Blue Collar Scientist

The comment of the week looked like it was going to be hard to pick. There were a number of contenders, as there has been a lot of commenting here over the last week, particularly on the Expelled posts. But just as I was going through the comments this week to choose the best, one was left that I immediately recognized was the clear winner. It was left on my post John Freshwater Mutilates Students? and comes from a purported former student of Freshwater. I think it bears repeating in its entirety:

Believe it or not, I actually had Mr. Freshwater for 8th grade science, and I just happened to be traveling back to Mt. Vernon for a funeral when I heard this on the news. It didn’t surprise me too much, to tell you the truth. He’s a likeable guy, but he’s always gone too far with religion in the classroom. I’m an atheist, through and through, and I have been since well before I was in his class. I honestly don’t remember any particular incidents that were too far out of the norm for a small town in the Midwest (not that I think that they were right, or even legal, necessarily, but he didn’t come into the class and carve stigmata into his hands or anything.)

The ‘electrostatic device’ was apparently either a tesla coil or van de graaf generator. I’m a physics teacher now, and I don’t know how he managed to burn a cross onto someone, particularly against their will. Those instruments take some time to do any real damage, maybe 15-20 seconds to make a small burn (perhaps a minute for a small cross) with a tesla coil and dozens of long arcs in a carefully planned way to produce a patterned burn with a van de graaf. It would take half an hour or more all told, even if you planned ahead and all participants were willing. Additionally, anything that leaves a burn from either produces a small scar that lasts a while (I really like playing with electrostatic devices and I’ve burned myself from time to time.)

To make myself clear, I don’t support the guy. This type of thing (religion being forced on kids in the classroom) goes on all too often in small town America and those who complain get squashed by the higherups. However, keeping a Bible on your desk is NOT against the law, nor is it particularly onerous behavior, in my opinion. Having religious beliefs is the right of every person in the US, including teachers and students. What is not legal is when the government (via teachers in this case) uses that power to force religion on the public (students here.) If he was doing a daily Bible reading, that’s one thing, but if it was just there as his personal possession and not as a classroom tool, then it’s nobody’s business but his. Separation of church and state does not mean that religion is illegal in any arena that government is involved in, what it does mean is that the government can’t use its power to coerce us. If he DID manage to burn a cross into a kid’s arm intentionally, he should be resting his heels in a jail cell, plain and simple, and like the previous commenter, I’d go berserk if this were my daughter.

The Link of the Week for this week was easy to choose. It comes from Gwangi Valley - Lost Blog of the Gwangi, and it isn’t so much because of the link to my Expelled reviews post, which was pretty straightforward:

In the meantime I want to point you to a glorious blog post at Blue Collar Scientist which covers critics’ reactions to the… do I have to call it a documentary? OK, fine, the ‘documentary’.

Instead, it is because that blog is really good, and I hadn’t seen it before. From their about page:

Do you believe the Loch Ness monster is real, that there may be a hidden valley full of living dinosaurs somewhere, that pads on your feet will draw out ‘toxins’ or that crystals will heal you? Well, if you do, no matter if you’re a Raelian or a thalian or a Baptist… you’re kind of an idiot.

Yes. Yes indeed. But this link is also recognized because of the way the blog author strode into the mass of credulous creationist comments to my post and started swinging a truncheon of righteousness and truth.

So congratulations Jason P., and Ella Rache, for winning the Comment and Link of the Week awards, respectively. This entirely value-free award entitles you to absolutely nothing but our good opinion. (Maybe someday we’ll put together a badge.)

Mark Mathis is one of the producers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. He was recently interviewed by Jay Davis of Real Detroit Weekly, and if there was really any doubt about it, this establishes pretty well that Mathis is stupid beyond belief.

I confront Mathis with this point [that intelligent design creationism is untestable], and he counters that evolutionary theory is also untestable. This is patently untrue — to give just one example, scientists have witnessed speciation, the arisal of a new species from an old one.

When I point this out, he interrupts me immediately: “Whoa! Wait a minute! Please send me whatever material you have that demonstrates that we can observe speciation because I have not seen anything. I’ve never heard anyone even claim that!”

Is he serious? He’s just produced a film about evolution, and he’s never heard of the fact that speciation has been observed and thoroughly documented in the scientific literature? I’m stunned. I send him peer-reviewed research confirming this fact via e-mail, and he later responds, “This isn’t an important argument for me.”

