Category Archives: skepticism

Atheists shrieking about the AAAS

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AAAS = The American Association for the Advancement of Science.

First, look at this:

http://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2011/webprogram/Session2878.html

Evangelicals, Science, and Policy: Toward a Constructive Engagement

Evangelical Christians constitute approximately 30 percent of the U.S. population, and their influence on public policy is considerable. As a community with major concerns regarding science, ethics, and national priorities, its impact on science policy has been particularly significant, as in the case of stem cell research. Around such controversial issues, communication between science and evangelical Christianity has been hampered by limited appreciation of both the scientific facts and each others’ concerns. On the other hand, new models of positive engagement between these communities around global issues such as climate change is encouraging awareness and leading to science policies that benefit both science and society as a whole. As science progresses in other disciplines, evangelicals will continue to play a significant role, but their positions on many of these issues have not yet been fully formed. The opportunity thus exists to anticipate concerns and to develop a positive understanding that will benefit scientific advancement. One example is neuroscience, which has implications for both policy-making and religious understanding. Speakers will discuss their experiences with stem cell and climate change policy and explore how these experiences can inform engagement between the scientific and evangelical communities to benefit policies relating both to neuroscience and to science more generally.

Do you see ANYTHING there that attacks atheism or says that atheists have no business doing science?

Responses to this by atheist fanatics have been less than rational. Here is Jerry Coyne’s take on it:

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/the-aaas-sells-out-to-christians/

No—here are the real losers: abortion doctors who are shot by evangelical Christians, women forced to bear unwanted babies because abortion is seen as sinful, gays who are either marginalized or demonized because evangelicals consider their thoughts and behaviors as sinful, children who are terrorized—and infused with lifelong guilt—by the concepts of sin and hell, women who must accept their status as a second-class gender. Even believers like Francis Collins, surely on the liberal end of the evangelical Christian spectrum, hold profoundly antiscientific beliefs.  Collins, for example, can’t see how morality could have either evolved or developed in society unless it was a creation of God, and considers the “Moral Law” as profound evidence for the existence of God.  To anyone working in anthropology or neuroscience, that claim is simply embarrassing!

The sooner that religion goes away, the sooner these ills will abate.  “Dialoguing” with evangelical Christians (and granted, not all of them hold the beliefs I’ve just mentioned) only enables superstition—a superstition that, one would think, would be resolutely opposed by a scientific organization like the AAAS.  Remember that Leshner is the CEO of that organization and the executive publisher of one of the world’s two most prestigious scientific journals.

It is not evangelical Christianity that causes anyone to shoot abortion doctors, but the worst form of hypocrisy. That sort of hyperbole from Coyne is prejudicial and disturbing. Couldn’t it be possible that rather than corrupting science, the purpose of the conference is to inform evangelicals about how science can persuade them to moderate extreme positions they otherwise might have taken?

P Z Myers seems to be playing good cop to Jerry Coyle’s bad cop.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/02/when_will_the_aaas_stop_pander.php

I don’t think Nick Matzke can even imagine what a group of secularists would find useful at AAAS — he’s projecting quite a bit, and presuming that such a session would be as one-sided and blinkered as these sessions the evangelical Christians are running. They wouldn’t. I’m as antagonistic to religion as Coyne is, maybe more so (hey, there’s another session possibility: “Atheists Roast Christianity,” where we all vie with each other to insult religion the most), but unlike what the Matzkes of the world assume, we are actually aware of the political situation.

If I were in charge of organizing such a beast, here’s what I’d look for. I’d want to have an honest religionist or philosopher/historian of religion there to give a talk on key doctrinal conflicts: what are they? How do modern Christians and Muslims and Jews resolve them? They are there, of course: there are major points like teleology in the universe and mind-body dualism that are unsupported or even contradicted by science. He wouldn’t have to endorse or oppose any of those points, but simply, clearly, explain where the conflicts lie.

I’d want someone to discuss secular approaches to school and public education. These do NOT involve teaching atheism in the schools. I’m a big fat noisy atheist myself, but when I get into the classroom to teach one of those controversial topics like evolution, my atheism is not an issue, and I don’t tell the students they have to abandon their gods to be a scientist. What the attendees at AAAS do not need is someone telling them how wonderful Christianity is; what would be useful is someone explaining how to teach honest, evidence-based science without compromising their principles, no matter what they are.

I’d want someone with political and legal expertise to discuss what the law actually says about science education. The perfect person would be someone like Barry Lynn, or Sean Faircloth, or Eddie Tabash — a person who could lay out exactly what kind of political tack scientists should take with legislators to keep the taint of religious bias out of support for science.

