08.06.01

Amazingly, according to this article, national intelligence is outsourced now, too. Tomorrow is the 6th anniversary of the Presidential Daily Brief that had stated "Bin Laden determined to strike in US". It was...ummm...ignored.

Meanwhile:

###
Iraq War Cost

But naturally...

Of course. And one need never go to bookstores again...

A brilliant near-future story by one of my favourite writers, Linda Nagata, is available—free—here (the first piece of e-fiction to have won Nebula award), a good introduction to Nagata's work: and of course, you must read her nanotech novels.

Speaking of which, last time I was at Powell's, a couple of weeks ago, I picked up my third copy (the first two were given away a long time ago) of Deception Well, among other books, and had a chance to reflect on the fact that all of the half-dozen or so science fiction paperbacks I was getting were written by women. Coincidence? Actually, I don't think so: yet another field—traditionally male—being transformed and enhanced. Of course, there always were women in SF publishing—according to some accounts, the genre originated with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein—but they always were a minority and tending to work within fantasy rather than science fiction proper before the last 10 years or so. Not anymore: women are giving us 80% of quality, literary science fiction now. (Someday soon I'll make a list of links for y'all). For another facet of the story, one also quite dear to my geeky empirico-deductive little heart, check out Out of the Shadows: Contributions of Twentieth-Century Women to Physics.

PS: Now that I've ordered my signed copies of Nagata's books, some lucky person will inherit my current copies...they are all out of print, but not impossible to find.

Brownback's pathetic attempt at damage control

Earlier this month, Sam Brownback (a Republican presidential wannabe senator from Kansas) raised his hand when a reporter asked the potential Republican candidates if any of them "didn't believe in" evolution. Now he is back, with a New York Times op-ed, trying to clarify his point. Funnily, his attempt at damage control sounds even more ridiculous, mealy-mouthed, and irrationally pathetic than his original response. This is the intellectual level allowed for a potential candidate for themost powerful office in the world? Mind-boggling.

Let's take some of his statements:

Brownback: "The heart of the issue is that we cannot drive a wedge between faith and reason. I believe wholeheartedly that there cannot be any contradiction between the two."

This, of course, is a statement of faith and does not have a single shred of reason—in intent or execution. And the Bible is an inerrant word of God, then? What about Biblical claims about the age of the earth; its cosmological claims; its ridiculous biological claims (rabbits chewing cud (Leviticus 11:6) springs to mind, funnily)--that completely contradict the whole body of scientific evidence?

Brownback: "Faith seeks to purify reason so that we might be able to see more clearly, not less. Faith supplements the scientific method by providing an understanding of values, meaning and purpose."

Of course, this statement can only satisfy the most hardcore believer completely ignorant of advances in modern science (such as evolutionary psychology) and non-theistic ethical systems (there are many more of those than there are of "goddy" ones).

Brownback: "If belief in evolution means simply assenting to microevolution, small changes over time within a species, I am happy to say, as I have in the past, that I believe it to be true. If, on the other hand, it means assenting to an exclusively materialistic, deterministic vision of the world that holds no place for a guiding intelligence, then I reject it."

Well, that is plain bullshit. The statement about microevolution highlights the standard Creationist false dichotomy: there is no qualitative difference between micro- and macro-evolution; the latter involves quantitatively more significant changes than the former, but the process working on both is the same; really, the two terms are so confusing and misused by now that we should probably stop using them altogether (together with the whole concept of species for non-taxonomic purposes? hmm...that's an idea). In any case, the second sentence does not even talk about "evolution" per se, but rather an extremely cartoonish view of standard philosophical materialism. So Brownback apparently does not know what the word evolution, as used by science, means.

Brownback: "There is no one single theory of evolution, as proponents of punctuated equilibrium and classical Darwinism continue to feud today."

What monumental ignorance! Punk-eek and standard adaptationism are not two different theories. The underlying mechanism--natural selection--is the same in both of them. The arguments are about contingency, rate and tempo, not about the basics. But I suppose the point is too subtle for Brownback to understand.

