Over at the Panda's Thumb, the trolls are - as usual - in full force, bollocking on about how "Darwinism" (name for "evolution") is either imminently doomed or dying a slow death, thanks to the relentless march of creationism or ID or cdesign propentsistism or whatever it's being called these days to get it past the Constitution.

On a thread about the new Tennessee education law and its implications for evolution education, I left the following as a general comment on the "Teach both sides" issue.

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Teach both sides? Let the kids "decide"?

Sure.

In history class, in civics, in philosophy - let's do just that.

Let's teach kids how creationists operate and let them "decide" what to do with that information. We can teach:

• how they portray evolution not as a description of observed reality and the bedrock of biological science which informs everything from genetics to medicine to epidemiology to pharmacology, etc (a place it has earned through repeated confirmation, not by authoritative declaration or popular vote) but as a crucial part of some "godless" lefty philosophy out to harm the country or lead their kids away from Jesus
• how they routinely lie and conceal their true motives in order to circumvent the law and have creationism inserted into science (the very label "Intelligent Design" itself, the entirety of the DI's public actions, Dover)
• how they purposely misquote, quote out of context or partially quote scientists up to and including Darwin himself (and anyone, really, as long as they're perceived to have some kind of authority) in order to cast doubt on evolutionary theory
• how they manufacture a controversy about evolutionary theory's validity by magnifying small differences in scientific opinion over currently uncertain, highly specific evolutionary mechanisms while ignoring the overwhelming consensus among scientists that evolutionary theory is true
• how they jump on any misleading or just poorly-written science article in the mainstream media in order to claim that evolution is a "theory in crisis" or "on its last legs"
• how they inevitably misread and misrepresent actual scientific research in any way they can in order to cast what they see as doubt on evolution
• how they constantly conflate Darwinian evolution with "social Darwinism", a eugenicist philosophy that would have appalled Darwin and which is, in any event, the antithesis of Darwinian natural selection
• how they portray acceptance of evolution as "dogmatic" and admiration of Darwin as "worship"; more than likely projecting their own authoritarian and irrational methods of thought onto others
• how they constantly claim "conspiracy" or "oppression" or "inhibition of free speech" every time a creationist or creationist group is called on their unconstitutional or inappropriate behaviour or their lack of judgement (Coppedge, Freshwater, Ahlquist)
• how they constantly refuse (both ID'ers and YES creationists) to perform a whit of actual scientific work in order to produce a single datum in support of their theory; how they seem to think that saying "that's too complex to have evolved" counts as a legitimate critique
• how they say things like "microevolution doesn't lead to macroevolution", perhaps not realising that that's equivalent to saying a lit match can light a cigarette but not start a bushfire
• how they bray and crow and squawk about either the "imminent demise" of Darwinism or the "slow train" of creationist progress, even though the only progress that matters in this debate - scientific - is being made by only one side of the argument
• how they concentrate on PR and legal and legislative "victories" without performing - or even attempting to perform - any actual science to back up their claims (which suggests that they may know, at some level, that science does not and will not provide that backup)
• how they almost universally perform the false equation of evolution with atheism - "atheism" of course being a creationist/Far Right dog-whistle that can mean anything up to and including (and any combination of): Hitler, Stalin, Nazism, fascism, socialism, communism, promiscuity, amorality, moral nihilism, pacifism, hedonism, masturbation, paganism, pre-marital or non-procreative sex, homosexuality, video games and probably electric guitars, carbonated drinks and open sandwiches

And that's just what I've noticed on PT in the short amount of time I've been visiting.

There are more than enough examples of all the behaviour listed above (and more I haven't thought of) to make a very interesting Creationism: History and Tactics syllabus.

So let's do it: let's teach both sides. Let's teach science, then we can balance that and teach creationism - with all the detail we can muster.

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Somehow, I don't think creationists would like it if kids were taught everything they need to know about creationism.

