1. Comment #200582 by the great teapot on June 28, 2008 at 12:06 am

jesus,
Let it go.
christ, I thought I was obsessive.

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2. Comment #200593 by mordacious1 on June 28, 2008 at 12:48 am

I think this is mis-titled, PZ speaks more to other topics than he does the expelled nonsense, so if you're sick of expelled, I wouldn't avoid this at all.

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3. Comment #200599 by the great teapot on June 28, 2008 at 1:05 am

Thanks mordacious.
I see it is just the follow up to the last point of inquiry interview. They did say last week they would be interviewing PZ again. "More haste less getting stuff right" as they say.

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4. Comment #200686 by DamnDirtyApe on June 28, 2008 at 5:24 am

Nah, Expelled from Expelled is just the thing that PZ's going to be tagged with forever :D

Its not a bad thing, Lucas is tagged with Star Wars, Dickens with Great Expectations, Vic Reeves with the man with the stick.

PZ is now unfortunately labelled by his interactions with those lying expelled buffoons. But like a battle scar it should be worn with pride.

'one of the kinks trying to get a duvet into a breadbin.'

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OS5hxriyZxw

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5. Comment #200690 by the great teapot on June 28, 2008 at 5:33 am

Let it go - Wouldn't let it lie - Vic Reeves.
The mind works in non mysterious ways

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6. Comment #200703 by Naturalist1 on June 28, 2008 at 6:16 am

Just a side note. On the evening CBC news here in Canada the other night Expelled bought an advertising slot for the release of this propagandist movie. The style of the movie ad was the same as any other "Blockbuster" about to be released here in Canada. They are spending serious $$ on this: a 30 second ad on CBC News isn't cheap.

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7. Comment #200709 by PristinePanda on June 28, 2008 at 6:25 am

Really feel like beating the dead horse a bit more, eh? I thought we've all heard enough about this by now, but I suppose the Canadian release is cause for a minor revival in denouncing the moronic film.

PS: Nice avatar, Naturalist1; <3 Q

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8. Comment #200757 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on June 28, 2008 at 7:58 am

On a side note does anyone know when the discussion between Dawkins and PZ will be posted, its been over 2 months since it was recorded. How long does it take to edit a video?

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9. Comment #200820 by Border Collie on June 28, 2008 at 9:18 am

the great teapot ... my sentiments exactly ... or rename the movie 'Lazarus Revisited ... Revisited ... Revisited ... Revisited ..., etc.' ...
Radical fringe? Why, because he actually uses his brain?

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10. Comment #200894 by AmericanGodless on June 28, 2008 at 12:13 pm

This interview with PZ is definitely worth the time. It is rare and refreshing when a scientist will criticize other scientists who want to soft-pedal the incompatibility of science with religion. AAS, and especially NCSE, do serve a political agenda. While I agree with PZ that it may be a necessary (though hypocritical and thoroughly distasteful) job, we and they must be clear that they do so at the expense and peril of science. Matt Nisbet (who is a social scientist, so may know a lot about "framing" issues for propoganda purposes, but next to nothing about real science and intellectual integrity) may think that PZ and Richard are rejecting the "best scientific approach" to "effective communication". But what does it help when what you are communicating is the nonsense of "god-guided" evolution?

PZ says that in the long run, he hopes that people will learn that it is "OK to disagree with established religion." I would also hope that they will learn that it is OK to disagree with those established scientific institutions that are trying to build a cozy detente with religion. They are, in my opinion, promoting an incoherent popular view of science that will ill-equip the public to deal with reality. How can they be expected to accept or comprehend the science of the future, as a better understanding of the natural origins of life, of intelligence and mind, along with the development of machine intelligence, will make it increasingly difficult to entertain the fantasy that a non-evolved non-natural intelligence would be required to guide the evolution that obviously has happened and is happening here on earth?

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11. Comment #200957 by cam9976 on June 28, 2008 at 3:38 pm

Why are we obsessing over this story...? yes it was funny, yes it illustrated the hypocrisy and stupidity of the creationists... but isn't enough enough already!?!

