Blue Collar Scientist

The principal, and at least some of the staff and/or teachers, at Ponce de Leon High School in Holmes County, Florida (about halfway between Pensacola and Tallahassee), have been enforcing an anti-gay policy since at least the beginning of this school year. The whole story started when a student, who was being harassed and threatened for being lesbian, tried to complain to the principal. Instead of insuring that his school was safe for all his students, principal David Davis instead began harassing and intimidating the student.

When other students at the school began to express their support for the lesbian student, Davis and his gang widened their intimidation campaign to include those students, singling out those who wore rainbows on their clothing, or the words “gay pride,” or even “I support my gay and lesbian friends.” They even suspended some of them.

Fortunately, at least one sixteen year old was smart enough to stand up to this small-minded tyranny. Her name is Heather Gillman, she sued the school, and she won.

And it’s no surprise. Gilman’s attorney contacted the school board’s attorney, asking for school policy on wearing rainbow clothing, the initials “G.P.” (for gay pride), and whether students could wear t-shirts that say “I support my gay friends.” The school board’s attorney responded (pdf):

As has clearly been shown at Ponce de Leon School in September of this year, the types of clothing and symbols your clients seek to wear to school will likely be disruptive and interfere with the educational process. Also, said symbols were used and can further be used by select students to show participation in an illegal organization as defined by the School Board….

Because of the occurrences at Ponce de Leon School over the last several months, none of the phrases, symbols, or images contained in your November 2, 2007, letter would be permitted to be worn by students at Ponce de Leon School.

What an awesome example of utter wingnut stupidity. Sixteen year old girls, considered just as bad as membership in Al Quaeda. Unbelievable.

Gillman and her attorneys decided to go to trial. It started day before yesterday; it was over yesterday. It is not hard to see why Gillman won - what principal David Davis said on the stand is even more insane than what the board’s attorney wrote:

…David Davis admitted under oath that he had banned students from wearing any clothing or symbols supporting equal rights for gay people.

Ok, this is merely stupid and unthinking. Not a model of what you want in a high school principal, but, unfortunately, not that uncommon. It gets better, though:

Davis also testified that he believed rainbows were “sexually suggestive” and would make students unable to study because they’d be picturing gay sex acts in their mind.

Seriously - read that again. David Davis is saying that if someone sees a rainbow, they are immediately going to have uncontrollable gay sex fantasies¹. He said this on the stand. As a witness. In Federal court. Can you believe this buffoonery?

But that is not all. No, indeed. I’m guessing a few black people attend school at Ponce de Leon. Despite this:

The principal went on to admit that while censoring rainbows and gay pride messages he allowed students to wear other symbols many find controversial, such as the Confederate flag.

Right. So let’s get this straight. Seeing a rainbow and being plunged uncontrollably thereby into the sordid mental world of gay sex fantasies² is disruptive to the educational process. Therefore rainbows have to be banned.

But sitting in class with three or four or ten kids wearing symbols of a political ideology that says they think that white people should be allowed to own you, breed you like cattle, determine what you are allowed to eat (if anything), prevent you getting married, stop you from ever owning property, and putting you to forced labor, and that the south should rise up in arms against the federal government to get their way on this, well, that is not disruptive at all.

And that, my friends, is total bullshit³.

The judge was Richard Smoak. He was appointed US District Judge for the Northern District of Florida by George W. Bush in 2005. (Judge Jones was also a Bush appointee.) His preliminary comments (pdf) in ordering the school to stop enforcing the policy include these gems:

The speech that is in question, that is exhibit 2, are certainly not sexual in meaning. To say that God loves me just the way I am, to find a sexual connotation in that, I think just can’t be made…. Two of the symbols with the spectrum of the rainbow, it’s hard to drive across town without seeing that on the bumper of a car in front of you, and I doubt that this was the first time that these young people had ever seen that.

About the “disruptions” claimed by the principal, he said from the bench:

I think a more reasonable perception of much that was said about the claimed interruption and disorder was really much the usual background noise of a middle and high school.

As to how the school dealt with the alleged disorder, which the judge has already concluded was overblown by the school administrators, he makes an excellent point:

I did not hear any evidence of any effort by the [principal] to deal with this fear of disorder or interruption by any other … means … than banning the speech and suspending the students who were promoting that speech.

Basically, the judge is slapping them down for unloading both barrels at the first sign of trouble, instead of acting like adults and, you know, talking to the kids:

And [the school] probably had an opportunity, as the courts have pointed out, in the learning environment of schools, where not just comfortable issues are to be learned or debated; that this would have been an opportunity for leadership, it would have been an opportunity for understanding and an opportunity for civil discourse and a learning opportunity about tolerance and diversity.

Unfortunately those opportunities were missed.

Damn right.

What about the secret, illegal organizations that the school claimed?

…when the ACLU wrote the School Board, I think it really gave a pretty clear notice of the contentions about the problems. But I was particularly concerned about the School Board’s response. I don’t know whether he [the school board's lawyer, quoted above] was the author of this strange notion about a secret organization or secret society, he really gave very short acknowledgement, almost a bump and run, to the requirements of Tinker and Holliman.

He goes on:

I really heard no real basis from the principal to warrant his fear that chaos was imminent.

Yes. Well, people who get lawyers and sue tend not to be engaging in arson or assault to settle their scores. Free access to the courts by all citizens for any purpose is one of the hallmarks of civilization as we know it. Civilized people sue; the alternative is to riot. Remember this the next time your congressperson wants to vote to give lawsuit immunity to their biggest campaign donor.

While many people, perhaps the Holmes County community disagree with the plaintiff, but I hope they will keep in mind that this is one of the most fundamental constitutional rights, that of the freedom of speech, and that we are not making up the law today. This law has been long settled by the United States Supreme Court….

The judicial goodness just goes on and on. The basic decision, some of the fine print excised, is below, then I’ll have my closing remarks, which are likely to upset a fair proportion of my readers.

I do declare that the defendants have violated the plaintiff’s rights protected under the first and 14th amendments of the United States Constitution, that the defendants … are permanently enjoined from restraining, prohibiting or suppressing the plaintiff or any other student within the Holmes County school district from expressing their support for the respect, equal treatment and fair accept answer of homosexuals and this includes but not limited to the phrases and symbols which appear on exhibit which is before us now.

…the enforcement of the defendant’s policies concerning expression related to illegal organizations or secret societies is applied to the as applied to the plaintiffs is enjoined.

Defendants are ordered to take such affirmative steps necessary to remediate the past restraints of the expression of the support for respect, equal treatment and acceptance of homosexuals, including but not limited to notifying in writing the Ponce de Leon High School student body and the middle school students and school officials within Holmes County school district that students are permitted to express support for, respect, equal treatment and fair acceptance of homosexuals….

Defendants … are enjoined from taking retaliatory action against plaintiff for bringing this lawsuit or against any students for their past or future expressions of support for the respect, equal treatment and fair acceptance of homosexuals.

Oh, and by the way, Heather Gillman was awarded damages in the amount of one dollar.

In closing, I just want to mention that prejudice is one thing that just really seriously pisses me off⁴. It is an issue in my life that has prevented me from remaining friends with a lot of people, stopped me getting close to others, and in a few cases putting strong boundaries of the acceptable into place to deal with the prejudiced jackasses that I’ve had the misfortune to have to deal with.

Anti-gay prejudice is no different. It is, like all other forms of stereotyping, stupid. I do not believe you can legitimately call yourself a skeptic, or claim that you bring a scientific mindset to your interpretation of the world, and still be prejudiced in an obvious way like this. I grant that we all have blind spots and character flaws that make us believe stupid things. But in our society, everyone has, by now, been confronted with a description of prejudice and its consequences, and has certainly been called upon, probably many times, to take a good look at themselves and correct these errors in their minds. It is a hard job, as I know from personal experience; and I give people who are working at it due credit. But people who would intimidate whatever group they personally hate, like principal David Davis, by using force, governmental power, administrative privilege, coercion, verbal abuse, or whatever other means - these people can be neither scientists nor skeptics in any broad, holistic way⁵.

