I love Bryan Appleyard’s eloquent retorts to the blistering rhetoric coming out of New Atheistland. Here’s Appleyard today on PZ Myers’s scientism:

[M]ention intelligent design and the likes of Myers will be hurling abuse. But I gather from reading John Gribbin’s superb exposition In Search of the Multiverse that ID is, in fact, a perfectly respectable hypothesis among some physicists – the designer would not be a deity but a more technically advanced civilisation. So the world is ‘designed’ then? ‘No!‘ howls Myers; ‘Maybe,’ murmur the physicists. But there’s a bigger reason than that. Treating science as an ideology, an occasion for polemic and abuse, and anathematising those who dissent is profoundly unscientific. It is an attitude that will, in the end, damage not just science itself but science as a public institution. Science is, as Thomas Nagel put it, a ‘view from nowhere‘, it is a method, not a posture towards the world. It assumes – and, indeed, attains – the possibility of a superhuman perspective. As such, it is a profoundly admirable and magnificent achievement of the human intellect. But it is only one such achievement. When science aspires to be anything else – ideology, for example – it is prone to delusion, fantasy and intolerance. That is where we now are, a dangerous place where people set up web sites that abandon mere explanation and promote science as an ideology, as, in effect, an opinion held with such ferocity that all dissent must be crushed. This phase, I hope, will pass. But I am beginning to have my doubts.

New Scientist magazine profiles one of my favorite bloggers, PZ Myers, the University of Minnesota biology professor who writes Pharyngula. Key quote:

In Pharyngula, Myers campaigns for evolutionary science, takes aim at creationists and proselytises for atheism while ridiculing religious beliefs with a sharp virtual tongue. In one blog post, for example, he wrote, “There are days when it is agony to read the news, because people are so goddamned stupid… And nothing makes them stupider than religion.”

In person Myers says, “Religion in this country is protected by a wall of silence. You cannot argue with religion. As an atheist I try to teach people that you don’t have to respect religious differences or ideas. This is something that I would like to get across to people: disrespecting ideas is a good thing.”

Or, as I put it recently, ridiculing the ridiculous.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Yes, this holiday was manufactured out of whole cloth in the 19th Century, built atop a wholly fictional story of Pilgrims sharing a peaceful meal with Indians (rather than killing and enslaving them), yet I, a damned liberal, do not feel the least compunction in wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving. Why?

I just read a delightfully curmudgeonly piece by everyone’s favorite curmudgeon, PZ Myers, in which he lambastes Thanksgiving for its mindless direction of gratitude at a cold, unfeeling universe. The point seems to be that, since there is no sentient being out there to receive this gratitude, the gratitude itself is a pointless exertion of energy. After all:

We’re all doomed. We are currently survivors by luck, sustained by selfish processes, and I don’t thank luck, because she (if she were an autonomous self-aware agent, and she isn’t) will turn for me or against me without concern for my feelings. Nature is not appeasable, get over it.

He goes on to imagine how unlucky turkeys would feel this time of year, if unlucky is something they know how to feel. It’s difficult to argue that.

I think he misses the point, though. Why should gratitude be pointless just because it’s not directed at anyone in particular? Isn’t the feeling of gratitude itself a pleasant thing? Doesn’t it help to teach us not to take our existence for granted? When I feel gratitude for someone, I generally want to return the favor, or at the very least, make sure that the generosity at which the gratitude is directed does not go to waste. Certainly a cold, unfeeling universe is incapable of generosity, but the fact is that we live in a tiny blip of oasis in a yawning, roaring chasm of quenchless unlife. It’s the only such blip we know about. Perhaps if people felt more grateful for its existence, more would be interested in protecting it.

Besides which, there is a different between gratitude and groveling. Gratitude feels good. Groveling doesn’t. It’s perfectly possible to feel warm, wholesome gratitude at the fact of being alive, without groveling before some imagined supernatural benefactor.

Daniel Dennett put it best: Thank Goodness! He, of course, was referring to the goodness of human beings, but I don’t think it needs to stop there. There’s no shame in feeling grateful at being alive in a universe which, as inhospitable as the better part of it may be, is staggeringly beautiful, and endlessly wonderful.

Thank goodness for that.

In this episode…

-Explain THAT Science!: Harry Trunckles tackles the issue of Drunk driving.

-Future Facts: John Titor, Time-Traveler Extraordinaire, details the progression of religion over the next two centuries.

-Jasper Pennies Reviews: The hit movie “The Fourth Kind” has Jasper utterly baffled.

-CSDP Interview Edition: Rebecca Watson chats with us about skeptical activism and feminism. And the interview was objectively awesome.

-Final Solutions: Michelle Glasshappy gives you tips on cleaning your cat.

-The Unofficial Version: Nicola Novakowsky explains the parascientific method.

-Explain THAT Science Supplemental: Harry Trunckles vs. PZ Myers. The fight you’ve all been waiting for.

-Precision Horoscopes: Supercomputer Deep Penetration brings you high-quality astrology.

http://carlsagansdanceparty.podbean.com/2009/11/25/carl-sagans-dance-party-5/

Steven Olsen with PZ Myers and Rebecca Watson.

PZ Myer’s blog, Pharyngula:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/

Rebecca Watson’s sites:

http://skepchick.org

http://theskepticsguide.org

This past week a group of Evangelicals came onto the UCLA campus in Westwood and gave away 2000 free copies of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859). But, as usual, there is a catch to such things. The edition of Darwin’s book was accompanied by a fifty page Introduction dissing the theory of evolution! Here’s the ministry responsible for the campaign, at its website, gloating over the success of its counter-intuitive evangelism strategy:

“You’re not supposed to be here today. We are not ready!” That was the reaction of one atheist at UCLA when we showed up on the 18th to give away 2,000 books. He was right. We originally intended to give the copies of On the Origin of Species out on the 19th, but because of the threats of book burnings, of “unilateral resistance,” and the many threats to tear out the Introduction, we changed our strategy. We are so glad we made this move. Atheists had planned to disguise themselves as students and collect multiple copies themselves to stop students getting the books.

The ministry is headed by Ray Comfort of “banana creationist man” fame (see here). The ministry also claims to have distributed over 170,000 copies of Darwin’s Origin so far, and they have gone onto some of the world’s most prestigious campuses to do so (including Oxford and Berkeley).

Needless to say, Richard Dawkins is pissed. And Dawkins is no slouch in the clever retort department. Perhaps the New Atheists will mount their own counter-evangelism campaign: distributing an edition of the New Testament with an Introduction by Richard Dawkins and with footnotes by PZ Myers?

PZ Myers worries about the potential of the creationist movement voting praying Sarah Palin back into high office in spite of because of her disdain for evolution.

Unfortunately, about half the American electorate will think what she wrote is just ducky. Those words won’t dissuade very many voters at all, so don’t make the mistake of thinking this revelation will somehow cripple her campaign to become president of the US.

The statistics relating to American belief in creationism are total crap.  Nowhere close to ‘about half’.  PZ, please don’t continue to spread this malignant creationist meme.  The actual population of true flat earthers is ten percent….tops.  Much more numerous than WMD’s in Iraq, but not so far from zero as to pose a serious threat.

I understand how one might be tempted to believe that half the US population rejects Darwinism.  Religious nutjobs infest much of our government (Godless PTSD victims e.g.) and control big swaths of our media.  The only political fear of religious radicalism on the wane is their possible manipulation of the vote, not the voters.

If manipulation of the voters really worked, we’d already see rioting in the streets over the various other delusional fantasies spit out daily by Fox News et.al. etc.   Don’t get your Obama birther rally attendance figures from Fox News, and don’t get your statistics on evolution denial from Answers in Genesis.

When I look around, I see a whole lot more gay people than religious freaks, and I surmise that the population of gays is bigger than the population of actual evolution deniers.  I fear neither though I do loathe the latter.

Enjoy.

And Appleyard skewers him, returning rhetorical fire with rhetorical fire:

I note also the appearance of this character P.Z.Myers. I’ve never read him before but I now discover he once did me over – ‘How stupid are the editors and managers who keep paying for his badly written lumps of self-contradictory fatuousness?’ Okay, I’m prepared to accept that I may be wrong about everything – I wake up every morning thinking just that – and PZ may be right, but ‘BADLY WRITTEN’! Coming from this sub-verbal sack of shit that’s a bit rich.

And one of Appleyard’s thread contributors nicely deconstructs PZ Myers’s rhetorical maneuvers:

Step 1–Begin by describing a philosophical challenge with a mixture of anger and fatigue, much as you would describe discovering a termite in your house after the exterminator had been through and presumably destroyed them all. The contempt must ooze front and center before you even address the argument so that anyone who might be inclined to take the challenge seriously is forwarned and suitably cowed. Don’t skimp on the insulting adjectives.

Step 2–Deflect the issue from the profoundly philosophical to the mundane by suddenly talking lab gobbledegook about genes, mutations, etc. Use words like phenotype liberally and try to throw in a diagram. Extra points for insisting Darwin himself was well aware of what you are saying and would have agreed with you unreservedly;

Step 3–Insist that any argument that comes within a hundred miles of religion, no matter how ethereal or tentative, leads directly to biblical literalism, preferably as practiced in the American South. Show in one paragraph how it is the root of every atrocity in history, will lead to the end of scientific inquiry and justifies the bombing of innocent villagers by the U.S. Air Force.

Step 4–Bask in the glow of hundreds of one-sentence comments thanking you profusely for your courage and agreeing you have proven there is no need to read what your opponent said to know that the stupid twit isn’t even worth reading.

I myself continue to think that PZ Myers is the most unhinged public figure in the New Atheist movement, but his fellow atheist peers (Dennett, Coyne, Dawkins, Shermer) seem to think he’s the bee’s knees, and speak of him with deep affection. I just don’t get it.

As a reminder of the problem that PZ Myers poses for liberal agnostics and atheists, here are his two blog posts—one promoting iconoclastic gestures toward Catholic communion wafers, and the other narrating his actual engaging in one of these gestures when one of his blog followers scored one for him (from the summer of 2008). How does a person who regards himself or herself as liberal defend this kind of emotional primitivism, incivility, and boorishness?:

Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There’s no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I’m sure — but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won’t be tempted to hold it hostage (no, not even if I have a choice between returning the Eucharist and watching Bill Donohue kick the pope in the balls, which would apparently be a more humane act than desecrating a goddamned cracker), but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web. I shall do so joyfully and with laughter in my heart. If you can smuggle some out from under the armed guards and grim nuns hovering over your local communion ceremony, just write to me and I’ll send you my home address.