Actually, the atheist-run version of such a session would be what a science organization should want: instead of some half-assed stab at rapprochement with clearly unscientific, irrational, traditional metaphysics, and instead of the tribal war council the accommodationists imagine, it would be a rational discussion of how secular scientists (which would include religious scientists who are committed to keeping their beliefs out of the lab and classroom) can get their jobs done in a crazily religious country. As long as these pious zealots are left in charge, though, that’s not what we’re getting.

I can go to atheist meetings to get my rah-rah on for godlessness; people like Leshner, the organizer of the currently planned come-to-Jebus meeting, can go to church and get their idiot-ology affirmed there. An AAAS symposium ought to be actually accomplishing something for all of the members of the organization, not just the atheists and especially not just the deluded apologists under loyalty oaths who want to Christianize science.

It would seem that the only thing atheists like Coyne and Myers want with the AAAS is for religion to be mentioned only to highlight its flaws. But that’s not what science is about! Science, in its pure form, ignores all religions and their beliefs. The problem is that scientists do not practice science in its pure form and indeed, no one does…..because they are human. A person who does science and nothing else wouldn’t be human at all, but a robot with no emotions or sense of appreciation for anything non-scientific.

Religion is non-scientific, but only some expressions of religion are anti-scientific. That Coyne and Myers do not seem to understand that distinction and paint anything non-scientific as unworthy of serious discussion in major science organizations only shows their prejudice. I’d hate to see them in an art museum.

I get a stupid comment

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Someone put the most annoying comment on my blog for me to moderate, and after I read it (and rejected it) , I found his own blog and saw that his comment on mine was nothing more than a copy and paste job from one of his blog entries. Actually, the ONLY entry he made on his blog, at least so far. Here’s a link to it:

http://mysticsannonymous.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/the-making-of-a-modern-day-mystic/

You can go there to read his nonsense, but you won’t find it here. Indeed, I don’t intend to approve ANY comments from this pest.

You can write an entire novel of crap and it will still be crap, just as much as a comment of only one or two sentences that are stupid. If you cannot deal with the actual issues I raised about the Baha’i Faith, then a story about you falling in love with a Baha’i and converting to her religion only proves you are shallow-minded!

They should remake the Hindenburg movie

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In 1975, a movie was made depicting the Hindenburg disaster. It was directed by Robert Wise and starred George C Scott. With such talent, it should have been a masterpiece. Instead, it became known as a farce.

Too much of the movie was fictional and even inaccurate, including the unsupported claim that a crew member planted a bomb on the airship. The crew member was given a different name (Karl Boerth) but in the book the movie was loosely based on, the crew member is identified as Eric Spehl, who was actually at the nose of the Hindenburg and was burned to death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hindenburg_%28film%29

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I no longer respect Oprah Winfrey

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Not since I learned that she promotes fraud and woo on her TV talk show and her other publications. And that causes DEATH!

http://skepchick.org/blog/2010/12/dear-oprah-you-stole-kim-tinkams-chance-of-surviving-breast-cancer/

Ready for this week’s bit of skeptical activism? Orac has the details on Kim Tinkam, a woman who had stage 3 breast cancer and decided to treat it with The Secret (happy thoughts) and diet changes instead of science-based medicine. The science offers a 50/50 chance of survival. The happy thoughts add nothing to your not-so-promising chance of surviving 5 years without treatment.

Four years ago, Oprah featured Tinkam on her show and gave her the validation she needed to continue using quack therapy. Today, Tinkam is dying, forgotten as Oprah launches her 24/7 health network OWN.

Orac suggests we remind Oprah (or at least her producers) of the damage she’s done. Go to her contact page and show them the human cost of spreading misinformation.

Read more here:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/12/let_oprah_know_that_kim_tinkham_is_dying.php

http://www.facebook.com/CaringForKim

http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/sec18/ch253/ch253e.html#

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/12/a_horrifying_breast_cancer_testimonial.php

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/12/a_horrifying_breast_cancer_testimonial_roy.php

http://skepchick.org/blog/2007/02/an-open-letter-to-oprah-winfrey/

Oprah doesn’t belong on television anymore, and we need to start a campaign to end her broadcasting and publishing career!

The Book of Mormon is a P.O.S.

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P.O.S. = Pile Of Shit

As a rule, I try to respect different religious beliefs and their followers even while disagreeing with them, usually because most religious believers I know have good qualities I admire and want to encourage, and you don’t do that by rejecting them because of one or two issues that one may overlook on a casual basis. Most Christians, Muslims, Baha’is, Buddhists, Hindus, Pagans, and Atheists I can respect, as long as they respect me. But there are exceptions to my tolerance. I completely reject, deny and refuse to accept in any way the Book of Mormon and its teachings, period and feel only pity for Mormons themselves that may not yet know the truth about that book. And here is why:

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The “Health Ranger” attacks vaccines

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Imagine the horror of giving a baby a vaccination to protect his health, only to have him become violently ill. Sadly, such things may happen if the vaccines are defective. But when a product is defective, the logical response is to stop using the product for a short time, do an investigation to determine what went wrong with the product, and then replace it with an improved version of the product, NOT ban the product completely and tell people to never use it! But that is exactly what anti-vaxxer loons in Australia are doing!