For some years there has been a top ten list circulating in e-mail of items that handily debunk the silly claims of the anti-gay marriage crowd. I reproduce it for you here. Anti-gay folks have to do a lot better than their current load of baloney if they are to show they are any better than the Klan of the mid-20th century⁶.

1. Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.
2. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
3. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
4. Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
5. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
6. Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.
7. Obviously, gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
8. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.
9. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.
10. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

Enjoy your day - remember, the courts did a good thing for all of us yesterday.

1. So much for my family-friendly rating. [↩]
2. Oops - just dinged up that family friendly rating thing again. [↩]
3. It is OK to quote a recurring character in a popular 90’s sitcom in a skeptical blog, right? [↩]
4. Hey, I’ve already lost the family-friendly seal of approval, so why not…. [↩]
5. I would go only so far as to grant that James Watson is a good technician - he certainly hasn’t applied the critical thinking skills of science to the question of race. [↩]
6. I feel justified in saying this because gay people are killed because they are gay in my country. [↩]

A few weeks ago, when the news that creationist whackjobs were giving tours at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, I thought I might post a little article here excogitating on how two-faced creationists are, and about how the people doing the tours are nothing more than dishonest cult-enforcers, and about how, despite this, the museum pretty much has its hands tied.

I didn’t, because I didn’t think I really had anything to add that hadn’t already been said (you’ll notice that my m.o. on this blog is to cover a newsy topic a day or two late, but with a surplus of dollars - i.e., with more research than the average blog is putting into it). So I gave it a pass.

However, I’ve now found the best blog entry every written about the topic, bar none. The post is by a DMNS volunteer who has dealt with these whackjobs in person.

(Oh, also, the author is fifteen years old. The main thing about blogging that I learn from this is that I’m doing it wrong.)

Cripes, stop reading my stuff, and get over there and read it, already.

Seriously.

Read it all.

Yesterday, Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Director of the Vatican Observatory (full disclosure: the Vatican Observatory on Mt. Graham was a client of mine), was interviewed by the newspaper L’Osservatore Romano. He had some things to say about the existence of extraterrestrial life that were of interest to me.

I’m currently peddling a speech about exoplanets, in which I devote about the last fourth of the talk to the possibility of extraterrestrial life, as deduced from the current state of knowledge of exoplanets, planetary formation in proplyds, and the fairly widespread existence of molecules like amino acids and sugars in space. My verdict is that the existence extraterrestrial life is so highly probable to be virtually certain.

What I’ve learned is that fundamentalist christians really, really hate the fact that I bring up the probability of extraterrestrial life and would rather me shut up about it. I’ve not really bothered to find out why, but when Dr. Funes made his comments, I decided to do a bit of research.

Dr. Funes, who I would rate not a religious extremist¹, gets to go first:

“How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?” Funes said. “Just as we consider earthly creatures as ‘a brother,’ and ’sister,’ why should we not talk about an ‘extraterrestrial brother’? It would still be part of creation.”

Ruling out the existence of aliens would be like “putting limits” on God’s creative freedom, he said.

The Bible “is not a science book,” Funes said, adding that he believes the Big Bang theory is the most “reasonable” explanation for the creation of the universe. The theory says the universe began billions of years ago in the explosion of a single, super-dense point that contained all matter.

All of this sounds fairly reasonable to me, as far as it goes. I mean, if you accept the idea of an omnipotent creating god, then you can’t with any legitimacy impose any arbitrary limitations on what he might have done in the distant past. And you certainly can’t do it from the statements of some late bronze- and iron-age guys who wrote up their impressions of this supposed god in what later became a book. It is obvious they weren’t thinking in terms of the possibility that the Earth wasn’t unique.

And it was this, combined with some of the pushback I’ve been getting from the exoplanets talk, that had me wondering why the fundies had their panties in an uproar over the issue. I found some useful explanation at the notoriously untruthful site, Answers in Genesis.

They use three basic arguments to “prove” that there can be no extraterrestrial life. And mind you, they aren’t talking about extraterrestrial intelligent life, they are ruling out pond scum and even less derived kinds of life than that. Their argument denies even a pre-DNA self-replicating form of life.

Argument one boils down to: The Earth was “designed” for life, and everything else in the universe was “designed” for other reasons.

