RSS MAD

Another hiatus

I tried a short-lived return to the pulpit on a trial basis. Verdict: I still don't have time for this. Perhaps another time...

Julia Sweeney vs. God on This American Life

Way back in September I told you about Julia Sweeney's then-upcoming one woman show about her path from Christianity to atheism. Her show played to great reviews, and finally closed just about a week ago.

Last weekend, on public radio show This American Life, in an episode devoted to Godless America, Julia performed a portion of her show. It's so good it should be required listening. It makes me really sorry I never made it out to LA to see it in person. You can hear it in RealAudio or Audible formats by clicking here.

Also, on her website, Julia has announced that her show will be available on audio in two versions (recorded live, and a studio recording) very soon, followed by a book and eventually a movie version of her performance.

I love this bumper sticker

I first saw this bumper sticker about a month ago:

Click on the sticker for information on how you can order one for only $2.50. Proceeds go to the Bioliteracy Project:

Bioilliteracy, and its more general form scientific illiteracy, is distinct from anti-scientific attitudes, but it contributes to them.

Scientific illiteracy leads to misconceptions and misunderstanding of what science is about and how it works.

It provides places for anti-scientific and pseudoscientific ideas to hide, often under the aegis of scientific legitimacy.

The world of anti-science is littered with appeals to science's legitimacy – often its vocabulary deliberately mimics the 'sound of science'.

Unlike science, however, it is anti-rational and unsupported by the rigorous process of review, reproducibility and revision that unlies the scientific enterprise.

It aims for certainty rather than understanding, and so it fosters intolerance rather than humility, caution and critical thought.

Anti-science is commonly used to swindle, to coerce, and to foster specific political or ideological positions. It poses a real threat to rational debate and decision making.

I wish I had a car to stick one on. But living in New York City, I don't own a car. Maybe I'll slap one on the back of the 6 train.

Why intelligent design isn't

Here's the full text of the article from the New Yorker magazine called Master Planned: Why Intelligent Design Isn't. The author was on the yesterday-mentioned episode of the Al Franken Show on Air America Radio.

[Note: I haven't read it yet]

Many scientists admit to misconduct

It seems there are more preconceptual scientists than I realized.

The Washington Post reports that "more than 5 percent of scientists answering a confidential questionnaire admitted to having tossed out data because the information contradicted their previous research or said they had circumvented some human research protections."

Even more shocking, "more than 15 percent admitted they had changed a study's design or results to satisfy a sponsor, or ignored observations because they had a 'gut feeling' they were inaccurate."

I've never been under the impression that nothing like this ever happens -- scientists as a group are susceptable to the same failings as the rest of us -- so I suppose a poll like this is important to remind us all that things like this do in fact happen. I'd have to read the poll and see the results myself before I drew any hard conclusions (I've learned from experience that the way the press reports poll results and what the poll results actually show are not always the same thing). But it's an excellent reminder of yet another reason why peer-reviewed research and reproducable results are such important parts of scientific study.

For more analysis, commentary, and further surprising information (such as the fact that none of these things violate the federal guidelines for scientific misconduct), you can read the rest of the article here.

Preconceptual Science

Okay, it's not so much funny as it is cute, but this week the comic strip Non Sequitur explores the notion of a little kid who wants to grow up to be a Preconceptual Scientist, "the new science of reaching a conclusion before doing research, then simply dismissing anything contrary to your preconcieved notions."

Which reminds me, you can now pre-order Chris Mooney's forthcoming book The Republican War on Science at amazon.com.

Today on the radio: The idiots vs. the intelligent people

I'm told that today's episode of The Al Franken Show on Air America Radio will be all [or at least partly?] about the evolution vs. intelligent design conflict. "Who will win?" Franken asks, "The idiots or the intelligent people?"

This may be a good opportunity to listen in again, after AAR's co-founder Sheldon Drobny told me back in January that I could expect to see a change in the quality of advertising on Air America, which I compared to audio spam, making the station unlistenable. Okay, Sheldon. You said to expect to see a change over a few months. I'll give it another try.

Air America Radio streams live on-line at 12:00 PM Eastern Time, and can be heard on both XM and Sirius satellite radio, and in many cities. Highlights from today's show will be shown on The Sundance Channel tonight at 11:30 PM.

Update: First commercial break on flagship station 1190AM WLIB: Mobil 1 extended performance automobile oil; webconferencing with GoToMeeting; MDC coming to BBC Blues Club & Grill; Phaser2 police radar disabler.

Second commercial break: Stephen Spielberg-produced miniseries "Into the West" starts tonight on TNT; Amdro ant blocker keeps ants out; Doctor's Nightguard helps you stop grinding your teeth; Fancy Feast gourmet cat food; Advanced Radiation Oncology Therapy; LifeQuotes Life Insurance; HSBC the world's local bank featuring free business checking.

