Baying at the moon

The “Get a life” edition

On July 24, 2014, Daily Kos observed the forty-fifth anniversary of the conclusion of the Apollo 11 moon mission with a photo taken shortly after the command module's splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. The photo was labeled with some text:

At 12:51 p.m. (EST) on July 24, 1969, the Apollo 11 module landed in the Pacific Ocean, southwest of Hawaii. This completed the first mission humanity ever made to another celestial body.

That statement is straightforward enough, but I thought it gave short shrift to two other missions that preceded the historic first moon landing. On Facebook I offered the following comment:

Clarification: The first manned mission to *land* and return. Both Apollo 8 and Apollo 10 went all the way to the moon and back, but they were lunar orbital missions only (the latter including a jaunt with the lunar module that came within ten miles of the surface).

Another FB user promptly offered a kind of rebuttal:

ABR I think the word humanity speaks to that.

Huh? I casually replied:

Humanity was aboard Apollos 8 and 10 as well.

Soon others got into the act:

BA Bet you are a real fun guy at parties.

DG There is no ambiguity in the graphic. The word "made" means "landed". Get a life.

Unchastened by the dictionary revisionism (and the slight against my party suitability), I replied:

I think the Apollo 8 astronauts felt like they had "made" a mission to the moon, which they orbited ten times before returning home. It takes nothing away from Apollo 11 to acknowledge that.

Finally, someone chimed in to defend my point:

CL Agreed. My outstanding memory of the Apollo missions was, at the age of 14, listening to Anders, Borman and Lovell aboard Apollo 8, orbiting the moon, giving a Christmas (1968) message to the people on earth. That was just awesome - and the furthest that men had ever been from earth. There is a tendency to simplify history to 'spot facts' and glib milestones. Apollo 8 was first to the moon. Apollo 11 was first to land. Equal achievements, I'd say.

Unfortunately, despite this positive reinforcement (although I never claimed that the orbital missions were equivalent to the landing missions), my original simple statement of clarification remained a sticking point for a Facebook user with the initials MN:

MN You can't go TO the Moon If you don't land on It. As defined during the 8 and 10 mission, they ORBITED the Moon, Just like John Glenn ORBITED the Earth. Chris, They are NOT equal achievements, by any stretch.

This remark is a perfect headdesk opportunity, especially in its creative use of the word “defined.” Is MN prepared to tell Borman, Lovell, Anders, Stafford, Young, and Cernan that they did not go “TO” the moon because they neglected to land on it? Lovell was also the commander of the Apollo 13 mission which aborted its moon landing because of an explosion in its service module. Should we tell Lovell that, nope, he did not go to the moon twice because neither of his missions landed? Sure, he never got to set foot on the lunar surface, but Jim Lovell definitely made two missions to the moon.

Let's not forget the epic moon missions that preceded Apollo 11 in the excitement over the anniversary of the first landing. Some of us remember those thrilling days and rue their passing.

Religion: the cure for science

Praying instead of studying?

I'm not sure what Bob Christopher was doing in college during his years as a biology major, but it sure wasn't learning science. Christopher had occasion during today's installment of “People to People” on Christian radio to discuss how learned-up he was about science. Seems, however, that it didn't take. During a program on Christmas titled “Jesus is the Reason,” Christopher fielded a question on evolution from a young man named Shawn, who hails from Waco, Texas. He promptly trotted out the “only a theory” meme:

Shawn: I'm really wondering, though, about evolution. I hear this a lot. I hear, of course, you know, we're descendants of Adam and Eve. You know, just kind of wondering what your thoughts are on evolution.

Bob Christopher: Well, Shawn, my degree in college is a degree in biology, so I spent a lot of time studying the theory of evolution. And that's exactly what it is: it is merely a theory. There's no scientific fact that supports evolution as the way we came into being. There is microevolution, there are small changes that occur within the species, but the species always remains the same. We don't see one species changing into another as evolution would have it. That's just not supported with the facts. But it is a theory. It's an intriguing theory. It's an interesting theory. It held no water until geologists came along and started proposing the idea that the earth was much older than we first believed. Up until the mid 1800s it was just a known fact—or at least everybody believed—the world was no older than six thousand years as far as the age was concerned. But geologists started proposing that quite possibly that it would be older than that, could be millions of years. And without that assertion into the scientific community, the theory of evolution would have died. Why? Because that theory requires time for it to be a reality. So the geologists helped move it along just a little bit and it took root in the scientific community and they've been exploring it and trying to figure it out ever since. But, quite frankly, I think it's a veil that they're using to cover up what they really believe, and what they really believe is that there is no God. And so they're using that veil of evolution to hide that fact.

Who is this “they” that Bob Christopher keeps talking about? This mysterious entity appears to comprise all scientists and teachers of science. Christopher's further remarks do not clarify his meaning. In fact, he concludes his argument with a shocking revelation.

Bob Christopher: And so schools have bought into it hook, line, and sinker, they're teaching it as if it was truth, but it's not truth. It is just a theory. It's a person's theory on how things came into being. It stands in opposition to what the word of God has to say, and as far as science is concerned— I love science. I was, like I said, a science major. I thought the courses I took in college were absolutely fascinating. I was intrigued by every single one of them. But science, if you follow the evidence, I think that evidence is going to lead you right back to God. It has to. God is the author of science. God knows how this world works. God is the very force that holds it together. He understands physics better than our best physicists that are out there. He understands the way the body functions better than any medical doctor, better than any biologist. He knows how our chemicals work inside of us better than any biochemist. He knows us better than anyone else. He knows how this thing works. So any study of science, any real study of science, that looks at the evidence and looks at the facts and lets the evidence and the facts speak for themselves, that person is going to be led to the Creator. And I think more and more scientists, up in the upper echelons of the scientific community are coming to that reality.

Really, Bob? The most prestigious members of the science community are embracing the God hypothesis? You'd think someone would have noticed this trend by now, especially since it entails a dramatic reversal of a highly publicized result from 1998, when it was determined that only 7% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences (is that “upper echelon” enough for you, Bob?) believe in a personal God. The God-botherers within the nation's scientific elite could hold a convention in a phone booth with room left over for the catering staff.

Better do it soon. Phone booths are going the way of the dodo.

Stupidity in spaaaaaaaaaaaaace!

Idiots write letters

There's nothing like a successful space mission to set off the smugly ignorant. “Think about the children!” they cry. They wring their moist hands over the millions and billions of dollars that they assume were wastefully blasted into space instead of used for charitable works. This morning's San Francisco Chronicle provided a perfect case in point:

But what about the hungry?

The land rover Curiosity arrives on Mars safely. What a feat!

But $2 billion to find water on a planet when hundreds of children go to bed hungry, when teachers, police and firefighters are dismissed? Where are our priorities?

People might say, “But look what we get from our space travel.” When a child says, “Mommy, I'm hungry,” does her mother say, “I know honey, but isn't it wonderful we have Teflon”? What a country.

RMS-O, San Francisco

Damn! The stupid is strong in this one. Did you catch the “hundreds of children”? The ignorant letter-writer doesn't even appreciate the scope of the problem she is decrying. There are millions of children in the United States alone who lack adequate supplies of food, without even taking into account the more severe problems elsewhere in the world. Totally clueless people should not be giving others advice.

That, however, is not my main point. I want to underscore the stupidity of blaming NASA's budget for our failure to ameliorate social ills. As Isaac Asimov pointed out decades ago, it makes no sense to take money from one worthy cause to fund a different worthy cause when so many unworthy money-pits are right under our noses. The cost of the Curiosity mission was reported at approximately $2.5 billion (which the Associated Press foolishly cited as “budget-busting”). That total amount would barely have covered three days of the misbegotten war in Iraq. And you may recall that war did last a little over three days.

That sheds a slender ray of perspective-giving light on the subject, doesn't it?

In the meantime, quite apart from the exciting prospects of scientific discovery and exploration, Curiosity's budget supported (and supports) teams of engineers, scientists, and technicians. These people are a key component of the nation's tech base and infrastructure. Should we outsource all of their jobs to China or India? Besides, they pay mortgages and feed their children just like everyone else. None of the Curiosity budget dollars were simply blasted into space. They were spent on the ground, adding to the economic contributions of our technological and scientific endeavors.