\m/

In Tennesse, USA, a bill has been passed requiring that state school science teachers teach the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolutionary theory (among other things). There's a few days before the governor signs it into law, but it probably will be. It may sound inncocuous and even redundant, considering competent science curricula will always address "strengths and weaknesses" in anything being discussed, if it's appropriate to do so.

However, American creationist fundamentalists have a problem with science as it's normally taught: they don't like that God doesn't get a look-in. However, the US Constitution expressly forbids state endorsement or establishment of any religion, which would make the presentation of creationist viewpoints illegal in a public school. This creates a problem for creationists: how do we get our religious point of view into a classroom where it's illegal (and unnecessary)?

The answer of course is not to do any science to support that viewpoint, present it and have it accepted by the scientific community (I think even science-hating creationists know that there's no science that supports the Genesis narrative as factual - that could be why they hate science so much). No, the first step is to cosy up to sympathetic school board members (who are usually elected officials and not required to have any knowledge or expertise in education or any particular subject) and then to sympathetic legislators who can sponsor a bill talking about the aforementioned "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution (it's always evolution, of course - never plate tectonics or the carbon cycle or star formation or anything in physics or chemistry). Of course, it helps to have the backing of a transparently creationist think-tank like the Discovery Institute, who have been behind numerous infamous creationist attempts to impose themselves on other peoples' children, the most recent from 2004 in Pennsylvania and being known today simply, as "Dover".

Over at Panda's Thumb, this has generated (as usual) considerable debate and prompted to vent my frustration in the following comment (which was also reproduced in this thread), posted in response to another poster's question:

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apokryltaros said:

I mean, seriously, why is it that these people can not explain why it is necessary to make legislation to force “discussion” of allegedly controversial topics in science education, even though the aforementioned controversial topics are not controversial in science to begin with?

mandrellian said:

You probably know all this, but for the creationist cultists, this kind of legislation is necessary precisely because it’s the only option they have left to wedge creationism into the learning time of other peoples’ children - especially after Dover ruled that even the milquetoast creationism of ID was an obvious and hasty, shoddy and failed attempt to de-deify creationism and therefore unconstitutional. However, all this cult learned from Dover is that they should couch their language a little better.

Convincing a bunch of gomer school board members and redneck-pandering legislators into introducing and supporting these bills is the only way they can get their cultish idiocy into classrooms. Painting evolution as a “scientific controversy” (when, as you implied, it’s the exact opposite) not only gives it a veneer of respectability in the first instance to those who might not be very knowledgable, it also appeals to peoples’ notions of fairness, gives the instigators plausible deniability when accusations of cultish sectarianism inevitably surface and even lets people like DI mouthpieces and their various trolls the opportunity to moan about censorship if and when their bills are quashed.

It’s just another front for these people in the Culture War that they started, along with sex ed, birth control and gay civil rights. They can’t stand that their religious hegemony is over and kids are being taught facts by educated people, instead of obedience by priests, and that facts lead kids away from their cult - even if those kids stay Christian. They don’t care that they already have their churches, homes, Bible camps, private Bible study groups, campus Christian groups (yes, they exist), US currency, the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Prayer Breakfasts and innumerable other venues and activities that worship and honour their god publicly and loudly - they want everything. That includes the entire apparatus of state, from the Oval Office to the humble public school up the street (in the shape of Dubya Bush, they had the OO for 8 years - look how that turned out for everyone). Their ignorance and foolishness and misplaced priorities are matched only by their hunger for power, their arrogance and their amazing ability to act persecuted and wounded by secular America, even as they hold the keys to the kingdom. They don’t care about education, precisely because they know education leads people away from ancient codes of absolute obedience and towards reason. They don’t care about fairness - the US is equally fair to all sorts of religions and sects and cults but creationist activists aren’t content to share the space. Finally, they don’t care about both sides because, to them, the only two sides are God’s and the wrong one. They, in their ridiculous, ignorant pride and their hubris, think they know what their God wants better than their fellow believers (and therefore better than their fellow Americans) and will do anything - including flat-out lie to the country they profess to love - to impose that will on everyone else.

