Scientific American Top 10!

OK, I know I said I was posting my last word on the Ben Stein abortion "Expelled:", but I can't resist this one. Scientific American listed their Top 10 Readers' Choice stories for the year, and slipping into 4th place are "Six Things in Expelled That Ben Stein Doesn't Want You to Know." A couple I have already mentioned, like the criminal mis-quote of Charles Darwin and the staging of his 'speeches'. But I certainly enjoyed the recap of a few of the problems in the mockumentary:

1) Expelled quotes Charles Darwin selectively to connect his ideas to eugenics and the Holocaust.

2) Ben Stein's speech to a crowded auditorium in the film was a setup.

3) Scientists in the film thought they were being interviewed for a different movie.

4) The ID-sympathetic researcher whom the film paints as having lost his job at the Smithsonian Institution was never an employee there.

5) Science does not reject religious or "design-based" explanations because of dogmatic atheism.

6) Many evolutionary biologists are religious and many religious people accept evolution.

Science is limited by its refusal to make stuff up

This is so great! Found it at the Jesus and Mo archive site. A friend emailed me the link. He thought I would get a kick out of it.
You might take a look at a few more of their strips. Some interesting points!

Biblical Literalism Continued

So what is the problem with Biblical Literalism? For me it's really simple. After talking with several Biblical Literalists on Topix, I cannot for the life of me understand why they want to take it so literally. I mean they sit there and say how literal the Bible is and when you bring up an inconsistency, they start 'interpreting' it. How literal is anything that requires interpretation anyway? One of them summed it up for me beautifully "You have to take the Bible literally, except where you don't." And he seemed to actually believe that! So in reality there is no such thing as Biblical Literalism, it's more of a 'cherry-picking' the parts of the Bible you want to take literally and ignoring the rest, which is why I enjoyed the Biblical Literalism Recipe post so much.

One of my other issues is that the Biblical Literalists I have chatted with seem to equate literalism and inerrancy. I find this to be a logical non-sequitor. If the Bible cannot be read literally, that is without any form of interpretation, then how can it possibly be seen as inerrant, that is 'without error'. This doesn't even begin to deal with the inconsistencies in the Bible itself, but just the simple fact of interpretation. How does inerrancy work in the face of interpretation? Makes little sense to me.

Part of this, I'm sure, is certainly my own upbringing. I was taught that the Bible is the 'Word of God', but not that the words of the Bible should be treated as if they came out of God's mouth. Do you see the difference? It makes perfect sense to me how a book written over the course of centuries, by multiple groups of people, bending the stories to fit the time and politics of the day, translated, re-translated, and even the translations have been translated, could be seen as anything other than allegorical in nature.

I do enjoy how some of the Literalists justify themselves. They quote the simple fact that some of the places mentioned in the Bible actually existed. What I don't get is why they see that as proof? I mean Tom Clancy writes about cities and towns that exist in the US, and that doesn't make his fiction a reality. Oh yea, there's a Denver, so the atomic bomb Clancy had exploding there was real! How crazy is that?

It always leaves me shaking my head, especially when a poster starts talking about how carefully the Bible gets copied, as if the men copying it are incapable of error simply because they are copying the Bible. Many have written about how they changed the wording and the tone to be more in line with their thinking -- poetic license! Just research a little on the King James version of the Bible and the changes made for no other reason that the writers could will surprise you. The other fun fact is that there are different varieties of literalists and inerrantists (is that a word?). There are some that only claim it (evangelical inerrantists) for the original source documents, many of which no longer exist. Other claim specific versions of the Bible are the 'one true' version, such as the King James Only inerrantists. There are others still that make wildly divergent claims on exactly what literal and inerrant mean.

So the bottom-line question still exists, which Bible should be taken absolutely literally and inerrant? So far no one seems to be able to answer that. In all honesty I think this whole point is self-defeating. No one has been able to point to an error-free, un-conflicted Bible, one even free from literary problems. So this 'belief' in Biblical Literacy is just that, a belief. I think the problem was summed up best by St. Augustine"

It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation.