The earth is unique. God designed the earth for life (Isaiah 45:18). The other planets have an entirely different purpose than does the earth, and thus, they are designed differently.

You would expect Isaiah 45:18 to be a pretty powerful statement on the uniqueness of life on the Earth if that is the only part of the bible they can muster to support their remarkably extremist belief. But you’d be wrong:

For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited), “I am the LORD, and there is none else.

How does this relate exactly? There is nothing at all about Earth being unique, let alone about life being unique. In fact, it says that god “did not create a waste place,” which strongly implies that he’s not in the habit of slapping terrestrial planets on the great heavenly pottery wheel for the purpose of leaving them lifeless and barren. The fact of the matter is that to derive the uniqueness of life from this verse, you have to read it with a strong, blinding filter of your own arrogant presupposition in place. And what does the bible have to say about doing that?

• I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book. (Revelation 22:18-19)

• You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. (Deuteronomy 4:2)
• Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to nor take away from it. (Deuteronomy 12:32)
• Every word of God is tested; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. Do not add to His words Or He will reprove you, and you will be proved a liar. (Proverbs 30:5-6)

While some of these don’t address the specific issue of imposing your own traditional beliefs on your study of scripture, the preponderance of evidence would suggest that this god doesn’t like it when people add to, or take away from, what he’s said. So it seems to me that Answers in Genesis has actually taken an anti-biblical view of the issue, which is, of course, no surprise.

The second argument is that there can’t be any extraterrestrial life because the bible doesn’t explicitly mention that it was created:

In Genesis 1 we read that God created plants on the earth on Day 3, birds to fly in the atmosphere and marine life to swim in the ocean on Day 5, and animals to inhabit the land on Day 6. Human beings were also made on Day 6 and were given dominion over the animals. But where does the Bible discuss the creation of life on the “lights in the expanse of the heavens”? There is no such description because the lights in the expanse were not designed to accommodate life…. From a biblical perspective, extraterrestrial life does not seem reasonable.

At this point you simply have to point out that plastic exists. The frozen polar caps of Earth exist. Death Valley exists. The Grand Canyon exists. Bacteria and Archaea exist. The Duck-Billed Platypus exists. Antibiotics exist. The point being that none of these things are specifically mentioned as having been created; and although you could lump some of them in with their broader classes (you might be able to smuggle the Platypus in with “animals,” for example), there are some things that have existed for a very long time that don’t fit anywhere in the Genesis description - such as the polar caps, or antibiotics.

Let’s take this a bit further. AiG’s argument is that “extraterrestrial life doesn’t exist, because Genesis doesn’t mention it.” There’s a hidden assumption in that statement, and that is that the Genesis account offers a complete, comprehensive accounting of all the things that were created. But the Genesis account itself fails to mention that it is a comprehensive account. Again, we have some dimwit, dishonest theologians bringing their own traditional beliefs into their reading of the bible and coming to wild conclusions as a result.

The third argument AiG deploys is strictly theological - that is, even more so than their vapid outgassings so far - and applies only to the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligent life. Basically, it goes like this:

1. Adam sinned. (Yes, they say Adam, not Adam and Eve.)
2. As a result, death and sin entered the world. (They cite Romans 5:12: Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned….
3. It was necessary for Jesus Christ, who was both human and god, to redeem this sin by being sacrificially killed. Killing animals couldn’t do it because they are not of the same “blood” as human beings.

Given all this - and I’ll take them at their word just for the sake of discussion, they conclude:

When we consider how the salvation plan might apply to any hypothetical extraterrestrial (but otherwise human-like) beings, we are presented with a problem. If there were Vulcans or Klingons out there, how would they be saved? They are not blood relatives of Jesus, and so Christ’s shed blood cannot pay for their sin. One might at first suppose that Christ also visited their world, lived there, and died there as well, but this is antibiblical. Christ died once for all (1 Peter 3:18; Hebrews 9:27–28, Hebrews 10:10)….

One might suppose that alien beings have never sinned, in which case they would not need to be redeemed. But then another problem emerges: they suffer the effects of sin, despite having never sinned. Adam’s sin has affected all of creation— not just mankind. Romans 8:20–22 makes it clear that the entirety of creation suffers under the bondage of corruption.

Having painted themselves into this corner, they say - hold on to your britches, this is really funny:

These kinds of issues highlight the problem of attempting to incorporate an antibiblical notion into the Christian worldview.

Hahaha! There’s two legitimate answers to this. The atheist would quite rightly say that this is a sign that your “christian worldview” is a bunch of make-believe rubbish, and maybe you should consider reality as an alternative.

The moderate religionist might point out that perhaps this is a sign that they’ve taken the “christian worldview” and pressed it a little too hard, believing it to mean something far beyond what the words were ever intended to say, and that maybe they should lay off the crack pipes for a bit.

(Moderate religionists might point this out, and they should - because whackjobs like these make them all look stupid and dishonorable - but for reasons that puzzle me, they rarely do.)

The AiG page goes on to debunk UFOs as alien spacecraft, a conclusion that I heartily endorse. Their arguments, of course, are rubbish.

Conclusion: Religionists who deny the possibility of extraterrestrial life are extremists.

1. Despite his church’s brutal views on contraception, etc - most Catholics I know freely ignore the behaviorally harmful aspects of Catholic teaching, and so I rate them more or less mainstream. In the meantime, I fully recognize the evil that the church is perpetrating against peoples in developing nations, of low income, of restricted educational opportunities, and so forth - and I condemn it. [↩]

I have to admit that I don’t understand Chris Mooney or the Framists at all anymore.

Michael Gerson has written an op-ed in the Washington Post, denying that there has been a Republican war on science. This, obviously, is partially a response to Chris Mooney’s book, The Republican War on Science. So you’d expect Mooney to have something to say.

That expectation has been fulfilled. Mooney’s reaction? Have a look - first he briefly enumerates the ways in which the op-ed is a straw man and doesn’t actually have anything to do with the subject of his book, and then he concludes with:

In short, Gerson’s oped is a joke. No need for debunking, just laughing.

Ok, Chris. I’m totally behind you in this. Laugh at the guy - that’s the kind of response he deserves.

What I don’t get is why we can’t laugh at antiscience extremists who deny evolution (but still take medicine when they get sick), when their arguments have nothing to do with evolutionary theory, when they brazenly lie to make their points, when what they say attacks a straw man. I don’t get why those silly people need to be treated with special condescension, gentle kindness, and a widespread pulling of the punches, while Gerson, who is just like them, should be laughed at.

I guess when you are a big-time communications expert, when you tour the country giving allegedly highly successful lectures to packed audiences, when you have such stature that you get to tell people like Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers to go shut the **** up, you get to decide for yourself how the rules of the game are applied.

Or could it be that when an antiscience boob like Gerson attacks something that Mooney actually cares about, even Mooney sees the value and effectiveness of ridicule?

There have been two pretty high profile cases of teachers being fired recently, and I thought it was time to comment on both.

The first one involves the firing of substitute teacher Jim Piculas in Florida for engaging in a bit of performance art. Piculas performed a pretty standard magic trick in his classroom, making a toothpick disappear and then reappear. Years ago when I was a kid I did a trick like this; that means, by definition, that it is a beginner’s trick and one that just about anyone can learn.

Piculas probably did the trick because such things are encouraged by education experts as ways of gaining the attention of the class, regulating the classroom, and winning the respect of the kids. I’ve seen such advice dispensed at several educational conferences. If you do a google search, you will find 420,000 references to classroom management and magic tricks. Many of the pages advocate using magic in the classroom, especially for substitute teachers like Piculas; for example one suggests performing tricks as rewards:

If you have special kid friendly talents, sometimes these can be used as great classroom management techniques! If you can play the guitar, bring that in with you and play for them when they are working quietly…. If you know some magic tricks, that works well in the same way. Show them one at the beginning of class, and then offer to show them more as rewards. Juggling can be used in the same way, if this is something you are capable of doing.

