Thoughts from Kansas

Thoughts from Kansas http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/ You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that it loses itself early and does not find itself any more. --Mark Twain en Copyright 2009 Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:21:08 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=4.23-en http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss ThoughtsFromKansashttp://feedburner.google.com38.983551-95.232023http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/http://creativecommons.org/images/public/somerights20.gifSome Rights ReservedThis is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site, subject to copyleft. Deep thought <p>Sarah Palin is utterly batshit.</p> <p>Look, I can see not running for reelection: she wants to run for president in 2012.</p> <p>That alone is pretty dumb, since she was less popular than John McCain, and McCain/Palin couldn't beat Obama in 2008. In 2012, all signs suggest we'll have national health insurance and a growing economy, so why would anyone pick Palin to ruin it?</p> <p>But she wants to run in 2012. Fine. Why resign from office now? She doesn't want to be a lame duck? Fine, then why stay in office for a month? I mean, her official resignation will happen on my birthday, which is thoughtful of her, but still, she's quacking and limping.</p> <p>Furthermore, she hasn't really been doing a lot as governor anyway. With all the feuding and fighting for national prominence, I can't think she's been delving into the finer details of Alaskan policy. Which may be to Alaska's benefit. Surely, though, she could persist in this manner for her full four-year term, and then get beaten in 2012.</p> <p>But what really puzzles me is the precise timing of her announcement. Last week, <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/08/sarah-palin200908?printable=true&currentPage=all">Vanity Fair rolled out an article</a> in which McCain staffers unloaded on her, calling her, among other things, a “Little Shop of Horrors,” a “diva,” and a “whack job.” </p> <p>That would all be forgotten by July, but by signaling her 2012 candidacy unmistakably and by announcing her resignation now, Palin makes it impossible for those of us who planned to ignore the Vanity Fair piece. And we have to ask whether she's resigning as Governor to free up <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/1/748786/-Palin:-McCain-staff-didnt-let-me-run-enough">more time to run laps</a>, or to run for office. </p> <p>All this could have been mitigated by delaying the announcement, or just by serving out her term.</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/07/deep_thought_16.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~4/h8pKW071UiM" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tfk/~3/Um6OmM-croY/deep_thought_16.php http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/07/deep_thought_16.php Policy and Politics Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:21:08 -0800 http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/07/deep_thought_16.phphttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~3/h8pKW071UiM/deep_thought_16.php The ecological fallacy <p>Martin Cothran has, he likes to remind people, written a book on logic, and teaches the subject at the high school level. Alas and alack, this stooge of the Disco. Inst. and Focus on (your own damn) Family <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/01/stupid_answers_to_stupid_quest.php">cannot seem to apply it</a> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2008/11/vere_loqui_is_the_debate_over.php">correctly in his writings</a>. Today, he illustrates rather starkly the ecological fallacy while making the not-at-all revolutionary observation that <a href="http://vereloqui.blogspot.com/2009/07/nations-poor-are-too-fat-you-gotta-love.html">wealthier Americans are skinnier than poorer ones</a>:<br /> <blockquote>Now comes more evidence that poverty in American is characterized chiefly by eating too much. The report, from the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation, has Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Tennessee, and South Carolina as the five states with the highest rates of obesity. It does not make any claims about the relation between poverty and obesity, but what do you want to bet that if you took the mean income and compared it to the level of obesity, you would have a strong correlation?</blockquote>The fact that these states are the poorest and also the most obese does not mean that the poorest people in these states are the most obese, naturally. This is the ecological fallacy at work, the fallacy of assuming that individuals in a statistical population all share the average properties of the group. For instance, reading the data above to show that Mississippians are all both fat and poor.</p> <p>Then Cothran confuses correlation with causation, which would be invalid even if he had data showing that correlation.</p> <p>And of course, there is a relationship to be found. Wealthier Americans tend to be thinner than lower middle class and lower class Americans. I haven't seen data on people below the poverty line, so I don't know how far down the income scale that trend persists. But obesity is a bad measure for adequate nutrition. Food isn't just about caloric intake, it's also about vitamins and minerals, essential amino acids and lipids. People get fat because calories are cheap. Corn syrup is subsidized so that it's sold below the cost to produce it. It's cheap and easy to bulk things up on calories. </p> <p>You can get a few thousand calories for a couple dollars at McDonalds, but those are calories from fat and processed corn. The food is laced with preservatives and pesticides, and it's missing vitamins and minerals. Someone who <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Super-Size-Me-John-Banzhaf/dp/B0002OXVBO%3FSubscriptionId%3D02ZH6J1W0649DTNS6002%26tag%3Dthoughtsfromk-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB0002OXVBO">lives on fast food for a month</a> will wind up malnourished in a meaningful sense, but won't have lost weight. He'll be unwell and obese, poorly fed but not hungry.</p> <p>Good food costs money. Most organically grown items at the farmers markets I shop at cost 2-3 times what a conventionally grown item might cost at a supermarket. But I'll pay it, because it encourages local agriculture, because I don't have to worry about pesticides, and I don't have to fear the preservatives and additives that are added to everything up to and including raw meat at the supermarket. It's healthier for me, for my community, and for the environment. But it costs money. Turns out I can fill up on greens just as well as on Fritos, and it doesn't cost that much more, and it doesn't make me obese.</p> <p>There was a striking moment in Food, Inc. that illustrated the problem. A family is talking about the challenge of feeding 5 mouths on two poorly-paid salaries (I think they worked at a meat processing plant). Their budget requires that they spend no more than a dollar on lunch for each family member. At the supermarket, the single pear the youngest daughter selects would blow her whole lunch budget, while the same dollar would buy her a hamburger and a soda at a fast food joint. Understandably, she chooses to buy the more filling, but less healthy, fast food.</p> <p><img src="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/images/200907012122.jpg" height="656" width="400" border="0" hspace="0" vspace="0" alt="200907012122" style="float:right;padding:1em;" />The US Department of Agriculture measures food insecurity not only <a href="http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/FoodSecurity/labels.htm">in terms of hunger</a>, but based on "reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet," with "very low food security" being evidenced by reduced food intake (in any form) and disruption of eating patterns, as in skipping meals for financial reasons. By this standard, a family subsisting on hamburgers and soda has low food insecurity, but not very low food insecurity. <a href="http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/FoodSecurity/stats_graphs.htm">Food insecurity affects 11.1% of households</a>, with 4.1% in the "very low food security" category in 2007.<br /> By the measure of the figure here, few food secure people are worried about missing meals, about having unbalanced meals, or are going hungry. Even food insecure people generally find ways to maintain body weight, but at the cost of unbalanced meals and stress about running out of food. </p> <p>Cothran dismisses "people who are claiming there is a 'hunger' problem in America" when 4% of the population in the richest and most powerful nation on the planet cannot get enough to eat. Someone's heart needs to grow a few sizes.</p> <p>The USDA adds that, as of 2007: "Overall, households with children had nearly twice the rate of food insecurity (15.8 percent) as those without children (8.7 percent)." That trend is worrisome because malnourishment (in terms of nutrients and calories) affects a child's growth and mental development. These kids may be fat (which puts them at risk for diabetes), but they aren't getting vitamins and essential fatty acids needed for a growing brain. And the calories they are getting come alongside pesticides and preservatives which mimic the effects of naturally produced hormones. Hormones which control how and when different body parts grow. Hormones that determine whether male or female genitalia grow. Hormones that induce puberty. This is not small potatoes we're playing with.