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A disturbing video about Islam

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Watch this:

My response to it is as follows.

First, the Quran was not revealed in one piece, but in bits and pieces over several decades and was not even assembled in its final form until some years after the passing of the Prophet Muhammad. Thus we need not assume it is totally accurate in its statements. See these earlier blog entries:

https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/the-chain-of-abrahamic-religions-is-too-rusty-and-weak/

https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2010/05/04/muslims-get-a-life/

Second, who is to say that Muslims have to assume that the “later” verses of the Quran that teach intolerance for non-Muslims have abrogated the “earlier” ones that preach tolerance? Only those who either want to promote Islamic extremism or those who want to destroy Islam itself. Ironic, that these two factions would have that in common, even while opposing each other as well as moderates among both Muslims and non-Muslims. This alone shows the absurdity of their positions. Also, who says we have to follow every detail of the barbaric Sharia law when adopting Islam? Shouldn’t it be enough to simply follow the Five Pillars of Islam?

  1. Proclaim publicly, “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His Prophet.”
  2. Pray five times daily.
  3. Give alms to the poor.
  4. Fast during the daytime at the month of Ramadan.
  5. Make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in your lifetime.

Anything beyond that seems irrelevant. Sharia Law seems to be a man-made addition to the original Islam. If it is indeed from Allah, why do Muslims leaders specify only Five Pillars and not more? These Five Pillars certainly do NOT imply attempts to subvert and destroy other religions and secular societies.

Third, if Muslims are allowed to lie in order to spread Islam, isn’t that a logical reason to conclude that Islam itself is full of lies and thus not worth following by anyone? One must wonder if Christians and followers of other faiths pull the same sort of stunts. See this:

https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/lying-about-history-for-the-bible/

The references to the Quran that are supposed to be so shocking are not specified in the video above. So where are they and what do they really say? Until those are revealed, that video should be held as skeptically as Islam itself may be.

P Z Myers screws up a critique of a religious writer

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Myers said the following here:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/julian_would_not_appreciate_th.php

I think I’m beginning to figure David B. Hart out. I’ve been totally mystified about why anyone would consider him a credible or interesting thinker since reading his essay belittling the New Atheists, which was dreary and wearying — I compared his prose style to that of Eeyore. But note: one of his central points in that essay was that these New Atheists aren’t as smart and brave as the Old Atheists, an idea that comes up again in a new essay.

Hart has now written a column praising Julian the Apostate, of all people. Julian was a very interesting person in history, a 4th century Roman emperor who resisted the Christianization of the empire begun by Constantine by openly rejecting Christianity and endorsing a revitalization of paganism. He’s something of a mixed bag for atheists: he’s a hero for opposing the dour old monotheism that was spreading through the culture, but also a bit of a flake for encouraging the old classical religions — he was not an atheist by any means. The novel by Gore Vidal, Julian, is an excellent introduction to the doomed rebellion against Christianity.

One thing Julian also was not is a friend to Catholicism, so it’s odd to see a Catholic writer heaping praise on him. But then you discover that Hart doesn’t admire him for his views or his intelligence or his cause (although he acknowledges them), it’s because Hart has the conservative disease of believing everything was better in the past, that there was a Golden Age, and that we’re living in an era of decline and defeat right now. To these cranky old farts of stodginess, we’re always living in perpetual decline. Julian is to be admired because he also thought the generations before him were better than the one he was living in.

As a scientist, one would think he would value accuracy over merely bashing religion for the fun of it. But he made a mistake and got busted for it!

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Is this really a science journal, or a Creationist front?

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http://www.virologyj.com/

One has to wonder that after seeing this nonsense published within it:

http://www.virologyj.com/content/7/1/169

Influenza or not influenza: Analysis of a case of high fever that happened 2000 years ago in Biblical time

Kam LE Hon email, Pak C Ng email and Ting F Leung email

Department of Paediatrics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital, Shatin, Hong Kong SAR, China

Virology Journal 2010, 7:169doi:10.1186/1743-422X-7-169

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.virologyj.com/content/7/1/169

Received: 16 June 2010
Accepted: 21 July 2010
Published: 21 July 2010

© 2010 Hon et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

The Bible describes the case of a woman with high fever cured by our Lord Jesus Christ. Based on the information provided by the gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke, the diagnosis and the possible etiology of the febrile illness is discussed. Infectious diseases continue to be a threat to humanity, and influenza has been with us since the dawn of human history. If the postulation is indeed correct, the woman with fever in the Bible is among one of the very early description of human influenza disease.