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12. Comment #201060 by robotaholic on June 28, 2008 at 10:41 pm

I like the evolution vs creationism debate alot - I want more Eugenie Scott, Ken Ham, Dembski, Ken Miller, The Discovery Institute, PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins, Behe, Panda's Thumb, Dover PA, Louisiana, Young Earth Creationism, Ufo's are the result of Satan, Judge Overton, Oh my - I'm gonna have a hemorrhage

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13. Comment #201062 by robotaholic on June 28, 2008 at 10:58 pm

I think Richard Dawkins is right tho - the battle between evolution vs ID or w/e is not the real problem - the REAL issue is religion vs Science - and THAT is the battle Richard Dawkins wants to wage hardcore-

Richard Dawkins is so awesome -

some day I will get his autograph

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14. Comment #201081 by Barry Pearson on June 29, 2008 at 12:52 am

#201062 by robotaholic: I think Richard Dawkins is right tho - the battle between evolution vs ID or w/e is not the real problem - the REAL issue is religion vs Science - and THAT is the battle Richard Dawkins wants to wage hardcore-

I think there is a broader "war" - between "enlightenment" and "unenlightenment". That is multi-dimensional, and more illuminating than more one-dimensional battles such as "evolution vs ID" or "religion vs Science".

I am currently developing my ideas on this, which I will publish as a web page. But so far, I have tentatively identified 5 dimensions (it may become 4) that can act as measures for societies, organisations, and people. Here they are:

1. Dimension: Method of thinking
Enlightened: Freethought, reasoning, logic
Unenlightened: Dogma, doctrine, traditional

2. Dimension: Source of information
Enlightened: Evidence, observation, education
Unenlightened: Revelation, mysticism, divination, sacred texts, superstition

3. Dimension: Coexistence
Enlightened: Tolerance, pluralism
Unenlightened: Intolerance, censorship, fundamentalism

4. Dimension: Governance
Enlightened: Representative government, secularism, freedom
Unenlightened: Authoritarian, aristocratic, theocratic, totalitarianism

5. Dimension: Rights and duties
Enlightened: Universal human rights
Unenlightened: Qualified permitted rights

Note that "evolution vs ID" or "religion vs Science" are really covered by more general dimensions, and sometimes combinations of them, typically "Method of thinking" and "Source of information". (I may merge those).

You could probably "score" (if I provided numbers, which I probably won't) 80% as a moderately/privately-religious scientific tolerant secularist. Or 20% or less as an intolerant totalitarian dogmatic atheist, like Stalin. Who would you rather have as your neighbours? (Probably the only way of getting to 100% would be as an atheist, but how many people in society would ever get to 100%?)

Religions are inherently unenlightened, but to different degrees. And religious people can be more enlightened than their religion. Church of England is moderately enlightened, and some within it more so. The Catholic Church is moderately unenlightened, but not nearly to the level of Islam in its natural state, which is very unenlightened.

We shouldn't measure societies just by how atheist they are, or how scientific their members are. Most people will never really be "scientific", but I'll settle for "reasoning, logic, evidence, observation, education".

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15. Comment #201123 by AfraidToDie on June 29, 2008 at 5:16 am

It's all about overlapping conflict. As long as religious people let scientists investigate and educate, then there can be coexistence. When the "born agains" want to argue with science or impede it in any way, then they deservedly bring on "the battle". You can believe in ghosts all you want, and we can coexist and even debate it, but don't interject it in the classroom and push it on the public. Just live your delusional life without impacting others. When you start pushing irrational beliefs, you should expect (and deserve) a battle. RD, Hitch, PZ, and a host of other rationals were inevitable champions that were bound to emerge. It started out as defensive, and has rightfully shifted to an offense. Charge on!

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16. Comment #201134 by Roger Stanyard on June 29, 2008 at 5:54 am

One of the key issues that is widely lost in the "debates" over science and religion is that fundamentalism (as distinct from religion in general) is a serious political issue - between what is essentially a call for a theocratic state and what can broadly be described as the modern liberal democracy. The fundamentalists (YECers/IDers are nearly all fundemntalists_ are driven by a hard line ideology and they want to be in control.

Organisations such as the Christiann Coaltion, the Moral Majority, Focus on the Family, the National Association of Evangelicals, Truth in Science and the Discovery Institute are deeply political organisations.

There is no debate between YERers/IDers and science. Science has won. The YECers and IDers have contribute absolutely nothing to science in the last 50 years.

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17. Comment #201140 by Barry Pearson on June 29, 2008 at 6:41 am

#201134 by Roger Stanyard: One of the key issues that is widely lost in the "debates" over science and religion is that fundamentalism (as distinct from religion in general) is a serious political issue - between what is essentially a call for a theocratic state and what can broadly be described as the modern liberal democracy. The fundamentalists (YECers/IDers are nearly all fundemntalists_ are driven by a hard line ideology and they want to be in control.