The Literal Interpretation of Genesis, Augustine of Hippo, early 5th century AD

St. Augustine clearly seems to understand the difference between 'metaphorical' and 'literal' and I so dearly wish the more rapid believers in Biblical Literalism would realize the damage they do to their own faiths by denying explanations that are not written about in the Bible.

Humor IV - Gnostic Flow Chart

Another great post over at "Exploring Our Matrix", a Gnostic Flow Chart, and the tee-short idea is great!


Imagine the flow chart of the front of the shirt and on the back "And you thought organic chemistry was hard!"

Arguments XVI - Biblical Literalism

Now I plan on talking more on this in the future, but I couldn't resist posting this from Exploring our Matrix, a pretty interesting blog. It's a recipe for Biblical Literalism

"Take one part overly-familiar Bible verses. Repeat these verses over and over again until a thick, opaque layer is formed. Use this layer to cover the remaining 39 parts consisting of Bible verses that do not talk about the same subject as those more familiar verses, verses which seem to disagree with them, as well as verses you don't understand, verses you understand but do not put into practice, and any other verses you could happily live without. Bake until the lower verses are obscured from view.

Avoid stirring and serve."

I would really love to disagree with this, but I cannot. I do not see how anyone with a functioning brain can accept the Bible as the absolutely inerrant Word of God exactly as written. Don't get me wrong, the Bible is a wonderful and fascinating book, but inerrant? That's the part I have issues with. How many inconsistencies are contained in every version of the Bible? Hundreds, thousands? There are whole courses of study of such things. Do you know how many Commandments the Bibles lists? There are certainly more than 10! There are even three different sets of Commandments to just confuse the issue. The Bible has been translated, re-translated, the translations translated themselves. It has been re-written and made more 'politically-correct' in it's day, like the King James versions. It has been translated into more every-day language, like the "New Revised Standard Version".

Yes, it is a wildly popular books and says a great many things in it that are worth reading, understanding and some of them are even worth living up to. But it is not without it's flaws! But Biblical Literalists seem to be able to ignore all of that and take very select parts and declare the whole to be perfect and without change.

"Academic Freedom" Day?

Here we are at the end of another year and the Discovery Institute is starting their pitch for what they call "Academic Freedom Day", in which they quote-mine Charles Darwin and say "A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question."

Let's be clear on this, in no way shape or form is the Discovery institute actually interested in Academic Freedom, because if they were, they would know that the HS science classroom is not the place to have a debate about Intelligent Design (ID) and Theory of Evolution (ToE)! If ID were an actual scientific theory I would agree with them, but according to their own mentor, Phillip E. Johnson, it is not a theory. According to the overwhelming majority of the scientists in the world, ID is not a scientific theory. It does not belong in the science classroom, except maybe as a footnote. Rather than go into the details that I have posted many times of in this Blog, let's just keep it there for now. If you want more detail, there are a bunch of posts and lots of online references explaining the lack of science in ID, including Michael Behe's own testimony during the Dover trial.

So now, what exactly is Academic Freedom? The Discovery Institute has it half right, Academic Freedom is the freedom for students and teachers to explore even the most controversial of subjects. But what the they tend to forget is that academic freedom is not without limits. For example, according to the Statement on Academic Freedom and Tenure, teachers should be careful to avoid controversial matter that is unrelated to the subject. This statement is referenced in many documents concerning academic freedom. Please note the phrase "unrelated to subject". That is the limitation that the DI wants you to forget about.

Students and Teachers today have a degree of academic freedom that seems incredible. But there are still limits. We have free speech, yet walk into a crowded theater and yell "Fire!" without there actually being a fire and you will see how fast your Free speech defense works for you.

Academic Freedom comes with responsibilities, and one of those responsibilities is to keep the discussion on target with educational goals and objectives. Allowing academic freedom to be misused in this way would open the doors for some pretty incredible things. What is a teacher to do when a student in a Astronomy class asks about astrology? Are they supposed to cut off a lesson that is part of the curriculum and branch off into a pseudo-science in the name of academic freedom? Of course not! But that is exactly what the DI is asked for. In fact the DI isn't asked that it be included, they are trying to mandate that it be included.