Brownback: "Biologists will have their debates about man’s origins, but people of faith can also bring a great deal to the table."

Oh? And what is it? New religion-based dating methods? Hot-air theories unfounded on any empirical evidence? And he dares claim that evolutionary biologists go "beyond empirical evidence"?

I am skipping over much of what he has to say; he is diggin his own pit, and I do not have time to address the logical fallacies and misinterpretations of reality that wave their Cthulhoid tentacles from each sentence. However, here is the last paragraph:

Brownback: "While no stone should be left unturned in seeking to discover the nature of man’s origins, we can say with conviction that we know with certainty at least part of the outcome. Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science."

Okay, then. 1.If "no stone should be left unturned" in our research, how can we know anything with certainty? This idiotic sentence demonstrates three things: that Brownback has no clue about the way science works, that he does not let simple logic interfere with his sentence construction and that he has a dangerous certainty—known to some as self-righteousness—about certain aspects of reality that is a far cry from both the humility of the majority of scientists and the supposed humility of religionists.

2.The very last two sentences are truly frightening. He is saying that religion should trump science in certain questions decided a priori and that scientific process itself should be subject to religious censorship. This is not only scary, as all theocracies are scary, it is unconstitutional as well, as—also—all theocracies are.

Luckily this fundamentalist moron is not likely to even get the Republican nomination; however, just the fact that somebody of such dubious intelligence, education missing in action and ridiculous beliefs can even be considered for the office of the President of the USA bodes ill for the future of this country.

Unproductive, but somewhat flattered

I am: H.G. Wells The first major literary talent to make himself at home in the science fiction field, greatly expanding its popularity.

Which science fiction writer are you?

Back from the brink: some of the news fit to print

(including images)
In my quest for idiocy on this planet, I occasionally stumble upon truly staggering sites. Like this one: Heliocentrism is an Atheistic Doctrine. I mean...what do I mean? Words fail. Since this is a blog in support of Brownback's presidency, I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose. Please, somebody tell me this is an elaborate joke

The fact that this blog is powered by wordpress proves my long-held suspicion that even bags of hammers can learn to use good software and imitate human behaviour almost perfectly. But ye shall know them by the rocks in their heads that fall out all over the page!

Pshaw. It's got to be a troll..a spoof...a parody...the alternatives are truly horrifying to contemplate...

Since the murder of Du'a Khalil Aswad a couple of weeks ago, at least 12 more women were killed "in the name of honour" in Kurdistan. For more on the increase in violence against women in "liberated" Iraq, see here. Even a hardcore pacifist like me wants to destroy the bastards responsible. We cannot tolerate intolerance.

On an entirely lighter side, for those of you working on research papers, I give you a beautifully hilarious guide to Using the Passive Voice in Scientific Writing! Weep with laughter; I am.

Since you are already weeping, consider this: lately, Islamic countries have been at the forefront of...eh...backwardness, having had the torch passed to them by Christianity somewhat embarrassed about the failure of its own metaphysical and epistemological claims (not that they'd ever admit it...). Still...Islamic bicycles?

Yet another newsite in the immortal tradition of The Onion (yeah yeah yeah! Intelligent Falling theory!!!) and Wonkette: NewsBiscuit. My current favourite is Russua and Estonia "pretending to have computers".



Insane asylum, late night.

First inmate (shouting): "I am Napoleon!"
Second inmate: "How do you know?"
First Inmate: "Because God told me!"
Third inmate (from another room): "I did NOT!"

***
"I just don't have faith. Sorry. Can't fake it. But I'm no more angry, purposeless or immoral than the next guy. And if God invented free will then this is all His fault anyway."
--John Moore

***

Awesomeness of the week: the eruption of Tvashtar on Io:

***

New emotions identified barely in time for Summer:
requiapathy: the combination of relief and guilt that comes with the sudden realization that you no longer miss a dead loved one.

seprudity: the feeling of appreciating a coworker's dedication without fully understanding his or her job function.

trepatiousness: a synthesis of rage and jealousy, though more muted and often accompanied by a sensation of weightlessness.