</p> <p>Rates of food insecurity are up in recent years. Very low food security was found in only 2.85% of families during the Clinton years, rising to its current peak during the Bush administration. Eleven percent of families may not seem like much, but even one family going without food is too many. Cothran can mock all he wants, but it would be nice if he didn't demonstrate his logical incompetence while he's at it.</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/07/the_ecological_fallacy.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~4/P7WSINcCpK4" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tfk/~3/M4kGlv0BGf0/the_ecological_fallacy.php http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/07/the_ecological_fallacy.php Policy and Politics Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:48:36 -0800 http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/07/the_ecological_fallacy.phphttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~3/P7WSINcCpK4/the_ecological_fallacy.php Deep thought <p>Zombie Michael Jackson has not yet risen to devour LA's few remaining brains. Thankfully, CNN is following this breaking story.</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/07/deep_thought_15.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~4/E81zxrNVCR8" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tfk/~3/ObJ52YdcuEI/deep_thought_15.php http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/07/deep_thought_15.php Chatter Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:13:24 -0800 http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/07/deep_thought_15.phphttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~3/E81zxrNVCR8/deep_thought_15.php More on accomodationism <p>In the course of a long and often annoying back and forth with Jerry Coyne, Chris Mooney <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/06/25/responding-to-coyne-since-i-havent-in-a-while/">comes up with a succinct explanation of where science/religion accommodation comes from</a>:<br /> <blockquote>Insofar as I’m an accommodationist, then, it’s not because I don’t see the incongruity between relying on faith, and looking for evidence, as bases for knowing. Rather, it’s because I know that many very intelligent people are struggling all the time to make their peace with this incongruity in their own way–a peace that works for them. And so long as they’re not messing with what our kids learn–or, again, trying to ram their views down our throats–then good on ‘em.</blockquote>His point about whether science and religion are different "bases for knowing" is a reference to <a href="http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/quote-of-the-week/">Jerry Coyne's question</a> to Mooney: "Does Mooney sign on to [<a href="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/ncses_peter_hess_takes_down_di.php">Peter</a>] Hess’s statement that the faithful and the scientists are all really engaged in the same endeavor?" FWIW, Hess's quote was that "Science and faith are but two ways of searching for the same truths," which is not really saying it's "the same endeavor."</p> <p>The bigger thing about Coyne's question that grates is that it pretends that "scientists" and "people of faith" are non-overlapping sets. That everyone under discussion is either a scientist or religious, and a religious scientist is no more than a theoretical possibility. But we need not even choose a different surname to disprove that. Fr. George Coyne is an astronomer. He was, for many years, the director of the Vatican Observatory, and was a Jesuit priest for even longer. Does he see any conflict between his study of the heavens and his belief in heaven? <a href="http://www.thetablet.co.uk/article/1027">Not at all</a>:</p> <blockquote>the International Theological Commission, under the presidency of Cardinal Ratzinger, and less than a year before he was elected to the Papacy, issued a lengthy statement in which it saw no incompatibility between God's providential plan for creation and the results of a truly contingent evolutionary process in nature. … <p>There appears to exist a nagging fear in the Church that a universe… in which life… evolved through a process of random genetic mutations and natural selection, escapes God's dominion. That fear is groundless. Science is completely neutral with respect to philosophical or theological implications that may be drawn from its conclusions. Those conclusions are always subject to improvement. That is why science is such an interesting adventure and scientists curiously interesting creatures. But for someone to deny the best of today's science on religious grounds is to live in that groundless fear just mentioned. …</blockquote>It surely sounds like he sees science and religion as paths to truth, though not (as Jerry Coyne seems to think) to the same truths. Coyne's exploration of the concept of creation is also worth considering:</p> <blockquote>It is unfortunate that creationism has come to mean some fundamentalistic, literal, scientific interpretation of Genesis. Judaeo-Christian faith is radically creationist, but in a totally different sense. It is rooted in a belief that everything depends upon God, or better, all is a gift from God. The universe is not God and it cannot exist independently of God. Neither pantheism nor [metaphysical] naturalism is true. But, if we confront what we know of our origins scientifically with religious faith in God the Creator – if, that is, we take the results of modern science seriously – it is difficult to believe that God is omnipotent and omniscient in the sense of many of the scholastic philosophers. For the believer, science tells us of a God who must be very different from God as seen by them. <p>This stress on our scientific knowledge is not to place a limitation upon God. Far from it. It reveals a God who made a universe that has within it a certain dynamism and thus participates in the very creativity of God. Such a view of creation can be found in early Christian writings, especially in those of St Augustine in his comments on Genesis. If they respect the results of modern science and, indeed, the best of modern biblical research, religious believers must move away from the notion of a dictator God or a designer God, a Newtonian God who made the universe as a watch that ticks along regularly. Perhaps God should be seen more as a parent or as one who speaks encouraging and sustaining words. Scripture is very rich in these thoughts. It presents, indeed anthropomorphically, a God who gets angry, who disciplines, a God who nurtures the universe, who empties himself in Christ the incarnate Word. Thus God's revelation of himself in the Book of Scripture would be reflected in our knowledge of the universe, so that, as Galileo was fond of stating, the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature speak of the same God. </blockquote>He ends with an endorsement of process theology which is worth reading, but which I won't quote. The point here is not that science and religion give you the same answers, or that they answer the same questions. It is also not that religious knowledge is static, as some new atheists often claim. Theology responds to new scientific discoveries, just as it reacts to cultural shifts. Claims about theology are tested in a different way than scientific claims, indeed cannot be tested as scientific claims, but that does not mean they are invalid. He sees science and religion as connected, as informing one another in certain ways, and as rooted in the same reality, therefore incapable of contradiction. Apparent contradictions must be addressed by further study.</p> <p>For my own answer to Jerry Coyne's questions, I want to point again to <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/what_is_compatibility.php">the analogy between reading about San Francisco and driving up to visit the city</a>. A Dashiell Hammett mystery is not a slalom down Lombard Street, and the experience of being a tourist in San Francisco cannot be replaced by Mark Twain's tales. But you can't visit the San Francisco which gave birth to the Grateful Dead except by reading <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Electric-Kool-Aid-Acid-Test/dp/031242759X%3FSubscriptionId%3D02ZH6J1W0649DTNS6002%26tag%3Dthoughtsfromk-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D031242759X">The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test</a></em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Electric-Kool-Aid-Acid-Test/dp/031242759X%3FSubscriptionId%3D02ZH6J1W0649DTNS6002%26tag%3Dthoughtsfromk-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D031242759X"> by Tom Wolfe</a>. Literature and travel are, in some sense, different ways of getting at related truths. Which is not to say that there was ever an actual Maltese Falcon, or that everything Tom Wolfe describes happened just as he wrote it. That's not the point.</p> <p>But Coyne sees it differently:<br /> <blockquote>The methods of ascertaining “truth” via faith are either revelation or acceptance of dogma. These methods have produced “truths” like a 6,000-year-old Earth and the Great Flood. Not a very good track record. In fact, I have yet to find a single truth about humans, Earth, or the universe that has come <em>uniquely</em> from faith.</blockquote>This is a tricky question. I could point to the Golden Rule, which seems to crop up in <a href="http://religioustolerance.org/reciproc.htm">lots of different religions</a>, and emerges pretty naturally from evolutionary game theory under conditions that model early human societies. So it's some sort of truth, and Jews had written it down long before anyone invented game theory. But it isn't unique to faith. Indeed, any empirically testable claim cannot be unique to faith; it is in science's realm (too?), and will be tested and found either valid or false. Claims which are not testable, like the divinity of Jesus or Mary's conception free of sin, may or may not be true, but since we can't test them, Christians believe them to be true and non-Christians don't. That revelation cannot be tested means it is not science, but it doesn't mean it isn't true.