Even religious school authorities advocate magic tricks in the classroom, although in this case the trick is being performed by the kids:

Pastoral Care Day at our school takes place at the end of every term. Children may choose to sing a song, recite a poem, read a short story, crack a joke or say a riddle, share an invention, show their art work, put on a one-minute skit, dance or sing to music, play on an instrument, do a magic trick, etc.

Suffice it to say, performing magic tricks in the classroom is a widely sanctioned professional activity amongst teachers, and it has a very important role in classroom management. You don’t have to go far at all to find experienced educators advocating such performances.

And the key here is performance. Magic performers¹ know that what they do is performance art, and they don’t claim - in fact they specifically deny - that they are using supernatural forces to accomplish the illusion. However, that is not the stance that the Pasco County School District has taken - they’ve specifically accused Piculas of engaging in wizardry. And if they are responding to a student’s complaint via its parents - well, maybe they ought to re-evaluate what they are teaching in this school district. Normal people know magic isn’t real.

I suppose it would be going too far to say that the school district has established a religious test for employment - their issue is that engaging in wizardry is unacceptable in their schools, not, apparently, being a wizard. But one wonders about the edge cases. Christians are allowed to pray in schools; is disappearing a toothpick and then re-appearing it significantly more disruptive than a teacher who retreats into an internal mental world to have a chat with the creator of the universe? I wonder what kind of hay a lawyer could make of this situation. Of course Piculas, who probably wants to be able to get other jobs, would be wise not to take on such an experiment unless he’s looking to change careers. Opposing the establishment will get you blackballed.

And that leads us to our other case. Wendy Gonaver, an American Studies teacher who teaches units on constitutional freedoms, was fired from her job for not taking a loyalty oath exactly as written in the California constitution. Gonaver is a Quaker, and hence a pacifist. The loyalty oath, which dates from the McCarthy era, requires that those who take it defend the Constitution of the United States and of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

As that language is the same language used in the loyalty oaths that are taken by people who are shortly going to be sent out to kill America’s enemies, Gonaver wanted to include a statement that she would do so non-violently. This is permitted by other state institutions, but not by hers, who chose to take a hard line on the matter. They even claim that adding or supplementing material that explains an oath-taker’s interpretation of the oath is against the law. Presumably we’re to be grateful that Gonaver wasn’t thrown into jail for declaring her intention to commit a crime and recruiting conspirators.

It is not the first time the institution has pulled hard-line tactics. Marianne Kearney-Brown took the oath, but inserted the word “nonviolently” into it before she signed it. She was fired for her trouble. Kearney-Brown is a math teacher who specializes in teaching math-phobic and otherwise not math-inclined students, so there’s a depressingly urgent need for her and people like her to be able to get jobs teaching math. Her case gathered enough media attention that she was eventually rehired.

The main effect that California’s loyalty oath has on state hiring is to exclude Quakers and Jehova’s Witnesses from employment. Apparently, the oath also makes reference to god, but a state supreme court case struck that down, allowing atheists, agnostics, and polytheists to get jobs in state government in California.

One might also mention that if you have to take an oath to get the job, that would appear (at least to the oath-taker) to be taking an oath under duress. I’m not sure that’s going to be particularly effective at rooting out commies, or barring people who won’t take up guns and kill people the state says are bad. Only principled commies or pacifists will be stopped. Spies and traitors, if there really are any² will slip through.

In any case, these three examples serve to illustrate the same point. The government can’t seem to figure out that it shouldn’t impose religious tests on employment, and is stupefied by the idea that it should impose tests of merit instead. The sooner this generation of bureaucratic dunderheads goes off to their retirement, the better.

1. Excepting Yuri Geller and a few other such frauds. [↩]
2. We really only hear about them from political delusionaries who make their livings by smearing people for supposedly believing weird things; the real spies and traitors get rooted out periodically by the FBI and are generally shown to have been working for money. [↩]

One of my favorite authors, writerdd on the Skepchick blog, has a post on the topic of moderate Christianity and whether it is the authentic voice of religion. She raises many interesting points and I thought I’d offer my perspective here.

The media features fundamentalists or extreme conservative believers every time a topic regarding morality comes up, as if these are the only people who can speak for believers, as if they have authority to speak for all people of faith on these issues. Not only are atheists and agnostics left out of the conversation, but moderate and liberal believers often are as well…. When journalists act this way, they are echoing the fundamentalist point of view.