The trolls here are simply too stupid and ignorant to realise that they live in probably the perfect country in which to belong to whatever sect they want (or had thrust upon them). However, they’re also too childish and greedy to realise they have all they need in order to worship freely and honour their gods as they wish. But freedom of religion isn’t enough; they want nothing less than to own the country, lock stock and barrel.

They’re also too shortsighted to realise that if their most fevered dreams of Christian fundamentalist theocracy came to fruition (and by some miracle didn’t wake Jefferson and Paine and Adams from their graves), it’d only be a matter of time before some other sect took the reins from them - in our lifetimes, for example, predominantly Catholic Hispanics are going to outnumber white Protestants in the US. And look out, kids, the more Arab countries you bomb and the more Arab monarchies you suck up to, the more Muslim escapees and refugees you’re going to get.

Best-case scenario: the trolls-for-Jesus realise they’ve got it as good as it gets in this world, suck it the hell up and enjoy their lives.
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And that, in an admittedly large nutshell,  is my problem with fundie evangelist anti-science creationists. They simply aren't content to live and let live, to take advantage of the near-absolute religious freedom their country gives them, to worship using all the venues and methods currently available, to homeschool or privately school their kids, to keep their faith between them and their god and their families and fellow believers and have that all be sufficient. They want everyone to bow their knee to their version of their god - because they know what that god wants and will do whatever it takes to see his will done.

But they know, thanks to science's clear preference for facts, evidence and plausibility and to the secular US Constitution, that they don't have a look-in scientifically. So they try to outflank science and reason and come in sideways, via the courts and via legislators - wasting the time and resources of everyone concerned, just like Scopes in 1923, just like Dover in 2004 and just like every other time in between.

Why? With all the freedom US creationists have to teach their own children whatever they want, why do they then demand that their narrow sectarianism be imposed on other peoples' children? What's wrong with church, home, Bible study, Jesus camp, campus groups, public evangelism? I suppose they need a captive audience.

And they wonder why people laugh at America, when people that support measures like these are currently running for the highest office in the land.

After watching The Atheist Experience #745 I had cause to leave this at their blog during a Big Bang discussion:

If the Big Bang Theory was ever discovered to be wrong or false and/or was superseded by evidence for an intelligent creator, that would still be a very long way from hard proof for some sect's particular version of their god, or even for a supernatural creator at all.

Indeed, if evidence for a creator was ever discovered but didn't quite spell out who or what the creator was, we on Earth would most probably have to suffer another two thousand years of fucking theists duking it out via jihad, inquisition and crusade over whose petty little god had actually done the creating and about what opinions it holds on anal sex, all the while dragging the rest of us hapless bastards along with them.

Hell, considering how much havoc they've managed to wreak since the Iron Age based on no evidence at all, just think how much carnage they'd be able to cause based on the tiniest little sniff of proof (as they'd interpret it) for their god-who-hates-as-they-do. Factor in modern weaponry and we might not have to wait 5 billion years for the sun to go nova and carbonise the Earth.

A scary prospect indeed. Theists managed to do quite enough damage with just swords and fire when they controlled the world; I shudder at the prospect of a 21st century fundie Crusader with nukes and hard-on for Armageddon. North Korea is scary enough and religion there is more or less confined to worshipping dead heads of state.

Of course I realise conquest and ultra-violence isn't confined to religious crusaders; merciless yurt-dwelling lord of Asia Genghis Khan hardly has a reputation as a god-warrior and the formation and expansion of the British Empire was more or less ruthless and opportunistic exploitation of less technologically-advanced societies (though the side-effects of British missionary work - especially on children - are well-known enough not to require further discussion). But I'm sure you'd agree that if you were to magically remove the specifically religiously-justified instances of violence and repression from the history of the world, our world would be vastly different place. There are the obvious examples like the Islamic invasions of Europe and subsequent revenge Crusades and the Inquisitions and witch-hunts. Consider, though, the assaults on scientific inquiry and technology as exemplified by the Dark Ages (a more appropriate term for a religiously-dominated epoch I've never heard) and which continued until the Renaissance and the Enlightenment dragged humanity back towards looking at things and understanding them as they are, as best we can and not through God-goggles. Though not as obviously brutal and destructive to life and property as all-out war, the stifling of innocent inquiry has very probably had immeasurable negative effects on science and technology; on knowledge in general. The record of the Vatican alone in oppressing scientific inquiry is shameful and inexhaustible; we all know it took them them 400 years to apologise to Galileo, who committed the heinous sin of being right.