The main reason the DI is using this tactic is because if it is allowed in the classroom under the guise of academic freedom, then ID will have attained a level of acceptance and validity that is has not managed to achieve through actual science work!

There are two parts to this that aggravate me. First of all the obvious tactic by the DI to use the guise of academic freedom to try and achieve a level of acceptance that ID has not been able to garner through science. I mean they can't or don't do the actual science, yet they are asking for validity to be presented alongside other actual scientific theories. That is just plain wrong!

The other part is that right now today if a teacher wants to bring up ID in the classroom, even a science classroom, they have that freedom today. What they cannot do it raise it as a scientific theory the equal to real scientific theories. ID can be taught in a philosophy or theology class, but it cannot be taught as science in a science class -- which is as it should be until it earns that right through science!

In my opinion allowing ID in the classroom under such a guise is a step backwards for academic freedom. Forcing a non-scientific issue into the science classroom is an affront to academic freedom and will do more harm than good.

I am not disagreeing with Charles Darwin's quote, but I do have a question that people ought to consider. Is a HS science class the right venue to allow a fair result be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question? No! This should be settled well before any discussion as science. Pardon me if the DI thinks that isn't fair. But is it fair to expect the English teacher to teach English, the Math teacher to teach Math and the physics teacher to teach Physics? Of course it is! It is not academic freedom to demand otherwise.

The final word on Expelled: The Mockumentary

Roger Ebert, film critic, reviewed Ben Stein's "Expelled: . . ." and you have to read it for yourself:

Win Ben Stein's Mind

Now I will admit I don't always agree with Mr. Ebert, I mean "12 Monkeys" and "13 King's", but often I find his reviews interesting and insightful. Today my hat is off to this absolutely scathing review of Stein's foolish film. It dives into areas I would have never thought to look. He turns over rocks that only someone in the movie industry would think to turn over. I am humbled at his review and also laughed through much of it. But not his closing comment. No one could have said it better!

"It is not difficult for me to describe how you made me feel by exploiting the deaths of millions of Jews in support of your argument for a peripheral Christian belief. It fills me with contempt."

Yea! Science 1, Creation Museum 0

A friend of mine mentioned something that I had to see to believe. The Cincinnati Zoo offering a two-for-one ticket including the Zoo's annual Christmas light and decoration spectacular with a ticket to the Creation Museum in Northern Kentucky. Now in all honesty I got the note and went to check it out but couldn't find anything on the Zoo's website about it. I thought it was a joke at my expense. I did not; however, go to the museum's website -- after all there are some things a browser should never be pointed at.

Well I mentioned to my friend that I thought his joke was funny, and he was annoyed to think that I would doubt him. So he sends me a link to the Cincinnati Enquirer and, lo and behold, there was a deal just as he described. But -- and here is why I say Yea! -- there was so many outraged calls that the Zoo killed the deal and pulled it off their website. So I did apologize to my friend in thinking he was pulling a fast one -- which is something he is known for! He accepted in good grace and warned me "Next time you better be ready for something big!" While I dread that day because his jokes do tend to be pretty creative and nerve-wracking, for today I salute the people from the area that called in and complained. If I had heard of it before they pulled it, I would have joined you!

Now I do believe this was simply someone in the advertising department who got a bit excited, maybe someone thinking the Creation Museum was a real museum instead a ken Ham ego-trip. To be sure I have never seen any disregard for science at the Cincinnati zoo. It's one of my favorite places and my granddaughter will be seeing their displays later this month. Whatever the reason, the concerned citizens in this area came through.

Oh and by the way, none of the two-fer tickers were sold, which makes it even better.

If you are interested, the Cincinnati Zoo can he found right here http://www.cincinnatizoo.org/index.html


Addendum: I received a couple of email complaining a little about my post. The gist is that I didn't explain my problem with this apparent two-fer deal. They weren't supporting the deal, but they weren't sure what my issue with it was. Fair question.