And this one:

OK, time for the anticlimax. I know some of you have proposed intricate plans for how to do horrible things to these crackers, but I repeat…it’s just a cracker. I wasn’t going to make any major investment of time, money, or effort in treating these dabs of unpleasantness as they deserve, because all they deserve is casual disposal. However, inspired by an old woodcut of Jews stabbing the host, I thought of a simple, quick thing to do: I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus’s tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel. My apologies to those who hoped for more, but the worst I can do is show my unconcerned contempt.

Ironically, I think that John Calvin would have understood PZ Myers.

PZ Myers has a great post Ten Questions to Ask Your Biology Teacher About Intelligent Design. It briefly discusses, and disposes of, some of the most common intelligent design (ID) arguments. And does it so clearly.

He is a great writer – and I just don’t know how gets time to write so well and do all the other things he does. His upcoming book should be great – but I have yet to hear of any publication date.

I have extracted question 3 because I think this is of general interest. And one I think is important to counter. The question  and accompanying argument is taken from a Christian Apologetics article by William Dembski and Sean McDowell.

Dembski’s and McDowell’s Rules of Science question:

“Who determines the rules of science? Are these rules written in stone? Is it mandatory that scientific explanations only appeal to matter and energy operating by unbroken natural laws (a principle known as methodological naturalism)?

The rules of science are not written in stone. They have been negotiated over many centuries as science (formerly called “natural philosophy”) has tried to understand the natural world. These rules have changed in the past and they will change in the future. Right now much of the scientific community is bewitched by a view of science called methodological naturalism, which says that science may only offer naturalistic explanations. Science seeks to understand nature. If intelligent causes operate in nature, then methodological naturalism must not be used to rule them out.

PZ Myers’ response:

“Who? Man, these guys have got intent and agency etched deep into their brain, don’t they?

The rules of science are entirely pragmatic — we do what works, defined as a process that produces explanations that allow us to push deeper and deeper into a problem. That’s all we care about. Show us a tool that actually generates new insights into biology, rather than recycling tired theological notions, and some scientist somewhere will use it. We’re still waiting for one.

I am amused by the use of the word ‘bewitched’ to categorize people who don’t invoke magical ad hoc explanations built around undetectable supernatural entities, however.”

So true!

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Cash for Grades?

That controversial “cash for grades” fund raiser at a North Carolina middle school didn’t last too long.

After the scheme to award extra points on tests for $20 appeared in the Raleigh News & Observer, Wayne County district officials today killed the Rosewood Middle School fund raiser.

As easy as it is to mock this school district (what were they thinking?!), my daughters’ schools used to do the same thing, albeit with a middleman of sorts. They would get bonus points for bringing in various things such as supplies for the school. It wasn’t a direct cash payment, but my wallet couldn’t tell the difference.

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Ex-Planned Parenthood Director given cold should at her church — how ironic that her pro-choice “church” doesn’t approve of her choice to quit PP and expose the truth about abortions.  Maybe those folks should participate in an abortion and watch it on the ultrasound. 

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Chinese researchers find that abortion results in 17% increased risk of breast cancer – anyone seen any counterpoints to this?  I know the breast cancer link debate is controversial, with each side thinking it has trump-card studies. 

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PZ Myers has such poor critical thinking skills when it comes to God and morality.  He rants at length as to why there is no such thing as true morality, but like most people positing that he can’t go a paragraph without a moral claim.  He definitely thinks intolerance is wrong.  I tend to agree, if one properly understands the classic definition of the word, but my claim would be consistent with my worldview while his is self-mockery.

Notice his outrage over Christians labeling homosexual behavior as a sin. Well, if there is no real morality saying it is sinful then there is also no real morality saying that it is wrong to call it a sin. He has 0.00 reasons to criticize the morality of Christians.  It is so ironic that they can’t see their hypocrisy.  What a delusional self-parody.  Methinks he doth protest too much.

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Former Gay Youth Leader Re-Emerges to Tell His Dramatic Conversion Story – another one of those (allegedly) non-existent people.

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Today in Salon, Camille Paglia, an atheist who obviously hasn’t been paying much serious attention to the post 9/11 New Atheist movement, stumbled upon Richard Dawkins talking about religion on NPR, and having never heard his voice before, she thought he sounded a bit, well, ridiculous:  

I was recently flicking my car radio dial and heard an affected British voice tinkling out on NPR. I assumed it was some fussy, gossipy opera expert fresh from London. To my astonishment, it was Richard Dawkins, the thrice-married emperor of contemporary atheists. I had never heard him speak, so it was a revelation. On science, Dawkins was spot on — lively and nimble. But on religion, his voice went “Psycho” weird (yes, Alfred Hitchcock) — as if he was channeling some old woman with whom he was in love-hate combat. I have no idea what ancient private dramas bubble beneath the surface there. As an atheist who respects and studies religion, I believe it is fair to ask what drives obsessive denigrators of religion. Neither extreme rationalism nor elite cynicism are adequate substitutes for faith, which fulfills a basic human need — which is why religion will continue to thrive in our war-torn world.