Infectious diseases continue to be a threat to humanity, and influenza has been with us since the dawn of human history. We analysed a case of high fever that happened 2000 years ago in Biblical time and discussed possible etiologies.

Case

The Bible descrbies the case of a woman with high fever cured by our Lord Jesus Christ. According to Mark 1:29 to 33 and Matthew 8:14-15, the mother-in-law of Simon Peter “lay sick” with a febrile illness [1]. When Jesus took her by the hand and lifted her up, the fever immediately left. The lady began to serve the household and probably prepared a meal. The case is also described in the gospel by Luke (Luke 4:38-39), who was a physician in his days and he specifically mentioned that the fever was high [1].

The title alone is stupid, and reminds me of that classic line in Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “To be or not to be…”

How the hell can you investigate scientifically something that happened 2000 years ago, when the ONLY evidence that it ever really happened was a written account that could have been made up?

It’s like those astronomers who waste their time arguing over what the star was that led the Magi to Bethlehem to see Jesus as an infant. Aside from the account in the Gospel of Matthew, there is no independent affirmation of such a star in secular literature.

And the authors give away their blatant lack of objectivity when they refer to “our Lord Jesus Christ”. They repeat one sentence in the Abstract and Case sections for no reason, and even misspell the word describes. Such sloppy editing is bad enough, but then they do not give ANY experimental or direct observational data whatsoever.

Others have already taken note of this absurd event:

http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2010/08/biblical_fever_influenza_youre.php

http://scientopia.org/blogs/thisscientificlife/2010/08/10/the-virology-of-christ/

I made this comment at the first one:

People need to stop looking at accounts of miracles in the Bible and trying to find rational, naturalistic explanations for them. That in itself reveals a lack of faith. That goes not only for the writers of that totally rediculous paper, but for all those “scientific” Creationists out there. I too would blacklist that journal for accepting that nonsense.

UPDATE: The paper was retracted as promised by the editor of the journal, Robert Garry.

http://www.virologyj.com/content/1743-422X-7-190

Misdefining terms for purposes of propaganda

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This is the direct sequel to https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/atheism-is-a-dogma-get-over-it/

Prior to the 1990s, it was clear to me what atheism, atheists,  agnosticism,  agnostics, dogma, and fanaticism were. That’s because we had clear and logically consistent definitions of those words. They were found in reliable dictionaries like Webster’s New World Dictionary. Here are the definitions I found in the 1975 edition, which I still own and use.

atheism: “the belief that there is no God”. (That’s the ONLY definition in the book.)

agnostic: “a person who beleives that one cannot know whether or not there is a God or an ultimate cause, or anything beyond material phenomena.” (The ONLY definition in the book.)

dogma: “a positive, arrogant assertion of opinion.” (One of several definitions, and it is not implied that dogmas must always be religious in nature.)

fanaticism: “excessive and unreasonable zeal” (Again, it is not specified that only religion can produce fanatics.)

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Atheism is a DOGMA! Get over it!

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I recently had a long argument with an atheist who not only openly disagreed with all religions, but insisted that all religious people were delusional, stupid, even insane, while totally denying that he was himself promoting an unproven belief of his own.

What is atheism? There appear to be two kinds:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheism

2 a : a disbelief in the existence of deity

b : the doctrine that there is no deity

By the first definition, I am indeed an atheist, but I reject that term for myself because I know that people assume that atheism is about outright denial of God’s existence (the second definition) and nothing else. By contrast, I question God’s existence and do not deny it at all. My position is a neutral one regarding that specific issue.

And that is why Thomas Huxley in the 19th Century coined the term agnostic to describe himself and his beliefs, or lack thereof.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agnostic

1 : a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god
Thus by the first definition one can be an agnostic atheist or an agnostic theist, though most people only know of the first kind (because that is consistent with the second definition) . What one cannot be is lumping all people who are religious into the same category of irrationality, delusion, and stupidity and then be nondogmatic at the same time. Not only are you being dogmatic, you are being a BIGOT.
: a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance
And any atheist who does that is no better than someone who is a religious bigot.
Atheists say that the burden of proof should be on the religious person to support the claim that God exists. But producing such proof is exactly what the religious person does when he produces the Bible, the Quran, or some other religious text that is the basis for a God-centered religion. You can say that the proof is insufficent to establish belief in God beyond a reasonable doubt, but it is still a proof. And religion by definition requires faith, not absolute proof. If belief in God could be established beyond a reasonable doubt, it wouldn’t be part of religion. Conversely, atheism also cannot be established beyond a reasonable doubt, because there is no way to disprove the existence of God. Atheism is a dogma, not an objective point of view.
When an atheist says that the Bible is no more credible than the Harry Potter books, he is not making an objective statement at all, but giving a subjective opinion. That’s exactly what a DOGMA is!
Does this mean atheism is also a religion? It depends on your definition of religion. I say no, because you don’t need faith to be an athiest or agnostic. Faith involves belief in something that cannot be directly detected. But you do have to make a choice to be an atheist, agnostic, or theist. Belief in the non-existence of God is as much a religion as not playing chess is a form of gaming. But one still makes a choice if one refuses to learn how to play chess.