What Ken Ham is desperate for is validity, as in the recognition of any organization that clearly supports science. I feel a zoo, like the Cincinnati Zoo, with ecological and evolutionary programs involving wildlife, wildlife preservation, and work with endangered species would offer Ken Ham and his Creationistic Folly a validation that he can never earn through actual accurate scientific work. I feel it would be a detriment for the Zoo to be associated with such a character and it would be a LIE to put in print that the Zoo supports the displays and obvious poor scholarship represented by Ken Ham's Abortion.

That should be clear enough. This is not about tourism, it is not about people being unfair to little Kennie. All it does is sever a relationship that would cause more damage to the Zoo than good. I am sure Kennie will call it an infringement of business, but it no way is the Zoo preventing people from spending good money on a bad idea -- namely visiting his place of worship. They are just refusing to offer him the validity that he wanted. I am also sure Kenny will make some claim about how unfair some people are and that the calls were unwarranted. I wouldn't be surprised if he tries to associate the people who called with Nazi Eugenics. No tactic, no matter how reprehensible, seems to be too low for him. But he is wrong! Severing this business arrangement because of the perception that the Zoo supports his Folly is the smart play by the Zoo and I am glad this was brought to light before any damage was done to the Zoo. Any collateral damage done to ken and his Disaster is just lucky!

I have no plans to search for any reaction by little kennie, because like I said there are somethings you shouldn't ask your browser to display.

Wait, I spoke too soon. PZ Myers has a post with little Kennie's reaction. Apparently he claiming some sort of 'Atheistic agenda', 'Evolution worship', and even claims that it was purely a business arrangement. Yea right! Typical knee-jerk reaction on kennie's part. You can get the link to kennie's blog there.

Quote Mining

Outstanding post by GumbyTheCat, another blogger sincerely interested in preserving and improving science education. His topic is one that seems to plague evolution supporters in the Blogsphere and places like Topix, and that is "Quote Mining."

We've all seen it, quotes from popular figures taken out of context. I know I mentioned when I posted a review of Expelled that I was not happy with the way they used what was portrayed as a quote from Charles Darwin. Gumby caught that one as well. I said I would be posting more on it after seeing the movie again, but I have yet to do so. Gumby got it down, so here it is:

Ben Stein quoted Charles Darwin:

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

Made it sound like Charles Darwin was supporting and encouraging Eugenics. But let's place the whole quote in context. The parts Ben Stein used are in bold.

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed. The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.

This should be criminal! By pulling only particular pieces of a quote they completely changed the meaning and used it to justify the most absurd part of their mockumentary, where Ben Stein blamed the Holocaust on Charles Darwin. But read the actual quote and you will realize that nothing can be further form the truth. BTW, even The Anti-Defamation League has disagreed with Little Benny and called what he did a form of Holocaust Denial!

Sadly this is a common tactic, as we could see by the recent election. So I am going to borrow one more piece from Gumby and reiterate his final comment here:

The next time someone throws you a quote in support of their argument, never take it at face value. Take the time to Google or otherwise research it, and sometimes you'll find out that the quote has purposely been totally taken out of context. And if that indeed turns out to be the case, don't hesitate to publicly embarrass the person who tried unsuccessfully to pull a fast one on you. It's fun!

Please feel free to post your favorite examples of quote-mines here.

Addendum, I have been quote-mined :-)

A Topix troll named 'wilson' tried to explain evolution by using a completely blind chance mechanism. Kinda like using a tossing a dice with several million facets. Well he used part of my response to make it sound like I completely disagree with chance having any role in Evolution.

His quote-mine from nearly a month ago:

"Random Mutation is not based on chance, Natural Selection is not based on chance, Sexual Selection is not based on chance, Genetic drift is not based on chance, allotropic speciation is not based on chance ... and the list goes on."

However in context, here is what I was answering to, and what I actually responded with:


Wilson wrote:

Baloney! I don't "have the evolutionary view!"
You expect me to believe that? You have absolutely no way of proving it.
Molecular biologist James Watson called our brain “the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe.” And neurologist Richard Restak said:“Nowhere in the known universe is there anything even remotely resembling it.”
A scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said:“Today’s computers are not even close to a 4-year-old human in their ability to see, talk, move, or use common sense.... It has been estimated that the information processing capacity of even the most powerful supercomputer is equal to the nervous system of a snail—a tiny fraction of the power available to the supercomputer inside [your] skull.”
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/...
Your conviction is that all of this came about just by chance, and now you have my challenge to prove it.
Wilson.