(from The Onion, of course)

When I get to Mars, I'm going spelunking: Possible cave entrances on Mars
Seven dark spots seen in Mars Odyssey THEMIS images could be the entrances to underground caves on Mars. The researchers who identified these caves have given them the following names:
Dena (-6.084 N, 239.061 E)
Chloe (-4.926 N, 239.193 E)
Wendy (-8.099 N, 240.242 E)
Annie (-6.267 N, 240.005 E)
Abbey & Nikki (-8.498 N, 240.349 E)
Jeanne (-5.636 N, 241.259 E)
Credit: NASA / JPL / U. Arizona / G. Cushing et al. 2007


Also, All (known) objects in the Solar System larger than 200 miles in diameter. (Yes, I live in the USA, it's 321.8688 km...;))

Dumbo Octopus: naturally, with a name like that, it is fittingly and thoroughly lovable:

Did you know that GoogleMaps has a Mars option? I didn't, but now I do, and am happy.;)

Some sheer brilliance from GrrlScientist: To Be a Good Republican You Must Believe...

And, finally, a short and insignificant list of the very few minor, innocent and irrelevant mistakes made by the Bush administration. Enjoy!

The idiocy of the month

...and the winner is...Educate-Yourself: the most ludicrous collection of pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo I have seen in a long time. From the "global warming myth"--to "monoatomic gold" (as opposed to what? complex gold molecules?;))--to "chemtrails"--to anti-vaccination propaganda--this site has it all, stated with absolute certainty which is always a sign of an idiotic charlatan. I was especially impressed with the ongoing appeals to the education of its readers. Apparently, all those evil governmental conspiracies can only convince those sadly lacking the knowledge of science (physics, biology, etc). By that measure, I must be a victim of mind-control, since the subjects that I am familiar with--mainly evolutionary biology, planetary science and physics in general (astrophysics in particular)--are so mangled as to appear unrecognizable in all the drivel.

Indeed, we live in a democracy, and the WWW has no rules, which is a good thing. But I wonder about people duped by this freakish and dangerous bullshit: what happens if somebody denies the benefits of polio vaccination to their child because they were convinced by this site that it--far from helping--will increase their child's risk of cancer? Can they sue when the said child is crippled by the disease? I hope so.

I certainly have not seen that much m/disinformation and bullshit all stuck together in one location in a long time. After half an hour, I gave up in disgust, finding not a single word of veracity here. I wonder if I should charge them for my time...;)

Eh, just passing time...

Yet another dead horse begging to be flogged

Earlier, I had an opportunity to expres my dislike of von Mises' ideas. Now, after persevering for a further couple of weeks and reading a dozen or more of his essays, I have finally given up in disgust.

Some salient points:

a.Mises' insistence on the benevolent nature of laissez-faire would have been suspicious even back when he was writing the said essays: he must have been aware of the excesses of the American Gilded Age, which was, arguably, the closest this society has ever been to laissez-faire conditions. Now, with the inevitable result of the markets' being taken over by an authoritarian segment of the population (which continue to pay at least lip-service to Mises' ideas), it is ridiculous. (Mises' followers would insist that the conditions of true laissez-faire have never obtained; in that their thinking is curiously religious and close to the Marxian insistences that the true conditions for communism have never obtained. Both are right, to a degree; both are irrational).

b.Mises' deep inegalitarianism has nothing to do with anarchism, and is, really, deeply offensive to one like me who is a staunch believer in democracy and legal equality and, at least, an attempt to approximate political equality. (Social equality is something else entirely).

c.Mises' ignorance of ecology is, perhaps forgivable: he was writing before the science had really taken off. But certain warning signs were visible already: Carson's book was published during Mises' lifetime and he could have checked it out. But the overwhelming majority of economists (with the exceptions, as earlier noted, of Schumacher and Daly) are woefully ignorant of ecology and the concept of closed system most likely is meaningless to them. Mises' ignorance of biology and evolutionary theory (except for the useful--to him--canard of social darwinism) is less excusable. Modern synthesis was at full swing during the 40's and the 50's when a lot of these essays were produced, and he should not have been unaware of the evolutionary implications on human behaviour.

d.Finally, his attempts at metaphysics and ethical systems are--and I am not going to try to write a 200-page treatise on the subject--laughable.

