Bertrand Russell Interview

Very cool.  I especially like his message to future generations (at the end)

Fox News Radio: Fair and Balanced about Creationism? I don't think so!

http://radio.foxnews.com/2011/03/22/atheist-wants-creationist-teacher-fired/

They allow comments here.  I'm waiting to see if the site admins approve.

EVERYONE should want a creationist biology teacher fired!  If I were a Christian and had kids in that school, I'd be livid that this creep is usurping the parental and church role for religious education.  Not to mention, I'd want my kids to learn real science.  Even 30 seconds devoted to fairy tales would detract from real learning.

Calling all Amputees!

You don't have to be a religious nutter to be a "faith" healer (though it helps).  You do have to be a "faith" heal-ee, though.

http://www.fox59.com/news/wxin-braco-braco-to-bring-silent-gaze-healing-to-indy-20110329,0,989823.story

This wacky gazing fellow is coming to town.  Notice that the list of things he can "cure" doesn't include amputees?  So, if you know any amputees I can borrow to take to see this guy please send them my way!

I mean, if you can be healed by being stared at, shouldn't all burn victims be healed?  (come to think of it, send them my way too!)  Not to mention, there would be no breast cancer if staring worked!

How does this crap get a foothold?  I thought everyone was supposed to have sufficient health care to get, well... HEALTH CARE now!

YAY! For Indiana!

Incredible as it may seem, fundies in Indiana have failed to insert their skydaddy into the Biology curriculum for public schools:

http://ncse.com/news/2011/03/voice-evolution-from-indiana-006564

The pdf linked there states:

"...content taught in the area of science must be consistent with the nature of science... as science itself is the connection between theory and experiment."

Sadly, they waffle later:  "This does not mean that belief systems based upon sacred texts or tradition are to be discounted, for they are not lesser or greater than a "scientific" viewpoint.  Understanding the difference and the nature of science itself is the key, and it is something of which students should be made aware."

...and then they say it's okay to add myth to the curriculum (not the science curriculum) as long as it doesn't favor one religion.

I'm proud of Indiana educators for standing up to the bullies of the religious right, but I'm ashamed for them that they feel they have to have these disclaimers about religion.

Beware: The Elevens

Seen on Facebook:

Sept 11( NY) Jan 11( Haiti) march 11(Japan).. Luke21:10-11, Then Jesus said to his disiples; Nations will rise against nation & Kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes,famines & pestilinces in various places and great signs from Beacon.'Jesus says behold I come quikly'.(So ask yourself are you ready for his return)? So sad to many wont post!!!

I didn't post a reply.  There's just no room on FB to post all the reasons why this is wrong, conceited, self-centered, hard-hearted, stupid, a-historical and inapppropriate.

Not enough room here, either.  And anyway, I found a picture that says it all.

Okay, let's try anyway.

First, in order to find this "pattern" you have to ignore all sorts of horrible events that didn't happen on the 11th of their respective months.  The Indonesian tsunami happened on December 26.  Christchurch, NZ suffered a terrible earthquake on February 22.  Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana on August 29.  And of course God attempted to destroy the city of Nashville with a horrendous flood beginning May 1, 2010.  Apparently The Grand Ole Opry offended God.

If you put all those events into a list you see no pattern at all.

Second, if God was sending a message by making earthquakes, how does 9/11 figure into this?  It wasn't an earthquake, famine, or pestilence.  The terrorists weren't a nation or even citizens of the country they were living in, so you can't count that as "nation against nation," either. 

Third, all these things have been happening for all of history.  If you want to be a shyster prognosticator, it's a safe bet that there will be wars, earthquakes, famine and pestilence somewhere in the world most of the time.  It's like dousers finding aquifers (which are under virtually all land).

Fourth, as if we need more reasons to argue against this tripe, why would all this horrible stuff presage Jesus' return?  What kind of god does that?  Wouldn't a loving god say "In order to give you a last chance to repent, I'll give you a two-minute warning (remember, God isn't very good with time, so that would be like 20 years).  I'll send rainbows and cure everyone from their cancers and stop all the locusts from destroying any crops."

Fifth *sigh*  The "endtimes" have come and gone many many many times, most recently in 2007.

I don't de-friend people who post this stuff.  They're nice people and I see them as victims rather than morons.   Still...  I wish they would think a little harder and develop some critical skills.  It's rude of me to argue in a FB thread, and it has to be massively offensive for me to break the unwritten FB etiquette rules.  This one didn't rise to that level but it merited a post and a facepalm.

Godspam, and the Goddamngodspammers who Spam it

I think we've all (atheists and theists alike) received insipid life lesson godspam in our e-mail at one time or another. Some of my friends are so god-soaked (hat-tip to Human Ape for the adjective) that they hardly realize that the feel-good stories they send are religious. After all, a pithy religious note at the end of a long series of cute puppy photos doesn't make an e-mail religious, does it? *facepalm*

Recently, one of my atheist friends at work (yes, I found another one here in Indiana!!!) received the NASA spam claiming to validate two Biblical miracles. It claims that astrophysicists have proved a "lost day" during which the Sun "stood still" in the sky (Joshua 10:12-13) for 23 hours and 40 minutes, and another fable about Hezekiah demanding the Sun go backwards as proof that Isaiah was visiting him as a ghost, filling in the remaining 20 minutes.  *groan*  This is such utter nonsense it ought to make baby Jebus cry.

How can you tell it's nonsense if you're not an astronomer (which I'm not)? Here are some tips:

It's an e-mail that purports there is scientific proof supporting a Biblical miracle. Miracles by definition defy science so this would be big news indeed. And yet the only people who know are the lucky few who happen to be in the spammer's contacts list. Wouldn't this be common knowledge if it were really true?  Here are some clues:

The person sending it is a Christian. There. I said it. Christians are gullible. They are so eager to be right that they will believe anything, from Creationism to the Virgin Mary appearing in an office building window.

NASA scientists are supposedly wasting the taxpayers' money proving a religious myth. That would be unconstitutional, besides also being a waste of time. And anyway, why would NASA worry about something like that when they have bigger problems to solve?

The noble Christian character, who figures out The Truth thanks to his prior indoctrination as a Christian, is a classic trope.  He's the Christian Mulder. Doesn't every conspiracy theory have one? Crackpot loners always have the right answer against common sense and the scientific method. *rolls eyes*  Their colleagues suppress The Truth (tm) and he can only get the message out through spam.

Complete lack of detail, such as dates, references to written articles, etc. That's pretty much a trait of all urban legend type spam too.

...and then as I was getting ready to finish this post and publish it, I find this piece of shit in my e-mail account (sent as an e-mail).  WTF?  How did they get my e-mail address?  That's the most pathetic spam I've ever seen!  Although I have to admit, I am intrigued by the thought that the book teaches the fools how to spot logical fallacies!

WTF?????

I'm sorry, I couldn't think of a better title for this post.

I mean, how do you describe bullshit, complete and utter bullshit, being posted to the blog of a periodical that the general public trusts?

"Extraordinary" claims do not require extraordinary evidence, according to this writer on the Psychology Today blog.

In order to take him seriously you have to completely misunderstand what Sagan meant in the first place.

Extraordinary claims:  i.e., outside the realm of the normal or natural, i.e. supernatural

Extraordinary evidence:  pretty much the same thing

Apparently there's a brouhaha in the psychology field since the publication of an article claiming to prove precognition.  And this idiot is arguing against demanding "extraordinary" evidence in this manner:

The problem with the dictum is that there are no absolute criteria for what counts as “extraordinary claims.”  In particular, what counts as extraordinary depends entirely on what you know and believe.

Well, there's the natural world and the non-natural world.  If you want to claim that the supernatural is natural you do indeed need some damn good proof because you're not just filling in the gap in some huge field of knowledge; you'd be turning all knowledge about the world upside-down.

And apparently "science" is so trendy your a dinosaur if you don't go along with the latest gibberish:

Worse, what counts as extraordinary depends also on the scientific fads and fashion of the time.   The claims of race and sex differences in intelligence were not at all extraordinary a hundred years ago.  They are considered to be extremely extraordinary today, requiring extraordinary evidence.

 Bingo.  Just like religionists, pseudoscientists perform linguistic sleight-of-hand when it suits them:

The claims of race and sex differences in intelligence were not at all extraordinary a hundred years ago.  They are considered to be extremely extraordinary today, requiring extraordinary evidence.

So now we're speaking of "extraordinary" in the sense of unusual, not supernatural.    In Science, knowledge changes based on evidence, testing, and retesting.  That's not faddish, it's the way science is supposed to work.  It's entirely possible for an unusual phenomenon to change the way experts think.  That doesn't mean that supernatural claims shouldn't be held to a higher standard.

Further, this is a false equivalence.  There's nothing about bias in intelligence testing that's the equivalent to claiming precognition because intelligence had previously been established.  Precognition has not been established, unless this supposed study is indeed valid.  Presumably the author of the original study will accept Randi's million-dollar challenge, win, and have plenty of money to validate the earlier "evidence."

Meanwhile, only believers in precognition will believe this stuff.

The offending article is here if you have the stomach for it:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201103/do-extraordinary-claims-require-extraordinary-evidence