We're still dealing with the same attitudes today, with fundamentalists across the globe railing against scientific facts as hard as they can, seemingly terrified that if children learn how things actually are, they'll leave the faith of their parents in droves (which they already are, but not just because of science - lies, shame, bigotry and hatred also have the odd effect of turning people off your message). Thankfully they don't have nearly as much power as they used to (not in the West anyway - unfortunately Islamic theocracies are all-too-common elsewhere and Christian brutality hasn't been extinguished wholesale either); here's hoping they never will and their influence, both on governments and children alike, continues to fade into insignificance. Where it belongs.

White Wine In The Sun, Tim Minchin

Though I'm more likely to be drinking Coopers Ale this Chrisbo, this song chokes me up every single time.

Have a good one.

It's just not officially the festive season until the ninjabread men drop silently from the Existmas tree, gut all the troubles of the old year and disappear in a cloud of crumbs.

Larry and Sarah
by: mandrellian


I made this video a year ago and although Palin's 2012 dreams are now dust, I think it still works - just swap her for any Republican candidate still in the running ...

Originally posted on the Ides of March 2009

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Muffins and the end of innocence

“Did you know there’s totally science behind muffins? Totally ruined muffins for me.”
Ah, the wisdom of youth. That particularly large & shiny pearl came from a blazered private school girl of perhaps 15 who I was standing next to (almost on top of) on my Connex-brand cattle-truck - I mean, “train” - this morning. Girl Student (henceforth “GS”) was bemoaning the fact that in her cooking class her teacher explained that the release of carbon dioxide during the cooking process was responsible for the rising of muffins and for the tiny little pockets of air that end up being formed in all things baked. So, in response to this new but unwanted & unwelcome knowledge, GS now proclaims her hatred for - or at least new found apathy toward - the little round cakes she used to love.

Naturally, her comment got me thinking. Does GS approach every mundane mystery in her life in such a manner? Would she disavow Myspace if she figured out that barely any of those seventeen thousand and eighty-four “friends” of hers actually qualified for such a title? Would she stop catching the train if she knew a tad more about electricity? What if she found out what keeps planes in the air? Sweet flaming crikey, no more summer trips to the Whitsundays then (probably a good thing, it’d totally suck to find out how that big hot disc in the sky is making you slightly darker). Safer stuck at home I guess, with just the TV/Wii/Blu-Rayer/microwave/mobile phone for company … on the other hand, perhaps not. Perhaps all those modern wonders are just a fresh crop of parades waiting to be stripped of their brilliance by the acid rain of knowledge. You never know what awful, awful knowledge might leach into your brain if you sit on the remote and accidentally switch to the Discovery Channel.

However, I’m willing to give GS the benefit of the doubt. After all, when you’re 15 you’re really just on the on-ramp to true sentience and mental independence. You’re just starting to simultaneously figure out & shape both who you are and who you’re going to be. Too much info all at once at such a critical time can confuse you and make your brain seize up and annoy the crud out of you - even if the forbidden knowledge is just a three-second soundbite revealing the awful truth about your favourite cake. I do, however, wonder what she thought made muffins rise before she had her world shattered by learning of just one function of one of the planet’s most common gases. How about muffin gnomes? Well, that just raises more questions than it answers, such as “where do they go once they’ve carved all those little air-pockets?” and “why do some muffins collapse in the middle? Have we displeased the gnomes?”

