Introduction from Edward O. Wilson’s new book
Introduction from Edward O. Wilson’s new book on Charles Darwin’s “Four Great Books”.
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kottke.org posts about religion
Not only is Intelligent Design bad science,
Not only is Intelligent Design bad science, it’s also bad religion. “Self-defeating and incoherent, Intelligent Design is worse than useless, not only as science but also, one imagines, for religious folks who might be attempting to understand God by working backwards from the world as their body of evidence.”
Bangkok wrap-up
Wanted to share a few last things from Bangkok while they’re still (relatively) fresh in my head.
1. Green tuk tuks. I read somewhere that a) the locals don’t much care for the tuk tuks (photo) because they’re noisy & polluting and that they’re only still around because tourists use them, and b) supposedly no new tuk tuks are allowed on the street, but that’s more of a guideline than a fast rule. How about this…start regulating tuk tuks like taxis, put a meter in them, stop the unannounced commission-subsidization detours, and require them to be electric (they’re glorified golf carts after all). The crammed streets of Bangkok need more smaller vehicles like tuk tuks, not less, but without the pollution, noise, and the unreliability.
2. Both the Grand Palace and the Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho are worth a look. We happened to go to the Grand Palace on the day they were changing the Emerald Buddha’s clothes (done to celebrate the changing of the seasons), so we didn’t get to see him. But the Reclining Buddha made up for it…I was not prepared for how large he was. Quite impressive.
3. We were lucky to be in Bangkok for the Loy Krathong festival, which is a celebration at the end of the rainy season where you float your worries out onto the water in the form of a floating flower arrangement with candles and incense. But it was largely a bust for us…it rained/torrential downpoured most of the evening, and we didn’t really know where to go in Bangkok to participate/experience the event. I think Loy Krathong might be better experienced on a smaller scale (i.e. not in the big city).
4. On Saturday (which seems like forever-ago from my Wednesday vantage point in another country), we went to check out Chatuchak Weekend Market, which IMO is overrated. It’s a completely overwhelming experience, it’s difficult to find anything (they labelled each section with what could be found there, but they rarely matched reality), and is recommended only for really hardcore shoppers. Check out some of the smaller markets instead; the Suan Lum Night Market near Lumpini Park was a good one that we ran across. For food, check out the Aw Kaw Taw market.
Perhaps a bit more if I remember. (Oh, and I’ve got lots of photos from Hong Kong and Bangkok, but posting them will probably happen when I get home…need a proper monitor for editing and whatnot.)
The statue of the Virgin Mary outside
The statue of the Virgin Mary outside the Notre Dame here in Saigon has apparently been weeping and the locals are flocking to see it. (via np)
Kansas is in quite a state
I know I’m not supposed to be paying attention to anything other than my Asia trip, but I read about the Kansas Board of Education approving the teaching of “theory” of intelligent design in public schools in the South China Morning Post this morning and…
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGH!!!!!!!!!
What the hell, Kansas? And those poor science teachers in Kansas public schools…what are they supposed to do? Teaching pseudoscience as real science, that’s like asking the math teachers to tell the kids that 2+2=5 because God said so. You can’t quit, because then those kids will really be lost. If you don’t teach that ID is valid science, you’ll probably get reprimanded or fired. So what to do? I have a couple of suggestions:
1) Teach your students about evolution, and then tell them about intelligent design, just as the state curriculum says. Then spend some time going over what science is, what a theory is, and so on. Apply the definition to each. That way, you’ve taught ID by the books and then demonstrated its relationship to science.
2) Or, as long as you’re teaching your students that a higher power designed the world/universe, why not take it a step further and tell them about your personal and scientific belief in The Flying Spaghetti Monster? As long as science can include anything now, why not a supernatural being made from pasta?
Update: There appears to be hope. In Dover, Pennsylvania:
In that small, relatively conservative Pennsylvania town, voters booted all eight Republican pro-intelligent design school board members who were up for re-election and replaced them with Democrats who oppose the curriculum policy. Dover is not some bastion of liberal politics; it’s more like Kansas than parts of Kansas are.
(thx, steve)
Visualization of frequently quoted passages from the
Visualization of frequently quoted passages from the Bible. “This visualization is an attempt to understand how people quote the Bible: which parts they choose to quote, & why.” More frequently quoted verses appear in a larger, darker font. (via ia)
Why do people believe in God? Evidence
Why do people believe in God? Evidence suggests that it’s partially inherited. “The degree of religiosity was not strongly related to the environment in which the twin was brought up. Even if one identical twin had been brought up in an atheist family and the other in a religious Catholic household, they would still tend to show the same kind of religious feelings, or lack of them.”
Time magazine asks Moby, Malcolm Gladwell, Tim
Time magazine asks Moby, Malcolm Gladwell, Tim O’Reilly, Clay Shirky, David Brooks, Mark Dery, and Esther Dyson about their views on the future: religion, culture, politics, etc. Gladwell: “If I had to name a single thing that has transformed our life, I would say the rise of JetBlue and Southwest Airlines. They have allowed us all to construct new geographical identities for ourselves.”
In the real world, the process of
In the real world, the process of design depends on evolution: “To consider the iPod, it did not spring fully formed from the mind of a powerful Designer, but rather it represents one distinct point on a long evolutionary timeline.” Intelligent design is bad science and bad design. That doesn’t leave much.