Interestingly, while claiming the wrongness of Marxian and Keynesian ideas of economic development (I find much of interest in both, with quite a few reservations), Misesians are so completely blind to the failures of their own founder's philosophy that the whole Austrian school is revealed as a religious enterprise that it is.

Sorry. Well, not really. Utter shite. Even Engels is better....;)

Questions Schmestions: part 1

Some people inhabiting this planet--by all accounts, an overwhelming majority--are suffering from an (obviously) widespread but deadly disorder: an incapacity to ask questions. Now how this dangerous malady arises we do not know. Some say it is a genetic mutation, but I find that idea hard to agree with: how would something of such negative survival value, that decreased one's fitness so thoroughly, spread throughout whole populations (I could be wrong about its fitness value, of course)? It is more likely that the root of the disease is nurtural, children being taught by (occasionally) well-meaning parents that all the questions in the universe have already been answered (all the ones worth asking, anyway), and that they (the parents) hold all the answers and will reveal them to the child as time goes by. An attempt to think for oneself is then treated as a rebellion against one's parents and crushed ruthlessly. (Crushing anti-parental rebellions does, actually increase the parent's fitness value somewhat, making sure that their offspring respect them and care for them during their old age. Even if the chances of siring more children at that age are low, they are not zero--especially for men, and because of that, fathers would seem to tend to be more authoritarian than mothers).

In any case, since all the questions have already been answered, the gleeful offspring skips along the road of life rarely stopping to consider that the path they are following may, indeed, be thew wrong one. What's more, since different parents teach their offspring different answers to the same questions, they are often at cross-purposes. But because they do not know how to ask, they assume that everyone else thinks about the world the same way that they do, leading to endless confusion and strife. Also, those in possession of all answers often believe that their omniscience gives them the right–no, the duty–to tell everybody else what to do and how to go about doing it.

The majority of such people would be called religious, although some atheists may fall into that category.

They constitute a clear and present danger to all the rest of us, to the survival of not only of civilization, but human species itself along with the majority of other organisms inhabiting this planet. They must be stopped. They must be taught the value of questioning. But how? Since blind faith and unquestioning belief are, statistically, more likely to take one somewhat further along the road of, at least, material riches (the questioners dawdle trying to decide which is the right thing to do, while the believers happily skip ahead, often falling off precipices, but, overall, achieving more than those who only contemplate the universe, awed by the infinity of choices). The time to act is now! Undecided people of the world: questioners, doubters, disbelievers, all you disobedient, incompliant, obstreperous ones, UNITE! We must do something before life (as we know it) is stamped into oblivion by idiots and radical religionists in positions of power (or out of it: in this century, one no longer needs political power to destroy huge amounts of life). What are we do to?;)

Von Mises' thought is 32+ loads of manure

After much resistance and soul-searching, I went ahead and checked Ludwig von Mises' "Economic Freedom and Interventionism" from the PDX library. Even one's ideological opponents must have at least some interesting thoughts and an occasional valid point, I thought.

Not so. Granted, this is my initial impression, after reading only 5 of the 47 essays contained therein; but really, judging upon the (lack of) ideas found therein, I wonder if I should continue.

Maybe I am too demanding: expecting actual logical arguments and impartial statements from the branch of human knowledge (economics) that has always been the domain of many hot winds and little clarity, depth, or predictive value. But, after all, Galbraith and Keynes (hah! I suppose my true colours are showing now!;)) did manage to produce statements of substance. Von Mises does nothing of the kind. Especially funny are his older essays, which confidently state facts that we (now) know to be complete bullshit. "The Agony of the Welfare State" devotes considerable rhetorical efforts to ridiculing progressive taxation and public ownership of general utilities: two of the economic measures that have withstood the test of time and may actually be among the very few benign aspects of economic interventionism.

Of course, I have always been suspicious of claims that the entirety of human interaction can be reduced to economics, especially since neither the processes of human consciousness nor the exact processes of the market have been worked out in a satisfactory manner . (In a way, these kinds of claims are similar to the (in)famous Penrose conflation: human consciousness is mysterious; quantum mechanics also mysterious; therefore, human consciousness must be quantum in nature. If you do not see the logical fallacy here, you should not be reading this. So with Mises).

Maybe I shall find something of substance later: after all, I have just started reading the damn thing, and I am certain, I shall finish it, like I do all books, whether disgusted, enthralled or something in between by them. But, so far, my progress report must be rather dismal (like the field of study itself :)): Von Mises was full of shit; and his defenders and followers are even more so, since he has been blatantly shown to be wrong about those--admittedly few--subjects I have had the misfortune to see his thought upon. Not unlike old-school Stalinists and Maoists they claim to see the perfection in the pile of manure that is the legacy of a given thinker. Blah. This is the kind of writing that claims to be rich in deep thoughts, philosophy even, while being nothing but a series of empty assertions. Not dissimilar to theology, and just as pretentious. (That said, I am sure he was a great dinner-n-drinking conversationalist and companion).

Forgive me for ranting; now I must go back and actually read some more. My punishment is certain: a day off reading this and, maybe some Evola!!!! At least, I have some tensor analysis to look forward to. Am I a masochist? One wonders.

A slight increase in gusher temperature

As usual, Jon Swift has the best POV on the attorney firing scandal. As usual, conservative blogs have the most ridiculous twaddle (i.e. Clinton/Reno fired all attorneys in 1993, Bush fired 7 now, what's the big deal? A: well, the big deal is, of course, that usually the incoming administration reappoints a whole bunch of civil servants, including, yes, federal prosecutors. That's part of the job. However, midterm firings that are motivated solely by political pursuits, allowed by a little-known provision of the most egregious document ever to be pushed through legislature (y'know, the Patriot Act--do read it, it'll make you better than almost any member of the Senate or the Congress, and, likely, more informed than Mr Bush himself, who obviously doesn't read that much: he once said that he couldn't remember what his favourite book was as a child, because, y'know, he just "wasn't that much into books"), and, basically, contingent upon the said attorneys' failure to pass the loyalty test to the administration, are a different beast entirely, neither donkey nor elephant, but more of an ebola virus. As (almost) everything this administration does, the whole things stinks of corruption, cronyism and incompetence. Amazing, really).

Shaking a stick at all those lovely images

An amazing volcanic plume on Io, taken by the New Horizons probe during its flyby of Jupiter. Tvashtar--the volcano responsile for this beaut--is your standard sulfuric volcano, and the plume is about 290 km long. Two other plumes are visible.

And here we have a nice shot of an Einstein Cross. A quasar (QSO2237+0305) is behind a spiral galaxy the gravity of which bends its light, making it appear in four different places! A gravitational funhouse mirror. Both objects are quite far, although the galaxy is much closer to us than the quasar: redshift 0.04 vs 1.7.

Some wonderful space art, including extraterrestrial planets (about which, more later), lives at Nova Celestia.

I am going to attempt to produce one little column on the current work in my astronomical pet interests--which as of now include the search for terrestrial extrasolar planets and astrobiology--once a week, probably on Monday or Tuesday. Hold me to it. Meanwhile, I should really sleep.

Happy Half-C to a Certain Pharyngular Luminary

Happy birthday to PZ Myers, the scourge of creationism and invertebrologer extraordinaire! A semicentennial of poetry, and while many people, including Dawkins have contributed, I think that my favourite poem comes courtesy of Evolution Blog. Well...with a little help from EAP into the bargain...

