Religion
drorzel | September 23, 2014Modern media being what it is, I should get out in front of this, so: I am guilty of putting words in Einstein's mouth. I mean, go watch my TED-Ed video on particles and waves, or just look at the image up top-- that very clearly shows Einstein saying words that he probably never said. And it's my fault.
Well, OK, I didn't actually put those words in his mouth-- the animator did that. What I wrote is "Einstein himself described [the photoelectric effect] as the only truly revolutionary thing he did." Which isn't really a quote, but a paraphrase. And it's really a paraphrase of something…
drorzel | January 5, 2013I started following Chris Stedman on Twitter thanks to a recommendation from Josh Rosenau citing him as someone who promotes atheism without being contemptous of religious people. He was, indeed, a source of religion-and-politics material that I found congenial, and when I noticed he was flogging a forthcoming book, I picked up a copy, which I just got around to reading.
I'm a little hesitant to review this at all here on ScienceBlogs, given past history. I've pretty much completely withdrawn from culture-war blogging, finding it more aggravating than useful, and these days just about the…
drorzel | August 2, 2011I was just tagging this for the Links Dump, but I thought it deserved better. Fred Clark, blogdom's best writer on politics and religion, is putting together a book-like thing from his blog, and has posted the introduction to the section on creationism:
The oldest book in our Bible contains a hymn of praise to the Creator that rambles on for chapter after chapter. It's the longest such hymn in the Bible, skipping about through all the earth and all the universe with the wide-eyed, giddy enthusiasm of a kind in a candy shop, marveling at all the wondrous things that God has made.
But this isn'…
drorzel | July 8, 2011The topic sucking up all blogospheric oxygen at the moment is the great elevator incident. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can find lots of good summaries and explanations, including from Phil Plait and Josh Rosenau. The core of the story is that Rebecca Watson was propositioned in an elevator by a skeevy guy at a convention, and said "Guys, don't do this." Leading Nü Atheist Richard Dawkins scoffed at this because "nothing happened," and basically said Watson was overreacting, and has dug in his heels in the face of numerous people telling him he's wrong.
I'm not going to…
drorzel | April 25, 2011I try not to do any shilling for political groups on the blog, but I'll make an exception for the National Center for Science Education. Why? Three reasons:
1) They do good and important, if not always glamorous work, supporting the teaching of evolution in public schools, both in the classroom and in the courts.
2) Josh Rosenau has a really good blog, one of the best on science-and-politics issues, and his day job is with NCSE.
3) Jerry Coyne is a jackass, whose latest bit of jackassery involves sending an open letter to NCSE complaining that Josh (among others) was mean to him on the…
drorzel | January 7, 2011A story to improve your opinion of humanity:
Egypt's majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside.
From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as "human shields" for last night's mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.
"We either live together,…
drorzel | January 7, 2011What with one thing and another, I forgot to tag anything for the links dump yesterday, which means no links dump this morning. But that's all right, because Fred Clark's post about humorless prigs deserves a more prominent link. The proximate cause is yet another story about a crazy religious group working themselves into a tizzy over what turns out to be an online parody. This by itself is unremarkable-- as Fred says, "So in other words, it's a weekday."
What's notable about the post is the bit that comes next, though:
We've previously discussed how an addiction to self-righteous…
drorzel | October 15, 2010A big and important argument about religion and science has flared up again on Twittter. It occurs to me, though, that nobody has taken the obvious step of polling people about their actual beliefs, so let's see if we can't settle this question with (social) SCIENCE!:
I would prefer to be a member of:Market Research
What? It's not like this is any more pointless than the actual science-and-religion argument that's going on in blogdom.
drorzel | September 29, 2010There's been a lot written in the last day or so about this Pew Foundation Survey on who knows what about religion. Like most such surveys these days, they have a really easy online quiz version that you can take and marvel that anybody missed any of these questions.
My first thought was to just tag some of the better reactions for the Links Dump, and leave it at that. The auto-posting feature has been broken for some time, though, and my Internet access will be spotty for the next several days, so it's easier to do a quickie post pointing out the more worthwhile posts on the subject that…
drorzel | August 28, 2010I've never thought of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. I haven't had to, since I don't live in The City, so about all I remember about him is that his choice of party back when he was first running seemed awfully opportunistic. I was really impressed with his appearance on the Daily Show this week:
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Michael Bloomberg
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes
Political Humor
Tea Party
This is about the best response to the endless mosque nonsense that I've seen from an elected official. Granted, he's not facing re-election any…
drorzel | August 27, 2010I've said before that I think Fred Clark of Slacktivist is the very best blogger writing about religion and politics in America today. It's not even close. His recent series on things the government ought to be doing to help the economy is also outstanding-- that link goes to the most recent, and you can check my Links dump posts for most of the rest of the series.