The interview goes on, with Mathis lying some more about evolution:

“You can’t apply falsifiability to Darwinian evolution. How is it falsifiable?”

I respond by quoting the biologist J.B.S. Haldane: “Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian.”

And it goes on:

Mathis pauses before saying, “If you want to get into the science…” He then trails off and mutters something irrelevant before finally confessing, “Look. You can get into the intricacies of the science on both sides. And I am not qualified.” On that point, we can both agree.

The interview then moves on to the subject of the famous night when Mathis summoned armed security guards to prevent PZ Myers from seeing the film (while not recognizing his companion, Richard Dawkins, and hence letting him in):

No producer who releases a film called Expelled would actually expel an individual who appears in his film from seeing that film. Right?

Mathis laughs before offering two reasons why he told the security guard at the screening not to let Myers in. First, Mathis says, “He has viciously attacked me personally and attacked the film.” Just to clarify, Myers did not break into Mr. Mathis’ house in a drunken rage with a bowie knife—he has simply been critical of Mathis’ arguments.

The second reason? Mathis assumed that the incident would engender “some additional attention” for the film. I’m not joking. He actually called that a reason.

“He was not invited to the screening,” Mathis says. “I don’t have time to read P.Z. Myers’ oral diarrhea.”

“But the screening wasn’t done by invite, was it?” I ask.

“It’s still our screening. I’m still the producer on site. And I still have the ability to say, ‘I didn’t invite you. And you’re not coming.’” Mathis repeats, “I denied him entrance to a film that he was not invited to.”

“But just to clarify, others who weren’t invited were allowed in, right?”

“Done by discretion! Done by discretion!” In case you’re wondering, this means yes. It seems safe to say that discretion is something that Mark Mathis lacks entirely. I let him scream for one more minute.

“We have the option of ex… uh, of kicking, uh, of not allowing P.Z. Myers to come to the film he wasn’t invited to. Okay? Who cares?!”

Ok, that last quote? That’s not even intelligible speech.

I shouldn’t be surprised. That’s exactly what we’re accustomed to getting from creationists.

Hat tip to Joe. Just Joe, again, who apparently reads Pharyngula more often than I do.

It’s up at Andrea’s Buzzing About - go have a look. My post on Andrew Watson’s too-generous estimate of the frequency of extraterrestrial intelligence made the cut this round, but one of the better posts this time out is at Whiskey Before Breakfast, and it is called Skeptics are Soulless Atheistic Killing Machines Just Like Hitler. Well worth the read.

A story in the BBC has brought Kielder Observatory to my attention. And I’m just a wee bit jealous that I’m not visiting there.

Mind you, I’ve been around the block a bit when it comes to observatories. I’ve visited, mostly to work at, every major observatory in North America. I’ve spent more time than I deserve on Kitt Peak, and I’ve even had the opportunity to take at turn at the WIYN 3.5 meter controls:

But not before having taken a few shots of the observatory beforehand:

So I’ve spent quite a bit of time in some beautiful places, working with some cutting-edge telescopes, at locations that few people ever get to visit in the behind the scenes way that I’ve been privileged, and lucky beyond words, to experience.

And yet, something about Kielder Observatory has me wanting to cash all this in and go have a look at their facility.

Granted, their telescope specification really puts me to sleep (yes, I’m now a damned elitist, I guess):

• Pulsar Optical Skywalker 20″ Split-ring equatorial telescope
• Meade 14″ GPS UHTC LX200 Telescope

Well, I love the split ring design. Other than that, you’ll find me hanging out most of the time outside the observatory, giving other people their chance.

But everything else about this place just knocks my socks off.

The chosen site is on Black Fell (OS Map ref: NY 610932), approximately one mile west of Kielder Village….

Black Fell. Just think of the possibilities here:

“So where are you observing next week?”

“Oh, I’m going up to Black Fell.”

So much more romantic sounding than “Kitt Peak.” Or “Mount Graham.”

And get this:

Night Watches

• Friday 25th April - ‘First Light’ – Kielder Observatory’s first Night Watch.
• Saturday 26th April - Night Watch

Yes, that mean’s they’ve just inaugurated the facility - but read on!