Floods cause canyons? Yeah, but…..

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Check out this science news article:

http://www.physorg.com/news196255219.html

Geologist investigates canyon carved in just three days in Texas flood

June 20, 2010

In the summer of 2002, a week of heavy rains in Central Texas caused Canyon Lake — the reservoir of the Canyon Dam — to flood over its spillway and down the Guadalupe River Valley in a planned diversion to save the dam from catastrophic failure. The flood, which continued for six weeks, stripped the valley of mesquite, oak trees, and soil; destroyed a bridge; and plucked meter-wide boulders from the ground. And, in a remarkable demonstration of the power of raging waters, the flood excavated a 2.2-kilometer-long, 7-meter-deep canyon in the bedrock.

According to a new analysis of the and its aftermath—performed by Michael Lamb, assistant professor of geology at the California Institute of Technology, and Mark Fonstad of Texas State University—the formed in just three days.

A paper about the research appears in the June 20 advance online edition of the journal Nature Geoscience.

Our traditional view of deep river canyons, such as the Grand Canyon, is that they are carved slowly, as the regular flow and occasionally moderate rushing of rivers erodes rock over periods of millions of years.

Such is not always the case, however. “We know that some big canyons have been cut by large catastrophic flood events during Earth’s history,” Lamb says.

Unfortunately, these catastrophic megafloods — which also may have chiseled out spectacular canyons on Mars—generally leave few telltale signs to distinguish them from slower events. “There are very few modern examples of megafloods,” Lamb says, “and these events are not normally witnessed, so the process by which such erosion happens is not well understood.” Nevertheless, he adds, “the evidence that is left behind, like boulders and streamlined sediment islands, suggests the presence of fast water”—although it reveals nothing about the time frame over which the water flowed.

Shrewd commenters noticed the irony of that article:

yyz – Jun 20, 2010

I wonder how long before the Texas Board of Education and Young Earth Creationists (same thing, really) point to legitimate research such as this as further proof that Earth “might be” 6,000 years old? We’ll know soon enough.
Andragogue – 23 hours ago
Young Earth Creationists will not doubt cherry pick bits of data from this study thereby adding to the volume of their pseudoscientific books and pamplets sold in gift shops around the Grand Canyon. (At 7 meters in 3 days, that’s about 230 days to carve out the Grand Canyon.)
GaryB – 22 hours ago
> Unfortunately, these catastrophic megafloods — which also may have chiseled out spectacular canyons on Mars—generally leave few telltale signs to distinguish them from slower events.
 Is Lamb a young earth creationist?? There are plenty of signs: Slow erosion such as formed the Grand canyon leaves a meandering canyon when the earth rises under a meandering stream. Fast floods tend to leave straight paths.
Caliban – 21 hours ago
Unfortunately for the YEC crowd, the total volume of material excision that is represented by the Grand Canyon will defy all but the most idiotic or foolhardy among them.
I don’t have exact figures, but the discharge flow/volume rate of moving water required to carve out the canyon, on young earth timescales simply doesn’t exist, and there is no documented megaflood precedent that could even come close to camparing- and even at that at least a couple orders of magnitude too small.
The Grand Canyon simply dwarfs any of the other megaflood sites- Washington state’s Channeled Scab Lands, the English Channel, and the McKenzie River megaflood features, after repeated episodes, are HUGE- but still tiny in comparison to the Grand Canyon.
 
Ethelred – 18 hours ago
There is a simple way to show that the Grand Canyon was not created by a single great flood.
The North Rim of the Grand Canyon is 2000 feet higher than the South Rim. The Colorado River flows mostly west with a little bit of south. Across the slope. Not along it.
As single great flood would have flowed SOUTH towards the Gulf of Mexico instead of west towards the Gulf of California. Pointing this out has invariably stopped YEC in their tracks for me. Some have even bothered to ask why the Colorado flows the way it does. Thus showing signs that they might have actually begun to think.

 
Indeed, I highly commend these people for recognizing how Young Earth Creationists (YECs) can misuse data to support their absurd dogmas and knowing how to debunk the Creationist claims before they are even made. The problem is that Creationists use two methods to make their claims:
  1. Taking real phenomenon out of context to support something that is only distantly related to it (There is a HUGE difference between a local flood like what was referred to in the science article above and the mythical flood of Noah).
  2. Ignoring details about something to make a Creationist claim about it plausible when in fact it is not (Have you ever seen flood waters carve out a meandering river course? Also, how could a single flood both make the layers of rock that make up the sides of the Grand Canyon and carve out the canyon itself?)