The thrice-married emperor of contemporary atheists? In Camille Paglia’s broadside of Dawkins I detect the distinctly catty suggestion that Dawkins’s religion bashing is psychosexual detritus from his wars and disappointments with ex-lovers. Not a nice innuendo, but I suppose that most religion obsessed atheists, however many times they’ve been married or discouraged in love, are, at bottom, brides left at the altar. God has disappointed and disillusioned them, and you never hear the end of it.

It’s more a more common sentiment than you might think. Fred Oliveri, in a letter to the editor of the Morgan Hill Times, which runs my regular column My Point Exactly, objects to the paper publishing a recent column that advocated rational criticism of supernatural beliefs:

If she wants to practice non-religious beliefs and follow the dictates of a foul mouth like Bill Maher instead of a Rick Warren or a Joel Osteen that is up to her. But to promote her lack of belief in any type of what she calls supernatural and I call religion should be left out [of the newspaper]. … I would recommend that the Times take a closer look at what they publish.

Since when is the filter of “Fred likes it” appropriate for deciding what The Times, or any newspaper, publishes?

But that’s not all. PZ Myers, on his Pharyngula blog, reports that 22.3% of respondents to a Lakeland, Florida newspaper’s online poll believe that atheists do not have a right to display a billboard. That’s disturbing, as Myers explains, because “it reveals that 22% of the respondents don’t think a number of their fellow citizens … have the same privileges they do.”

Free speech rights are afforded to everyone, not just to those who hold majority opinions. Or, as Neil Boortz put it, “Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection.”

Daniel Dennett. PZ Myers. Richard Dawkins. Jerry Coyne. Philosopher Michael Ruse is an atheist too. But don’t sign him up with the above confidence atheists.

Why? Here’s one reason that he gave in a recent essay in the UK’s Guardian:

[H]ow dare we be so condescending? I don’t have faith. I really don’t. Rowan Williams does as do many of my fellow philosophers like Alvin Plantinga (a Protestant) and Ernan McMullin (a Catholic). I think they are wrong; they think I am wrong. But they are not stupid or bad or whatever. If I needed advice about everyday matters, I would turn without hesitation to these men. We are caught in opposing Kuhnian paradigms. I can explain their faith claims in terms of psychology; they can explain my lack of faith claims also probably partly through psychology and probably theology also. (Plantinga, a Calvinist, would refer to original sin.) I just keep hearing Cromwell to the Scots. “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.” I don’t think I am wrong, but the worth and integrity of so many believers makes me modest in my unbelief.

And for sensibly counseling against intellectual hubris, what has Michael Ruse received for his pains? Well, here’s how Ruse characterizes the confidence atheists’ response to him:

Richard Dawkins has likened me to the pusillanimous appeaser at Munich, Neville Chamberlain. Jerry Coyne, author of Why Evolution is True, says (echoing Orwell) that only someone with pretensions to the intelligentsia could believe the silly things I believe. And energetic blogger PZ Myers refers to me as a “clueless gobshite” because I confessed to seeing why true believers might find the Kentucky Creationist Museum convincing. I will spare you what my fellow philosopher Dan Dennett has to say about me.

I like to hear, in the teeth of opposition, an intellectual of Michael Ruse’s stature holding up for a more modest atheism. It strikes me that Ruse is advocating for a pre-9/11 atheism, a sobered atheism that harkens back to Albert Camus and the grim realities of existence that atheists grappled with during and after WWII. Religion had not poisoned and fucked up the 20th century public sphere—it was secular ideologies that had done that—and an atheism sobered by this fact was, in my view, a saner atheism than contemporary confidence atheism. Camus, sounding for all the world like Michael Ruse today, once said to a gathering of Dominican Friars (in 1948):

I wish to declare also that, not feeling that I possess any absolute truth or any message, I shall never start from the supposition that Christian truth is illusory, but merely from the fact that I could not accept it.

If atheism is as compelling a philosophical position as Dennett & Co. believe it to be, then there really is no need to over sell it, for it will sell itself. The very fact that Dennett & Co. don’t trust atheism to sell itself tells you something about what must be going on beneath the surface of its most aggressive proponents. The evangelical atheist (who I imagine must be repressing a great deal in the psyche to be so confident of so many uncertain things) reminds me of the evangelical religious apologist. The broken wheel usually squeaks loudest, and against obnoxious resistance, Michael Ruse should continue to speak his modest Socratic truth: confidence atheism is intellect divorced from wisdom and humility. In not mixing the intellect with Socratic caution, the New Atheism is folly’s exhibit “A” (just as religious fundamentalism is folly’s exhibit “F”). Put in mythic terms, the New Atheists are rehearsing hubris; they are Oedipus and Jocasta before they crash. And so with Tiny Tim, and as an agnostic, I say to all those who provide pushback against the New Atheists, and try to recall to the world a saner Camus-style atheism, ”God bless them!” (If there is a god.)

And Ruse even looks a bit like a character out of a Dickens novel:

And here’s William Lane Craig, a Christian philosopher, making observations similar to Ruse:

PZ Myers relays an urgent plea to NASA from a courageous prophet.

Your Thoughts?

One of the most prominent proponents of Intelligent Design, William Dembski, sums up the theory in one minutes worth of clips from one of his speeches:

The idea comes from a terrific speech on complexity by PZ Myers (which you should really watch in its entirety) from the Atheist Alliance International meeting last month:

Your Thoughts?

Recently I have taking on a discussion with, what I have encountered to be, a standard run of the mill Darwinist. His blog is at http://truelogic.wordpress.com/. It has been a consistent bob and weave by Mr Truelogic as I try to discuss with him the subject of his posts. He consistently brings up attacks on my beliefs and my standpoints  and never defends the points he tries to make in his posts. Then he made the following statement and it all became clear:

“1. You believe Jesus Christ was born to a virgin!
2. You believe Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead!

Because you believe the above two points with ALL your heart and because NOTHING will cause you to believe otherwise, which is sound evidence demonstrating Science has nothing to do with your world/life view. That alone should cause intelligent people to pause and question the validity of anything you state and question your ability to be objective and honest.”

Something about this statement caused me to think about the state of the creation vs Darwinism debate. This statement shows why the debate has stalled. Too many Darwinists refused to listen to anything that apposes their belief in Darwinian evolution unless it comes from a Darwinist, do you see the problem with this?

It is intellectual dishonest to exclude someones ideas, thoughts or scientific research based on their religious beliefs. This is setting a standard that only allows your opinion to be confirmed and never challenged. How do we move past this and get the debate back on a productive path?

P.S. I will be addressing the quoted statement on truelogic’s post, feel free to join us if you have something to add.

in last week’s Newsweek, Lisa Miller, the religion editor, of whom I’m not a huge fan in general (though she’s intelligent and mostly reasonable), wrote yet another article on the new atheism and its main leaders, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris (why no Daniel Dennett, the final member of the “four horsemen”?).

I don’t want to discuss her entire article, or some of her specific points, at length, but two of her main points are that these three individuals have unfairly dominated the discussion/debate thus far and that it’s time to move on past the aggression and onto rethinking spirituality, humanism, etc.

regarding the first point, it’s not that these individuals have unduly grabbed a hold of the debate and won’t let anyone else have a turn.  there have been plenty of other books written about atheism — theirs just happen to have been the most successful.  granted, Dawkins and Hitchens were already well known (the former more so, generally) and so there was more attention given to their books, but Harris was virtually an unknown.  he just happened to write two very successful, very persuasive books that caught on.  sure he has done a lot of debating, but he’s also been working on his PhD in neuroscience of some sort and is no media whore.  (by the way, does she know that he doesn’t even like to use the term “atheist”?)

the real reason that they have “hogged” all the attention is simply because people like Lisa Miller won’t shut up about them.  honestly, she’s written at least three or four pieces for Newsweek on them this year already!  and in this vein, you can’t find any broadly appealing piece on the growth of non-religious portions of the country that doesn’t mention “the three” or “the four” (horsemen, that is).  they’ve only been dominating because people like you, Lisa Miller, keep complaining about them.  you are the silver-haired wind in their middle-aged-cracker sails.

and the truth is, she doesn’t appear to have any real clue as to what’s happening in the atheist blogosphere.  there are far louder and much more prolific voices on the internet (PZ Myers comes to mind), and there is a grand variety of atheists out there whose levels of “stridency” and whose views regarding religion vary enormously.  for those atheists concerned more about the undue influence of religion in the public sphere than about winning arguments, there’s Hemant Mehta, your Friendly Atheist.  and then there’s the somewhat overlapping, ongoing debate among professional scientists about how science should relate (or more accurately, how scientists should try to relate science) to religion, aka the “accommodationist” debate.  so here you have a lot of writers, some of whom may be non-religions but that’s irrelevant, who are opposed to the attempts of people like Francis Collins or Kenneth Miller to placate moderately religious Americans by claiming that all’s well between science (read: evolution) and religion.  Jerry Coyne is probably the leading (unconquered) writer in this vein.  there are even non-religious writers/scientists like David Sloan Wilson who see atheism and science as types of religions, further muddying the waters.

anyway, the point is, among atheists and agnostics and secular humanists and the like, “the three” are hardly the most active or the loudest voices.  what about writers like Ian McEwan or Victor Stenger?  it’s one of those, “Well, everyone’s talking about them so they must be the most important” things that endlessly perpetuates itself.

the second point, which is a good one, is also problematic when it comes out of Miller’s mouth because, as I hinted at in the last point, there are tons of writers and groups out there for non-religious people who are doing just that — focusing on re-conceiving our notions of ethics and morality and what it means to be “good without god.”  there is the Secular Coalition for America, a lobbyist group, there’s the Center for Inquiry, and there are all sorts of secular student groups and local communities that have been raising their voices and getting media attention lately.  you know all those billboards going up around the country (and in other countries) and needlessly causing a stir?  well, those poster boys have nothing to do with it.

even the first bus campaign in England was started by a hitherto unknown, Ariane Sherine.  sure, Richard Dawkins donated some funds and took a publicity ride, but he joined after the fact.

and what about the Brights?  it’s a designation chosen by non-religious intellectuals who want a more positive take on their outlook, as opposed to “atheist.”  plus, it’s a more proactive way of understanding the world, not just by what you don’t believe, but by how you think the world can and should be understood.  here you find all sorts of very influential intellectuals, include Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, yes, but also Michael Shermer and Steven Pinker.  in fact, for many people, atheism implies a secular, naturalistic, humanistic outlook.  (fyi, Sam Harris also dislikes the term “bright”; he is very picky.)

speaking of Sam Harris — the entire latter part of his The End of Faith was about the future beyond faith, exploring new areas of human spirituality that go beyond our inherited traditions!  his book was essentially about the very thing Miller says we should be doing instead of what she accuses him of doing!  Jerry Coyne briefly touches on this here.

finally, moving on to a topic/group Miller does cover, there are various humanistic groups out there, represented in her article by Greg Epstein, Harvard’s Humanist Chaplain.  Epstein is the author of the soon-to-be-published Being Good without God, a topic he is very enthusiastic about.  his approach is an entirely positive one, focusing on what “a billion non-religious people do believe” and helping to create renewed sense of meaning and even (gasp) spirituality among non-religious persons.  he is by far not the only person with this outlook of course.  I think of the ethicist Peter Singer or the author Ronald Aronson, who wrote the influential (and on my wishlist) Living without God, or even the sociologist Phil Zuckerman, who write last year’s popular Society without God (also on my list).

in fact, Germany has had a figure like Epstein for a while now in the person of Michael Schmidt-Salomon, a well-known German humanist writer and apologist (who is associated with the atheist camp though he also avoids the term).  he has worked to try to encourage humanism and take the debate and media flurries surrounding the “new atheism” to a “new humanism” (whence the title of this post).

in any case, I do believe that in the case of the non-religions, any media attention is good attention, as more and more people realize they are not alone in their unbelief (as the billboards proclaim), and that they too have a say in what happens in this country and in this world.  and it has also been (or at least will be) helpful (even if still shocking) for people to realize that there are non-religious persons (even atheists!) all around them, and that’s a good thing.  Schmidt-Salomon talks about this, and uses the wonderful German word “stinknormal” to describe how average these atheists prove to be once people take a look at them (Der Sensationswert des Atheismus verglühte im Scheinwerferlicht und man stellte fest, dass „diese Atheisten“ letztlich auch nur stinknormale Leute sind, kaum geheimnisvoller als Mutti Krause von nebenan.)

and hopefully the public attention will continue to turn and focus on this other side of being non-religions.  it’s not all about put downs and arguments  — it’s also about excitement about what we do know about ourselves and this world, along with how we continue to go about understanding both, and creating room in public discussions about science, ethics, morality, policy, the environment, etc., for those of us who don’t feel the need to appeal to tradition or revelation or supposedly unchanging religious values in order to have a reasonable, fruitful conversation about our future.

Haven’t had much of an opportunity to write for CMI in a long while.  Here’s my latest article on the PZ Myers talk I attended in Minot, ND, a few weeks ago. 

Evolutionary Equivocation

So the other night my husband was checking his email and saw something he thought was really cool. He said “you have to see this!” and, us being a modern family, he forwarded it to me (sitting 10 feet away) on my laptop.

The contents of the email were these two pictures:

Along with this text:

Look at this Moose! By the length of his beard and the grey legs, I figure he must be over 10 years old. He looks to be well over 8 feet at the top of the shoulder hump,and with his head up the height to the top of his antler must be about 12 feet .This guy is king of the forest, no bear or pack of wolves would dare come after him when he has this rack……Considering that a dirt road can fit 1 1/2 cars across … this fellow is HUGE …THIS IS ONE BIG BOY!

Now I’ve never seen a male moose before, but my dad’s work has taken him to all sorts of small towns in Northern Canada where moose are common, and he’s told me about moose whose legs were as long as he is tall (and he’s a big guy), so I had no reason to be skeptical.

Every Monday, PZ Myers posts an animal picture for his “Monday Metazoan” on Pharyngula, and I thought this was a cool enough picture for that spot, so I forwarded it on to  him. I was happy on Monday morning to see that he had used it. But my happiness was short-lived when I saw the comments claiming that the picture was photoshopped!

The whole thread turned into a big debate over whether the picture was real, but I think Pharyngula commenter Steven Mading did a good job of summarizing:

Sigh: The obvious rebuttals to the arguments being used here claiming this is done with an image editor:

1 – Complaint: “But on other sites they’re claiming it’s from other locations – the location keeps changing! It’s an urban (or rural) legend and therefore the image is faked!” Obvious Rebuttal: Just because the claim of the location the photo was taken is incorrect doesn’t imply the image itself is edited. Editing the image and telling the truth about where it is from are two entirely different issues. I could take a very real photograph of Lake Mendota where I live, and simply put a caption on it saying “This is in Saudi Arabia – amazing that there’s a lake here!” and that still doesn’t mean I photoshopped the image.

2 – Complaint: “But you can’t see the moose’s shadow on the ground!” Obvious Rebuttal: It’s already standing in a shadow! The woods are already casting a shadow on the road, as you can plainly see. Putting an additional object into the umbra of another object doesn’t make the shadow any darker than it already was.

3 – Complaint: “The second image is clearly just a rotated copy of the first!” Obvious Rebuttal: No, it’s not clearly rotated since if it was then one picture would look like a flat cardboard cutout since it would be rotating a 2-D image.