</p> <p>It is a truth of a different sort, but not an unrelated truth. If Jesus lived, he walked the same world I do. If he was divine, the words he spoke struck ears like mine. His miracles were either sleight of hand, embellishments by later storytellers, or suspensions of natural laws. If I could take James Randi back a couple thousand years, I could figure that out, but as it is, all I can do is believe what I believe and let Christians believe what they do.</p> <p>Randi and I could surely figure out what the score is with the loaves and the fishes and the wine. I don't know any way that we could test Jesus' divinity, or whether Mary was born with or without original sin. I kinda think that since neither of us places much stock in the notion to begin with, we'd find her just as lacking in it as we find everyone else. And this may be too post-modernist of me to say, but maybe it's true for Christians and not true for me. If that's the case, I don't really see the harm in it.</p> <p>The analogy to reading works here, also. I don't quite understand the life of an illiterate, but I know that there are people who can't read, or who can but don't. When I was tutoring grade schoolers, I had one kid who could read well, but just didn't care to do it. He wanted to draw teenage mutant ninja turtles for himself and his friends, but he just had no interest in the books his mother wanted me to have him read. Maybe he grew out of it, or maybe he still doesn't understand why anyone should want to read. And we know there are plenty of Americans who simply can't make any sense of letters on paper. </p> <p>The closest I can come to either of those feelings, and I think the anti-accommodationist atheists feel like this about religion, is dance. I've never been able to dance, and never much minded that. I watch people dancing, and I see that they enjoy themselves. But I can't fathom why, nor can I quite sort out what it is that they are doing. I can appreciate the technical challenge and the aesthetic merits of ballet, other stage dance styles, and what happens on dance floors at clubs, weddings, or bar mitzvahs, but I can't quite understand why anyone chooses to do those things, let alone how I might replicate it. In any event there are lots of things I'd rather do. No harm done.</p> <p>As best I can tell, opponents of compatibility look at religion roughly the same way, except that the see some ill-defined harm being done. They see religious practice as meaningly jabber, barely worth treating seriously. Grand metaphysical questions are declared irrelevant if they can't be scientifically tested, or if they introduce causative agents whose existence and actions in the world are beyond scientific detection. Truths that can't be verified aren't deemed worth considering.</p> <p>Ask me why I read, and I can tell you about worlds I've experienced and people I've met, despite the centuries or leagues separating us. I can tell you about the excitement of placing myself in epic battles, and the contentment of sitting next to Thoreau at Walden Pond (contentment occasionally interrupted when my companion says something foolish). But to someone who can't or won't read, that makes no sense. Ask me why people dance, and I can't do much more than speculate about the historical role played by rhythmic movement in our ancestral culture. I suspect there's more to it, I just don't know what it is. But it would be wrong of me to dismiss it. It's just as wrong, I think, for the anti-accommodationists to simply dismiss the possibility that religion does something useful for some (but not all) people.</p> <p>George Coyne doesn't want to push creationism in schools. He doesn't try to siphon my tax dollars off for Catholic schools, he doesn't chain himself to the doors of abortion clinics, he doesn't try to make me go to his church, and he doesn't hold back his scientific work because of his beliefs. He believes what he believes, he doesn't impose it on others, and it would be as wrong for others to impose their beliefs about science and religion on him as it would be for him to impose his beliefs on me. Unless there's some empirical, scientific test that would resolve this question, it falls in the same category of untestable claims as the Immaculate Conception. And the Golden Rule tells us that we should discuss this issue with the same civility and respect that we wish occurred in discussions of religion.</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/more_on_accomodationism.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~4/jlGyzFbcbx8" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tfk/~3/2mPeD8UXdOs/more_on_accomodationism.php http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/more_on_accomodationism.php Policy and Politics Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:29:01 -0800 http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/more_on_accomodationism.phphttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~3/jlGyzFbcbx8/more_on_accomodationism.php Those who cannot remember the past... <p>Via <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/jgTnaEqRB68/latest_entries_in_the_accommod.php">PZ Myers</a>, I learn of a <a href="http://blog.case.edu/singham/2009/06/24/the_new_atheists_vs_the_accommodationists">new entrant into the science/religion accomodation fracas</a>. Mano Singham's generally well-grounded historical look at how these arguments have played out historically begins:<br /> <blockquote>The accommodationists argue that it is a mistake to insist that science is antithetical to religion because if science is determined to be an intrinsically atheistic enterprise, then even so-called moderate religionists will turn away from science and not support efforts to oppose the teaching of religious ideas such as intelligent design in science classes. This kind of mistaken solicitousness for the sensitivities of religious people, the fear that they will take their ball and go home if others are mean to them, is not new. During the run up to the Scopes Monkey trial in 1925, there were many accommodationists of that era who did not want Clarence Darrow to defend Scopes because they felt that his scorn for religious beliefs would alienate potential religious allies. We now view Darrow's performance in that trial as one of the high points in opposing the imposition of religious indoctrination in public schools.</blockquote>However we view Darrow's performance in retrospect, one thing is absolutely true about his work in <em>Scopes</em>. Darrow lost. Scopes was convicted (his sentence – a $100 fine – was overturned on a technicality). Darrow's legal strategy failed.</p> <p>In fact, it was not until 1968, 43 years after the Scopes trial, that laws like that in Tennessee were overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. For over 40 years, science classes in several states could not cover human evolution. Darrow dealt creationism a PR blow, but by the time <em>Epperson</em> overturned the laws of the Scopes era, creationists had moved on to a new legal strategy.</p> <p>The initial strategy attempted by the ACLU and Darrow was … to present theistic evolution and argue that evolution did not necessarily violate the prohibition on "teach[ing] any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible." The judge forbade the testimony of theologians and scientists about the ways evolution and the Bible could be reconciled, and instructed the jury not to consider anything about the validity of the law, only to ask whether Scopes broke the law. Since he basically admitted he had done so, this left little room for Darrow and the ACLU. They preserved their grounds for appeal, and Darrow gradually became more and more vigorous in attacking the supposedly literal interpretation of the Bible.</p> <p>And he lost.</p> <p>In Dover, as in McLean before, theologians were allowed to testify about the compatibility of science and religion, and judges cited their testimony in rulings against creationist laws. Based on the available evidence, then, the accommodationist view works in court, and anti-religious rhetoric fails. Of course, correlation doesn't equal causation. That doesn't seem to stop the anti-accommodationists from claiming that accommodationism has failed since creationism still exists.</p> <p>But before anyone advocates a return to Darrow's anti-religion tirades, remember that he failed, and that his failure held back science education for decades. And religion didn't go away, so it's not like the anti-accomodationists got their wish, either. I'm fine with the anti-accommodationists proposing their own strategies, but I hope they don't expect me to accept a strategy which would consign thousands of kids to substandard education.<br /> </p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/those_who_cannot_remember_the_1.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~4/AszfTAG5bDQ" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tfk/~3/0gHpT4Naw5o/those_who_cannot_remember_the_1.php http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/those_who_cannot_remember_the_1.php Creationism Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:15:26 -0800 http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/those_who_cannot_remember_the_1.phphttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~3/AszfTAG5bDQ/those_who_cannot_remember_the_1.php Deep Thought <p>Can society persist without Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon?</p> <p>And will the hubbub over Michael Jackson's death do what the Iranian government couldn't: destroy Twitter?</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/deep_thought_14.