wise words for the ages

Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler on the racket of war, here.

For shame, New Scientist!

New Scientist is not a bad magazine. I read it regularly, despite the occasionally weirdly wanky physics story that looks as if it were published for sensational value only. But overall it is no bad, coming out strongly on the side of reason. However, I am very close to cancelling my subscription and encouraging others to do so.

Last week, the print issue carried an article by Amanda Geffer concerning creationist code-words and how to recognize them in pretend-science publications. It was an excellent, rational and thoroughly admirable article.

Apparently, someone complained to the editors about it and the article is currently removed from the online edition of NS, apparently "while they investigate".

I encourage everyone to follow the link and leave a complaint in the comment section. Demand that the editors restore the article immediately, or, at least, provide a reasonable explanation for their action (not that I think there can be one, besides intellectual cowardice).

Since the article in question is no longer available at the NS site, I reproduce the complete text of it below:

How to Spot a Religious Agenda, Amanda Gefter, New Scientist, Sat, 28 Feb 2009 22:35 UTC

As a book reviews editor at New Scientist, I often come across so-called science books which after a few pages reveal themselves to be harbouring ulterior motives. I have learned to recognise clues that the author is pushing a religious agenda. As creationists in the US continue to lose court battles over attempts to have intelligent design taught as science in federally funded schools, their strategy has been forced to... well, evolve. That means ensuring that references to pseudoscientific concepts like ID are more heavily veiled. So I thought I'd share a few tips for spotting what may be religion in science's clothing.

Red flag number one: the term "scientific materialism". "Materialism" is most often used in contrast to something else - something non-material, or supernatural. Proponents of ID frequently lament the scientific claim that humans are the product of purely material forces. At the same time, they never define how non-material forces might work. I have yet to find a definition that characterises non-materialism by what it is, rather than by what it is not.

The invocation of Cartesian dualism - where the brain and mind are viewed as two distinct entities, one material and the other immaterial - is also a red flag. And if an author describes the mind, or any biological system for that matter, as "irreducibly complex", let the alarm bells ring.

Misguided interpretations of quantum physics are a classic hallmark of pseudoscience, usually of the New Age variety, but some religious groups are now appealing to aspects of quantum weirdness to account for free will. Beware: this is nonsense.

When you come across the terms "Darwinism" or "Darwinists", take heed. True scientists rarely use these terms, and instead opt for "evolution" and "biologists", respectively. When evolution is described as a "blind, random, undirected process", be warned. While genetic mutations may be random, natural selection is not. When cells are described as "astonishingly complex molecular machines", it is generally by breathless supporters of ID who take the metaphor literally and assume that such a "machine" requires an "engineer". If an author wishes for "academic freedom", it is usually ID code for "the acceptance of creationism".

Some general sentiments are also red flags. Authors with religious motives make shameless appeals to common sense, from the staid - "There is nothing we can be more certain of than the reality of our sense of self" (James Le Fanu in Why Us?) - to the silly - "Yer granny was an ape!" (creationist blogger Denyse O'Leary). If common sense were a reliable guide, we wouldn't need science in the first place.

Religiously motivated authors also have a bad habit of linking the cultural implications of a theory to the truth-value of that theory. The ID crowd, for instance, loves to draw a line from Darwin to the Holocaust, as they did in the "documentary" film Expelled: No intelligence allowed. Even if such an absurd link were justified, it would have zero relevance to the question of whether or not the theory of evolution is correct. Similarly, when Le Fanu writes that Darwin's On the Origin of Species "articulated the desire of many scientists for an exclusively materialist explanation of natural history that would liberate it from the sticky fingers of the theological inference that the beauty and wonder of the natural world was direct evidence for 'A Designer'", his statement has no bearing on the scientific merits of evolution.

It is crucial to the public's intellectual health to know when science really is science. Those with a religious agenda will continue to disguise their true views in their effort to win supporters, so please read between the lines.

scientism and balderdash

An article in Catholic News tries to defuse the evolution "controversy" (itself a product of deranged creationist minds) by claiming that evolution is not to blame for the recent surge in atheistic books and the open spread of atheism. Rather, scientism is the evil beastie here (an old claim!). And they define scientism as "the use of science beyond its proper sphere of investigating physical nature".

Of course the dolts do not realize that such a definition is certainly begging the question of whether there is anything at all "beyond physical nature". Meh, they never cease to amuse me.

Kepler launch tonight

Kepler telescope, an instrument that will look for Earth-sized exoplanets, will be launched today. It may find thousands of them, another step in our search for life elsewhere in the Universe, and a boon for future navigators of sublight colony ships...;)

as if we need another reason

...to know that religion and the Church are great forces for evil in our world: here.

Excommunication may be a weak concept, but they are excommunicating the wrong people! These scumbags are punishing the people who have saved the life of the 9-year old girl while refusing to pass a moral judgement on the actual perpetrator. And they feel persecuted? they fucking dare to complain (about trivialities: notice the prominent place given to The Golden Compass in this one)?

bad eggs broken

So the bankers are saying that they do not need the TARP money and that taking is was a mistake. So, why don’t they give it back now, instead of possibly within 2-3 years. I am sure that I am not the only one puzzled by the discrepancy: for fuck’s sake, if they really don’t need it they should cough it up now...