So far so good, with no penile disfunction ads, get-rich-quick schemes, invitations to hear cult leaders speak, or Wendi Friesen ads (although I suspect we'll hear those eventually). Still nothing about evolution, though. I won't update all the commercials throughout the show, but I happen to be at the computer right now, so I thought I'd keep track while I'm here.

Update: Third commercial break: Purpleocean.org fighting for workers' rights; GoToMyPC.com access your PC from anywhere; PlanetCheck promotion for clean-the-beaches event; DemocraticMatch.com dating service

...and that's all the radio I have time to listen to today.

Madagascar it ain't

In Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Tulsa Zoo will be installing an exhibit chronicling the biblical account of creation. I'm not positive whether the zoo is state-sponsored or not, but I suspect it might be, because the Tulsa Parks Board had to approve the plan, which the Mayor called "an issue of fairness."

*sigh*

More court-ordered religion

CBS News reports that in Kentucky, "A judge has been offering some drug and alcohol offenders the option of attending worship services instead of going to jail or rehab."

Now, I've heard of judges giving the option of attending Alcoholics Anonymous, which requires belief in a higher power. For those who don't know, Step 1 famously is admitting that you have a problem, but many of the subsequent steps involve submitting yourself to God's care, praying, etc. You can read the list of steps for yourself. So when judges give criminals the option or sentence of attending AA instead of jail, they're really committing a violation of church-state seperation.

But this is even more blatant. Here, we have a judge suggesting a criminal attend worship services! What does the judge have to say about this? "I don't think there's a church-state issue, because it's not mandatory and I say worship services instead of church."

It makes me want to pull my hair out in frustration.

A civil liberty lawyer gets it right when he comments: "The judge is saying that those willing to go to worship services can avoid jail in the same way that those who decline to go cannot. That strays from government neutrality towards religion."

Baptist warns against belief without evidence. Sorta.

Way back last July, I cautioned that explorer Daniel McGivern's expedition to find Noah's Ark was based on flimsy evidence and wishful thinking (The greatest event since the resurrection of Christ). I followed the story closely, and wasn't terribly surprised when the expedition ended up not ever happening (Noah's Ark expedition a No Go) and when National Geographic wondered whether the expedition was never very credible to begin with (Noah's Ark expedition... a stunt?).

This week in the Baptist Press, Timothy Pierce, professor of Old Testament at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, cautions against these sorts of wild goose chases:

"It's easy for those of us who believe in the historicity of the flood and other miracle accounts in the Bible to grab on to any piece of 'evidence' that is presented in order to demonstrate that our belief is warranted," he said. "We should be careful what claims we wed our beliefs to, lest when those claims are proven to be false, people conclude our beliefs are false as well."...

"For example, the somewhat questionable methods and seemingly exaggerated claims of Daniel McGivern and Ahmet Ali Arslan in 2004 gave rise to an article in National Geographic (Sept. 20, 2004) that berated the idea that the Ark might be found on the mountain," he said. "Such overzealous claims and assessments cause many individuals to be less predisposed to believe in the likelihood of the Ark being on the mountain because of the 'too good to be true' claims that often are associated with reports of its sightings."...

"I'm not saying the trip shouldn't be taken," Pierce said. "If it brings one person to faith in Christ who formerly disbelieved, it would be worth all the money spent on the endeavor. But it has to be done with integrity, because the ends never justify the means -- and the result needs to be clear evidence, not simply someone's word.

"The result needs to be clear evidence. Not simply someone's word." Wow. Is it possible that Pierce understands the concept of evidence before belief? Someone give that man a cookie.

"In short, my concern is that the evidence has become more authoritative -- and in many ways more important -- than the biblical account. The validity of the story of the flood does not rest upon what is found on that mountain."

Nevermind. No cookie for you.

2005 Survey of Non-Believers

Via Unscrewing the Inscrutable, here's a link to the Western North Carolina Atheists' 2005 Survey of Non-Believers.

Currently, there are over 1,800 responses to the 2005 Survey of Non-believers.

Data collection will continue through the end of June, and possibly into July depending on response rates at the end of June.

If you've not responded, follow the link above to register and particpate. If you know any individuals/groups that might be interested, please forward this message to them.

Once data collection has ended, I will first sanitize the data tables to remove any personal information included in the comments, and then post the raw data for download. I have heard from a few individuals with backgrounds in sociological research who are particularly interested in the results of the survey, and I hope that providing the data tables up-front might encourage more individuals or groups to assist in analysis.

The simple statistical analysis of the data may be available within a month or so of the end of the data collection phase, though more complex analysis may take 2-3 months. (There may be some correlation between responses on certain question types by subsets of the data -[male/female, location, age, group membership etc.] analysis for such correlation may take some time. I have been looking for trends that might suggest correlation throughout the data collection (at 250, 500, 1000, and 1500 responses) and have found very little thus far to indicate correlation. I have not yet seen any great variance in raw percentages of responses across several of the questions in the survey.