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~4/DhXN9QHFQ-0" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tfk/~3/x9bgTjlhidI/deep_thought_14.php http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/deep_thought_14.php Chatter Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:05:24 -0800 http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/deep_thought_14.phphttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~3/DhXN9QHFQ-0/deep_thought_14.php What is compatibility? <p>Sean Carroll, one of the sharpest guys out there, says that <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2009/06/23/science-and-religion-are-not-compatible/">science and religion are not compatible</a>. I happen to think he's using an idiosyncratic (but not necessarily wrong) definition to reach that conclusion:<br /> <blockquote>are science and religion actually compatible? Clearly one’s stance on that issue will affect one’s feelings about accomodationism. So I’d like to put my own feelings down in one place. </p> <p>Science and religion are not compatible. But, before explaining what that means, we should first say what it doesn’t mean. </p> <p>It doesn’t mean, first, that there is any <em>necessary</em> or <em>logical</em> or <em>a priori</em> incompatibility between science and religion. We shouldn’t declare them to be incompatible purely on the basis of what they are, which some people are tempted to do. Certainly, science works on the basis of reason and evidence, while religion often appeals to faith (although reason and evidence are by no means absent). But that just means they are different, not that they are incompatible.</blockquote>This is the logic behind <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/ncses_peter_hess_takes_down_di.php">Peter Hess's objection</a> that asking someone to choose science <em>or </em>religion is like asking them to decide whether a grapefruit is yellow or spherical. Yellowness and sphericity are complementary in some sense, though we'll see that this is an imperfect analogy.</p> <p>Carroll illustrates his view of compatibility:</p> <blockquote>An airplane is different from a car, and indeed if you want to get from Los Angeles to San Francisco you would take either an airplane or a car, not both at once. But if you take a car and your friend takes a plane, as long as you both end up in San Francisco your journeys were perfectly compatible. </blockquote>This is a pretty reasonable definition of compatibility in some broad sense, but I don't think it's what anyone means when they discuss science/religion compatibility. Here's an analogy that better matches at least my sense of the term's meaning. A car can transport you to San Francisco, and a book can transport you to San Francisco. Reading and driving are not incompatible, as reading the book does not preclude driving to the Bay area. Indeed, one can read in the car, and reading about SF before you arrive will enhance your experience. This holds even if you are reading about fictional events in SF, or science fiction accounts of Star Fleet cadets wandering the 23rd century streets of San Francisco. Conflict between reading and driving is possible of course; one shouldn't drive and read at the same time. But it would be wrong to take the odd car crash as evidence of incompatibility between literacy and driving. <p>Furthermore, some people can't read, or can't drive. Others can, but don't, do either. They aren't necessarily worse off as a result, but a case might be made that experience of driving would be enhanced by reading, and that the experience of reading something like <em>On the Road</em> would be heightened by having driven long distances. Similarly, religious scientists say that their scientific work is deepened and inspired by their religious practices, and that their religious worship is more profound because of the experience gained from their scientific studies.</p> <p>In general, I find the analogy between religion and literature intriguing, though I'm sure that both theists and atheists would find reasons to object to it. Leave a comment either way!</p> <p>I'll grant that this is not how we tend to use the term "compatible." It's closer to "orthogonal," though again, not quite. Conflict and mutual enhancement are both possible, but the two are often orthogonal. Compatibility usually refers to the ability to interoperate in some way, as with finding the right lightbulb for a socket, or software that runs on your computer. Under that definition, any evidence of conflict would be evidence of incompatibility, and proof of widespread enhancement would be necessary to claim compatibility. Carroll is to be applauded for applying a more consistent definition of compatibility to science/religion, but I think it makes it harder to apply the rest of what he says to what anyone else says. In this conflict, I feel like no one is stating that religion always enhances science and vice versa, though people do argue that their particular religion (or some theoretical religion that they wish existed) enhances and is enhanced by science. And lots of people argue that science and religion can be (if they are not already) non-interfering, which some would say constitutes neither compatibility nor incompatibility. </p> <p>This all leads Carroll to an interesting view on science and religion, but one which I think misstates how people approach the matter:</p> <blockquote>Likewise, it’s not hard to imagine an alternative universe in which science and religion were compatible — one in which religious claims about the functioning of the world were regularly verified by scientific practice. We can easily conceive of a world in which the best scientific techniques of evidence-gathering and hypothesis-testing left us with an understanding of the workings of Nature which included the existence of God and/or other supernatural phenomena.…</blockquote>Again, this assumes a definition of "compatibility" that no one else is using. Which is fine as an intellectual exercise, but limits the applicability of the analysis in any other context. <blockquote>The incompatibility between science and religion also doesn’t mean that a person can’t be religious and be a good scientist.</blockquote>This is what many people claim it means. And in this context, the analogy to software actually supports my reading over Carroll's. If the brain is like computer, we could envision "religion" and "science" as programs running on it. If the two software systems are compatible, neither writes to the other's memory, or locks files the other needs, or is such a resource hog that the other crashes or is unusable. If they can keep to their own domain (at least mostly, even good programmers have memory leaks!), then the two are compatible. No requirement that they enhance one another or interoperate, beyond that they can work freely on the same mental substrate. <p>Carroll agrees:</p> <blockquote>That would be a silly claim to make, and if someone pretends that it must be what is meant by “science and religion are incompatible” you can be sure they are setting up straw men. There is no problem at all with individual scientists holding all sorts of incorrect beliefs, including about science. There are scientists who believe in the Steady State model of cosmology, or that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, or that sunspots are the primary agent of climate change. The mere fact that such positions are held by some scientists doesn’t make them good scientific positions. We should be interested in what is correct and incorrect, and the arguments for either side, not the particular beliefs of certain individuals. (Likewise, if science and religion were compatible, the existence of thousands of irreligious scientists wouldn’t matter either.) <p>The reason why science and religion are actually incompatible is that, in the real world, they reach incompatible conclusions. It’s worth noting that this incompatibility is perfectly evident to any fair-minded person who cares to look. Different religions make very different claims, but they typically end up saying things like “God made the universe in six days” or "Jesus died and was resurrected” or “Moses parted the red sea” or “dead souls are reincarnated in accordance with their karmic burden.” And science says: none of that is true. So there you go, incompatibility. </blockquote>I don't think science quite says "none of that is true." Science cannot test any claim about dead souls. They cannot be shown to exist, but neither can their existence be disproven. Claims about souls are irrelevant to science, but they are not at odds with science. </p> <p>Furthermore, lots of religious people and religious leaders argue that stories about the Exodus, the Resurrection, or the Creation are not to be read as history, but as literary technique. They are allegories and fables. </p> <p>Again, an analogy to literature. <em>A Tale of Two Cities</em> is not meant as history. Events in the real French Revolution did not unfold in all their details exactly as described in the book. By Carroll's lights, this makes Dickens (and perhaps literature in general) incompatible with history. But the goal of reading Dickens is hardly to get an accurate account of daily events in the French Revolution. You read Dickens to get the <em>feel</em> of events, perhaps, but more importantly, to derive deeper truths about human nature by seeing how those truths play out against a familiar backdrop. </p> <p>Similarly, the supposedly literal reading of the Bible yields a decidedly unliterary understanding, and thereby costs the document its moral and emotional heft. Slacktivist has illustrated this with a different Bible story than what Carroll chooses, but I think the points stand:</p> <blockquote>One of my favorite origin stories is nominally the answer to the question "Where do rainbows come from?" <p>The answer the story gives has nothing to do with the refraction of light, because the story isn't really about where rainbows come from. The story, of course, is that of Noah's ark, as famously told in chapters 6-9 of the book of Genesis and side one of <em>Bill Cosby Is a Very Funny Fellow Right!