YECs are deluded liars, of course. And since one of the Ten Commandments of the Bible forbids bearing false witness against one’s neighbor, that must mean Young Earth Creationism is actually unbiblical, right?

Was Lawrence Solomon insane in 2008?

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If you want to see what a deranged lunatic Lawrence Solomon really is (or at least was in 2008), read this hilarious joke of an op-ed piece that he wrote and published for a Canadian right-wing rag:

http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/07/12/abundant-energy-will-power-future-growth.aspx

Up! Up! Up! The world is consuming more and more energy and, as if by miracle, the amount left to consume grows ever higher. Never before in human history has energy been accessible in greater abundance and in more regions, never before has mankind had more energy options and faced a brighter energy future. Take oil, the scarcest of the major energy commodities. In the Americas, proven oil reserves have increased from 170 billion barrels to 180 billion barrels over the last two decades, according to the 2008 Statistical World Review from British Petroleum. In Europe and Eurasia, proven oil reserves almost doubled, from 76 billion barrels to 144. Africa’s proven oil reserves did double, from 58 billion barrels to 117. Even the Asia Pacific region, where China and India are reputed to be sucking up everything in sight, has increased its proven reserves. And the Middle East, the gas tank of the world, shows no sign of slowing down — its reserves soared by almost 200 billion barrels, from a whopping 567 billion barrels to a super-whopping 756. Bottom line for the world: an incredible 36% increase in oil reserves during the two decades that saw the greatest globalization-spurred oil consumption in the history of mankind. And that doesn’t include the 152 billion barrels in proven oil reserves obtainable from Canada’s tar sands. Is there any reason to doubt that the next two decades won’t build on the steady growth of the last two? These oil reserves aren’t the end of it. These figures — for the year ending December 2006 — represent oil that’s not only known to be available, but also economic at 2006 prices using 2006 technology. Since prices have soared in the last year, and technology has improved too, BP’s annual assessment for the 2007 year will show greater proven oil reserves still. But this is still not the end of it. Unconventional oil reserves are now in play. In 2005, the Rand Corporation estimated that the oil shale in America’s Green River Formation, which covers portions of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, contains 1.5 to 1.8 trillion barrels of oil, with as much as 1.1 trillion barrels of oil recoverable, an amount comparable to the reserves of four Saudi Arabias. Oil shale becomes recoverable at $95 a barrel, it determined. With oil now trading at $140 a barrel, oil shale exploitation is now very much economic. Then there’s Canada’s tar sands, with its even greater potential–estimates of the total reserves that may be available top two trillion barrels, or eight Saudi Arabias. This is still not the end to it. Most of the oil we know about lies in the well travelled portions of the globe. But most of the world remains unexplored — the interiors of Africa, Asia and South America have seen relatively little oil exploration. Oil exploration in the oceans, too, is in its infancy. For all practical purposes, mankind has limitless oil supplies available to it. The story is similar for natural gas and coal, the other major nonrenewable sources of energy. And for nuclear power. And for the renewables. The amount of solar power landing on Earth could supply our current needs 10,000 times over. This potential will soon start to be realized on a large scale thanks to breakthroughs in the U. S. and Israel that have dramatically brought down the cost of solar technology. Wind also represents an inexhaustible resource, as seen in a 2005 NASA-funded study at Stanford University of viable wind sites worldwide. It found that wind power could satisfy global demand seven times over, assuming a realistic capture rate of 20%. Some European countries already meet a significant portion of their power needs with wind. The world is awash with exploitable energy, both renewable and non-renewable. Availability is not at issue and never has been. The only issue is the cost –both economic and environmental –at which it can be exploited. Nuclear currently fails on economic grounds. But most fossil fuel technologies don’t need subsidies and soon, neither will most renewable technologies. That leaves the environment as the chief determinant of what energy we use, and where we use it. Thanks to environmental awareness and the high energy prices we now face, energy production has become ever cleaner, safer, and more efficient, giving us more meaningful options than ever before. Whatever the outcome, whatever energy forms we ultimately rely on, the table is diverse and bountiful, allowing the world economy to grow large and to grow cleanly. And it will have been largely set by environmentalists.

If that is not insanity, what would be? How can anyone seriously claim that nonrenewable resources can suddenly appear in greater abundance without a shred of proof or an explanation for his obviously absurd conclusions? I hope the oil companies pay this shill well enough; he may someday need a lawyer to defend him against charges of FRAUD. Hey, he could always plead not guilty by reason of insanity, and a judge and jury just might buy that!

No, this was NOT a miracle!

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Read this story:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100512/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_libya_plane_crash

Libyan jet with 104 crashes; child sole survivor

By KHALED AL-DEEB and HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writers – 41 mins ago

TRIPOLI, Libya – A Libyan plane carrying 104 people crashed Wednesday on approach to Tripoli’s airport, leaving a field scattered with smoldering debris that included a large chunk of the tail painted with the airline’s brightly colored logo. A 10-year-old Dutch child was the only known survivor.