It’s not just brand new adults who think this way. People who have been adults for many, many years and who’ve developed a more relaxed & accepting attitude toward baking employ precisely the same “don’t spoil it for me” attitude toward other important mysteries of the universe as GS does toward her once-beloved treat. We’ve all met such people. Perhaps we’ve even been them at some point or we’re likely continuing to be them even as we speak! Perhaps I shouldn’t spell things out though, so as to avoid offending anyone’s cherished personal beliefs with regard to important questions as “how do magicians saw girls in half anyway?” or “why do I always beat that guy who seems to live at the bar at 8-ball the first time, but never the second? What does he do with all my money?”

There is a point here, folks. The point is this: I believe wholeheartedly that in most cases it’s better to learn the truth than live in ignorance. Of course, I concede that it doesn’t actually matter to most people the precise scientific process that’s going on in a rising muffin. Even so, once you find out, why resist it? Why choose to loathe muffins because you learned something new about them? How exactly does learning about carbon dioxide spoil your enjoyment of a muffin? Well, I suppose the simple & short answer to that is that it shouldn’t. But that’s not an answer, because learning the facts behind an everyday something really does spoil a lot of things for a lot of people. My actual answer would be that some beliefs about the world are sacred to a lot of people and that they invest a lot of themselves in those beliefs. Beliefs can be as intertwined with someone’s self-worth as their physical appearance or occupation or the car they drive, so if anything comes along that challenges a particular belief (or simple in-hindsight preference to have remained ignorant of a particular truth, in the case of Girl Student), it can be painful to hear and elicit an almost autonomic fight-or-flight response. In such cases, the believer in whatever-it-is can clap their hands over their ears in denial or arc up and start fighting back, shooting the messenger and perhaps even accusing them of some kind of hate crime for daring to share new knowledge or an opinion contrary to their cherished version of the truth. Taking such personal offense at a disagreement or contradictory evidence is inevitable when you’re dealing with strong personal feelings about how certain things are or, at least, how you think they should be.

But whether it’s regarding muffins, microwaves or mammoths, I believe it’s generally better for you, me & us to know the truth about anything & everything than to not know. If you’re labouring under the false assumption that gnomes carve air-pockets in muffins, that your husband is faithful and loves you (even when he goes out every other night without explanation and returns smelling of perfume and sweat and perhaps other fluids), that the dinosaurs were all peaceful vegetarians and were ridden as mighty steeds by early humans (and that every single branch of science which studies them - and that every single other branch which intersects with and confirms the discoveries of, um, dinosaurology - is completely & utterly wrong) then there are probably several other areas in your life where you’re totally kidding yourself. But look: maybe that pain in your chest isn’t indigestion. Maybe the cheque isn’t the mail. Maybe that ex-government minister from Nigeria doesn’t really want you to help him embezzle millions from his government (but he sounds so earnest, and his tenuous grasp of English is really quite endearing! That should be enough to draw anybody into massive intercontinental fraud!). Maybe you and I and GS (and everyone else - I don’t believe for a second that there isn’t one person in the world who isn’t kidding themselves about something) should just accept that all our beliefs about everything - even those we think are based on the most solid & objective evidence - are transitory, only waiting for that one piece of contradictory evidence to send them to the scrapheap.

Because, after all, I’m typing this post as our planet spins through the ether on the back of a magic tortoise, and don’t you dare poop my party.

 The old "religion is the source of morality" chestnut is one that's been polished so often by religious and non-religious commentators alike that it's difficult to find, or to say, anything by either side that hasn't been said. Nonetheless I shall summarise, in general, the popular arguments as I understand them, and elaborate on the one that appears the most plausible.

Religionists, usually theistic, proclaim that their god/s handed codes of decent behaviour to humanity; they often refer to a universal, common or even "absolute" morality among human societies, the existence of which can not be explained by any natural means. A common scriptural narrative is that humankind was created perfect, sin-free (often in their gods' image) and then rebelled (or were corrupted), bringing evil into the world which necessitated divine instruction on behaviour. Scriptures spell out precisely what we should and, very importantly, should not do and often promise reward or punishment as the particular behaviour warrants.

The reason given for the world not being a writhing morass of hedonistic lubriciousness and brutality is that our benevolent god/s have told us that such things are unacceptable if we want to attain post-mortem paradise. People who assert no religious belief but who behave morally are either lying to themselves or others and are actually religious, or are simply taking advantage of the extant religious moral code without giving proper credit to the god/s in question for imposing it in the first place. These self-described non-religious people, if genuine

Non-religionists or naturalists will counter simply by saying that they base their behaviour on how it affects others; that they are using their advanced human cognition to build on innate empathy and consideration for fellow beings; that considerate behaviour is not unique to humanity and many social organisms (not just the well-known examples of our primate & mammal cousins but fish, birds, ants & colonial microorganisms) display cooperative tendencies that benefit their group's survival. It's asserted that behaviour that benefits a group is so easy to discern and so conducive to survival that it very frequently occurs unconsciously and as such may even be passed on, at least in part, genetically (hence its prevalence); that it is a simple, undeniable, easily observed fact of nature that a group which cooperates in finding resources & providing protection will be more likely to survive & thrive, giving its members more opportunities to reproduce.

They may also mention that universal or "absolute" morality does not actually exist, as evidenced by the fact that cultures across the world and throughout history have developed innumerable disparate & even contradictory versions of what is moral & ethical (and not always from religious sources); these values have over time not only changed but even been turned completely around (indeed, this is an ongoing process with many countries still debating such things as marriage equality, capital punishment & the legality of narcotics to name but a few). They may further draw attention to the fact that other moral codes & laws existed many, many years before the religion in question even began and that to get to the point of being civilised humans at all, our comparitively less-intelligent ancestors would obviously and necessarily have had to cooperate in many different ways to survive in a world full of mortal dangers. Australopithecines and other ancient hominids, not known for the verbal or philosophical sophistication required to prescribe or codify behavior, obviously survived long enough to breed and spread and have their ancestors diverge genetically to the point where Homo Sapiens arose. This could not have happened were they mindlessly savage & looking out only for themselves as individuals; indeed, it could be persuasively argued that pure selfishness in such times was a sure way to get yourself expelled from a group and greatly increase your chance of ending up as prey. It is a simple & accepted fact of nature that there is safety in numbers. Humans are merely building on that simple fact; our abstract reasoning ability, verbal skills, memories of personal experience & empathy all allow us to exchange experiences, determine potential harm or benefits to certain behaviour & discuss what in fact "should" be considered moral.

I fall into the latter camp, the evidence for the religious explanation (based as it is on an entirely unproven assumption: the existence of ultra-powerful deities with specific desires) being virtually nil. Further, any specific religious argument for a divinely-commanded common, absolute or universal morality is easily dented or cracked wide open by referring to a different or contradictory religious moral code, or to a religious code that has simply changed over time. This can be done while still within the bounds of the faith in question; it's not necessary to even compare one faith to another. Many religions have suffered schisms and years of unimaginable sectarian violence based on differing opinions of how to interpret the same texts (and some still do). Moral issues have played no small part in these disagreements. Many people point to, for example, the hundreds or thousands of different sects just within Christianity and their sometimes wildly differing moral stances on such questions as homosexuality, divorce, abortion & euthanasia (all curiously related to peoples' private lives and personal autonomy); I maintain that the exact number of sects, while telling, isn't that important when talking of absolutes. It's sufficient to point out that there's more than one kind of Christianity in order to cast strong doubt on any claim of a "universal" or "absolute" moral code. How can there be anything even close to "absolute" if there's not even consensus among Christians?



I will not accept that a fractious group of ancient faiths have some monopoly on being kind to others and that without them we would all be awash in hedonistic carnage; indeed, I think such selfish and destructive behaviour would have seen the end of our species before it even began. Morality is not some magic spell handed to man on a silver cloud or carved into tablets; morality is what arises out of necessity from a group of organisms who need to get along or die. We've just managed to polish that instinct up a little.