</em></p> <p>The structure of that story is, in part, something like this:</p> <p>Q: Where do rainbows come from?</p> <p>A: Selfishness is destructive -- to you and to every living creature. Remember that every time you see a rainbow.</p> <p>Again, the answer isn't directly related to the apparent question because the apparent question isn't really what the story is about. This may seem complicated, but if you read these stories it's quite obvious. They're not subtle about it. Their message is not some hidden meaning that needs to be decoded. It would be very difficult, in fact, to read or hear such stories without taking away the meaning they are meant to convey.</blockquote>The story of the Red Sea crossing is not important as an historical claim, it's part of a story about how the Jewish people became the Jewish people. Out of adversity and danger, we rode to freedom, surviving by the skin of our teeth. When we retell this story on Passover, the message is not about meteorology or oceanography of the Red Sea, it's about generosity to those in need, about social justice, and about the essence of freedom. Anyone who reads Exodus and feels like the only appropriate next step is to dredge the Red Sea for chariot parts has missed the point, and rather dramatically. Just so, if someone reads <em>Into the Wild</em> and later dies alone in Alaska, we don't blame that death on literature, on Jon Krakauer, or even on the book. If anyone outside the victim is to blame, it's his literature teacher, who should have helped that student see past the words on the page to the meaning they are meant to capture.</p> <p>There are certain meanings that science helps us capture because science lets us read between the lines of the natural world. Religions give people certain insights into the world around them, also. Those are generally not insights of the same sort as scientific insights. Children who ask why the sky is blue are not necessarily asking about Raleigh scattering, after all. They're asking a question that they can't fully articular, a question about whether everything in the world has deeper meaning, and if so, what those meanings are. They are asking if the sky is blue for the same reason robin's eggs are blue, and the ocean is blue. They wonder if people with blue eyes are more connected to the sky. To the extent science offers answers, they aren't answers children can grasp, and the deeper questions are not questions science can answer. </p> <p>We can surely show that oceans are blue because they reflect skylight, and that there is a link there. And we can show that eyes and blue jay feathers and clear skies are all blue for different physical reasons. But as philosophers since Aristotle have observed, there are different levels on which causation operates. The particular way in which light plays off of different surfaces to produce color is one level of causation, but the jay or the eye are blue because of independent selection processes as well, which provide a different level of explanation; a level different from explanations rooted only in the developmental process which yields a blue eye or a jay's feather. There are other explanations which are not amenable to scientific testing at all. "God likes the color blue" would be such an explanation, and it would explain why those other explanations hold, but it is not empirically testable. It is a question of a different sort.</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/what_is_compatibility.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~4/HFKs1HYrl7I" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tfk/~3/OyfYVuY6ulM/what_is_compatibility.php http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/what_is_compatibility.php Policy and Politics Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:48:24 -0800 http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/what_is_compatibility.phphttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~3/HFKs1HYrl7I/what_is_compatibility.php Thomas More Law Center loses mind <p>Students of the creation/evolution conflict know the Thomas More Law Center as the conservative legal group who encouraged the Dover school board to undertake their disastrous policies. TMLC lost badly, and left Dover on the hook for over a million dollars in legal fees. TMLC dropped plenty of their own money on the case, too, money donated by the founder of Dominos Pizza.</p> <p>TMLC is at it again, stirring up baseless legal fights to promote their religious agenda. And when they lost, things got really ugly. The SF Chrnocile explains, "<a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=c/a/2009/06/10/BABD183R7G.DTL">Religious right group likens S.F. supes to Nazis</a>":<br /> <blockquote>"It is not a stretch to compare the San Francisco board's actions to that of the Nazi Germany policy of Gleichschaltung, vilifying Jews as an auxiliary to and laying the groundwork for more repressive policies, including the final solution of extermination." [said TMLC's Richard Thompson] </p> <p>He was referring to the supervisors' March 2006 resolution denouncing a Vatican order to Catholic Charities not to place adoptive children with same-sex couples. </blockquote>Disproportionate, much?</p> <blockquote>In the decree, Cardinal William Levada, the former San Francisco archbishop who now heads the church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said allowing gay or lesbian couples to adopt children "would actually mean doing violence to these children."</blockquote><blockquote>The nonbinding board resolution, sponsored by then-Supervisor Tom Ammiano, said the Vatican order contained "hateful and discriminatory rhetoric" and urged local Catholic officials, including Levada's successor as archbishop, George Niederauer, to disregard it. In response, Catholic Charities of San Francisco stopped placing children for adoption with any families.</blockquote>A Catholic group sued, claiming the statement constituted religious discrimination. The courts disagreed, noting that preventing discrimination was a valid secular purpose. <p>That's when the TMLC declared this to be tantamount to the Holocaust, a statement which a spokesman later modified, telling the Chronicle: "We're not saying that the resolution is going to lead toward extermination of Catholics." Resolution sponsor Tom Ammiano notes correctly that this sort of language "trivializes what the Nazis did." No one points this out, but it seems worth noting that the Nazis didn't have much good to say about gays, and probably would agree with the Catholic Church's position here.</p> <p>While we're at it, there's no evidence that kids who get adopted by gay parents are worse off than those adopted by straight parents. There's lots of evidence that they do better than kids left in foster care or in group homes. But to avert the nonexistent danger of gay adoption, the Catholic Church is stopping all adoptions in San Francisco. As if Catholic priests have proven themselves to be models for childcare.</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/thomas_more_law_center_loses_m.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~4/TB_KU25X2y4" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tfk/~3/DeYLdpkVTPE/thomas_more_law_center_loses_m.php http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/thomas_more_law_center_loses_m.php Policy and Politics Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:16:43 -0800 http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/thomas_more_law_center_loses_m.phphttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~3/TB_KU25X2y4/thomas_more_law_center_loses_m.php Iran <p>I haven't blogged about Iran at all, and I don't really feel bad about it. Obviously, it's the big news story, but I don't know what will happen, and the people I'm reading don't seem to have a clear idea either. I'm optimistic that honest election results will be posted, and that the genuine winner of their election will be seated. </p> <p>But those are not the issues at play. The protests are being treated as a borderline revolution, with Mousavi as a potential George Washington. I'm less sure of that. Mousavi was a major backer of the Islamic Revolution, favors an Iranian nuclear weapons program, and is unlikely to push for any broad secularization or liberalization of Iranian civil society. Smart people assure me that such changes are widely desired by younger Iranians, but for them to rise up would require more than Mousavi's leadership, and if things tip that way, I'm not sure Mousavi would be at the vanguard, and I'd wager he'll be at the barricades against such a counterrevolution.</p> <p>Restrictions on reporting, garbled reporting, and the general challenge of the smoke of war (or civil unrest) all make it hard to be sure what's happening, what people's motives are, and where we'll wind up when things settle down. But a few glimpses inside the protests and the fighting remind us that this is not a clash of ideologies, but a struggle of individuals with complex motives, whose desires and dreams are deeper and more complex than the <a href="http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2009/06/each-country-is-what-it-is-and-not-another-country.html">cookie cutter figures</a> the media and commentators seem to be populating Tehran's streets with.</p> <p><a href="http://niacblog.wordpress.com/2009/06/19/live-blogging-fridays-events-in-iran/">NIAC provides this translated blog post from someone preparing for a day of protest</a> (via <a href="http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2009/06/645-am-in-tehran.html">hilzoy</a>):<br /> <blockquote>I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed. I’m listening to all my favorite music. I even want to dance to a few songs. I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows. Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow! There are a few great movie scenes that I also have to see. I should drop by the library, too. It’s worth to read the poems of Forough and Shamloo again. All family pictures have to be reviewed, too. I have to call my friends as well to say goodbye. All I have are two bookshelves which I told my family who should receive them. I’m two units away from getting my bachelors degree but who cares about that. My mind is very chaotic. I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so they know we were not just emotional and under peer pressure. So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them. So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mongols but did not surrender to despotism. This note is dedicated to tomorrow’s children…</blockquote> <a href="http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2009/06/in-a-moment-of-neglect-i-might-fly.html">She survived</a>, but her sister was killed in the protest:<br /> <blockquote>I'm here to let you know I'm alive but my sister was killed...</p> <p>I'm here to tell you my sister died while in her father's hands</p> <p>I'm here to tell you my sister had big dreams...</p> <p>I'm here to tell you my sister who died was a decent person... and like me yearned for a day when her hair would be swept by the wind... and like me read "Forough" [Forough Farrokhzad]... and longed to live free and equal... and she longed to hold her head up and announce, "I'm Iranian"... and she longed to one day fall in love to a man with a shaggy hair... and she longed for a daughter to braid her hair and sing lullaby by her crib...</p> <p>my sister died from not having life... my sister died as injustice has no end... my sister died since she loved life too much... and my sister died since she lovingly cared for people...</p> <p>my loving sister, I wish you had closed your eyes when your time had come... the very end of your last glance burns my soul....</p> <p>sister have a short sleep. your last dream be sweet.</blockquote>Meanwhile, protesters and police are finding their shared humanity, and perhaps an opening for a social movement against repression, and perhaps against both Mousavi and the mullahs. <a href="http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2009/06/what-the-hell-do-i-know.html">On Saturday</a>,</p> <blockquote>There is a woman who is being beaten. She's horrified and hysterical but not as much as the anti-riot police officer facing her. She shrieks, 'Where can I go? You tell me go down the street and you beat me. Then you come up from the other side and beat me again. Where can I go?' In sheer desperation, the officer hits his helmet several times hard with his baton. 'Damn me! Damn me! What the hell do I know!' <p>I ask myself, 'how much longer can these officers tolerate stress? How many among them would be willing to give their lives for somebody like Ahmadinejhad?'"</blockquote>This is not a matter where it helps for President Obama to wade in. Iranian youth are, as I understand it, generally favorable toward western trends, but are proud of their nation and its sovereignty. The US has too long a history of attacks on the political freedom of Iran to be a credible voice for this truly indigenous uprising. As private citizens, we can and should support the protesters, showing them what freedom of speech is. And to show them that they, too, are free, we must avoid using the power of our government to influence (or seem to influence) the events in Iran. When the votes are counted accurately, we will know the voice of the Iranian people, and we should respect whatever choice they make. Meanwhile, we hope and pray that they will, some day, choose leaders who will truly expand their freedoms, and give them the rights and powers due to all people.</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/iran.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~4/53cYkpct4Hs" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tfk/~3/rj9luXeE7Gg/iran.php http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/iran.php Policy and Politics Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:10:38 -0800 http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/iran.phphttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~3/53cYkpct4Hs/iran.php Gearing up for my Netroots Nation Panel <p><a href="http://www.netrootsnation.org">Netroots Nation</a> is rolling out their panels for the next meeting (August 13-16, Pittsburgh, PA). It's an interesting mix, with more than any one person can handle. If my experience last year is any guide, it'll be a struggle just to keep up, and there will be lots of times when I'll have two or more simultaneous panels I want to attend. I just hope my panel isn't scheduled opposite anything really fun.</p> <p>That's right campers, I said <strong>my panel</strong>. The abstract isn't live yet, but we're just dotting a few t's and crossing some i's. The title is "Science Denial and Science Policy." A group of scientists who have turned their attention to policy will discuss how nonscientists can clear the ground for science-based policies, overcoming science denial like creationism, global warming denial, anti-vaccination activism, etc., and generally stand up for honest science.</p> <p>The abstract:<br /> <blockquote>Science is increasingly vital to policymaking, but denial of basic aspects of science is increasingly well-organized, holding back science-based policies. Whether it's creationism attacking state and local education policy, global warming denial distracting attention from the need for effective solutions, or anti-vaccine activism undermining vital public health programs, the public's misunderstanding about science have dire consequences for society. Non-scientists and scientists alike are joining to defend science and to clear the ground for science-based policies. This panel of scientists and scientific policymakers will discuss ways that the general public can ensure that their government is informed by honest science.</blockquote>The panel is stellar (if I do say so myself). Susan Wood, a veteran of the legislative and executive branches in D.C. who resigned in protest from the Bush FDA over their slow-walking of the Plan B approval. Joe Romm, the indefatigable editor of <a href="http://climateprogress.org">Climate Progress</a>. Bryan Rehm, a teacher who stood up against the Dover Area School District's creationism policy, and whose campaign for school board unseated one of the creationists. Me, talking about creationism and science education more broadly. We're awaiting final White House approval for our final panelist, an senior science policy staffer who has been involved in elevating the voice of science through nonprofits and political action.</p> <p>Most of the panel will be dedicated to discussion with the audience about what they can do, and what challenges they face. That discussion will be moderated by DailyKos front pager Devilstower.</p> <p>This promises to be awesome.</p> <p>That said, PZ Myers is <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/06/netroots_nation_dives_into_ina.php">upset</a>. A panel will propose a (bizarre) "<a href="http://www.talk2action.org/story/2009/6/17/184514/127">New Progressive Vision for Church and State</a>." The premise of the organizer, which PZ rightly calls inane, is that "total separation of religion from politics has been discredited," and that the solution is to "admit[] that there is no political wall of separation." </p> <p>Vic Walczak is a panelist, and I'm fairly sure that the ACLU's attorney in the Dover trial is not going to back this bizarre idea. Panelist Frederick Clarkson <a href="http://www.talk2action.org/story/2009/6/17/184514/127">writes</a> that "I have agreed to appear on [the] panel. But I do not agree with the premises of the panel… as described. As a matter of fact, that is why I am going." Which is exactly the right thing. You don't oppose bad ideas by hiding the ideas or hiding yourself from them, you oppose them by engaging them honestly and whupping their butts.</p> <p>NrN instructed panel organizers to look for ways to generate heated discussion, claiming that attendees last year found too much me-tooishness on panels. I didn't find that, and liked that genuinely stupid ideas were absent from panels (at least the ones I attended). But it's their conference, and the contrary voices they've got on that panel (and on others, I'm sure) are serious people who will hold their own.</p> <p>This panel is a bad idea only because the abstract will give opponents of church-state separation ammunition of the "even the liberal Netroots Nation sez…" variety. But the panel itself is sure to be heated, I suspect Clarkson and Walczak will have the upper hand, and I'm looking forward to seeing the fight. I hope that my panel is both useful and controversial. Indeed, I stuck that bit about anti-vaccination activists into the abstract to get back at NrN for giving prime exhibit space to a bunch of loony antivaxxers last year. If they're back this year, they'll have a fight on their hands, and I hope a few of them come to the panel and participate respectfully.</p> <p><a href="http://www.netrootsnation.org/register">So register now</a>, and come see the action. High power folks will be there to talk and to mingle. You too may bump into Paul Krugman, or spend an evening boozing with NASA's shadow government, as I did last year. I look forward to seeing you there. The scienceblogging caucus meeting will be awesome.</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/gearing_up_for_my_netroots_nat.