Continue reading →

Some idiots will beleive ANYTHING!

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I just saw a comment on another person’s blog that knocked me out in its inanity.

http://forthesakeofscience.wordpress.com/2010/02/21/i-get-mail-too/

Read that whole blog entry, and then this stupid comment:

Von, on February 23, 2010 at 2:04 pm Said: 

Michael Hawkins get a life. How old are you? Before you start calling someone stupid and a quack perhaps you better look at how the pharmaceutical industry has “Brain Washed” you. The FDA uses society as guinea pigs to push their drugs. The drugs are killing our society. Yet they continue to push them. One could call the pharmaceutical industry drug pushers. The only thing that makes the DRUGS legal is the FDA continues to approve them (until people die then they take them off the shelves and approve another one. Until that one kills. It’s a vicious circle) what’s sad is that the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t care about how many people they kill each year. They’re only it for the money. If society were healthier and didn’t have to take drugs then you’d be out of a job.

Of course the drug companies are trying to make a profit off their products. And that is exactly what makes that comment so absurd.

I answered him as follows:

Dale Husband, on February 27, 2010 at 2:19 am Said:

Von, why should we beleive YOU? It’s kind of absurd for the big drug companies to kill their own customers and thus reduce their own business. Think longer and harder before you subscribe to some loony conspiracy theory.

Slandering skeptics in general

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Take a look at this nonsense that was published on NaturalNews.com. I’m going to copy the libelous  words of the writer in red and then my direct responses in blue:

http://www.naturalnews.com/028012_skeptics_medicine.html

What ‘skeptics’ really believe about vaccines, medicine, consciousness and the universe

Sunday, January 24, 2010
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews) In the world of medicine, “skeptics” claim to be the sole protectors of intellectual truth. Everyone who disagrees with them is just a quack, they insist. Briefly stated, “skeptics” are in favor of vaccines, mammograms, pharmaceuticals and chemotherapy. They are opponents of nutritional supplements, herbal medicine, chiropractic care, massage therapy, energy medicine, homeopathy, prayer and therapeutic touch.
But there’s much more that you need to know about “skeptics.” As you’ll see below, they themselves admit they have no consciousness and that there is no such thing as a soul, a spirit or a higher power. There is no life after death. In fact, there’s not much life in life when you’re a skeptic. Continue reading →

The Two Central Dogmas of the Climate Change Debate

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The two sides of the climate change or global warming debate are:

  1. Man-made Global warming theory (MMGWT) Proponents (MPs)
  2. MMGWT Denialists (MDs)

Each side is backed up by a “central dogma”. The central dogma is a claim that if debunked discredits the entire movement.

The central dogma of MPs is “that there are greenhouse gases that act to retain heat, which in turn can change climate over time”.

The central dogma of MDs is “that man cannot change climate, no matter what he does”.

Ironically, the MPs’ “central dogma” is NOT a dogma at all, since it can be tested via experiment on actual samples of gases said to be “greenhouse”, which can be peer reviewed and is reproducible by others.

By contrast, the MDs’ central dogma really is a dogma, since there is no way to debunk it. No matter what records you present to show an increase of greenhouse gases like CO2 since the 1950s, no matter what temperature records over the past century or so you present, no matter what records of solar activity you present, MDs will always come up with excuses for rejecting the case of the MPs, including arguing that the records must have been faked. So the position of the MDs is unscientific because it is non-falsifiable.

Well, you cannot fake experimental data. If the “central dogma” of the MPs were indeed false, it would have been debunked many decades ago. Instead, it is so well supported that this “central dogma” is considered as much a fact as anything else in science could be.

So MDs avoid the MPs’ “central dogma” and instead constantly argue around it. They confuse uncertainty about global warming models and projections with reasons to deny them completely. They also note the many natural causes of climate change as if that alone supports their central dogma. Both of these are logical fallacies called  non-sequiturs. They harp about the few remaining scientists who are MDs as if their credentials alone make them credible. But they don’t, because even scientists with PhDs and tenures at universities can be profoundly wrong, especially if they have ideological or financial reasons to corrupt their science.

MPs do not have to attack the central dogma of MDs because, as I showed above, it is unscientific. They just have to point out that it really is a dogma, nothing more.

P Z Myers and his gang wreck a Christian poll

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First, read this blog entry from Pharyngula:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/05/christianity_today_is_full_of.php

Category: Pointless polls
Posted on: May 1, 2009 10:26 AM, by PZ Myers

Can you bear yet another poll today? The initial results of this one, before all of you readers get to work and use your magic clicky fingers, is mildly interesting. The readership of Christianity Today consists primarily of scientific illiterates and wishful dreamers, split between people who seriously believe the earth is 6000 years old, those who think the Bible is a science text and are willing to stretch a metaphor, and fuzzy thinkers who want a god to have guided natural processes.

