
Folks are talking about the problem of evil. John Wilkins takes on the problem of the problem of evil and Darwin, arguing that, for theologies where the problem of evil is a problem, evolution probably does less to exacerbate the issue than basic physics, or physiology, or first principles of ecology. And he's right. But one sentence setting up this argument doesn't work for me: Evil exists, so if you believe in a âtri-omniâ deity (omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent), you had better find a reconciliation. This idea of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god is pretty common, but…
Law enforcement agencies move against Sovereign Citizen movement in Fairbanks: Five people, including militia activist Schaeffer Cox, were arrested Thursday in the Fairbanks area for allegedly conspiring to kill multiple Alaska State Troopers and a federal judge. The group had stockpiled weapons and conducted surveillance on the homes of two troopers, according to Alaska State Troopers. Some of the weapons known to be in the cache are prohibited by state or federal law, according to troopers. No one tell Rep. Peter King, or he'll have to haul Glenn Beck up to Capitol Hill to defend the…
Via John Sides at the Monkey Cage, a study from the Muslim American Public Opinion Survey finds that the most religious American Muslims are more likely than the least religious Muslims to take active roles in community politics (rallies, letter-writing campaigns, voting, political donations, etc.) and follow national political news more carefully. The authors explain: Finally, we find those with high levels of religiosity are overwhelmingly likely to believe that Islam is compatible with political participation in the United States. While 77% of those with the lowest levels of religiosity…
BCSE reports, via the Independent: A prominent British imam has been forced to retract his claims that Islam is compatible with Darwin's theory of evolution after receiving death threats from fundamentalists. Dr Usama Hasan, a physics lecturer at Middlesex University and a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, was intending yesterday to return to Masjid al-Tawhid, a mosque in Leyton, East London, for the first time since he delivered a lecture there entitled "Islam and the theory of evolution". But according to his sister, police advised him not to attend after becoming concerned for his…
Attention conservation notice: ~5600 words about a ~10,000 word article and two others totaling ~7500 words, all examining the Templeton Foundation. If you aren't interested in the ins and outs of the to and fro over the Templeton Foundation's influence, and the question of whether the longer piece â funded by Templeton critics â actually lands any blows on the Foundation, you might want to skip past this. Or read the bit above the fold to get the gist. Since last June, I've basically been sitting out the fights over the Templeton Foundation. The Templeton Foundation has a lot of money…
If unhinged wingnuts can be believed, your own TfK is responsible for Rep. Peter King dropping plans to invite Ayaan Hirsi Ali to speak at his anti-Muslim hearings. Also, a bunch of clergy have asked him not to pursue his race-baiting hearings, as did a Congressman once interned by the US government because of his parents' nationality. While Rep. King's hearings are still seen by sane people as designed "to cast suspicion upon all Muslim Americans and to stoke the fires of anti-Muslim prejudice and Islamophobia," his changes to the lineup have begun to frustrate the sort of people who can…
Shorter Casey Luskin, Disco. 'Tute Complaints Department: Want a Good Grade in Allison Campbell's College Biology Course? Don't Endorse Intelligent Design: A college professor in New Zealand grades students down for using debunked creationist claims in college essays. Therefore, Tennessee needs a law allowing high school science teachers to teach debunked creationist claims.
Kevin Drum meditates on the conservative movement hating on vegetables: A first lady campaigning against obesity and in favor of breast feeding is now the target of all-out war from the right. I imagine that if she were taking on illiteracy, teenage drug use, or planting flowers, the Republican Party would suddenly find itself opposed to reading, defending Mexican drug cartels, and in favor of vacant lots. And yet we're supposed to take these people seriously. No. We're not, and we shouldn't.
Martin Cothran, friend to bigotry of all kinds, wonders "Has the Obama admininstration [sic] endorsed Big Love?" No. He is reacting to the Obama administration's decision not to defend section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, and to Francis Beckwith's erroneous comments on that decision. Before delving into the argument, a few basic facts. DOMA was passed in 1996, and polygamy was illegal without section 3 of DOMA. Striking down DOMA's section 3 will not change the status of polygamy laws, because marriage laws have generally been a state matter, not a federal matter, and because anti-…