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~4/HyImaS2dJGs" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tfk/~3/2Q7dQSoIGT8/gearing_up_for_my_netroots_nat.php http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/gearing_up_for_my_netroots_nat.php Policy and Politics Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:12:54 -0800 http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/gearing_up_for_my_netroots_nat.phphttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~3/HyImaS2dJGs/gearing_up_for_my_netroots_nat.php NCSE's Peter Hess takes down Disco.'s John West <p>A week or so ago, John West <a href="http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2009/06/broaden_the_debate_over_faith_and_evolution.html">pimped a new Disco. Inst. website on faith and religion in the Washington Post's On Faith blog</a>. His claims were as mendacious as you would expect from looking at the site, most bizarrely inventing a movement of "new theistic evolutionists," when the folks he names are simply repeating a position on the compatibility of faith and science which has been part of Christian theology since the time of Augustine of Hippo. You don't need to know more about West's piece.</p> <p><a href="http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2009/06/west_of_eden.html">NCSE Faith Project Director Peter Hess responded in On Faith today</a>. His brief reaction to West: "He is wrong." In particular:<br /> <blockquote>West's question ["Is evolution compatible with God?"] is valid, his dichotomy is a sham. Consider the humble grapefruit. You can say it's yellow and it's roughly spherical. Asking, "Is this fruit yellow or spherical?" has no meaning. Yellowness and sphericity are not contradictory; likewise, "religion" and "evolution" can be complementary ways of looking at the same universe.</blockquote>He adds:<br /> <blockquote>West's views are a skewed Cliff Notes version of the serious academic work surrounding faith and evolution--mostly wrong, mostly missing the important points, a repackaging of old ideas and a parroting of discredited arguments. I have taught graduate classes in theology, and if a student turned in something like West's essay on the issue of faith and evolution, it would merit him a D-.</blockquote>But Hess doesn't focus only on West.<br /> <blockquote>Too often, debates over the public perception of evolution are dominated by the fringes, by fundamentalist Christians and others who reject basic science due to their literal reading of the Bible and by ardent atheists who reject religion because they've embraced metaphysical naturalism <span style="font-family:serif;">―</span> that nature is all that exists. But the silent majority <span style="font-family:serif;">―</span> that spans the spectrum from theism to atheism <span style="font-family:serif;">―</span> have no problem reconciling their religious beliefs with established sciences such as evolution, or with new sciences such as stem cell research. My work at the National Center for Science Education brings me into contact with voices across that spectrum and I've found that honest, open, and inclusive dialog is not only possible, but vital for our children's education, for the credibility of religious traditions, and for the continued role of the United States as a scientific and moral leader in our increasingly interconnected world.</blockquote>Anyway, the whole piece is worth reading. <a href="http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2009/06/west_of_eden.html">Enjoy</a>.</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/ncses_peter_hess_takes_down_di.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~4/jNKBSAWzWWQ" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tfk/~3/ay4SXRO1tMg/ncses_peter_hess_takes_down_di.php http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/ncses_peter_hess_takes_down_di.php Culture Wars Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:55:27 -0800 http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/ncses_peter_hess_takes_down_di.phphttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~3/jNKBSAWzWWQ/ncses_peter_hess_takes_down_di.php Shorter Discovery Institute <p><a href="http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/06/why_arent_scientists_allowed_t.html">Why Aren't Scientists Allowed to Believe In God?</a><br /> <blockquote>It's a shame that some people try to stop scientists from believing in God.</blockquote><a href="http://www.discovery.org/a/9721">Is Darwinian Evolution Compatible with Religion?</a><br /> <blockquote>Scientists who accept evolution are wrong to believe in God.</blockquote>Sounds like they need to work on message discipline.</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/shorter_discovery_institute.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~4/v4g-T8wgybg" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tfk/~3/NROitwAHBJI/shorter_discovery_institute.php http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/shorter_discovery_institute.php Creationism Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:27:06 -0800 http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/shorter_discovery_institute.phphttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~3/v4g-T8wgybg/shorter_discovery_institute.php Disco. Inst. tries to "expel" critics from Youtube <p><img src="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/images/lickingluskin.jpg" height="228" width="291" border="0" hspace="0" vspace="0" alt="Casey Luskin, artist's rendering" title="Casey Luskin, artist's rendering" style="float:right;padding:1em;" /><br /> <a href="http://afarensis99.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/discovery-institutes-youtube-copyright-infringment-claim/">Afarensis</a> and <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/46T1Ot0ziPw/the_discovery_institute_doesnt_1.php">PZ</a> note that the Discovery Institute is trying to hide Youtube videos criticizing their pet dachshund, Casey Luskin.</p> <p><span style="text-decoration:line-through;">Luskin</span> Someone at Disco. has apparently been hitting <span style="text-decoration:line-through;">his</span> their own product, a danger in the Disco. scene. He or she thinks that they have a copyright claim on video made by Fox News. <span style="text-decoration:line-through;">He</span> Disco. doesn't. Fox News does, so if anyone is going to take down this video, it will be Fox, not Disco.</p> <p><span style="text-decoration:line-through;">Casey</span>Whichever Disco spinner did this also needs to understand that copyright law is not a tool for censorship. Copyright exists, according to the US Constitution, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." While I might question whether anything associated with the term "Disco" can be considered science – let alone a useful art, I don't question the necessity for the law to treat those concepts broadly for purposes of copyright.</p> <p>I can and do question that it serves any useful purpose, for science, for art, for democracy itself, that a petty and fallacious claim of copyright infringement might be used to silence debate. Disco., especially Casey, makes a big show of talking about <a href="http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/02/civility_of_darwinists_lacking.html">civility</a>, yet DI is using lies and deceit to block their opponents. They talk a good <a href="http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/12/encouraging_students_to_speak.html">game</a> about <a href="http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/11/liberal_darwin_activists_spin.html">freedom</a>, but when the pedal hits the metal, they're happy to use whatever underhanded legal maneuvers they can to silence critics.</p> <p>This isn't the first time they abused copyright to shut someone up. <a href="http://endogenousretrovirus.blogspot.com/2008/01/day-in-life-of-di-fellow-part-iii.html">Casey sent my friend Les Lane and my Scibling ERV nastygrams</a> for posting his picture. <a href="http://sandefur.typepad.com/freespace/2008/01/casey-luskin-ab.html">Actual lawyers showed that Casey's claims had no legal merit</a>, and the matter died down. In this case, <a href="http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/10/mccain-campaign-feels-dmca-sting">Youtube's hair trigger for copyright infringement</a> might not just doom the videos, but the Youtube account of Casey's critic. The damage would be much more widespread than any dispute over Casey's stunning visage.</p> <p>Here are the videos. Pass them around before the Disco. gang hustles them off the floor.</p> <p><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MGpBu8mmahU&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MGpBu8mmahU&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></object></p> <p><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5nL0T_ySG-U&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5nL0T_ySG-U&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="425" height="344"></object></p> <p>Updated to add: Casey denies sending the takedown notice. He doesn't say who sent it, calling that "an internal DI matter." This is a point on which we disagree, clearly. However, I made certain assumptions about the author of the notice, and as we all know, when you make assumptions, you make an ass of u and mptions. I made small adjustments above to clarify the matter, and regret the error.<br /> </p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/disco_inst_tries_to_expel_crit.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~4/kciqrYkpz3s" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tfk/~3/hgs9qpz-4r0/disco_inst_tries_to_expel_crit.php http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/disco_inst_tries_to_expel_crit.php Creationism Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:51:19 -0800 http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/disco_inst_tries_to_expel_crit.phphttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~3/kciqrYkpz3s/disco_inst_tries_to_expel_crit.php Tweedy splendour <p>I just bought <a href="http://www.cordarounds.com">Cordarounds</a> and am liking them very much, thank you. Their collection of gingham shorts fails to fully engage my enthusiasm, though they've got a seersucker short that tempts.