Participants will receive a guided tour of the Observatory, presentations from experienced astronomers and use the Observatory’s telescopes to explore the mysteries of the universe.

Starting Point: Kielder Castle 8.00pm

Ummmm, yeah. Your evening’s observing starts at a castle. I’ve never been to an observatory that involves a castle before! And here it is:

And it even has a minotaur maze:

Maybe it is just me - my family hails from Yorkshire (quite a ways south of Kielder, admittedly), and maybe I have a soft spot for this sort of thing. But one thing is for sure - if I’m ever in the north of England, or Scotland, I’ll be doing my best to take a detour to see this place.

Due to my interest in astronomy and space sciences, I’ve been following the story of the way-off-course landing of Soyuz TMA-11 - which now appears not only to have been way off course, but also to have entered with an incorrect, and dangerous, attitude. The whole story, I’m sure, will come out in the coming weeks - this sort of thing is sure to attract high-level attention from NASA and maybe even from Congress. In the meantime, I’ve already reported on Roskosmos head Anitoly Perminov blaming the problem on women.

Today, though, it was pointed out to me that there have been assurances that this will not happen again:

“There is very little probability of another ballistic landing,” said General Vladimir Popov, who heads the team responsible for Russia’s space search and rescue operations.

There is a bit of a problem, though. That comment is from 2003, after the similarly flawed landing of another Soyuz mission to the ISS.

Sigh. Yes, I know this stuff is hard - it is literally rocket science. But still….

It is just waiting for you to read at Astroengine.

I grew up in Ohio, and for several years in the mid 90’s, I had the opportunity to drive through the town of Mt. Vernon on a fairly regular basis. It was a quaint, old-fashioned midwest town, with a real town square, a drugstore with a soda fountain right out of the 50’s, and everything else you’d imagine in a town that looked essentially like a time capsule, or a movie set, from my parents’ generation.

So it wasn’t really a surprise to me when I heard through the media that a middle school teacher in Mt. Vernon was lying in his classroom about evolution…

In one class, Freshwater used Lego pieces to describe the beginning of the world. He dumped the pieces, then asked students if the Legos could assemble by themselves, said Joe Stuart, 18, assistant editor of the high-school newspaper.

…and forcing his religion on his students…

On Monday, Middle School Principal William D. White told Freshwater to remove “all religious items” from his classroom by the end of Wednesday.

Freshwater agreed to take down the Ten Commandments from the door of his classroom, posters with Bible verses and Bibles on a shelf. But he refused to remove his personal Bible from his desk when students are in the room.

…because, if anyplace is going to attract religious extremists who are living in a previous century, it would be a town that seemed like it was living in a previous decade.

But what I hadn’t heard before was that middle school teacher John Freshwater has allegedly mutilated and injured his students¹

“We are religious people, but we were offended when Mr. Freshwater burned a cross onto the arm of our child. This was done in science class in December 2007, where an electric shock machine was used to burn our child. The burn was severe enough that our child awoke that night with severe pain, and the cross remained there for several weeks. … We have tried to keep this a private matter and hesitate to tell the whole story to the media for fear that we will be retaliated against.”

So according to this, not only does Freshwater walk around with an “electric shock machine” and painfully burn his students, but he also intimidates them into not telling. These are, if I’m not mistaken, exactly the tactics used by more traditional child abusers. But I’d guess - being blissfully ignorant of this seamy side of human behavior - that most ‘traditional’ abusers avoid branding their victims with religious symbols, due to the sort of obvious evidence that a brand would constitute.

It is also worth noting that Freshwater doesn’t have the support of his co-religionists - he’s a radical, an extremist, and others don’t want anything to do with his antics:

[School Superintendent Steve] Short said it is alleged that Freshwater used his classroom to advance religion and that he teaches his own beliefs from the Bible and not the approved curriculum. In the fax, the parents also said, “We are Christians who practice our faith where it belongs, at church and in our home and, most importantly, outside the public classroom, where the law requires a separation of church and state.”

Freshwater may believe whatever he wants, but he needs to be fired because of his behavior.

(Hat tip to BCS’er Joe. Just Joe.)