I imagine the readership here can rock their little world.

What best describes your view of the origins of creation?

Young-earth creationism 29%
Old-earth creationism 28%
Theistic evolution 26%
Naturalistic evolution 4%
I don’t know 7%
None of the above 6%

Continue reading →

Battle on YouTube between two atheists

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The opponents in this confrontation were gogreen18 (Laci) and The AmazingAtheist (TJ). Watch these videos and decide for yourself who was right.

These are Laci’s two YouTube channels:

http://www.youtube.com/user/gogreen18

http://www.youtube.com/lacigreen

This is TJ’s channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAmazingAtheist

In my opinion, Laci was expressing her honest revulsion at the sexist comments TJ made and it’s clear that as a young woman, she takes it very much to heart any attacks made against women which refer to their body parts. Why should anyone in a debate do that, no matter how offensive the woman’s opinions may be? I might call a woman like Ann Coulter a bitch, but I wouldn’t make specific reference to her breasts or suggest that she should only go shopping. But the fact that Laci used foul language to get her point across as much as TJ did weakens her case against him. Finally, anyone who refers to himself as an “Amazing Atheist” and is not James Randi needs to have his ego smashed. I was repulsed by this guy’s attitude as soon as I started watching his videos. An intellecual, this bozo is NOT!

Debunking the Liar, Lunatic, or Lord argument

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One of the favorite arguments put forth by Christian apologists is that of “Liar, Lunatic, or Lord” in reference to Jesus. It was published by C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity, and later repeated by Josh McDowell in his works. Basically, it goes like this:

“Jesus claimed to be God. If so, he must have been God incarnate in order to be accepted as a great moral teacher. If he was NOT God incarnate, then he must have been either a liar (evil) or a lunatic (diseased in the mind) and by definition someone who is evil or diseased in the mind cannot be a good moral teacher, so the only logical conclusion is that Jesus must have indeed been God incarnate, and therefore his teachings were infallible and he was by nature superior to any other moral teacher that ever lived.”

This argument is completely bogus! And here’s why:

First, we know NOTHING about Jesus that came directly from him. Everything written about him, including all quotations of his words, are second-hand or third-hand sources. See my earlier blog entry for more details:

https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/the-chain-of-abrahamic-religions-is-too-rusty-and-weak/

Second, it is perfectly possible for someone to teach good morals and yet be a con artist. Indeed, you wouldn’t expect someone to openly proclaim “I am a liar and am immoral, corrupt, and serve evil causes!” You would expect someone to USE issues of morality to attract the well-meaning but gullible followers that the con artist could exploit for his personal gain later.

Third, even most insane people have some elements of lucidity in their characters. There is not an absolute distinction between the insane and those of normal mentality. Mental illness has many different manifestations and degrees of severity.

Fourth, there is an incident recorded in the Gospels of Jesus cursing a fig tree just because it had no figs to give him at the time (and it wasn’t even the season for them) and the tree soon dies: Mark 11:14, 20-23, Matthew 21:19-21. He uses this irrational action as an example of the power of faith. Sounds like insanity to me!

Fifth, the same liar, lunatic, or lord argument could be just as well applied to the founders of every other religion, including those with teachings very different from Christianity. Yet to be a Christian, you must assume that all those other religions are false!

Quite simply, this argument is an appeal to religious and cultural prejudice. It is no more valid than arguments to support astrology, palm-reading, or belief in a flat Earth.

Science needs a new superhero

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Carl Sagan died in 1996, yet he still lives in the hearts of those who knew him, whether personally or as the public celebrity he became.

Now the time has come for science to move on and find a new superhero, someone who can command both the public respect that Sagan did and challenge society for the better. Although Sagan was an agnostic who championed skepticism, he did not come across as openly hostile towards all religion, as Richard Dawkins does. Such hostility, even if justified, can turn gentle souls away from science. So who can possibly succeed Carl Sagan? Who can be the champion of reason, rationality, and tolerance for all?

I will. And so can you. And you, you, you, you and you, if only you just care to be as dedicated to science and to the welfare to humanity as Sagan was. I have championed the philosophy of Honorable Skepticism as my tribute to Sagan. But the best way to honor him is not merely to keep playing his COSMOS series and talking about what he did, but to make our own contributions to science, to EXCEED Sagan’s work, to become superheros of science ourselves. We are not expected merely to blindly follow what Sagan taught, for he was by no means infallible. Because he was human as we, we can carry his vision forward, and we will do it by eliminating the concept of “sacred cows” and seeking change to improve our societies, regardless of what short-term and localized interests get stepped on. They deserve it! And we cannot afford to appease those interests anymore. Having a global and long-term perspective is what will save us, not any religion or political ideology.