</p> <p>These cords should go nicely with my Tweed Ride outfit, first deployed last Thursday for an East Bay jaunt.</p> <p>Tweed rides began in London, where a bunch of cyclists donned tweed and had a nice time riding around the city. Some San Franciscans picked up the idea and have now done two rides. A week ago, a bunch of us from the East Bay met up with veterans of the SF rides and explored the tweedy side of Oakland.</p> <p><img src="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/images/arthrotweed.jpg" height="300" width="400" border="0" hspace="0" vspace="0" alt="jD sports his tweeded arthropod legs" title="jD sports his tweeded arthropod legs" style="float:right;padding:1em;" />Alas, my camera stayed home, but I'll borrow liberally from the great photos on Flickr from users <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mejarc/3597362648/in/photostream/">mejarc</a>, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bspoketailors/sets/72157619301514371/">bspoketailors</a>, and <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bicigirl/sets/72157619208872279/">bicigirl</a>. The ride started near Chez TfK, at Mosswood Park (home of many hours of Obama phonebanking last year). From there, we headed over and met up with the SF crew at a nearby BART stop, and headed off. Back past the park, under a freeway, up the lovely commercial district on Piedmont Avenue, and finally at the secluded and surprising Oakland Rose Garden. We met up with One Man Banjo, who delivered on his name with music that, while not utterly tweedy, did fit the old-time mood of a ride featuring pennyfarthings and tweed jackets, spats, panniers, and arthropod appendages.</p> <p>From the Rose Garden, a gem that many of the riders including professional photographers and nature buffs had never visited before, we zoomed past Lake Merritt and on to <a href="http://www.thetrappist.com/">The Trappist</a> in Downtown Oakland. </p> <p><img src="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/images/tweeddrink.jpg" height="267" width="400" border="0" hspace="0" vspace="0" alt="TfK drinkin'" title="TfK drinkin'" style="float:left;padding:1em;" />As you can see, the core of a tweed ride is not the textile choice, but about attitude. Jody, to my right above, is not actually wearing any tweed. Tweed is about a certain rumpled elegance. An outdoorsy attitude that doesn't incline to rules or hurry, and that seizes the best parts of life, like fine Belgian beer and pleasant rides through fine cities or lush gardens. </p> <p>In the first picture, above, you see jD, who crafted first two, then four appendages from used tweed jackets. He says that he's yet to name the resulting eight-legged species, as his research efforts are currently directed <a href="http://www.horg.com/horg/intro.html">elsewhere</a>. I was pleased to learn that he's a fan of NCSE's, and we chatted about the fine English naturalist tradition of insect collecting. In particular, we speculated that Darwin surely wore tweed while collecting, but that Haldane may not have.</p> <p>Tweed rides like this are sweeping the globe, with Chicago, Australia, Canada, and a host of other biters elegantly sweeping into the peloton. I look forward to seeing you all at the next ride. Keep an eye out here, or at <a href="http://sftweed.com/">San Francisco Tweed</a> for future updates.</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/tweedy_splendour.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~4/Eiixmwd_4jI" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tfk/~3/ErSw3q7NOQY/tweedy_splendour.php http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/tweedy_splendour.php Chatter Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:12:02 -0800 http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/tweedy_splendour.phphttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~3/Eiixmwd_4jI/tweedy_splendour.php Further adventures in moral monstering <p>Martin Cothran, the hateful bigot who touted the words of an anti-Semitic Holocaust denier on Holocaust Remembrance Day, is confused. He <a href="http://vereloqui.blogspot.com/2009/06/establishing-reasonable-standards-for.html">cannot fathom why</a> I <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/moral_monsterism.php">called him a moral monster</a>. </p> <p>The reason is simple. On June 4, less than a week after George Tiller was shot and killed in his church, Cothran advocated that "the murder of abortionists" be "safe and legal." This is disgusting. </p> <p>Cothran offers no particular defense for the conscienceless (and tasteless, natch) attempt at justifying cold-blooded murder. Like Scott Roeder, who pulled the trigger on George Tiller, Cothran is "deadly serious." The cold-blooded murder of a man in front of his family and his community is subservient, in Cothran's world, to his interest in distinguishing humor from irony, and using irony to draw dramatic lessons about a political debate over abortion.</p> <p>Abortion, Cothran (again, like Roeder) insists, is murder. Indeed, it is "a holocaust." This is a decidedly idiosyncratic use of that term, but the human tragedy here leaves me numb to quibbles over definitions. A terrorist shot someone dead because the courts, the legislatures, and the voters all refused to concede to his immoral demands. His demands were that women who had been raped, women impregnated through incest, women whose pregnancy was killing them, women whose fetuses were dead or dying, and threatened to take the woman with them, should all be left with no choice but to die, to raise a child born of rape or incest, or to suffer themselves and then watch their child suffer and die. Roeder didn't just terrorize the community of Wichita, and the parishioners at Reformation Lutheran Church. He set out to terrorize the thousands of women who have no option but to end their pregnancy.</p> <p>The women who went to Tiller had no other options. As a matter of self-defense, of medical and moral necessity, they needed to end a pregnancy. These were women who wanted children, but who could not carry this pregnancy to term. Tiller practiced mostly third trimester abortions, over 90% of abortions are performed in the first 10 weeks. Women who carry a pregnancy for 8 months are not the ones who are sure they don't want a baby, they are the ones who are forced into abortion by the most obvious necessity.</p> <p><a href="http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2009/06/dr-george-tiller.html">One husband whose wife relied on Tiller</a> explains that they were told she was having twins:</p> <blockquote>Two days later our joy was turned to unspeakable sadness when the new sonogram showed conjoined twins. Conjoined twins alone is not what was so difficult but the way they were joined meant that at best only one child would survive the surgery to separate them and the survivor would more than likely live a brief and painful life filled with surgery and organ transplants. We were advised that our options were to deliver into the world a child who’s life would be filled with horrible pain and suffering or fly out to Wichita, Kansas and to terminate the pregnancy under the direction of Dr. George Tiller.</blockquote>"One can only imagine," he adds, "the pain borne by a woman who happily carries a child for 8 months only to find out near the end of term that the children were not to be and that she had to make the decision to terminate the pregnancy and go against everything she had been taught to believe was right." <p>One can imagine this if one has compassion and empathy. But a moral monster cannot see the suffering of this couple, nor can he appreciate how Dr. Tiller helped so many women. In Martin Cothran's monstrous world, Tiller and this couple are all "holocaust practitioners." The husband, however, tells us that "Dr. Tiller understood that this decision was the most difficult thing that a woman could ever decide and he took the time to educate us and guide us." Tiller helped women, and saved lives. </p> <p>Tiller's work let women attempt future pregnancies, avoiding uterine damage which could have rendered them sterile. For instance, a woman who "is a carrier of a terrible genetic abnormality. In addition to other defects, her babies developed with no faces, with no way to eat or breathe. They were doomed. The only way to extract them without hurting her chances of ever having another baby was through a D&X," sometimes called a "partial birth" abortion. Tiller performed such procedures not out of spite, hatred, or grand political ideologies, but in order to save women and to ensure they could have the children which fate had denied them in this pregnancy.</p> <p>For Cothran, though, these faceless (literally and figuratively) fetuses carry more moral weight than a man gunned down in cold blood. All he can think to do is call for more such murders, to endorse and encourage them. Cothran swears that his "moral universe" is still right side up, but it looks pretty twisted to me.</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/further_adventures_in_moral_mo.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~4/Xkq2T65zSec" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tfk/~3/F94oFoQN05g/further_adventures_in_moral_mo.php http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/further_adventures_in_moral_mo.php Culture Wars Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:44:41 -0800 http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/06/further_adventures_in_moral_mo.phphttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromKansas/~3/Xkq2T65zSec/further_adventures_in_moral_mo.php