Let's take up a contribution to shoot the San Francisco letter-writer into space. She'll be right at home in the vacuum.

Subatomic subgenius

Ommmmmmmmmmmm

Leon Lederman has a lot to answer for. He famously branded the hypothetical Higgs boson as the “God particle” in the title of his 1993 book on the subject. As a stroke of marketing genius, however, it's undoubtedly had him chuckling all the way to the bank. It follows that recent news from CERN has resurrected the divinely-inspired term, as well as rousing into action the usual crowd of scientific illiterates. A representative of that obscurantist cohort popped up in the letters column of the July 7 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle:

The sages have been telling us for many, many centuries that God or love dwells within our hearts as ourselves. This is found in meditation and costs nothing.

The physicists' instruments have cost millions and are just getting a little glimpse of what is found in totality in meditation.

GVM, Gilroy

Oh, yes. Meditation and occult wisdom long ago revealed the essence of the Higgs boson and its function in the Standard Model of particle physics. We could all save a lot of money if high-energy physics research budgets were devoted instead to the purchase of floor mats and incense sticks. No doubt.

I fired off a response, which the Chronicle did not see fit to publish. Here it is, in full:

I eagerly await GVM's elucidation of the difference between bosons and fermions. Surely he must know.

Stay tuned for the next exciting breakthrough in meditation physics. I predict thrilling new insights into the nature of the bozon, the long-posited fundamental particle of clowning. One hears that the elusive mote might yet be detected with bubble chambers filled with super-cooled seltzer!

Snow job

Odd man out in the cold

John Christy's research paper made it into the news media. Most scientists get to work in obscurity, but climatologists garner more attention from the press than your typical researcher. Especially if, as in Christy's case, you're going against the flow. That's news.

But not really. Not in Christy's case. It's not at all surprising—or particularly newsworthy—that he's going against the flow.  He does it all the time. While Dr. Christy is an honest-to-goodness climatologist with real credentials (unlike, say, Lord Monckton or John Coleman), he is avowedly skeptical about anthropogenic global warming. That makes him a precious resource to the climate-change denialists, since the vast majority of climate scientists hold that humanity is a key factor in the warming of the earth. What the denialists tend to ignore, however, is that Christy has no doubt about the warming trend. He agrees that the earth is heating up and that straightforward temperature measurement has established that fact. Christy just disagrees that humans have anything in particular to do with it.

The people chortling about the cold snap in Europe as disproof of the global warming prefer that you not listen to Christy in that case. The denialists can't be too choosy, however, so they'll clutch Christy to their bosom despite his unwillingness to embrace the warming-is-a-lie hypothesis. Besides, he just gave them something useful to cite.

As reported in Wednesday's edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, Christy has concluded that California's Sierra Nevada has remarkably resilient snowfall. He has analyzed snowfall data back into the 19th century and determined to his own satisfaction that snowfall on the Sierra's western slope has been consistent for well over a century. In particular, he sees no sign that Sierra snow has been on a downward trend during the recent half-century in which global temperatures have been inching upward.

His conclusion, though, is a bit of a puzzler. First of all, Christy apparently used snow depth rather than snow water content for his analysis. Critics like Mike Dettinger of the U.S. Geological Survey declared that water content and snow density are crucial factors that should not be ignored. In addition to Dettinger's concern, cited in KQED's Climate Watch, Professor Roger Bales of UC Merced said, “It’s not surprising he didn’t find a trend because he lumped everything together.”

Then, of course, you have the graph of Christy's data, represented by a graph published by LA Weekly. It bears the label “Journal of Hydrometeorology” and is therefore presumably the graph from Christy's recently published research paper. Give it a good look. I haven't seen the paper itself and I do not know whether Christy did any kind of regression on the data to check for trends, but the dark line of moving averages spends less and less of its time above the 1.0 line as the years go by. Was I not supposed to see that?

Adroit gaucherie

A left-handed backhand tribute

David Berlinski has brilliantly resolved the sovereign conundrum of his existence: How can he remain modest while being the smartest member of an anti-intellectual cult? His elegant solution is to not even try. Another effortless triumph!

He again puts his sumptuous vocabulary and self-conscious prose on display as he preeningly pretends to celebrate the life of the late Christopher Hitchens. While Hitchens was a master of the finely honed, sharp-edged phrase, Berlinski prefers to poke about with a dull-tipped poniard. The jewels on his stiletto's hilt are of more interest to him than the blunt tip's inability to make a point. Watch as he uses his supposed tribute to Hitchens as a vehicle for self-aggrandizement, attempting to clamber up to Hitchens' level and stand by his side as a co-equal polemicist. It is an intriguing spectacle. Some excerpts:

Christopher Hitchens's reputation rests on his literary works, his panache as a public speaker, and on his defiant atheism. He wrote on a very wide range of subjects, and his book reviews were often very fine. He liked to praise the writers and poets he loved: Oscar Wilde, Vladimir Nabokov, Evelyn Waugh, W.H. Auden, Wilfred Owen, James Fenton, many others. He read closely and he read well. As an essayist, Christopher Hitchens is often compared to George Orwell. The comparison is careless, and it is one that in his final interview with Richard Dawkins, he rejected. Hitchens wrote fluently, Orwell, unforgettably. The difference is very considerable, but it is not to Hitchens's discredit. No man is obliged to be what he might have been.

Poor Hitch. He was no more than he was, but that's not his fault. Berlinski understands, and sympathizes. (As well he should.)

Hitchens was an engaging public speaker, and he had the gift of gracefully holding an audience. His intimate interviews were often wonderful because invariably, he was more elegant and far more articulate than his interlocutors. When faced with a rhetorical bruiser like George Galloway, his natural register failed him, and he did not have the dexterity to secure by means of an ironical divagation what he was otherwise unable to secure by matching bruise to bruise.

Poor Hitch. He was better at fencing than at crotch-kicking. (Really? Perhaps Berlinski overlooked Hitchens' well-known stone-crushing skills. Or maybe David wisely kept his knees clasped tightly together during his debate with Christopher.)

With the publication of God Is Not Great, Christopher Hitchens reached a mass audience. He became celebrated. When he discovered how well he had been received by the public, he tended to regard his own religious beliefs with the indulgence of a man who on discovering that he has been lucky in attracting admirers very naturally concludes that he has been justified in attracting them.

Poor Hitch. He mistakenly thought he deserved the attention he got. Berlinski desperately wants to know how he got that attention and would sell his soul to achieve the same level of recognition. (Perhaps he already has. The house intellectual of the Discovery Institute has a lot to answer for.)

His atheism nonetheless had a kind of shambling boisterousness that made Christopher Hitchens seem a Mirabeau to Richard Dawkins's Saint Just [sic] or Sam Harris's Robespierre.

Poor Hitch. Did he never suspect that he was playing a part in a zany recapitulation of the French Revolution? (By the way, David, the name of Louis Antoine de Saint-Just is usually rendered with a hyphen. Not, of course, that this significantly detracts from your light-shedding simile. Pas du tout!)

Hitchens was uninterested in subtle analysis. On the masthead of the Daily Hitchens, there is the legend: What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof. The difficulty with this assertion is straightforward. If it has been asserted without proof, why should it be believed, and if not, where is the proof?

I asked Hitchens about this during a break in our debate. We had retreated to a forlorn hotel loading ramp in order to have a cigarette. “Well, yes,” he said, “it's just a sentence.”

Oh, that Hitchens! Such a sly boots, and yet hoist by his own petard when caught making a statement without proof about statements without proof. Sneaky, clever Berlinski, to catch him out like that! It was also wise of Berlinski, who routinely plays the part of a math expert, to refrain from making the obvious point that every theoretical discussion must begin with unproven axioms at its foundation. Ceding this point to Hitchens would have deflated Berlinski's elegant gotcha. How unfortunate that Hitchens neglected to cringe in humiliation at Berlinski's sly riposte.