Organisations such as the Christiann Coaltion, the Moral Majority, Focus on the Family, the National Association of Evangelicals, Truth in Science and the Discovery Institute are deeply political organisations.

Yes. During debates, there are two totally different arguments going on at the same time.

One side is trying to show that science (especially evolution) is correct. The other side is trying to show that there must be a religious flavour to education, science, and government. I have suspected that some of the ID "theorists" don't really care a lot about whether evolution is correct. (The "Wedge" document didn't worry about the issue. It was concerned about the "materialistic worldview"). If evolution is correct, that is an inconvenience to be overcome. What matters is whether they can give the impression that it is wrong so that religious politicians have a platform.

I say on my website:

I cannot over-emphasise just how well-established the science of evolution is, how much evidence there is for it, how modern and up-to-date that evidence is, and how fast, and to what depth, the science of evolution is enriching our understanding of the life on Earth over the last few billion years.

Trying to defend specialised religious beliefs against evolution is equivalent to trying to protect your house against a lava flow by standing in front of it!
http://www.barrypearson.co.uk/articles/gods/convert_discussion.htm#whataboutevolution

A modern undergraduate textbook on Evolution mostly references papers and books of the last 30 years, often much less. The pace appears, if anything, to be accelerating!

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18. Comment #201142 by maton100 on June 29, 2008 at 6:43 am

Keep up the good work PZ!

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19. Comment #201266 by AoClay on June 29, 2008 at 2:17 pm

robotaholic,
I share the reverence.

Pearson,
I like that idea and would like to see that web page. The dimensions are a bit broad, but your idea is a good one and the text beneath was well done. I think a unifying term for what you want is SECULAR. Though secular just really means no religion, secularism is underlined by the ideas of the enlightenment and the ways of thinking you are looking for. Not to say you didn't know them but it's better than "reasoning, logic, evidence, observation, education" or at least shorter.

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20. Comment #201302 by pzmyers on June 29, 2008 at 3:03 pm

Hey, if you are tired of the "Expelled from Expelled" stuff, think how I feel!

It's become a kind of obligatory question in just about every interview I do now, but really, it's only a small part of this podcast.

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21. Comment #201587 by robotaholic on June 29, 2008 at 8:49 pm

hahah, hey PZ you're awesome -

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22. Comment #201615 by DanDare on June 29, 2008 at 11:26 pm

Comment #201081 by Barry Pearson ...


...Note that "evolution vs ID" or "religion vs Science" are really covered by more general dimensions, and sometimes combinations of them, typically "Method of thinking" and "Source of information". (I may merge those).

No don't merge method of thinking and source of information, they make very good dimensions. Would you add lateral thinking to the thinking dimension please.

I think there is another dimension too, similar to co existance, to do with moral reasoning. It would have something like "evolving (progressive?), open, enabling, rewarding" vs "static, given, prohibitive, punishing"

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23. Comment #201657 by Barry Pearson on June 30, 2008 at 2:18 am

#201615 by DanDare: No don't merge method of thinking and source of information, they make very good dimensions. Would you add lateral thinking to the thinking dimension please.

I think there is another dimension too, similar to co existance, to do with moral reasoning. It would have something like "evolving (progressive?), open, enabling, rewarding" vs "static, given, prohibitive, punishing"

I'll add lateral thinking. I think I too prefer separation between method of thinking and source of information.

I'm not sure whether "moral reasoning" is an extra dimension, or a consequence (an emergent property?) of the existing dimensions. (Just as "science" isn't a separate dimenstion, but a consequence of "method of thinking and source of information"). Perhaps I need to reconsider the "Rights and duties" part - perhaps Human Rights are a consequence of "moral reasoning", not a dimension? And perhaps the "reasoning" part is provided by "method of thinking and source of information"? (I wonder if "attitude to others" is a better dimension, and "coexistence" and "moral reasoning" are consequences? After all, if you don't consider some others even to be human, your reasoning may not lead to human rights. Or ape rights, which I think I'll introduce).

Aaaaarrggh! It is hard to separate them into largely-independent dimensions! And, based on the way I used to designed complicated computer systems, it is a good idea not to have more dimensions than strictly necessary.

But I'll cover "moral reasoning" somehow. Thanks. The page will appear here (just notes at the moment, probably to be updated daily) before August 2008:
http://www.barrypearson.co.uk/articles/gods/enlightenment.htm

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24. Comment #201787 by discipline on June 30, 2008 at 9:12 am

#16 Roger Stanyard:

'Organisations such as the Christiann Coaltion, the Moral Majority, Focus on the Family, the National Association of Evangelicals, Truth in Science and the Discovery Institute are deeply political organisations."