I think writerdd is missing the bigger perspective here. The mainstream media is useless, or worse, in part because their function is not (as we are led to think) covering the story, but gaining ratings. They include religious extremists in stories involving morality because:

1. Such people are available to the media - they promote themselves as sources, so every reporter and producer knows how to call them up and get them on the air.
2. Such people create controversy and drama when they appear, which improves ratings.
3. Media producers are generally very socially savvy, even to the point of knowing how to manipulate people and being willing to do it to get what they want; but they are not, in general, critical thinkers, or even knowledgeable about the topics that they cover.

When journalists bring religious extremists to the airwaves, they are giving them a voice, but they are not (in my opinion) necessarily echoing religiously extreme points of view - unless they take the trouble to agree with their source, pitch them softball questions, and so forth. There’s certainly no shortage of religious extremists in the ‘librul media.’

Sam Harris and many others often claim that moderate religious groups give cover to fundamentalists by honoring the holy books that they use to build their walls of doctrine. I used to agree, but now I’m not so sure that’s true.

I think Sam Harris is right, and wrong. He’s right that moderate religious groups give cover to fundamentalists. He’s wrong to say that they do it by honoring their holy books. They do it by failing to oppose exremists. By failing to denounce the destructive religious behaviors of those who claim to be co-religionists, they do indeed provide protection.

I’ve said in the past that one way to distinguish a non-extremist religious group is to see if they oppose (through excommunication, political opposition, etc) those who take their beliefs too far. Take a quick look at religiously motivated terrorism, and you will see very few of their co-religionist leaders taking the trouble to denounce their violent extremists.

A very similar situation holds true today, in America, where Christians who look forward to the destruction of the Jews as the precursor to Christ’s return, want total war in the mideast to accelerate that event, and who adopt a variety of political positions and personal behaviors that harm their neighbors - opposing evidence-based medicine, depriving minorities of basic civil rights, molesting children, and so on - go almost entirely unopposed or remarked upon by mainstream Christians.

That’s enabling behavior. At times it seems the only thing the moderates aren’t doing is buying the extremists bombs and beer.

I don’t know about you, but I, for one, would rather encourage a moderate, liberal kind of faith where people are free to cherry pick what they want to believe while they conform to modern, secular values and use skepticism to make decisions in daily life. I think I’d like to befriend people with this type of faith and work together with them to keep fundamentalism in check, to preserve the separation of church and state, and to protect the benefits of a scientific and secular society.

I agree. And I’m putting my money where my mouth is: For three years, I’ve had a relationship with a private religious school that brings me into the classroom frequently to teach science and critical thinking. I work with religious teachers and religious school administrators in that context, and while I would say they are moderate, rather than extremist, religionists, we still have our disagreements. But we all understand that our disagreements constitute an argument among friends, nothing more.

So what is everybody else doing about their opinions on this issue?

This morning, “cls” left a comment on the Expelled Reviews post, which I’d really like to see some discussion of. The comment brings up an issue that has repeatedly dogged me and almost certainly limited my effectiveness as a science educator, and the issue is simply this: I don’t always understand the questions being asked.

Usually, I understand questions asked by someone who is already engaged with the subject and wants to know more about it. Usually, I understand the questions posed by people who don’t know the answers but are engaged in a quest to satisfy their curiosity. But sometimes I run up against a series of questions that I don’t get, and those questions are usually, but not always asked by one of two kinds of people:

1. Anti-science people, denialists, etc.
2. The profoundly ignorant.

Because I am a scientist, and I know that there’s a lot that I don’t know, when I’m confronted by a question I don’t understand, I usually assume the fault is mine. But that’s not a safe bet when dealing with questions from these two populations. And cls’ comment includes several questions that I just don’t get.

for me, i want to know a few things of the process of evolution:

do the most mixed varieties of living things contain the most genetic
diversity?

I don’t get it. What is a “variety of living thing,” and once that is defined, what does “most mixed” mean? If a friend of mine had said “variety of living thing,” I would probably have understood them to mean a pink rose instead of a red one. But I still wouldn’t know what “most mixed” meant, and I kinda doubt cls is asking about botanical varieties here.

do the most specialized varieties of species have the least genetic diversity?