Christopher Hitchens found objectionable the very idea of a source of authority, and so of power, greater than his own. This has seemed to some of his readers all of the time, and all of his readers some of the time, both defiant and uplifting. The very same idea is at work in the terrible crimes of the twentieth century. It is inseparable from them.

I hasten to point out that Berlinski is not running afoul of Godwin's law here. Our elegant elegist deftly ducked this faux pas by not elucidating the nature of the twentieth century's terrible crimes. Hitler is only implied. We all understand perfectly well that Hitchens would never have supported Hitler—that is, of course, if he had only possessed the wit to realize that “the very same idea” of disdaining an ultimate authority is “inseparable” from campaigns of mass murder.

At least, that's one way to read Berlinski's prolix paragraph. Antecedents are difficult to pin down. (Does “the very same idea” refer to “the very idea of a source of authority” or the notion that this source itself was “objectionable”?) One of the glories of his prose is that the author will be on a firm footing if he objects to this characterization on the grounds that the sentences are ambiguous and subject to many (and divergent) interpretations.

Christopher Hitchens chose to greet death publicly. Had he thought of it, he might well have invited an orchestra. We signed books together after our appearance in Birmingham, and to admirers on his very long line inquiring after his health, Hitchens replied that he was dying. It was a response that inevitably took his interlocutor aback, the more so since it was true. I followed his interviews and read his essays about cancer and death. I found them moving. But they do not evoke the man.

And neither does Berlinski's supposed encomium.

God's utilitarians

The meanies justify their ends

Someone had been busy. Each car in the parking lot had its own copy of an anonymous flier. I pulled the document out from under the windshield wiper. Large letters said “A B C.” Upon closer inspection, the fine print delivered the message:

Abortion = Breast Cancer

The flier was a simple one-fold document, the interior of which went on to explain breathlessly that “post-abortive” women were at severe risk of breast cancer. A woman's body, you see, goes slightly crazy when frustrated in its divine mission to bear young and unfulfilled hormones wreak havoc in the mammaries. Hence the battle by “pro-life” forces against abortion is also a battle to save women from horrible and disfiguring disease—and even death.

It's science, people. You have to believe in science. (Except, of course, when those same crazy-ass scientists go on about evolution, global warming, or that nonsense about a billions-year-old earth.)

The so-called ABC connection between abortion and breast cancer is a favorite talking point of the anti-abortion activists. It is routinely cited on Catholic Radio and fliers like the one I found on my car keep insisting that the link is established beyond any reasonable doubt. They like to give numbers, too, such as “28 studies reveal increased risk.” The cherry-picked reports, however, include results deemed not significant (in the statistical sense) and no hint is given that the preponderance of the evidence goes in the opposite direction. As the National Cancer Institute puts it, in the affectless diction of a neutral science-based agency, initial research in the area was ambiguous, based on small sample sizes, and produced inconsistent results:

Since then, better-designed studies have been conducted. These newer studies examined large numbers of women, collected data before breast cancer was found, and gathered medical history information from medical records rather than simply from self-reports, thereby generating more reliable findings. The newer studies consistently showed no association between induced and spontaneous abortions and breast cancer risk.

That is the consensus of modern medical science, but the pro-lifers still cling to the handful of early studies that went their way.

I always find it irksome when some wrong-headed group tries to co-opt science in support of its non-scientific objective. Creation “science,” of course, is a prime example of the perversion of science in the service of sectarian interests. I have, however, a particular disdain for the sheer opportunism exhibited by people like the ABC proponents. Contrary to their supposedly deep-held principles, they are fully prepared to embrace the notion that the ends justify the means. It's a pragmatic utilitarianism that I suspect most of them would instantly disavow, but here's another place where the evidence goes against them.

For example, anti-abortionists emphasize that terminating a pregnancy is the killing of human life. Many of them are willing to call it murder and express the wish that health professionals who perform abortions be tried in courts of law under homicide statutes (and then, somewhat inconsistently, some anti-abortionists want them subjected to capital punishment after conviction). It is, therefore, a great moral crusade against a heinous crime that society at large has so far been blind enough to permit.

Doesn't it severely undermine the moralistic argument to append a health warning? “Oh, and don't forget that you'll get breast cancer if you do it!” The ABC issue is irrelevant to the faith-based moral argument. Its inclusion is nothing more than a concession to pragmatic realpolitik. Yet I never hear apologists on religious programs concede that point. They toss in the ABC argument as if it's equal in status to their abortion-is-murder claim. The disproportion should be dizzying to the conscious brain, but it appears that this does not bother most anti-abortionists. (In fact, not any that I've ever seen.)

Down on your knees!

My recollection of the ABC flier was prompted by a recent e-mail that I discovered in my spam folder. The nice loons at Newsmax Health (as distinguished from the loons that infest all the rest of Newsmax) wanted me to be aware of the health benefits of prayer. No, not the long-discredited notion that intercessory prayers could speed one's healing. This message was about the benefits to oneself. Prayer, by golly, is good for you!

1. Can modern science explain prayer?
2. Does praying strengthen your brain and prevent mental decline?
3. What benefits, if any, does prayer offer you — physically, mentally, and emotionally?

That's a pretty good teaser. I'm sure you're as excited as I was at the prospect of learning the answers to these weighty questions. A free video (28 boring monotone minutes) is available to tell you amazing facts:

• How a specific amount of “prayer time” per day can help prevent memory loss, mental decline, and even dementia or Alzheimer's . . .
• The #1 prayer pitfall that can actually make you sick if you're not careful (this is one of the most important bits of wisdom you'll ever gain) . . .
• 47 scientifically proven benefits of prayer, including pain relief, reduced risk of death from heart attack or stroke, lessened anxiety or depression, and more . . .
• And much, much more . . .

Want the details? Newsmax Health will send you two free copies of its Mind Health Report! (And more, if you subscribe for only $36 for twelve monthly issues. You knew we'd get there eventually.)

Of course, this is science. (Remember “science”?) The founder of “neurotheology” is a real scientist (well, an M.D., anyway) at a real medical research center (well, an “integrative medicine” center, anyway). As a totally careful scientist and researcher (and stuff like that), the researcher began with a formal definition of the phenomenon being studied. Namely, what is prayer? I wasn't surprised by the research paper involving the rosary. That's pretty traditional and old school. But there's a much broader non-sectarian approach to what is called “prayer.” Here's the definition from the beginning (at 4:41) of the tedious video!

So, for the purposes of our research, we defined “praying” as any mental activity that includes

• traditional prayer practiced by people of religious faith
• meditation, or contemplative reflection on a power greater than oneself, which can be God, the Universe, or all Life
• focused positive thinking, such as speaking affirmations
• attending a church or synagogue service

How's that for a tight focus? When you bundle it all up, it amounts to meditation of some kind. Period. (Even in a church or synagogue, which were specifically cited. But not, apparently, in a pagoda or mosque.) The results, of course, merely indicate that quiet contemplation is good for you. It says nothing about the efficacy of prayer qua prayer. Newsmax is trying to sucker its conventionally religious readers into ponying up some cash to wallow in “scientific” validation of their prayer practices. We should “pray” because it's good for us—not because it works in any conventional way as a nice chat with one's deity.

Nice work, Newsmax!

I know that I could dig out my credit card and send Newsmax Health some money right now for a subscription to what I'm sure would be a rich and reliable vein of unintentional humor. However, I really think I should pray about it first. Or, as I prefer to call it, a “nap.”

Punctuation for thee and me

Bringing reason to a full stop

The back page of a recent Answers Update (Vol. 18, No. 6) carries a bright little apologetic nugget by Ken Ham himself, the strikingly australopithecine leader of Answers in Genesis. Ham is talking about the earth's effing magnetic field. How does it work?

[G]eophysical and archaeological evidence indicates that 1,000 years ago, the magnetic field of the earth was 40% stronger than today. This field is actually decaying at a rate of 5% per century.

The decay rate may not sound like much, but it's a very important factor in determining the age of the earth. Using the current rate of decay, it's been calculated that just a million years ago, the magnetic field would have been so strong that it would have melted the planet! ...

