Policy and Politics
tfk | February 19, 2012A secret fundraising document from a shadowy anti-science institute was accidentally made public. The document candidly lays out the anti-science agenda of group, including efforts to undermine science education in public schools, but also plans to broadly redefine society.
The year was 1998, and the document was from the Discovery Institute. Nicknamed "The Wedge Document" by opponents of the Disco. 'tute's brand of creationism, it details plans to use attacks on evolution like the thin edge of a wedge, opening a crack which in time would break society free of "scientific materialism."…
tfk | February 16, 2012As the SPLC and ThinkProgress report:
Yesterday, police arrested an unidentified man at the Kansas Capitol after discovering several homemade bombs in his truck close to the Kansas Capitol. The truck had stickers on its back window saying, âWelcome to America. Now speak Englishââ and âDoes my American flag offend you? Call 1-800-LEAVE THE USA.ââ
This arrest came on the same day that Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), an anti-immigrant official who drafted Arizonaâs and Alabamaâs harmful immigration laws, urged Kansas lawmakers to pass stricter immigration policies.
It should be recalled that…
tfk | February 14, 2012Disco. 'tute ex-president Bruce Chapman doesn't know his history. He asserts:
The Spanish Inquisition was about testing the sincerity of people's Christianity.
This is true in the sense that the Crusades were about the joys of travel and cultural exchange.
I mean, how did torturing Jews until they accepted Jesus or fled their homeland test the sincerity of their Christianity? Was the seizure of property of those Jews who fled or died a test of anyone's Christianity?
In what sense did the iron maiden test the sincerity of anyone's Christianity?
It isn't clear whether Chapman regards the 5,000…
tfk | February 13, 2012Shorter Jerry Coyne: Chris Mooney, evolution, and politics:
We haven't got free will, except when it comes to politics.
Like Coyne, I've yet to read Chris Mooney's book, and like Coyne, I'm not up on the latest research on the determinants of political and ideological orientation. Unlike Coyne, I'm not going to make grand declarations about what the science does or doesn't say. But it's not immediately obvious that genetics wouldn't play a role in political orientation (especially via the risk-averse:conservative::novelty-seeking:liberal mechanism Mooney lays out), so it isn't clear why…
tfk | February 10, 2012Last week's all-consuming outrage was spurred by a new rule issued by the Obama administration requiring that all employers' health insurance plans cover birth control without a copay. Religious employers â especially Catholic groups â had asked for an exemption, and thought there was a wink-and-nod agreement that they'd get the exemption, but then they didn't. They didn't want to have to pay for birth control, even though many of these groups employ people outside their denomination (and thus aren't bound by outdated papal bans on birth control) or people who are part of the denomination…
tfk | February 1, 2012Shorter David Klinghoffer, Minister of Propaganda for the Disco. 'tute: "Then They Came for Me -- and There Was No One Left to Speak for Me.":
I'm Jewish so it's OK for me to claim NCSE's decision to oppose pseudoscience in earth science classrooms as well as biology classes is just like Nazis dragging people off to be murdered in the middle of the night.
âShorterâ concept created by Daniel Davies, perfected by Elton Beard, and popularized by Sadly, No!. We are aware of all Internet traditions.â¢
tfk | January 16, 2012The National Center for Science Education, where I work, has focused on fighting political attacks on evolution education for all of its 30 year history. When the group was founded in the early '80s, they didn't choose a name narrowly focused on evolution, hoping that they'd make quick work of creationism and then move on to other problems in science education. Today's announcement that NCSE's taking on climate change is a partial fulfillment of that dream.
Creationism is far from dead, of course. This year, legislators in Indiana have filed two bills attacking evolution. One bill revives…
tfk | January 10, 2012It's odd, people are wrong on the internet, but somehow, I can't work myself up over it. Maybe it's because they're just talking in circles and making things up. Or perhaps my very identity has changed.
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 12, 2011Shorter Jerry Coyne: Whence moderate Islam?:
You'd think MEMRI's archives would be a great place to find the “moderate” form of Islam in the Middle East, but all I get from the right-wing propaganda shop dedicated to putting "emphasis on the continuing relevance of Zionism to the Jewish people and to the state of Israel" are stories about how Muslims hate Jews and Israel.
If you are looking for moderate forms of Islam, perhaps it's wisest not to turn to MEMRI, a group known for selectively quoting and translating their sources. As Laila Lalami wrote in The Nation:
MEMRI…consistently picks…
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 | December 4, 2011Martin Cothran â sometimes contributor to the Disco. 'tute blog, staffer for the Kentucky affiliate of Focus on the Family, general-purpose bigot, purported logic teacher â doesn't like Michael Shermer. Responding to an op-ed by Shermer, he writes:
Secularist atheists are all about having a "steely-eyed visage." â¦The problem is that, while a few secularists like Harris can pull of the "steely-eyed" thing, others, like Shermer, look like way too professorial and grandfatherly for the part. And besides, most of these kinds of secularists are of the politically leftist type that Rand would…
tfk | November 29, 2011Last April, I blogged a paper by Will Gervais, that showed you could increase people's trust of atheists by simply telling them about how prevalent atheists are in their community. As I said at the time, the result isn't surprising and I didn't think it had any bearing on the debates over New Atheism per se. There were those who disagreed, and insisted that the study validated New Atheist-style "out" campaigns.
In a commentary on his research, Mr. Gervais weighs in on those implications of his work:
I think the simplest way for atheists to be perceived as more trustworthy is to be open…
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 21, 2011This morning, OaklandBecks tweeted:
I just realized that this is the first morning since Oct 10 that there have been no #occupyoakland camps in Oakland.
I'm not sure that's an entirely bad thing. The camps were an effective protest for a long time, but it may well be time for the movement to move on.
The first reason is that the camp in Oakland is becoming a divisive issue internally. When the city evicted the camp from Oscar Grant/Frank Ogawa Plaza, a group proposed that the camp move to an empty lot at 19th and Telegraph. But that site is next to the Oakland School of the Arts, by…
tfk | November 17, 2011Marie-Claire Shanahan teaches science education at the University of Alberta, and blogs about her own research and about the state of science education (and science education training:Â science education education if you will). Her latest post summarizes her findings from reviewing science teaching guides going back over a century:
Educators, critics, and scientists often argue for improving science education by teaching the processes of science, emphasizing critical thinking, and actively engaging students in doing science. Almost always, this is argued to be a great improvement over…
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…