4 – Complaint: “Moose don’t get that big!” Obvious Rebuttal; Yes. They Do. Check your encyclopedia.
Now, none of that means the image can’t have been photoshopped – just that the reasons being quoted here for making that conclusion are pretty weak.

The whole thing is ridiculous. Most likely the location was wrong or inaccurate, but why would somebody photoshop an image that could possibly be real?

I got over my disappointment in the skepticism over the image, and took amusement in the controversy, especially when I saw that this online newspaper had done a story on the moose photo:

Is there really a moose this big? Or is it a hoax?

This picture, purportedly taken by someone named Lindsay of a rather ginormous moose “near Elliot Lake, near Sault Ste. Marie in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula,” was posted this morning on ScienceBlogs.com, which describes itself as “the largest online community dedicated to science.”

…

At time of writing (9:44 a.m. on Monday) 27 readers had posted comments on the picture, some rather skeptical.

“PhotoShop is one of my favorite software programs,” writes Neil B. “I wonder why Lindsay didn’t include a silly squirrel with that moose. “

…

I didn’t say that I took the picture, nor did PZ’s post, so somebody wasn’t reading too carefully!

As for the title of the article, writer David Helwig only needed to check Wikipedia to find out that moose can get that big. If it is a hoax, then I’ve been had, but it’s the lamest hoax ever!

There was an editor’s note added after I made a comment on the post at Pharyngula:

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Shortly after SooToday.com posted this article, Lindsay, the purported photographer, posted this comment on ScienceBlogs.com: “I didn’t Photoshop it, but why would I need to when moose really get that big? I didn’t take the picture, it was passed to me in an e-mail. If I were there I would probably have been running as fast as I could in the opposite direction!)

I think we’re all just so jaded because of previous photoshop hoaxes that people are quick to call any surprising image a fake. For your amusement:

. . . nobody will ever die from thinking God created the universe or having some doubts about the proposition that hydrogen is a substance which, if you leave it alone for 13.5 billion years, will turn into Angelina Jolie.

Mark Shea (Hat tip: regular commenter LCB)

By materialistic philosophy I don’t mean the “acquire all the things you can” way of life.  I mean the worldview that everything is material and that nothing is spiritual.  It is also called evolutionary, Darwinian, macro-evolutionary, naturalistic and other terms.  Think of it as the nothingness-to-molecules-to-man / elephant / fish / caterpillar-butterfly / etc. worldview (or just meditate on the opening quote).

This worldview has six fatal flaws:

1. It isn’t true.  The facts do not support it — fossil evidence, the rarity of beneficial mutations, irreducible complexity, time required, and so much more.  Twisted facts and unethical suppression of tough questions and the truth prop up the worldview for now, but it is crumbling.  More on that another day.

2. Even if evolution could happen the way materialists describe it, it doesn’t prove that it did happen that way.  Just because something is possible doesn’t mean it happened. 

3. Even if it did happen that way, it doesn’t prove that there isn’t a God.  Remember, macro-evolutionary theory  just tries to explain how life evolved.  Despite major efforts it can’t explain how chemicals came to life, let alone how the chemicals came into being in the first place.

This is the top error that people like Richard Dawkins make.  They are quick to assume that support for evolution disproves God’s existence.  Their transparent lack of logic just makes them poster boys for Romans 1.  They aren’t dispassionate scientists.  They are on a mission to ignore God and science is just their tool of choice.

Romans 1:18-20 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

4. Even if it did happen that way and there is no God, then it is the cause of all religious beliefs, including my belief that the resurrection of Jesus is the best explanation for the facts agreed to by nearly all historians.  Therefore, pride about not being religious is illogical for materialists . 

If all we are is a series of chemical reactions, then life is truly deterministic and I have no choice in any of my decisions.  My chemical makeup and circumstances fated me to go from atheism to Christianity.

5. Even if it did happen that way and there is no God, then there is zero grounding for morality.  Those are just chemical reactions making you think there is such a thing.  Of course, macro-evolutionists rarely go three sentences without making a moral claim, but that inconsistency doesn’t seem to trouble them.

6. Courtesy of commenter Bubba, I offer another fatal flaw:

[Materialistic naturalism] also cannot account for human rationality, which the supposedly rational atheists affirm even if they deny the reality of the moral law.

If human thoughts are merely the result of physical and chemical processes, then they can be no more rational than the by-products of other biological organs — the bile of the liver, or the carbon dioxide from the lungs.

And if human rationality is illusory, then we cannot draw any trustworthy conclusions about the world around us.

Materialism is ultimately an argument that all arguments are invalid, and the philosophy is therefore self-defeating.

Other than that, materialistic philosophy is a great idea.

To recap, materialist / macro-evolutionary philosophy fails because:

1. It is not supported by the evidence.
2. Even if it was possible it doesn’t mean it happened.
3. Even if it did happen it doesn’t disprove God’s existence.
4. Even if it did happen and there is no God then it “created” religious beliefs.
5. Even if it did happen and there is no God it doesn’t ground morality.
6. It can’t account for human rationality.

P.S. Here are some definitions from the good folks at Dictionary.com:

Materialism:  The philosophical theory that regards matter and its motions as constituting the universe, and all phenomena, including those of mind, as due to material agencies.

Naturalism: 

 The view of the world that takes account only of natural elements and forces, excluding the supernatural or spiritual. 

 The belief that all phenomena are covered by laws of science and that all teleological explanations are therefore without value.

PZ Myers, one of the “New Atheists” (just like the old ones except rude and lacking reasoning skills) plays the same tricks that Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and others do.   Richard Dawkins went on the radio show of Hugh Hewitt, who  Myers considers to be a “far right radio wingnut” and a “ridiculous puffed-up blowhard of very little brain.”  What a charming fellow this Myers chap is!  With winsome, well thought out arguments like that you have to know his scientific facts must be right as well. 

The main point of Myers’ post was to re-hash the classic double-play fallacy used by many atheists.  It hinges on the way they use the argument against miracles as synonymous with the argument against God. 

They pretend to be proving that God doesn’t exist, then they assume it and act shocked — shocked, I say! — that people of faith believe in miracles.  Then they dismiss the believers as idiots (just read as much of Myer’s comment thread as you can stomach) and act as if nothing they say can be believed.  See how Dawkins tries to play the game:

Richard Dawkins: Okay, do you believe Jesus turned water into wine?

Hugh Hewitt: Yes.

RD: You seriously do?

HH: Yes.

RD: You actually think that Jesus got water, and made all those molecules turn into wine?

HH: Yes.

RD: My God.

HH: Yes. My God, actually, not yours. But let me…

RD: I’ve realized the kind of person I’m dealing with now.

Note what Dawkins did: He assumed what he should be proving — namely, that God doesn’t exist.  And he turned it into a personal attack as well.  In addition, he probably lied, because unless he is a complete moron he already knew what Hewitt’s beliefs were.  My guess is that he pretended to just figure it out.

So Dawkins’ fallacies were carefully choreographed to demonize his ideological opponent and to pretend that he’d already proved that there is no God.  And Myers and his gang eat it up as if Dawkins actually accomplished something.  Aren’t they bright!

If they really think that this trick proves anything then they are as foolish as they claim Hewitt and other believers are.  If they know how ridiculous their arguments are yet they use them anyway then that demonstrates their lack of character.

Here’s another clip from the interview where Hewitt exposes more misstatements by Dawkins plus examples of Dawkins’ fear of real debates and more of his misstatements.

PZ Myers points us to two great letters from scientists to creationists distorting the meaning of their work.  The idea that non-biologists commenting on the internet can feel entitled to go around calling legitimate biologists frauds is so stupefying to me.  Do these people have no humility, no appreciation for the rigors of specialized scientific investigation, and no self-awareness?  Apparently, yes, some people have none of these things.

So, here are the letters from Joe Thornton (whose letter comes at the end of an article) and Richard Lenski (whose main letter is the fourth in the sequence on the page).

Your Thoughts?

It seems rational discussion is passé.  I was recently forbidden to make comments on PZ Myers incendiary blog Pharyngula for attempting to engage in a rational discussion over a lecture he gave at AAI.  To my great disappointment, I was denied the privilege of commenting on PZ’s site after leaving only two posts.  Perhaps, if I had peppered my comments with profanity, ugly ad hominem attacks, and a *facepalm*, I would still have access to his site.  As it is, I won’t be making comments on Mr. Myer’s site any time in the foreseeable future.

For those interested in reading PZ’s blog and my original comments please follow the link below (my first comment is # 68):

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/10/my_talk_at_aai.php#comments

To my opponents, who believe they have delivered decisive blows to my arguments, here are my rejoinders:

Mr. Nerd of Redhead,

You say, “don’t lie to us about the real amount of scientific research being done. We know better.”

Thus far, I have made no comments regarding the amount of scientific research being done on ID Theory–it’s simply not an issue I’m interested in discussing at this time.  What does interest me is the fact that we make design inferences all the time and that the ability to make such inferences seems to be crucial to the sciences—a point that PZ demonstrates beautifully in his lecture.

So, the question still stands:  If distinguishing between things which have arisen from undirected natural processes and things which have arisen from intelligent design is a valid, and important, aspect of science, why can’t biologists employ such methods when analyzing biological systems?

Mr. CJO,

There are two things about your response I’d like to address:

(1) If your assertions are correct,  S.E.T.I is a complete waste of time and money–the extraterrestrial agents they seek evidence for are not, “extremely well understood in terms of motives and capabilities.”  If the S.E.T.I researchers followed your way of thinking, it would be impossible to determine whether an alien signal was designed unless they had already come into contact with the very extraterrestrials they were searching for.

The fact of the matter is, we know what intelligence is and we are capable of recognizing intelligent activity or involvement when we see it.  Distinguishing between things which have arisen due to undirected natural causes and things which are the result of intelligent design is a fundamental aspect of science; an aspect S.E.T.I researchers rely upon when they analyze radio signals from outer space.

(2)  You say, “if you want to “detect design in biology,” first you have to identify where the apparently unbroken chain of reproduction was broken in order to do this design work, and second you have to identify an agent capable of conceiving and carrying out the design.”

Why?  I don’t have to know when and how a brick wall was built to recognize that it is not the product of undirected natural causes.  Similarly, I don’t have to know when or how a molecular machine was designed to recognize that it is the product of intelligence (if, in fact, it is).  The methods we are discussing involve how scientists recognize the difference between something that is the product of undirected natural causes and something that is the product of intelligence—not when and how design was implemented.