Creationist physicists declare that the magnetic field is a very strong indicator that our planet cannot be any older than 10,000 years. This, of course, confirms the roughly 6,000-year timeline in the book of Genesis.

Please don't be distracted by Ham's use of amusing little oxymorons like “creationist physicists.” We can easily detect what he is up to. There's a useful word to describe the theoretical foundation for Ham's argument:

Uniformitarianism.

Obvious. Right? Ham is assuming that conditions affecting the earth's magnetic field have remained exactly the same throughout history. What else is that besides uniformitarianism? Of course, Ham might beg to differ. Let's see how he described uniformitarianism in the 1987 edition of his book The Lie: Evolution:

Geologists have the idea that the processes we see operating in the present world have been going on for millions of years at essentially the same rate, and will probably go on for millions of years into the future as well. The technical word used in geology for this belief is “uniformitarianism.” For example, the desert museum in Tucson, Arisona, not only has a display for people to see what supposedly has happened over the past millions of years, but it also has a display of what many scientists believe will happen to Arizona over the millions of years yet to come!

Evolutionists, atheistic and theistic, use the phrase “the present is the key to the past.” In other words, they say that the way to understand the past is to observe what happens in the present.”

Bingo! Ham's magnetic-field argument for a young earth is a page ripped right out of the uniformitarianism playbook. He stands self-accused.

One imagines that Ham might wish to quibble. He could claim that he was using a reductio ad absurdum argument—or proof by contradiction—having demonstrated that the assumption of uniformitarianism leads to an impossibly high level of magnetic flux in the prehistoric past.

Sorry. That won't work. He is not just arguing that an old earth is impossible. Ham explicitly declares that some simple computations provide evidence consistent with a young earth. He is making a “pro” argument for his position every bit as much as he is making a “con” argument against his opponents (which constitute 99% of the scientific community).

Ham may not like uniformitarianism, but he is certainly willing to use it when it suits him. Perhaps he needs to create a new label for it. May I suggest “punctuated uniformitarianism”? He can use it to argue that physical laws and natural processes are uniform between occasional catastrophes—like his magnetic-field argument.

Trim to fit

The power of truncated quotes

I was browsing through Orac's Respectful Insolence when I stumbled across his post on the latest inanity by Mike Adams. The purchase by AOL of the Huffington Post had inspired Adams to celebrate a wonderful new opportunity for “alternative health authors.” (Why do they use so many syllables when “cranks” is so much more economical an expression?) Since HuffPo is “headed in the direction of conventional media,” its wackier writers might be pleased to hear that Mike Adams is ready to welcome them at his NaturalNews site:

Many of the site's best writers are wondering where they can go to get their alternative medicine stories published. It certainly isn't WebMD, which even the New York Times just called out as being a mouthpiece for the pharmaceutical industry, saying “WebMD is synonymous with Big Pharma Shilling”. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/m...)

Are you as impressed as I am? Imagine! Even the stodgy old New York Times recognizes that WebMD is merely a front for rapacious drug companies. Naturally I was inspired to click on the link to learn more. Just how thoroughly did the Times trash WebMD? Inquiring minds want to know!

It was really a bit of a let-down. Writer Virginia Heffernan did not exactly make the statement quoted by Adams. What she really wrote is this:

In more whistle-blowing quarters, WebMD is synonymous with Big Pharma Shilling.

Oh. That's just a little bit different.

True to tell, Heffernan does not actually like WebMD. Equipped with her pertinent experience as a television critic and degrees in English literature, Heffernan goes on to complain about WebMD's product placement, advertisements, and connection to various pharmaceutical companies. She even cites an investigation by Sen. Charles Grassley, as if he's a reliable source (she calls him “Chuck,” for some reason). She adds that “WebMD has become permeated with pseudomedicine.”

Sounds like Mike Adams would feel right at home.

Science saves volcano virgins

The Sunday funnies

Sunday mornings are a good time for enjoying the funnies. I am not, however, limiting myself to what I discover in the comics section of the daily newspaper. Some of the most entertainingly amusing stuff is on television, where religious broadcasters present surreal comedy routines that they deliver with astonishing earnestness. (I marvel at how they manage to keep a straight face.)

This morning's entertainment was provided in part by Shawn Boonstra, an earnest and soft-spoken television preacher who styles himself as the “speaker/director” of his It Is Written ministry. He had set himself the task of discussing Einstein's brain and using it as an example of the insufficiency of natural processes to explain the existence or intelligence of humanity.

You know, on paper, sometimes the theory of evolution makes pretty good sense, but don't you find there's this nagging doubt in your heart that tells you this place couldn't possibly have come into existence by accident? How in the world does a cosmic accident develop to the point where we can generate nuclear power? What can we learn from a literal chunk of Einstein's brain?

Ah, yes, the “cosmic accident.” Time to pull God out of the hat as a convenient explanation.

If that were all, Boonstra's presentation would have passed by, unremarked and unremarkable. Fortunately, however, for the sake of my morning entertainment, he had a compelling argument for God's existence based on morality. Without a divine lawgiver, you see, anything goes! While I had heard that before, too, I hadn't heard his precise example before:

If we accept the atheist view of our origins then we have to admit that ideas like good and evil or right and wrong are nothing but human concoctions, the products of our culture. And if you accept that morality is something invented by human beings, you run into a pretty big problem. If one culture says that it's okay to throw young virgins into an active volcano in order to appease the gods of the underworld, then who's allowed to say that's wrong? By what authority can they possibly critique that behavior?

By the authority of science, of course! Science amply demonstrates that volcanoes are not propitiated by virgin sacrifice. The virgins thus spared can then be employed in more productive ways.

Yay, science! Boo, volcano gods!

But Boonstra had worked up a head of steam, so he kept rolling along:

Not only do I believe in a creator God, I also believe in a moral God, a great lawgiver who gave us a perfect moral code. And far from being a outdated set of do's and dont's from some ancient outmoded religion, the Ten Commandments still remain God's standard for right and wrong today. They're laws that just make sense.

A perfect moral code? I'll bet that Boonstra can't define it. Or, at least, he'll have a hell of a time explaining why it's important to avoid eating shellfish while stoning one's recalcitrant children. Or raping virgins that belong to enemy tribes (assuming you don't need them for the volcanoes).

And the Ten Commandments make sense? Excuse me, but I think George Carlin has persuasively demonstrated that they are terribly overwritten and fraught with the insecurities of a compulsively jealous deity.

Amen.

It's just another day

Irrelevant ancient history

Today is July 20. Remember when Olin Teague kept trying to make a national holiday of it?

Of course you don't. In fact, you're probably saying, “Who the heck was Olin Teague?”

That's okay. He's been gone awhile. U.S. Representative Olin Teague held a congressional seat from Texas for a big chunk of the 20th century. He chaired the Select Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration. The Apollo moon program occurred on Teague's watch. You could say he was a big space booster.

By now you've recalled (or figured out) that July 20 is the anniversary of the first Apollo landing on the moon, the Apollo 11 mission that took Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin down to its dusty surface. Sometimes, in a fit of nostalgia, I bother to mention it to my summer school students (if I'm teaching summer school that year, of course). Their reaction is usually dispiriting.

The last time I did it, I wrote “July 20” on the board and left it there for a while. Since I don't normally bother writing the day's date on the board, it was anomalous behavior. Successfully stifling any curiosity—intellectual or otherwise—my calculus students did not ask the date's significance.

So I did.

“Does anyone know what today it?”

A couple of my more insightful students said, “July twentieth!”

I gave them a sickly smile.

“Thank you for the obvious answer. Can anyone dig a little deeper than that?”

“It's my niece's birthday!”

“Okay,” I said, with great forbearance. “I hope you got your niece an appropriate birthday present.”

“I don't know. I'll find out this afternoon when Mom gets back from shopping.”

Things were not developing in an encouraging direction. I abandoned subtlety.

“Today is the anniversary of the first moon landing,” I said.

They looked at me, mostly blankly. A couple of students said “oh” without much enthusiasm in their voices.

“Yes, I realize we're talking about ancient and boring history,” I said. “No doubt you've heard of the Apollo program and seen photos or videos of it, but it's probably difficult to imagine how exciting it was to see it all occur in real time. We saw the lift-offs and moon landings on live television, just as it occurred. It was a thrilling time to be a witness to history.”

“My father said he actually got hives on the day of the moon landing,” said one student, a small smile on her face. “But he's an electrical engineer.”

“Oh, an engineer. That explains it, of course,” I replied.

Students nodded their heads as if everyone knew that's the way engineers are. They're easily susceptible to hives and other allergy-related afflictions. It's possible—or even likely—that they were dutifully humoring me, having no particular opinions of their own. One should always encourage a teacher who is off-topic and telling stories instead of lecturing.

“The space program was a great motivator when I was in high school. It was exciting to all of us who were interested in math, science, and engineering. The Apollo moon rocket generated seven and a half million pounds of thrust to lift a six million pound vehicle from the launch pad. It began painfully slowly, but the final stage reached speeds of seven miles per second as it left earth orbit. That's about twenty-five thousand miles per hour. Residents of Hawaii actually got to see the third stage of Apollo 11 light up overhead as it pushed the spacecraft toward the moon.”

Some of my students goggled as I reeled off the numbers. I had either captured their attention or they were good at feigning interest. (Either—or both—is entirely possible.) I turned to the board and wrote “F = ma.”

“What does that mean?”

Many students were ready to blurt out the answer.

“Force equals mass times acceleration.”

“Indeed. As I was watching the moon rocket take off on live television, I saw how slowly it rose during the first moments of its flight. It took several seconds to clear the tower. Since I knew its mass and the force of its rocket engines, I could compute its acceleration. Only one problem, though.”

I paused for a long moment, waiting.

“The mass wasn't constant!” a student proudly announced.

“Exactly!” I said. “The first stage was burning off fuel at a rate of fifteen tons per second.”

Even some of the more jaded students were a bit slack-jawed with wonder now.

“So, what to do? Well, I broke the time interval into short segments.” On the board I wrote t₀, t₁, t₂, and so on. “Since I knew the rate of fuel consumption, I knew the mass of the rocket at the beginning of each subinterval. I could compute the acceleration for that interval and calculate the rocket's change in altitude. The computations were simple, but there were a lot of them. How could I get my results to be even more accurate?”

“Do even more calculations,” they said. “Use shorter subintervals!”

“Quite right! And how does that compare to something you've learned in this class?”

“Smaller intervals for more accuracy in Simpson's rule. Or in Riemann sums!”

“Indeed,” I agreed.

“Hey, you were giving a math lecture after all!” cried a student.

“Gotcha!” I admitted.

A mighty wind

It blows through Joe's ears

Everyone knows Joe Barton now. He's the Republican congressman who apologized to British Petroleum because of its treatment at the hands of the Obama administration. The president, you see, is holding BP responsible for the consequences of the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and that—gosh darn it!—makes a grown Republican want to cry. Imagine beating up on a corporation! Why, it would make the angels weep!

Do you know what happens if the GOP gets a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives after the November general election? Rep. Joe Barton becomes the chair of the House energy committee. That's right: sob sister Barton would be in charge of energy legislation.

We know from Barton's cloying prostration before BP's CEO that he is in the pocket of the oil industry. Is there anything else relevant to his qualifications to lead the energy committee? Perhaps it's his keen grasp of matters scientific:

Wind is God's way of balancing heat. Wind is the way you shift heat from areas where it's hotter to areas where it's cooler. That's what wind is. Wouldn't it be ironic if in the interest of global warming we mandated massive switches to energy, which is a finite resource, which slows the winds down, which causes the temperature to go up? Now, I'm not saying that's going to happen, Mr. Chairman, but that is definitely something on the massive scale. I mean, it does make some sense. You stop something, you can't transfer that heat, and the heat goes up. It's just something to think about.

Yes, it really is something to think about. Poor Joe Barton needs some serious remedial science education. I mean, everybody knows that the wind is caused by trees. When trees wave back and forth, they stir up the air, causing wind. It's simple observation, people!

Martin Gardner, 1914-2010

Founder of the modern skeptics movement

Sometimes little fragments of memory get stuck in your mind with preternatural clarity. I recall one such episode from 1970. It was a late spring afternoon and I had some time to kill before a scheduled meeting with a college friend to wrap up some class project. I was sprawled on my bed (the bedspread had a multicolor rectangular grid pattern on a black background) and I was paging through a book. This was not in itself particularly unusual or remarkable. I read books everywhere and at all times.

On this occasion, however, I was propped up on my elbows reading a Dover edition of Martin Gardner's Fads and Fallacies. I was utterly fascinated. I already knew Gardner's work from Scientific American, eagerly reading his “Mathematics Games” column every month. His book, however, was figuratively shaking me by the shoulders and waking me up. I had read J. Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallée on their UFO theories, which had seemed quite intriguing on first glance. Now I saw that Gardner had preemptively refuted them years before they began their careers as pop icons of the UFO cults.

And I was being deprogrammed. So much for little green men (and their twisted ass-freak leaders).



Gardner overcame a fundamentalist upbringing in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to become the founder of the modern skeptical movement. Although he never abandoned theism itself (he styled himself a “mysterian”), Gardner tirelessly promoted a questioning attitude toward religious claims and irrational beliefs. It is sad to note that some of Gardner's targets, like Scientology and homeopathy, continue to ensnare millions of people decades after he punctured their pretensions. Nonsense can be robust.

Fortunately, Gardner has inspired a legion of successors and the skeptical movement continues to defend rational thought against the inane nostrums and delusions of the day. Let us continue to defend his legacy of sanity and reason.

---

In addition to his millions of written words, Gardner was recorded in a number of interviews over his long life. The 1979 interview was just unearthed in unexpurgated form in the wake of his death and in that sense is new. The others represent Gardner in the later stages of his career and demonstrate his undiminished sense of curiosity and enthusiasm for recreational math and science.

• College Math Journal interview, 1979, by a panel of interviewers (including Stan Ulam and Ron Graham in supporting roles!).
• Skeptical Inquirer interview, 1998, by Kendrick Frazier.
• Cambridge University Press blog interview, 2005, by Don Albers. The interview is in five parts (click on the “Read on” prompt at the end of each part).
• Mathematical Association of America interview, 2006, by Colm Mulcahy.

PZ at Sacramento City College

The Q&A session

Sacramento City College has pride of place as one of the oldest community colleges in California. The campus is full of old-fashioned brick buildings, including the newer structures. City College lies only a few miles from the State Capitol building. Back in 1980, when I was a legislative staffer, a bunch of us traveled down to SCC for the dedication of the sprawling brick-and-glass office-classroom structure at the front of the campus in honor of a local legislator (who had been a professor at City College in a previous life).

The PZ Myers grand tour of California college towns was in Sacramento on Tuesday night for the sixth of its eight stops. The Sac City Freethinkers were the local sponsors of PZ's speaking tour. They booked him into the Student Center, where over 200 people were on hand to hear what PZ had to say.

Having attended PZ's appearance at UC Davis, I thought I knew what to expect. While PZ was using the title “Complexity and Creationism” for all of his presentations, it turns out he has a couple of different presentations that he serves up in alternation at these stops. To my best recollection, there were only three slides in common between the two presentations I saw (including the title slide). In Sacramento, PZ concentrated his fire on Stephen Meyer, author of the egregious Signature in the Cell, whereas in Davis he focused more on arch-idiot Ray Comfort.

The core of PZ's talk, of course, was essentially the same in both variants: critical thinking is a key component of science and is anathema to creationism. That may be one of the reasons that creationists think that complexity is an indicator of design (rather than a sign of the chaotic constructions of biology).

PZ typically talks for an hour and then spends a second hour taking questions from the audience. He followed this pattern at City College, fielding a wide range of queries. One person in attendance seemed to be trying to pin PZ down on the significance of “information”—necessitating a designer, perhaps?—and another asked lengthy and rambling questions that had people shifting impatiently in their seats, but for the most part PZ found himself dealing with friendly and engaging queries.