Precisely! The actual substance of the evolution debate is almost irrelevant. The "god question" was solved centuries ago -- what remains is a tactical/strategic/PR battle. And the pro-science crowd isn't winning, at least here in the US.

As I said in another post, the ID movement is inextricably entangled with conservative American politics. Thus, they are also anti-environmentalism, anti-abortion, anti-gay, climate change deniers, etc.

When the Discovery Institute rants about "materialism" what they really mean is "liberalism." This is why they are so persistent and attract so much funding. It's all about propagating the right-wing agenda (which ultimately comes down to protecting their economic interests). Whether or not they actually believe what they say about god/evolution is a mystery.

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25. Comment #202093 by Styrer- on June 30, 2008 at 9:01 pm

Believe it or not, I really did not realise just how fantastically almost non-propitiatory, non-appeasing and non-ingratiating PZ was about the whole NOMA idea until I heard his huge struggles to make his position take on some sense in this interview.

For what I heard was a man committed - by his lukewarm support of NCSE's Eugenie Scott, by his reaction to NAS's wishy-washy bollocks of 'have your science and eat god too', and by his endorsement of his own free-speaking site - to both saying you have to compromise in public, and at the same time saying that in private (on Pharyngula) he can say what the fuck he really thinks, and never compromise. What a fucking struggle indeed.

It is surely his blog that grants the true reflection of his thoughts, while the rest he offers in public is necessarily a dishonest approach to the relationship between science and religion. He seems to be all too aware of it, while castigating that very phenomenon himself in others.

'Shrill, militant and atheistic' are the adjectives he chooses to depict himself here; but I think he needs to go one step further - and he seems, from this interview, to be pulling back from it - to stating categorically that NOMA is a shit idea, that it is prolonging contact, chez theists, with a scientific evaluation of their beliefs, and that it is thereby prolonging the war reason must wage against superstitious supernaturalism the world over.

On the basis of this interview, he's close to saying it. I wish he would just get it out in the fucking open. He is, far more than most atheists, on precisely the right track here.

But he needs to draw a non-appeasing line, once and for all, between his blog - where he says what he really means - and his more public, currently self-confessed intellectually dishonest profferings. By so doing, that line can disappear for good.

Best,
Styrer

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26. Comment #202439 by D'Arcy on July 1, 2008 at 1:41 pm

....arguing instead that there is a direct link between science education and religious skepticism.

Well! What a surprise! The more people find out about the world, the less they are inclined to invoke spirits or gods. The good Christian geologists who went searching for the evidence of Noah's flood, found instead evidence of lots of floods and sedimentation over millions of years. Similar discoveries in the other sciences showed that the Earth and life was in fact much, much older than what the Bible had said, even allowing for every day to be 1000 years. The observable facts conflicted with the stated religion. Like wily politicians, the Christians theologians proved "flexible". The talking snake didn't really talk, it was metaphor. The sun didn't really stand still for a day, it was a metaphor. The universe wasn't really created in 6 days, it was a metaphor. As to why an omnipotent God would have to rest on the 7th day must remain a theological mystery. Where were His powers to be replenished from?

No wonder people who study the real world, including scientists, find less and less room for supernatural explanations.

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27. Comment #202457 by Styrer- on July 1, 2008 at 2:02 pm

Comment #202439 by D'Arcy on July 1, 2008 at 1:41 pm

Well said.

It is a constant mystery to me how scientists - and eminent ones, on occasion - can truly believe in a supernatural realm. I understand Richard's compartmentalisation idea, but you really would think that scientists - whose day job is utterly dependent on evidence!- would know better.

Utterly baffling.

Best,
Styrer

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28. Comment #202520 by D'Arcy on July 1, 2008 at 3:07 pm

Thanks Styrer.

It is a constant mystery to me how scientists - and eminent ones, on occasion - can truly believe in a supernatural realm. I understand Richard's compartmentalisation idea, but you really would think that scientists - whose day job is utterly dependent on evidence!- would know better.

Utterly baffling.

Not quite so baffling if you look at the upbringing of the people concerned. In the western world, Christianity was almost certainly in the immediate environment, if not at home.

The fact that some people are scientists does not mean that they are immune from the illusions that magicians or priests can induce. Scientists are also human beings!

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