What does “varieties of species” mean? And how is that different from “variety of living things?” See, from my perspective as an astronomer, this could be (a) a well-established biological term that I don’t know, or (b) meaningless¹.

I’m going to guess that the most specialized multi-cellular organisms on the planet are parasites, and that some populations of parasite have greater genetic diversity than some populations of non-parasitic animals. I’d guess that pandas, California condors, and other organisms having very low populations would be less genetically diverse than a healthy population of ticks that are so specialized they need specific hosts to complete their life cycles.

If yes, this means they are usually successful in a specific environment, and then would only survive in that environment?

I kinda get this, and my answer would be that organisms that exploit certain ecological niches would probably have problems if their niche went away, but it doesn’t mean they couldn’t adapt to new conditions. But here I fail to see the connection to genetics or evolutionary biology - this is Ecology 101, stuff that we knew before we knew much of anything about evolution.

does evolution weaken a species when it becomes specialized?

This kind of question just bugs me. To my way of thinking, evolution doesn’t “do” anything. Evolution is just a description of how things happen.

I think maybe the question here is something like “does increasing specialization weaken a species,” and the answer, I think, would be - yes, and no. Some specialized species are on the decline, others are ubiquitously common and obviously very well adapted for their environment. But it kinda depends on how you define your terms - do specialized species go extinct with greater frequency than non-specialized ones? If so, does this mean they are “weak?” Do they speciate with greater frequency? If so, does that mean they are not “weak?” What does weak mean, exactly? From an evolutionary perspective, I would think it would have to do with how long they can keep their genes alive. I’m just not sure the question is meaningful as asked.

does evolution, like inbreeding, pass on weakness?

What?

in specific environments? (sure those too weak die.)

What?

do the mutations in the pesticides and medicines mentioned above do a lot of killing of unwanted living things?

Mutations in pesticides? What? Pesticides aren’t even living things - how can they mutate?

I can almost discern that this question is along these lines: Since organisms can evolve resistance to pesticides/medicines, there must be mutations. Since there were mutations, pesticides/medicines must be mutagenic. Do the mutagenic properties of pesticides/medicines kill organisms?

If this is what that means, the problem is that a substance need not be mutagenic in order for an organism to evolve resistance to it. Mutations happen, period - whether there are mutagens about or not.² Besides that, a quick scan of encyclopedia articles on pesticides and antibiotics will show that most have their effects through toxic (not mutagenic) properties.

These questions are mixed in with some other musings, which I also don’t get:

whales sometimes use these legs in mating, and
belugas come to shore…

Whales have legs? That’s news to me.³

And belugas do come to shore - to eat. They occasionally get stuck, and they are well adapted⁴ to surviving the ordeal until the tide comes back in and allows them to swim back out to sea. I’ve witnessed this process myself, and I’m not sure what the point is here.

there are some distinct differences in the
nature of birds and reptiles that may be unlinkable with survival

Unlinkable? What does that word mean in this context?

Even if it means that some birds/reptiles have phenotypic characteristics that are not good for their survival, the answer is “so what?” To survive, an organism need only be good enough to get by. There’s no requirement for hyper-optimization.

This kind of thing is extremely confusing to me. A lot of these questions, on first hearing, sound like complete nonsense. The questions appear to have no meaning, even if you read the dictionary definitions of the words used and apply the normal rules of grammar. They have no meaning in the mundane use of the language, and no apparent meaning as part of a technical vocabulary either.

I guess this comment has gotten me thinking about the issue of who can be reached. From long experience, I’ve learned that antiscience people can’t be talked to. If I’m going head-to-head with antiscience, I’m doing it for the onlookers, so that they have a chance of escaping the stupidity. But the people who actually believe things like the plasma universe⁵, the Jupiter effect, and other crazy ideas that shouldn’t survive for ten seconds in a reasonably educated and properly functioning mind - these people cannot be reached. At least not by me.

People who ask questions that I don’t get fall into a gray zone to me. Are they unreachable? Or am