As with my report on the UC Davis Q&A, the following is not a transcript. I dare to put a few phrases of sentences in quotes because my notes indicate that PZ spoke those actual words, but this is mostly a narrative paraphrase and summary of the many questions and answers.

Questions & Answers

Q. What do you teach and study?

A. Developmental biology and neuroscience.

Q. If the pre-Cambrian protists contained information in their genomes that prefigured the Cambrian lifeforms, obviating the need for any extraordinary explanations for Cambrian complexity, where did the information in the protists come from?

A. It's like Russian dolls, where each doll contains a smaller doll inside. If you go back far enough, you're starting to talk about abiogenesis and that's chemistry, the development of self-replicating forms that can evolve.

Q. Abiogenesis is so unlikely, so low in probability, we have to ask where the first cell came from. Isn't this like a whirlwind assembling a 747 from a junkyard?

A. Cells are chemistry. There are many, many models for prebiotic forms that give rise to life. There are RNA-based models. Models based on generation of metabolism. Any given outcome is unlikely, but only one needs to succeed. Early cells were not like modern cells. They were very different. See Robert Hazen's Genesis for a good introduction to scientific thinking on the origins of life.

Q. What do you think about free will?

A. It's a concept based on ignorance. An illusion.

Q. Given our difficulty in finding fossilized cells on earth, should we be looking to the astronomers for new biological discoveries in space?

A. It would answer lots of questions if we were able to find an example of a different kind of biology. Perhaps there's something on Mars. Right now, however, we are dealing with a population of size zero.

Q. Have you read the work of Nick Lane? Are you familiar with Life Ascending: the Ten Great Inventions of Evolution?

Nick Lane is a very good writer and I recommend his books. I have not, however, read Life Ascending.

Q. In Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life, Nick Lane says that it's very unlikely for eukaryotes to have formed by fusion in the way people think occurred.

A. The process is not unlikely. What's unlikely is the occurrence of a particular form of life, such as our ATP-based mechanism. That was quite by chance.

Q. Why do protist genomes contains genes for proteins for eukaryotes?

A. Protists have genes for producing proteins that they must use in ways different from the ways that eukaryotes use those same proteins. They make the proteins, but we aren't sure why. It's an area of active research.

Q. Thank you for your final slide with the list of things that critical thinkers should refuse to take seriously. [The slide listed gods, demons, angels, souls, spirits, original sin, virgin births, ascensions, transubstantiation, prayers, miracles, heaven, hell, and reincarnation.]

A. You're welcome. That's my cranky slide.

Q. I'm from Lodi, where the city council is abandoning nonsectarian prayer to open their meetings in favor of prayers celebrating Jesus. One of our public school principals is looking for novel ways to put God into the classroom.

A. Public school classrooms should have topics based on evidence. The supernatural doesn't belong in science classes, which are based on nature. It's important to support good teachers. Talk to them and encourage them when they're doing the right thing. But also talk to the principals and get in their face when they're encouraging bad things. So far the noise machine is very one-sided. We need to make noise, too.

Q. How do we combat the constant rebranding of creationism?

A. Creationists keep trying to hide what they're doing. A good example is intelligent design. They are creationists. That's why I don't call them “intelligent design theorists.” I always say “intelligent design creationists.” They don't like that.

Q. What about the concept of irreducible complexity? Is that a contribution of intelligent design to science?

A. Irreducible complexity is real, but it's not new. Hermann Muller was talking about this back in 1919, and he saw it as supporting evolution. It's wrong when creationists say irreducible complexity cannot evolve incrementally. We have lots of examples.

Q. What is the book you're supposed to be working on?

A. I feel extremely guilty because here I am in California doing a speaking tour instead of working on my book. It's a book about atheism.

Q. What about scientists who have room in their lives for God?

A. I have the same response to them as I have to theologians. Scientific training doesn't make you immune to bullshit. The Language of God by Francis Collins has no arguments to support his religious faith. He just keeps saying he believes.

Q. That's not true. Collins makes a strong case that evolution cannot explain the existence of altruism.

A. I'm sorry, but Collins is utterly ignorant of the huge body of research on altruism. It has been studied a great deal and Collins demonstrates that he is familiar with none of it. How can Collins use altruism as an argument for God when he never addresses the work of Hamilton and others in that field?

Q. I've been reading The Greatest Show on Earth by Dawkins. What other books would you recommend?

A. It's a great book. You should also look at Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True and Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish.

Q. [A little girl] Why does your last slide have that dot-dot-dot at the end?

A. That's because there's a lot more nonsense than I could fit on one slide. It tells you the list goes on and on.

Q. What about Stephen Hawking? In A Brief History of Time he keeps talking about knowing the mind of God.

A. Hawking is an atheist who uses the Einsteinian metaphor of identifying God with the universe. It's the way physicists like to talk. I don't understand them.

Q. Since you teach neuroscience and have a strong opinion about free will, you should check out this great neurolaw site. [Possibly The Law and Neuroscience Blog; if someone caught more detail, please let me know. —Z]

A. I'm not familiar with that one.

Q. Steven Pinker touches on free will in How the Mind Works. On another topic, there's the anthropic principle, which in some formulations is used to argue that universes evolve to eventually produce life. We're the end result.

A. It's not surprising that we live in a universe that is compatible with our existence.

Q. I'm a writer who is very interested in your topic of complexity, but I understand exactly nothing of what you said during the past hour. Is there a Science for Dummies book you could recommend?

A. Then I have failed. You should read anything by Carl Zimmer. He writes very clearly. Perhaps you were not exposed to enough science in your education. It's important to encourage kids at an early stage. Be advocates for your children by talking with their teachers and encouraging good science education.

Q. Why don't rational thinkers go on the attack? Why don't we challenge creationists? We should demand that they answer the question of who designed the Designer.

A. That is definitely happening. Read Dawkins, The God Delusion. The “New Atheists” are speaking out. We thought for a long time that we had to be polite. While those of us who are teachers don't attack—shouldn't attack—our students when they believe nonsense, we must confront the irrational ideas. We are getting louder and noisier every day.

Q. There are science supporters who don't want to be associated with atheism.

A. We do have an image problem. Personally, I am proud of being an atheist. We shouldn't hide our dedication to rational thinking. Creationists shouldn't call us arrogant when they go around claiming that only they know the truth.

Q. The National Academy of Sciences is dominated by a majority of atheists and nonbelievers, right? Is there any movement toward speaking out more?

A. There is a growing attitude that favors speaking out because we've seen the consequences of remaining silent. We can't afford to just assume that things will work out in the long run.

Q. The most rabid atheist is less scary to me than the real religious zealots. Who invented burning at the stake?

A. Right.

Q. I see a similarity to gay rights and the rights of racial minorities in the struggle for acceptance of atheists as part of society. Even today we hesitate to help racial minorities in Haiti and in New Orleans.

A. We should be angry rather than calm when we see examples of prejudice.

Q. So many religious people think that there will be chaos if people stop believing in the existence of a God who can serve as a supercop.

A. They're trying to fill in a vacuum. They don't believe that you can be moral without God. It makes you wonder about them.

Q. You can't beat militant fundamentalists when it comes to extremism. Scientists don't go blowing things up. It's religious people who do that. And they destroy culture. Look at Branson, Missouri, which is my own personal definition of hell.

A. There is a double standard because the fundies are the ones in charge. The Christian right is privileged, even though we've seen more domestic terrorism from them than from other groups.

Q. I'm concerned that atheism may be growing, but the movement's diversity is not.

A. Oh, it's improving. Some years ago, any meeting of atheists and freethinkers would be almost entirely male and mostly people in their sixties. Now we have more young people and more women are involved. Minority involvement is less than it might be, but let's be fair and admit that they have other fights that are more immediate and pressing.

Q. We can be good without some guy in the sky watching us. We should teach philosophical ideas and history in schools to show that non-Christian cultures such as the Greek civilization also had notions of moral behavior.

A. There is a dearth of comparative studies of societies in schools. We spend too much time in school emphasizing details. We need to spend more time on critical thinking skills and mathematics. Give people the tools they need. I think philosophy in grade school would be good, but Dennett would disagree strongly. He'd say we'd mess the students up and they'd have to spend years relearning things that they learned wrong.