Regrading this: Summer Movies Other Than March
Regrading this: Summer Movies Other Than March of the Penguins That Conservatives Are Rallying Behind. “The Dukes of Hazzard: Not once is the word ‘evolution’ used in this movie. Many pundits proclaim this to be a tacit endorsement of intelligent design.”
From a recent study: “In general, higher
From a recent study: “In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies”. This seems like a potential chicken/egg issue…is religion the cause of all this or do unhealty societies cause people to find religion?
Richard Dawkins on Gerin oil, a highly
Richard Dawkins on Gerin oil, a highly addictive drug that’s dangerous to society. You may find the Internet Anagram Server useful in understanding what Dawkins is getting at.
For those who are lazy about their
For those who are lazy about their religion, there’s the 100-Minute Bible, sort of a Cliff Notes version of the Good Book. “The 100-Minute Bible is primarily intended for people who have an interest in Christianity but not the time (nor tenacity!) to read the whole Bible. As the title indicates most people will only take 100 minutes to read it, making it ideal for an upcoming rail or aeroplane journey.”
Quick interview with Bobby Henderson, Prophet of
Quick interview with Bobby Henderson, Prophet of the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne on intelligent
Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne on intelligent design: “You cannot have it both ways. Either ID belongs in the science classroom, in which case it must submit to the discipline required of a scientific hypothesis. Or it does not, in which case get it out of the science classroom and send it back into the church, where it belongs.”
Bullshit parallels
In Jim Holt’s review of three recent books about bullshit, he writes:
The essence of bullshit, Frankfurt decides, is that it is produced without any concern for the truth. Bullshit needn’t be false: “The bullshitter is faking things. But this does not mean that he necessarily gets them wrong.” The bullshitter’s fakery consists not in misrepresenting a state of affairs but in concealing his own indifference to the truth of what he says. The liar, by contrast, is concerned with the truth, in a perverse sort of fashion: he wants to lead us away from it. As Frankfurt sees it, the liar and the truthteller are playing on opposite sides of the same game, a game defined by the authority of truth. The bullshitter opts out of this game altogether. Unlike the liar and the truthteller, he is not guided in what he says by his beliefs about the way things are. And that, Frankfurt says, is what makes bullshit so dangerous: it unfits a person for telling the truth.
In thinking about Judeo-Christian religion, atheism is a bit like bullshitting in this respect. If you believe in God, you also necessarily believe in the existence of Satan. So too for Satanists…like the liar, they are concerned with the counterpart to their main interest (i.e. God) as something to defend against. But atheists opt out and don’t believe in the existence of either.
Update: There’s been a bit of confusion as to what I’m actually trying to say here. My fault. I’m definitely not trying to say that atheists are bullshitters. Or that Satanists are liars. Or that Christians believe in Satan (as opposed to believing in the existence of Satan). What I’m saying that as both truth-tellers and liars are concerned with the true and false, so too are Christians and Satanists both concerned with God and Satan. But the bullshitter cares little for the true or false, just as an atheist is little concerned with God or Satan.
Also, someone pointed out that Satanists often don’t worship Satan. Sez the Wikipedia entry on Satanism:
Many Satanists do not worship a deity called Satan or any other deity. Unlike many religions and philosophies, Satanism generally focuses upon the spiritual advancement of the self, rather than upon submission to a deity or a set of moral codes.
So my whole point is shot anyway. (thx, kevin)
Daniel Dennett on why intelligent design isn’t
Daniel Dennett on why intelligent design isn’t science. “Evolutionary biology certainly hasn’t explained everything that perplexes biologists. But intelligent design hasn’t yet tried to explain anything.”
Inspired by Kent Hovind’s $250,000 prize for evidence
Inspired by Kent Hovind’s $250,000 prize for evidence of evolution, Boing Boing is offering a $250,000 prize to anyone providing “empirical evidence which proves that Jesus is not the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster”. I’ll throw another $250,000 into the pot.
Carl Zimmer responds to the idea that
Carl Zimmer responds to the idea that Charles Darwin’s evolutionary ideas turned him (Darwin) away from religion (as stated in this Slate article).
David Galbraith has “a new theory -
David Galbraith has “a new theory - Unintelligent Design, which is the same as Intelligent Design, except that the creator is either a moron or Satan”. Hee.
The Christian paradox in the US: “America
The Christian paradox in the US: “America is simultaneously the most professedly Christian of the developed nations and the least Christian in its behavior.”
God and Satan, as investors mind you,
God and Satan, as investors mind you, are both beating the broader market over the past few years.
How to solve the separation of church
How to solve the separation of church and state problem in the US. “Offer greater latitude for religious speech and symbols in public debate, but also impose a stricter ban on state financing of religious institutions and activities”.
An open letter to the Kansas School Board
An open letter to the Kansas School Board. “Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster.”
Scientists are opting out of public debates
Scientists are opting out of public debates on evolution vs. creationism or intelligent design.
Four nuns and a priest from Romania
Four nuns and a priest from Romania face murder charges after crucifying another nun. I think it was probably all the violent TV and video games they were exposed to.
Cory Doctorow discovers bliss in Mexican drinking chocolate
Cory Doctorow discovers bliss in Mexican drinking chocolate. Having had food experiences like this, I can relate to the feeling.
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