I end up tagging a lot of his posts for the Links Dumps, but he's good enough that every now and then I feel I need to give him a little more prominence. His Wednesday post is one that deserves more. He describes two occasions…
drorzel | July 17, 2010There are lots of reasons why Josh Rosenau is one of the few writers blogging about science-and-religion issues that I still read. This morning's post on what you ought to do to determine effective approaches is an outstanding example:
Rather than looking at national polls, which are crude instruments and can miss shifts within small subpopulations, I'd think that it would be more useful to do lab work, and to look at the broader literature on communications. Daniel Loxton did a nice roundup of a few useful studies in this realm, and Mike McRae looked at a wider sampling in the context of…
drorzel | June 28, 2010Josh Rosenau makes an excellent and important point regarding prayer meetings and the Gulf oil spill: that the point is not so much that God will stop the oil gushing into the Gulf, but that religious groups are a key community organization point for getting people together to work on the problem. He puts this into a larger context toward the end of the post, saying things I've said myself numerous times:
Most people attend church for a lot of reasons, and many of those reasons are self-reinforcing. Someone who goes to church with no particular views on theism (pro, con, or agnostic) could…
drorzel | June 2, 2010Sean Carroll is miffed about a science-and-religion panel at the World Science Festival:
The panelists include two scientists who are Templeton Prize winners -- Francisco Ayala and Paul Davies -- as well as two scholars of religion -- Elaine Pagels and Thupten Jinpa. Nothing in principle wrong with any of those people, but there is a somewhat obvious omission of a certain viewpoint: those of us who think that science and religion are not compatible. And there are a lot of us! Also, we're right. A panel like this does a true disservice to people who are curious about these questions and could…
drorzel | June 1, 2010Thinking from Kansas, Josh Rosenau notices a correlation in data from a Daily Kos poll question on the origin of the universe:
Saints be praised, 62% of the public accepts the Big Bang and a 13.7 billion year old universe. Democrats are the most positive, with 71% accepting that, while only 44% of Republicans agree (38 think it's more recent, the rest are undecided). I've said it before and I stand by it: conservative Republicanism is incompatible with science.
But looking at the finer details tells us a lot. The only group - gender, race, or region - with anything like the Republicans'…
drorzel | April 9, 2010The National Science Board made a deeply regrettable decision to omit questions on evolution and the Big Bang from the Science and Engineering Indicators report for 2010. As you might expect, this has stirred up some controversy.
I wasn't surprised to learn this, as I had already noticed the omission a couple of months ago, when I updated the slides for my talk on public communication of science-- the figure showing survey data in the current talk doesn't include those questions, while the original version has them in there. I noticed it, and thought it was a little odd, but it had no effect…
drorzel | January 5, 2010Over at Cosmic Variance, Sean's been taking a beating over his negative comments on an atheist anti-Christmas sign. There's no small irony in this, given that Sean is a vocal atheist. His sentiments, which basically boil down to "it's good to promote atheism, but there's no need to be a dick about it" strike me as perfectly unobjectionable, but as he's learning first-hand, that's not enough for a lot of people on the Internet.
The difference between an unjustly accused "accommodationist" like Sean and a real one like myself is here:
The problem with accommodationism isn't that its adherents…
drorzel | December 6, 2009I'm kind of fried from all the recent driving, and I've got some stuff to catch up on. So we'll ease back into regular blogging, by posting a clip from last week's Colbert Report with everybody's favorite Jesuit, Brother Guy Consolmagno, talking about how alien life would affect Christianity:
The Colbert Report
Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Gold, Frankincense and Mars - Guy Consolmagno
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes
Political Humor
U.S. Speedskating
There's your "science and religion are compatible" item for this month, as well.
drorzel | November 30, 2009It's always nice to be reminded that the US is not the only country in the world prone to acts of petty and childish xenophobia. The last eight years have been especially rough, but between the Obama administration acting like adults and now this silly minaret ban, we no longer look like the most infantile Western nation.
So, thanks, Switzerland. I'll be sure to pick you up some chocolate later.
drorzel | October 23, 2009You sometimes hear people say that it's good to make a splash when embarking on a new media project. David Sloan Wilson has apparently taken this to heart, and tucks himself into a tight ball as he leaps off the high board into the ScienceBlogs pool:
Thinking of science as a religion that worships truth as it god enables me to praise its virtues and criticize its shortcomings at the same time. In my previous blogs, I have played the role of scientific reformer for two major issues. The first is the "new atheism" movement spearheaded by the so-called four horsemen: Richard Dawkins, Daniel…