Q. What is your opinion of evolutionary psychology?

A It's an interesting idea, but all too often it becomes wild extrapolation. The evolutionary psych people seem to disregard the complexities that make it difficult to find explanations for everything.

Q. I'm an agnostic and I understand that science is based on evidence for things and evidence against things. In your list of things we shouldn't believe, you say we shouldn't believe in an afterlife. If that's so, where is the evidence against an afterlife.

A. You have to show evidence that fits your hypothesis. If you think there's an afterlife, then you are obligated to present evidence supporting it. If you don't have it, Occam's razor says we're justified in not taking it seriously. Lack of evidence means you have no basis for your claim. You may as well believe in fairies and unicorns, for which there is no evidence.

Q. Why would you want to disbelieve in unicorns?

A. Well, I can't disprove unicorns.

Q. How long till we have an openly atheist president?

A. I don't know. A long time, probably. Perhaps twenty years? It would be nice if it happened in my lifetime, but I have my doubts.

Q. There are measures of complexity other than Claude Shannon's. For example, we use a different system of measure in figuring the complexity of software.

A. Yes, I picked Shannon although there are other measures. The important thing is that creationists don't have any standard for complexity. They don't even have any units for their complexity, whereas Shannon's information theory has a solid mathematical basis.

Q. Dawkins has a complexity argument against the existence of God, where he points out to creationists that any God able to follow the path of every particle in the universe would necessarily be even more complex than the entire universe itself. Such a God is therefore excessively complex and a universe without such a God would be simpler and therefore more likely.

A. Yes.

Q. Why do creationists keep using the second law of thermodynamics as an argument against evolution.

A. Because they don't understand it. They don't realize their argument could just as well be used to disprove growth.

Q. What is the role of the agnostic in advancing critical thinking and advancing science?

A. Please get off the fence and join us. Waffling is a waste of time. We need you with us.

All good things must come to an end

PZ is wrapping it up

The frenetic California tour is in its final stages. PZ Myers was booked into Sacramento City College for today, Stanford University for tomorrow, and Sierra College for Thursday. A map I drew of PZ's Golden State trek accompanied my earlier post (PZ does Northern California) on this topic. I also included links to information on the separate venues, except that Sierra College appeared to have nothing to say about where and when PZ would appear. I have since determined that he has been booked into Weaver 110 between 7:00 and 9:00 in the evening on the Rocklin campus. The Sacramento Area Skeptics has the scoop and it's also listed on the Facebook page of Freethinkers at Sierra College.

Maybe I'll see you there.

PZ does Davis

The Q&A session

You may have heard the expression that some town is merely a “wide place in the road.” This applies in a major way to the city of Davis, a small town into which someone dropped a major university. As you approach Davis from the west, Interstate 80 widens into six lanes, accommodating the peak hours of traffic from UC Davis and the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. I found a parking space in one of the public lots ($6 for a 12-hour permit—I wanted to go back the next day to use it again!), grabbed my umbrella, and trekked across the campus.

It was raining steadily on Thursday night when PZ Myers arrived in Davis to talk about creationists and their inanities. The venue for his appearance was 194 Chemistry, a large lecture hall I've been in before. It was on that very site back in the eighties when I was privileged to hear Duane Gish hold forth at length on the imminent death of the theory of evolution, which had been overthrown—according to Gish—by the second law of thermodynamics. (Curious how selective creationists are in the scientific facts they accept.) It was while Gish was talking that I realized he had undoubtedly heard why it was invalid to use the second law to argue against evolution, but he persisted because it was a useful ploy with which to impress the ignorant.

The creationist game hasn't changed much since then. PZ was going to hold forth on “A few things I've learned about creationists.” At least, that's what it said on his first slide. When he spoke, however, he rendered it as “Stuff that really pisses me off about creationists.”

While the audience was assembling for the talk, I took the opportunity to introduce myself to PZ. I asked him if he would be “holding court” later in the evening. “Is that what they're calling it these days?” (PZ is obviously unused to folks who talk with my arch and slightly archaic second-language manner.) “Well, it's the way that I say it, although it's a bit pretentious.” PZ appeared momentarily nonplussed. It later turned out that the second slide of his talk bore the word ”pretentious,” the first in a series of adjectives he would use that evening to define the nature of creationism and creationists. Perhaps he suspected I had seen his talk the night before in UC Santa Barbara, but that was really too far away. It was just an odd coincidence. Spooky!

The crowd settled down when “Mr. Deity and the Science Advisor” appeared on the lecture hall's projection screen. (Guess who plays the science advisor?) After an interlude of a few minutes for late arrivals to drip dry in the lobby and get seated, PZ launched into his talk.

As I mentioned the framework for his talk was a series of adjectives which PZ used as jumping off points for describing various creationist fatuities. It worked well, although it appeared that PZ could have spoken for an entire hour on any one of the adjectives. I presume PZ has been using the same basic spiel at each of his California stop. The Q&A that follows, however, will be unique to each venue.

The following report is a paraphrased narrative, not a literal transcript—except where I dare to include quote marks. (I'm afraid I lack the chops of a courtroom reporter.) I hope that I captured the essence of most of the exchanges.

Questions & Answers

Q. Michael Behe has dismissed Joe Thornton's brilliant work on gluticosteroid receptors as “piddling.” What's so great about Behe's own work?

A. Behe has published credible research on histones. It might also, however, be described as piddling—as is PZ's own work. “But much of scientific progress is just the aggregate of great amounts of piddling research.” The Biologic Institute was spawned as the research arm of the Discovery Institute, but its impact on actual science research is invisible.

Q. Have you heard the argument that natural selection may be real, but that's not proof that evolution is real?

A. That position is often taken by those who argue for a distinction between so-called macroevolution and microevolution. Natural selection is allowed to make small changes in their view, but it's supposedly incapable of transforming a creature's “kind”—the non-biological term used by creationists based on biblical phrases contained in passages like Genesis 1:25, “God made the beast of the earth after his kind.” The distinction is false, as if arguing that someone who could walk across a city could certainly never walk across a county.

Q. Do you get creationists in your classes at UM Morris?

A. “All the time. I treat their questions with respect and I encourage class participation in answering them. The better students leave the creationist arguments in shreds. As the professor, I get to stand back and be the referee. It's great fun.” It's extremely important that teachers make a distinction between the argument and the student, since someone in a position of authority can too easily make life miserable for students who are merely trying to convey dogma that others have inculcated in them. Besides, most students are in-between and may be willing to listen to new information. “I have occasionally planted doubts in their minds, causing them to think.” Sometimes, however, those wearing the armor of God are just too casehardened to do any critical thinking, such as those who filled out teaching evaluations that said, “This class made me love Jesus even more.” Those may well be hopeless.

Q. Isn't it counterproductive to label peoples' beliefs as nonsense when you're trying to engage them in scientific thinking? Isn't confrontation a bad way to influence people?

A. There are plenty of people trying to go the conciliatory route. The more accommodating science writers do not appear to be having significant success in promoting rational thought.

Q. Intelligent design creationists and theistic evolutionists think that a god or a designer needs to interfere in the natural world to create the life we see today. Do they ever specify where God does his tinkering?

A. Most appear to be focused on the notion that it's important to distinguish between the evolution of humans and the evolution of other animals. About half of the United States is okay with the idea that man evolved in some way, speaking broadly. However, about three-quarters are okay with the idea that dogs evolved. That suggests that God needs to be present to give humans their special characteristics. Other than that, most don't seem to care exactly where God does his tinkering. They just know that he does.

Q.Do you agree with Richard Dawkins when he says that evolution is corrosive to religion?

A. “Actually, I believe that all science is corrosive to religion.” Science is based on evidence and critical thinking, which are contrary to received doctrine and dogmatic thinking. Michael Ruse has wondered whether the courts could eventually decide that religion must be protected from science. Is there a fundamental right to religiosity that courts will rally to defend? It's not as though courts base all of their decisions on logic. Purveyors of religion, such as youth ministers, fret that higher education will deprive young people of religious beliefs. Science teachers should be direct in their response. If classes in science and logic and critical thinking cause young people to turn away from the religious ideas that they were taught, the implication is clear. The earth is not 6000 years old. The Grand Canyon was not gouged out overnight by Noah's flood. Jesus did not have a pet dinosaur when he was a young man. “It means that you [the youth ministers] have been lying to them all their lives.” No wonder that they turn away when they find out.