As more information regarding the survey is available, including data sets and analysis, e-mails will be sent out to all that have participated. Links and notices will also be posted on those message boards and e-mail lists where the invitation to participate in the survey has been posted.

Derren Brown: Tricks of the Mind

Derren Brown, on his Channel Four program in England, demonstrates some amazing principals of mind control. You can see video clips on his website, including one where he convinces a woman he can control her with a voodoo doll:

For this trick of the mind I have chosen someone who is convinced by New Age philosophies and alternative medicine. There's nothing wrong in being open-minded about claims that crystals, spells or psychic phenomena have the power to heal, as long as you're prepared to test them. If not, you could find yourself being conned.

I start by establishing an atmosphere which will convince the woman that I have supernatural powers. To do this, I take her to Epping Forest, a wild and natural place, full of ancient trees. I have a doll, which, I tell her, contains a ring that belongs to her. When I tie up the doll's legs, she finds she cannot move her legs. When I tie up the doll's arms, she can't move her arms.

As you can see, he doesn't pretend to actually have mind some supernatural powers, but rather explains how he's able to make this woman think he does.

But then I watched the clip where Derren makes a cap driver lose a major landmark, forgetting where it is in London. On his website, Derren writes, "When I get in the taxi, I immediately bombard the driver with a story about the wheel of a toy car that I've lost and how I've had a really silly day going round and round in circles looking for it. He is trying to think of how to get to the London Eye but I keep distracting him by talking about unrelated things."

Am I expected to believe that Derren and a camera man got into a random cab that happened to already have a windshield-mounted camera on it? Or did he ask the cabbie for permission to mount that camera? Or did the camera man recognize him from TV and play along?

What about this clip where a woman answers a ringing phone in a public place and promptly falls asleep seconds later? Derren writes:

[T]he group of people subjected to the stunt are particularly suggestible. I know this simply because they chose to answer a public phone that happened to be ringing as they walked past. Most people would ignore it, assuming it was nothing to do with them.

Secondly, once the person answers, I immediately bombard them with a rapid set of confusing instructions and facts. I do this for several minutes without giving give them a break, then follow it by telling them to fall asleep. As seen on the shows, this works.

The more I watch and read about this man (whom I'd never heard of 20 minutes ago, and now know only what I've shared with you so far, plus what I've read at answers.com), the more suspicious I am that his explanations of his tricks are also part of his trick. I don't think he's all that interested in explaining how he really does things. I think he's purely about entertainment.

So what's up with this guy? Anyone across the pond, or otherwise more familiar with him, want to fill me in on what this Derren Brown bloke's all about?

Bush vetoes Scientology Bill

That's not a sentence I thought I'd ever write.

As many are aware, Scientologists are anti-psychiatry. They've even set up an organization they call the Citizens Commission on Human Rights as "an independent body to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights." Independent. Whatever.

In Florida, the Church of Scientology was backing a bill, recently passed by the Florida House and Senate, which would require schools to tell parents about the possible ill effects of a diagnosis of mental disorder before it could refer a student for a mental evaluation.

According to the St. Petersburg Times, Governor Jeb Bush vetoed the bill last week, saying that the bill "places the school between the parent and the medical professional."

I'm not a fan of those Bushes, so this veto is refreshing. Thanks, Jeb.

Court ordered spirit-calling ceremonies?

Three Asians and some other guy walk into a bar. Racial slurs are thrown about, and eventually punches follow. The three Asians are injured. They all go to court.

The bully pleads no contest, and the court orders him to reimburse the Asians' medical expenses. Fair enough. But according to Reuters:

In addition to submitting hospital and doctor bills, the men turned in receipts for herbal medicines and cows, pigs and chickens slaughtered in Hmong "spirit-calling ceremonies."

Keichler opposed making restitution for the nonmedical expenses, but a California appeals court on Wednesday ruled that he should pay because the ceremony is the equivalent of Western psychotherapy...

In a letter to the court, victim Xiong Xeng Moua explained: "In my culture, one way of helping a person who has been traumatized ... is to hold a traditional spirit calling to call my spirit back to me."

An expert testified that the Hmong people believe that a person who is attacked may lose one of his many souls and become ill.

The expert said the souls of animals killed during the spirit-calling ceremony are called on to replace the victim's lost soul. The animals are then eaten by attendees as part of the ceremony.

Religious ceremonies are the same as psychotherapy? How exactly is that so? Because both might make someone feel better emotionally? So would a trip to the Carribean. These men went to the hospital and received proper medical treatment. The bully paid for that, and rightfully so. But it's not right for the court to demand he pay for their religious ceremonies any more than it would be right for him to pay for them to take a vacation to the tropics so they can get some relaxation. Probably less so, actually, since there's no constitutional separation of vacation and state.