Islam, for one...

How My Eyes Were Opened to the Barbarity of Islam ...a fascinating article. Tomorrow, so you may not think that I am biased, Christianity. I'll deal with them one at a time, thank you very much.

This article was reposted from Richard Dawkins's blog, and if you are not subscribing to it yet, WTF???

Back to the Dark Ages part 73

A new report--sad and troubling, yet essential--has been issued by the International News Safety Institute. Over 1000 journalists/media workers have died "trying to cover the news around the world in the past 10 years", with almost 70% being murdered, only one in four during war or other armed conflicts, and the majority in peacetime, in their own home countries. I have a particular interest in this, since the country with which I still associate myself rather closely, despite living elsewhere--Russia--holds the dubious distinction of being the second in the number of deaths, after Iraq (!)
Most of the murderers are never arrested, much less convicted, creating what INSI calls the "atmosphere of impunity": if you don't like what somebody is saying about you or your organization in the press, well...just kill them. This is an attack on free speech, democracy (in the true, non-Bushite sense of the word) and I, for one, am seriously troubled. The full report is available here; and the text of the UN Resolution 1738, on journalist safety, here.

Dates and places

I am now a proud member of the Atheist Blogroll (see to the right and below). Shall we overcome? I should hope so...

And, just ion case you were not aware, this year marks the 50 anniversary of the International Geophysical Year as well as of Space Age. We get to party all year long, celebrating that damn tiny Sputnik 1, and then, on Oct 4th, we're going to have fireworks!

Peels of uncontrollable laughter

News item of the month, at least!

And, in an entirely unrelated piece of news, I took the bloody online IQ test (hey, I am 144...I suppose it isn't so bad considering the punishments I had inflicted on my brain cells over the last 15 or so years), which took me to ADHD test, which would have confirmed what I think is the case with my brain had I only been able to

Something to be proud about

Pay attention, now...




(from Hypnocrites, via Pharyngula).

Midnight silliness

The language of "awards" really should not apply to these...Pretty bloody disgusting.

Oh Saturday! Lazy Saturday!

Metablog Sabbath strikes again:

This video is incredible: a mind-blowing view of the Moon's transit of the Sun, shot in UV by STEREO craft. Far out! Especially the sunspots, which appear bright at these wavelengths.

Also, one of the most consistently fascinating blogs around: John Wilkins on the ontology vs metaphysics of emergent properties.

And, International Polar Year has just begun. With luck, I'll get to go to Ellesmere Island for a few fascinating weeks. Or Greenland. Oh well.

Curiosity seems to be...umm...curiously;) absent from the users of Cure Zone--one of the woo-centrals on the web, and quite a hilarious place in its own right. Anyway, this is the their atheism FAQ. Hmmm...I guess they just don't care. I should post something there soon...

And don't forget about Ann Coulter and Conservative humour! (I cannot claim authorship, but the word "coultergeist" has been seen on several sites; I am impressed).

last Week's eye candy

This week we've had a chance to see some awesome visuary: first, the Rosetta flyby of Mars which produced some absolutely gorgeous images, like this one; then new shots from Cassini, which is orbiting Saturn at high inclination and is able to take pictures of its poles from the perspectives inaccessible from Earth, such as this gorgeous shot, or this one; and also New Horizons Jupiter flyby: that bloody thing is damn fast: at Jupiter already, and launched only a little over a year ago! Bloody eye candy! Feast your eyes before someone else feasts on them, I say.

On the more troubling front, the question of the week seems to be, Are Christians Unamerican? ;)
No need to add anything to aforelinked analysis; pretty scary.

Speaking of eye candy, my 'hawk has gotten very long and very thin after being whittled away for the last 2.5 years, and I finally decided to take it off this Sunday. Hair-off day! I shall drink and run around my house with clippers, making some kind of a fucked-up ritual of it.

I've been eating them for six or seven weeks now , haven't got sick once

So, occasionally I meet a rational religious person and have an interesting conversation/debate and walk away unconvinced by their arguments--of course--but, at least, feeling that they should have the right to hold their opinions and promote them in peace. And then, right about then, some asshole like Jerry Falwell pipes up and says that global warming is Satan's tool and that Christians should not concern themselves with it because God will take care of Earth until the Second Coming and I just want to...want to...

Such idiocy is not just, ahem, idiotic. It is positively dangerous and detrimental to society, just like the moronic Moslem concepts of heaven and jihad are dangerous and detrimental. This is why Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Victor Stenger call for active intellectual opposition to religious garbage in general; no matter how insipid, religious--i.e. unfounded subjective--belief of any kind protects and supports violent fringe garbage of Falwellian/Wahhabian type. Karl Popper said that our tolerance of different points of view should not extend to those philosophies that are violently intolerant of others. Damn straight.

It's bloody amazing: we cannot medicate ourselves or get a hooker in most places, but we can spout such trash without fear of legal repercussions just because we claim religious protection. Fuck that. I am done being friendly to bigoted idiots (unprejudicedly so, even without extreme prejudice...;)).


On the third hand, printable cold sores is rather funny, in a sickening sort of way.

Naturally, I wouldn't be fulfilling my contract with the universe if I didn't point you to yet another fascinating blog: Molecule of the Day. Check it out: today's entry, chlorogenic acid!

An OH! YES!

her face was an ell broad and her teeth were about the same size

There has been a crop of beautiful books on atheism and the stupidity of ID/creationism over the last six months or so. The God Delusion, the new edition of Atheist Universe, Letter to a Christian Nation, God: The Failed Hypothesis, Why Darwin Matters, Why Intelligent Design Fails, The Counter-Creationism Handbook, and others (!)

In any case, some of these books have been constituting my reading material while I take the bus to work each bloody morning and back each exhausted evening...Finally, someone at work asked me, with a slightly offended air, if I only was ever interested in one side of the argument and whether that did not constitute an indication of a closed mind on my part. That was funny. But, honestly, of course I read the opposition. I've read Phillip Johnson and laughed. I read Duane Gish and fell out of my chair, weeping with merriment. Their kind perform a useful purpose: they lift up our spirits by showing how perfectly idiotic humans can be; they ignore science, misrepresent its conclusions, come up with their own rather strange philosophical concepts and generally spend their time standing in the corner blocking their ears with their hands and shouting "Nyaah Nyaahh I can't hear you". Very funny.

I knew that that wasn't the kind of response my questioner wanted to hear, but what the hell? OK: I've read Behe and Dembski, and they weren't even really funny, although they also committed most of the aforementioned fallacies. They just did it in a very self-importantly aggrandazing and serious way. Those two are difficult to laugh at, but, really, their suggestions have been debunked rather thoroughly: just for starters, a whole bunch of articles are here. Easy enough.

But what about "sophisticated" theology? Well, indeed. Just finished reading Haught's Deeper Than Darwin, and am now plodding through McGrath's Twilight of Atheism. But not on the bus!!! See, I want something fun on the bus, and since I do not find appeals to revelation and subjectivity convincing and informal logical fallacies of various stripes no longer even make me very angry, McGrath would just put me right to sleep (in fact, if it were less generally unpleasant, I'd be reading this kind of material before going to bed: gently relaxing one's critical faculty and helping one shut off one's brain). Haught is a bit more contentful, but even so, if that is the best that "sophisticated" theology can throw at us, we are not in any trouble (logically, anyway). Nobody but believers would be convinced by any of the arguments therein; books like that serve only as a confirmation, a support of sorts: see, somebody out there thinks like you do, you are not alone, we can make silly errors and be confused together.

Blecch. Today, however, no such fun. My bus reading will consitute papers on evolution of photosynthesis and possible detection of such in extrasolar planetary atmospheres. Hey: it may not be funny, but it will be exciting!