And my original response:

Still bobbing and weaving I see. But you let in too many blows.

One more time, with feeling. No one, but a poorly educated rabid creationalist, claims that the human brain came about by chance. NO ONE in evolutionary circles. Evolution is not a toss of the dice! How many times do people have to explain it to you. But then you get caught in yet another corner of your own building and fall back on arguments already dismantled.

Random Mutation is not based on chance, Natural Selection is not based on chance, Sexual Selection is not based on chance, Genetic drift is not based on chance, allotropic speciation is not based on chance ... and the list goes on.

It's your incredible poor understanding of evolution and the theory of evolution that gets revealed every time you make comments like this.

Just today wilson posts this:

Hohio,
You said that chance does not play a role in mutations, or something to that effect.
Remember this:
IF NOT BY CHANCE, THEN BY DESIGN
You said:
"Random Mutation is not based on chance, Natural Selection is not based on chance, Sexual Selection is not based on chance, Genetic drift is not based on chance, allotropic speciation is not based on chance ... and the list goes on."
Well, check this out, Hohio:
“We call these events [mutations] ACCIDENTAL; we say they are random occurrences. And since they constitute the only possible source of modification in the genetic text, itself the sole repository of the organism's hereditary structures, it necessarily follows that CHANCE ALONE is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. PURE CHANCE, absolutely free but BLIND, at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution: this central concept of modern biology is no longer one among other possible or even conceivable hypotheses. It is today the SOLE conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact. AND NOTHING WARRANTS THE SUPPOSITION - OR THE HOPE - THAT ON THIS SCORE OUR POSITION IS LIKELY EVER TO BE REVISED.”(Jacques Monod)
Hohio, tell me that Monod was wrong! If not by chance in nature, then how? By design?
Wilson

And here, just for grins is my response:

The context I was responding to was that your description of evolution as completely arbitrary chance wasn't the right one. You were treating evolution like a completely random toss of a dice with several million facets -- which is WRONG.

That even random mutation follows the laws of molecular binding and particle physics, so it is not based on chance, that many of the combinations of DNA cannot happen. Natural Selection is certainly not a chance driven change, since the selection is based on environment ... the list goes on. Try reading the context of my post rather than quote-mine me. I have said it many times, read for comprehension, not quote-mines.

Never once did I deny that chance has a role, but no evolutionary mechanism is based on chance. I had any number of other posts showing that while chance does play a role, it is not the role people like wilson ascribe to it. There is a great deal within evolution and evolutionary theory that do not have a component of chance at all. But wilson dismisses all of them either because he is

• Un-educated and actually believes all of evolution is based on chance
• Dishonest because he knows it's not and tries to make it seem like it is to add unsupported validity to his comments
• A troll who is just after an emotional response.
• Or all of the above :-)
  

Site meter

Having a little unanticipated fun with the Bog. I just registered on sitemeter and now a few stats are kept on who is reading the blog. I saw Total Drek, one of the blogs I read regularly, did it, so I gave it a try. Wow!

OK, I was feeling a little like a quiet voice in the forest because while I was getting the occasional email about a particular post, most of the posted comments were few and far between. I know I started the blog more to give myself a place to clarify my own thinking than anything else, but I did so like the occasional comment, knowing that some folks were actually reading my posts. I was also using it to test-the-waters of the Blogsphere, so to speak.

But linking to sitemeter changed that. I have been hit from as far away as New Zealand and Pakistan and as near as Michigan and Indiana. While folks aren't commenting, they are certainly reading. I also notice a spike whenever I do post a new article. It's great knowing there is an audience and while I am not after applause (comments in this form) it is terrific knowing that people are reading it.

So today I resolved to change my own behavior. I plan on commenting more on the blogs I read. I figure if I was enjoying the comments, others might as well. I really should have been commenting more all along, but hadn't given it much thought. I also encourage you all to read and comment as well!