Q. Where is the creationism in practical technology?

A. As in the Salem hypothesis? That's the observation that engineers who are creationists like to describe themselves as scientists. Not all engineers are creationists, but those who are seem to think they should claim that they are scientists.

Q. No, I mean where are the technological applications of creationism? If it's a science, there should be applications.

A. But they aren't. Creationism is a belief system rather than a science.

Q. What are species, exactly?

A. There are many different biological formulations. It pleases creationists that the definition of species is fuzzy, because they can attack different aspects of it. Breeding isolation is an important factor. New species are emerging all the time, such as the breed of mosquito that lives in the London Underground. Clearly that's a species that arose recently, since the Tube has not been there very long.

Q. Why is Behe a creationist?

A. Probably religion, because religion is a comfort to many people and involves friends and family members. Religion is one of the older systems of social organization and contact, a predecessor to Facebook and Twitter. And the thought of burning in torment in hell for eternity can be quite persuasive. It compels compliance.

Q. Do you believe in the historicity of Jesus?

A. Richard Carrier says that Jesus is a myth. He has a forthcoming book in which he sets out his arguments. I agree with him. There may well have been a real person named Jesus about whom the myth was constructed, but it's mostly myth.

Q. Is evolution goal-directed?

A. Evolution's “goal” is better adaptation to survive in a given environment. Our language is full of words that suggest intent and purpose, which can be misleading, but evolution is the natural selection of randomly occurring advantageous mutations.

Q. Religion can be a comfort. Is that why some people don't care about science?

A. There's more comfort in the thought that there is no cosmic jailer! “People also say that religion is a crutch. Throw away your crutch and walk! That would be liberating. It's patronizing to suggest that most people are too weak to do without religion.

“Personally, I'm looking forward to the arrival of the first gay, female, atheist president.”

Q. Religion is used mostly to manipulate people.

A. Thomas Frank documented in his book how Kansas used to be a radical state, but religious extremists were part of the movement that pre-empted the moral high ground and persuaded people that they had to vote against their interests in order to be “good.” As a result, Kansans now regularly oppose programs and policies that would benefit them.

Q. Are you aware of Conservapedia's Bible project?

A. “I brought it to the world's attention. It's a project to remove the ‘liberal’ parts of the Bible.”

Q. Is there a direct correlation between the level of atheism and the amount of scientific thought? Does that mean we should be concerned about an increase in non-scientific thinking?

A. Science has a lot of authority, which is why people try to co-opt it in support of their positions. That's why advertisements say things like “9 out of 10 doctors recommend.” That's why a mockery of science like the Creation Museum exists. The United States is not science-positive in the sense of correct science. We need to exploit the validity of and power of science in order to diminish the influence of pseudoscience.

Q. Are atheists poorly organized?

A. Yes, but there is strength in diversity. There is no official dogma of atheism. “There is no pope of atheism—except for Dawkins.” There is no requirement that atheists subscribe to a particular set of political positions. Some atheists are in favor of abortion. Some are opposed—“even though that's where we get our babies to barbecue.”

Q. Ray Comfort seems to confuse spontaneous generation with evolution.

A. Ray Comfort doesn't even know where the first dog came from. He would say it's creation.

Q. We should tell our science students that they need to understand evolution in order to qualify for good-paying jobs in the future.

A. Would they believe that? It's better to tell them that understanding evolution makes other things easier to understand. For example, ecology makes a lot more sense if you've understood evolution first.

Q. Creationists often attack the radioactive dating of fossils.

A. The dates conflict with the young-earth idea. Therefore they say that you can't assume that decay rates have been in the past what they are today. If they were faster, then everything could be a glowing mass today. Creationists are willing to pay the price of invalidating all of physics in order to make their point.

Q. what about abiogenesis?

A. It's mostly straightforward. “All of biology is chemistry and there is no magic in molecules.” Study chemistry if you want to know how life could have arisen. Read Robert Hazen's Genesis for more.

Q. What is your opinion on humanity's ability to be a responsible steward of the biosphere?

A. We're balanced on the edge. The United States is not a good role model for the developing nations of the world because the U.S. is not sufficiently committed to adopting a sustainable way of life. Despite some hopeful optimism that people are beginning to wake up, things could definitely go in a bad direction.

Q. Why do so many creationists refuse to acknowledge that religious people can believe in evolution? Many Christian denominations have no problem with evolution. One example is the Catholic Church.

A. Many creationists would deny that Catholics are Christian. The Creation Museum contains displays that attack liberal Christians who don't accept young-earth creationism. They define creationism as part of their Christianity.

Q. What about Islamic creationism?

A. In countries like England, which has never had a significant problem with creationism, communities of Islamic immigrants are agitating in favor of creationist beliefs. Turkey, for example, is a very secular nation on paper, but in reality the influence of Islam is very strong. It's like the United States, officially secular but really very Christian.

Q. I fear the rise of a charismatic creationist leader from the fundamentalist ranks, someone like [Heinlein's] Nehemiah Scudder, who creates an extremist theocracy.

A. We need charismatic atheists, but that's not our strong suit. “Perhaps the recent coming out of Brad Pitt as an atheist gives us cause for hope.” Our best response is to concentrate on educating the children, making them critical thinkers. Teach your children. And if you don't have children, consider adopting.

Q. How does altruism fit into an evolutionary scheme of things?

A. This is a community. [indicating the audience] Social cohesiveness is important to our lives and comfort. We work together to maintain our environment. To live well, we rely on cooperation, which is the basis of morality. And we don't eat babies—no matter how delicious.

Q. I am a public school science teacher and some of my students reacted negatively when I introduced the astronomy topic of stellar evolution. I was called into a conference with my principal.

A. Is stellar evolution in your state standards? Point this out to your students and your principal. Tell your students they don't have to believe, but they have to understand. It's a requirement. Tell your principal he doesn't want to be out of compliance with state standards.

Q. Should we teach the flaws of creationism in the science classroom?

A. I do. It can be difficult for a public school teacher whose students might take offense, but I use a historical approach to science. I demonstrate that evolution was not established by atheists who were in league with the devil. Devoutly religious scientists like Lyell realized that the earth was at least millions of years old because that's what the evidence showed. Science is a product of both believers and nonbelievers.

Q. What about the God gene?

A. I don't believe that there are specific genes for emergent properties like belief in God or homosexuality. Those are too complex to be simply identified with genes.

Q. What is creationism's pre-Cambrian bunny rabbit?

A. If someone found a rabbit fossil from the pre-Cambrian, it would not immediately invalidate evolution for me. I would want to do a lot of investigation first. However, creationists do not point to any specific item of evidence that would cause them to abandon creationism. “Creationists work around the evidence.” Nothing persuades them. And they don't understand evidence, pointing to things like the “crocoduck” as a missing link that evolutionists would expect to find. [PZ was resplendent in his crocoduck tie.]

Q. Do religious leaders sometimes go too far and destroy the faith of their followers. Do they commit errors that are faith-crackers?

A. No, hardly ever. Look at Pat Robertson and his statement on Haiti's earthquake being the consequence of a pact with the devil. Most of his viewers probably agree with him. Persistent education is needed to overcome a mindset that lets people agree with pastors no matter what stupid things they say or do.

Q. Why are people susceptible to magical thinking?

A. It's part of our nature. We don't like the thought that some events are not purposeful. People like narrative and they want causal relationships. Magic covers the gaps.

Q. Atheists should move away from “believing” in evolution and emphasize “accepting” it on the basis of evidence.

Q. Right. Our language implies causes where there are none. We say that certain biological features are “designed” for certain functions when we do not mean to imply any designer other than natural selection. It can be misleading. However, we also lose our audience when we speak over-precisely, so there's no good remedy. We have to be as careful as we can, within reason.