1. Without, it hardly needs be said, their, or their parents’, consent. [↩]

There’s been quite a bit in the last few days on the science blogosphere condemning Clinton and Obama for ‘buying in’ to claims that vaccination causes autism. I thought it might be useful to go back to primary sources and see what was actually said.

Before we do that, a quick note about the issue (just skip all this and scroll down to the first quotation if you already know the history). The autism-vaccine “link” was dreamed up - or at least heavily promoted - by lawyers who want to make money at the expense of what they see as a rich pharmaceutical industry ripe for the taking¹. The plaintiff bar’s original focus was not on autism; it was on other sorts of vaccine injuries, some real, some make-believe.

Their litigation in the 1980’s essentially ended vaccine production in the United States; as a response to this critical threat to health, the government has had to take various steps to insure that vaccines are still made here, and are available to people who need them. One of those steps is the creation of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, put into place in 1988. It was originally a response to litigation over the pertussis vaccine, in which lawyers introduced evidence, leading to huge payouts, that was later found to be false. Under current law, the plaintiff’s bar goes after the VICP when they think that something might possibly have gone wrong with a vaccine. Although the program is paid for by a small surcharge on vaccines, the court is government-backed, and it hasn’t always remained within its budget; so in essence, every plaintiff’s award or frivolous suit through this court costs the taxpayer a bit of money. It is still, of course, better than not having any vaccines.

The vaccine-autism link doesn’t appear to have become popular until the late ’90’s, and originally the proponents of the link claimed that thimerosal, a vaccine preservative, was the cause of autism. Thimerosal was removed from vaccines given to children starting in 1999², and if this hypothesis were right, a reduction in autism should have been noted in the following years - but it hasn’t. Rather than admit that they don’t know anything about medicine, proponents of the thimerosal hypothesis have moved on to become full-blown anti-vaccination campaigners. Among the claims they’ve advanced is that vaccination is part of a vast government conspiracy to keep people in their place.

That is where we are today. Given the political muscle behind the vaccine conspiracy theorists, mainly in the form of the plaintiff’s bar - who currently have billions of dollars of autism-related claims against vaccine makers in the VICP court - and the predatory medical and quack-medical practitioners following a buck, the issue is now, apparently, one for the presidential campaign.

So here’s what the candidates actually said (with links back to sources):

Barak Obama:

We’ve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it’s connected to the vaccines. This person included. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it.

Note that where Obama says “this person included,” he gestured to someone in the audience - he apparently doesn’t mean “myself included.” That doesn’t excuse the fact, of course, that the science is very conclusive that there is no autism-vaccine link.

John McCain:

It’s indisputable that (autism) is on the rise amongst children, the question is what’s causing it. And we go back and forth and there’s strong evidence that indicates that it’s got to do with a preservative in vaccines.

Strong evidence? John McCain basically accepts the conspiracy theory hook, line, and sinker.

Hilary Clinton:

Do you think vaccines should be investigated as a possible cause of autism?

I am committed to make investments to find the causes of autism, including possible environmental causes like vaccines. I have long been a supporter of increased research to determine the links between environmental factors and diseases, and I believe we should increase the NIH’s ability to engage in this type of research. My administration will be committed to improving research to support fact-based solutions, and I will ensure that the NIH has the staff and funding to fully explore all possible causes of autism.

What will you do to protect Americans, especially young children and pregnant women, from exposure to mercury through vaccines?

I will ensure that all vaccines are as safe as possible for our children by working to ensure that Thimerosal and mercury are removed from vaccines. I plan to fully invest in our research agencies so they can protect our children’s health, and so they can find the causes and cures for conditions such as autism.

There’s some more material there from Clinton, including something that I’d consider to be classical political weasel words.

Remember, folks, we live in the real world. Resources are limited. Every dollar we decide to spend researching this issue is a dollar we can’t spend some other, better way. What the candidates are talking about is the need to research an issue that has already been researched to death, with six or seven major - and expensive - studies already completed, and with thimerosal already removed from vaccines making a repetition of much of this effort pointless in the extreme.

1. Sometimes they are, and sometimes they deserve to be taken. But not over vaccines. [↩]
2. The only vaccines today that contain thimerosal are for influenza and tetanus, although if you get bitten by a snake, some antivenins contain thimerosal [↩]

I’ve liked other videos put together by this guy, but this time he utterly outdoes himself - and merely by letting Ben Stein talk: