1. Texas State Board of Education approves Bible course for high schools

Comment #213898 by Mike O'Risal on July 19, 2008 at 7:51 am

How on earth can you all be so opposed to studying the Bible in Texas when battle between good and evil is being waged right next door in Oklahoma even as we speak?

I mean, Commissioner Brent Rinehart is doing everything he can to combat the agents of Satan, but there's a danger that once Messiah Rinehart drives all of the liberal, Boy Scout-raping pedifiles out of the Sooner State, they could cross the border. How will Texans stop their children from being possessed by the evil spirits driven from Oklahoma if those kids don't have a Bible constantly at their side?

C'mon, folks, this is science here!

2. 'Condoms won't change HIV rates'

Comment #212799 by Mike O'Risal on July 17, 2008 at 4:55 pm

The pope does seem to talk about baseball quite a bit. Still, I'm no longer mad at him as a pizza.

3. 'Condoms won't change HIV rates'

Comment #212790 by Mike O'Risal on July 17, 2008 at 4:31 pm

You're being way too hard on the Pope's people here. I thought badly of them, too, but I just had my computer's speech recognition software write a transcript of the Pope's homily at World Youth Day and what he said has really changed my mind on a lot of things.

I mean, a visa and a mountain goat? Brilliant!

4. The Return of Religion

Comment #212360 by Mike O'Risal on July 17, 2008 at 4:51 am

The truck big enough to haul a load of bullshit of this magnitude has not yet been built, nor is ever likely to be. It's hardly worth a detailed analysis; it's all the same god of the gaps and anthropic tuning nonsense that religion foists off as knowledge time and time again.

The reason that there is no duty to "be gentle" is demonstrated precisely by this very long-winded, rehashed argument. Religious belief is an impediment to rational progress. It isn't a manner of arriving at the truth about the universe of which we are a part but a blindfold placed over the eyes of reason. Why should it not be enough of a "transcendental experience" to learn that we are made of stuff that coalesced in the hearts of stars and that we are at every moment exchanging the very matter of our corporeal being with the universe around us?

The notion that it is necessary to posit the existence of the supernatural in order to experience reality in a transcendental manner is itself a ridiculous assumption.

5. PLEASE WRITE IN SUPPORT OF PZ MYERS

Comment #208187 by Mike O'Risal on July 10, 2008 at 5:20 pm

It is worth pointing out here that if there is any consistency at all in the minds of believers, it is easily demonstrated that what Bill Donohue is doing amounts to a blasphemy against God and Jesus. It is also a violation of the first commandment, in that Donohue is proposing to do something that God was unable to do.

After all, Donohue has said that the student held "the body of Christ hostage." He is therefore saying that this student was capable of compelling Jesus to remain somewhere that he didn't want to be in the first place. And that, according to any sort of internally consistent thought, is a blasphemous statement.

Moreover, Donohue is assuming that God and/or Jesus was incapable of turning the transubstantiated host back into a perfectly normal object that didn't contain the body of Christ. This must assume that either God wasn't aware of the student's intentions (so Donohue would be denying the omniscience of the deity), that he was incapable of doing so (denying the omnipotence) or didn't care about what happened to the body of Christ in the first place (a denial of benevolence). Any one of these three statements renders Donohue a heretic prone to excommunication. Nobody has called him on it, though.

And, well... more at Hyphoid Logic, because I've already written all of this down once and I'm lazy.

6. New legal threat to school science in the US

Comment #207658 by Mike O'Risal on July 10, 2008 at 4:57 am

Happy 83rd Anniversary of the Scopes Monkey Trial, everybody!

In America, particularly in the South, some things never change. That may be the strongest evidence contradicting evolutionary biology that exists. Perhaps the "alternative theories" allowed for under the LSEA will go something like a teacher telling a class, "Look at me. I'm a very good example of something that hasn't evolved."

7. Group Asks for Divine Intervention to Ease Oil Prices

Comment #204306 by Mike O'Risal on July 4, 2008 at 4:50 pm

This is old news.

Back in April, Twyman was already doing this. While he and his pump-buddies were prayin' to Jesus for the price of gas to go down, I started praying to the ghost of Norman Fell to make it go up.

Clearly, the price of gas went up. Thus, according to prayer-logic, the ghost of Mr. Roper from Three's Company is more powerful than Jesus.

I'm calling the new religion Fellatio.

8. Texas Supreme Court rules church can't be sued in exorcism

Comment #200735 by Mike O'Risal on June 28, 2008 at 7:23 am

Corona Dave,

This is the Texas Supreme Court, not the US Supreme Court. I doubt that the Texas Supreme Court has many, if any, Catholics on it and the church in question wasn't a Catholic church but an Evangelical Protestant one.

That being said, what the court has done is effectively made churches in Texas a legal entity above normal law. They now have the right to hold people against their will for indefinite periods, inflict corporal abuse and punishments, and generally to force American citizens to accept any sort of religious ritual â€" no matter how barbaric â€" if they happen to be in a church in Texas. Laura Schubert, according to the court, effectively gave up her protection against false imprisonment by joining a church.

Which is very good reason, I think, for people in Texas to stop joining churches.

More here.

9. Spanish parliament to extend rights to apes

Comment #199977 by Mike O'Risal on June 26, 2008 at 3:12 pm

The United States once again has been far ahead of the curve on the issue of rights for the Great Apes. In Spain, great apes finally have the right not to be tortured. In America, we've had an ape (and a not-so-great one at that) running the country for the past eight years and ordering torture.

USA! USA! USA!

10. Sarcasm Seen as Evolutionary Survival Skill

Comment #198169 by Mike O'Risal on June 23, 2008 at 9:56 am

Over the course of evolutionary history, there's only been one species that we know of that was more reliant on sarcasm as an evolutionary skill than humans. I'm speaking, of course, of Sarcasmodon. This distant relation of one lineage of saber-toothed cats flourished during the late Eocene, finally disappearing when its contemporaries got tired of its bullsh*t and beat it into extinction.

What a great evolutionary edge is sarcasm.

11. Darwinists for Jesus

Comment #196586 by Mike O'Risal on June 20, 2008 at 7:27 am

I've posted a critique of Dowd's presentation as promised. It can be read here.

12. Darwinists for Jesus

Comment #196369 by Mike O'Risal on June 19, 2008 at 8:06 pm

I have just gotten home from attending Michael Dowd's talk in Willington, CT. I'm far too tired to write a coherent review of the ideas he presented at the moment (I will be doing so on my own blog in the morning), but one thing he is definitely NOT is a theistic wolf in sheep's clothing. He is absolutely not a sectarian by any stretch and he has no problems with atheists (in fact, he's married to one). His definition of "god" is quite naturalistic and essentially a sort of universal set (see John Allen Paulos' book Irreligion on or about page 99 for a fair proximation of Dowd's position). He expressly stated that both Creationists (he calls them "flat-earth Christians") and ID advocates are both wrong, although they believe in different things and are wrong for different reasons. He stated quite plainly that religion is the product of a sort of dream-language mode of interpretation and that ancient cultures dreamed it up because they didn't know any better (an ambiguous point I'll address in more detail tomorrow).

I don't find myself in agreement with everything Dowd said and I think he has a few catch-22 problems with his ideas. That being said, there's none of the exclusivity of religion in his ideas, no fire and brimstone (he maintains that this world is what's important; if there is a "next world," we can't do anything about what will happen to us there anyhow because we can't actually know anything about it), and certainly no literalism. One statement he made was that "Facts are the language of God," and he considers science to be "public revelation." He considers literalism/fundamentalism to be a mockery.

Dowd isn't without his problems, but I generally found myself in agreement with him. If anything, there's perhaps too much of a tinge of New Age self-help in some of what he has to say... but I think any concerns about him trying to convert people to religious belief (he's not big on belief, by the way) are entirely unfounded.

I didn't mean to write such a long response, but after seeing some of the comments on this thread and then hearing what Dowd actually had to say without first passing it through a journalistic filter I thought I should at least put this much out there.

There will be more on Hyphoid Logic tomorrow... after I've had some sleep.

13. Darwinists for Jesus

Comment #195807 by Mike O'Risal on June 18, 2008 at 9:01 pm

Dowd will be speaking tomorrow night a few miles from where I live. I plan on being in attendance. I'm curious to hear what he has to say.

I'll be taking notes and will write an entry at Hyphoid Logic shortly thereafter.

14. Vatican bans Dan Brown film Angels & Demons from Rome churches

Comment #194345 by Mike O'Risal on June 16, 2008 at 4:02 pm

Double Bass Atheist said:

The christians have been making shit up for nearly 2000 years... and those stories would be fairly entertaining if so many people didn't take them so seriously.

15. As the world becomes smaller, the need to understand each other's faith grows

Comment #192959 by Mike O'Risal on June 14, 2008 at 10:35 am

I think I understand Tony Blair's faith a little better today than I did yesterday.

That doesn't make me like it any more, though.

I understand a lot of things that are ridiculous. Sometimes that understanding can even elicit a degree of sympathy. Why should understanding something implicitly have anything to do with accepting it as worthwhile?

I understand how a number of diseases work, too. That doesn't mean I don't think they're harmful.

16. Divine Impulses: Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #192611 by Mike O'Risal on June 13, 2008 at 3:47 pm

If folks are interested in keeping up with whats going on in the terrible world of FGM, please check out (and consider donating to) The Female Genital Cutting Education and Networking Project. The director (and not coincidentally my partner for quite a long time now) has spent years in research and organizing efforts in dealing with the problem of FGM in North Africa and elsewhere. She and a skeletal staff of volunteers have moved mountains in the effort to educate and legislate on this issue.

17. Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound

Comment #190727 by Mike O'Risal on June 9, 2008 at 1:02 pm

Logical fallacies exist.
Logical fallacies cannot exist unless someone creates them.
Therefore, God exists.

I don't know why this guy had to write such a long-winded article; it could be boiled down easily to just three lines.

18. John McCain: America a Christian nation, needs Christian president

Comment #190421 by Mike O'Risal on June 9, 2008 at 4:17 am

Christian belief like possessions and co-workers casting spells on people? I don't think we need anymore superstition than that with which we already suffer.

19. New Way To Think About Earth's First Cells

Comment #190040 by Mike O'Risal on June 8, 2008 at 9:16 am

Mordacious1:

This wasn't made from a pre-existing cell. The membrane and DNA are all de novo. It's a membrane made from scratch from fatty acids and the DNA itself is being replicated from free nucleotides.

20. The day of judgment

Comment #189549 by Mike O'Risal on June 6, 2008 at 1:06 pm

Nevertheless, the world is currently being taken over by 13-foot tall superhuman hybrids with mice growing out of their ears from another dimension. There's no debating this point. They're the same Nephilim that built Stonehenge and the pyramids. Soon, fire will rain from the sky and we'll all be turned into pillars of peanut brittle, for the Bible tells this guy so.

There ain't no crazy like a fundie crazy 'cuz a fundie crazy don't stop.

21. The Great Evangelical Decline

Comment #188790 by Mike O'Risal on June 4, 2008 at 2:43 pm

Christianity may be declining, but faith in the Ghost of Norman Fell is now the fastest-growing religion in the world. Two weeks ago, I was the only believer. Yesterday, another person expressed their belief. That's 100% growth in Fellationism in just one week! Islam's got nothing on us.

Roper be praised!

22. Group wants Wi-Fi banned from public buildings

Comment #186146 by Mike O'Risal on May 29, 2008 at 5:53 pm

People's stupidity often causes me discomfort, but it rages all around me. I would hazard an informed guess that far more people suffer from exposure to stupidity than do so from WiFi signals.

Where do we sign up for the class action suit?

23. How Are Humans Unique?

Comment #184441 by Mike O'Risal on May 25, 2008 at 9:08 am

Tomasello asks:

It is thus with decidedly mixed feelings that we regard the frequent reports that activities once thought to be uniquely human are also performed by other species: chimpanzees who make and use tools, parrots who use language, ants who teach. Is there anything left?

24. 'Reverse Evolution' Discovered in Seattle Fish

Comment #183528 by Mike O'Risal on May 22, 2008 at 8:07 am

Bonzai,

The point is that it isn't the same house. You might well go inside and find that it looks entirely different.

For instance, in the example from the Nat Geo article, they're only looking at (or at least talking about) a very small number of characters. If they were to look at a broader selection, they would certainly find other difference. For instance, they might find changes in genes that code for the deposition of calcium that are different than the ones in earlier-evolving populations of the same fish. There may also be changes in other morphological characters; perhaps the swim bladder is a bit different. Maybe the tail fin has changed a little bit. When reconstructing the evolutionary history of a species, population, etc., it is very bad methodology to pick a single trait, or even too few traits. That's what induces sampling bias and screws up overall inference.

Homoplasy can be a major problem in phylogeny. You can certainly talk about a state without reference to how it arose, but you can't say anything about evolutionary relationships between populations without doing so.

25. 'Reverse Evolution' Discovered in Seattle Fish

Comment #183515 by Mike O'Risal on May 22, 2008 at 7:50 am

No, Bonzai, not really. The fish didn't retrace any steps. What it has evolved are new character states that mimic ancestral states. The states look alike, but the history of how that state arose in the "younger" species is different than that in the "older" one.

To use your analogy, it's more like there was a detour, so instead of going straight home you turned left, drove three miles, turned right, and arrived at a building that looked just like your old one and which happened to use the same key to open the front door.

26. 'Reverse Evolution' Discovered in Seattle Fish

Comment #183506 by Mike O'Risal on May 22, 2008 at 7:39 am

Rodviking,

There is already a term for this in evolutionary biology; it's called a reversal. This is when a character independently reverts to resemble a state found in an ancestor, sometimes a very distant one. It's a form of homoplasy, that notorious headache one gets when trying to reconstruct a phylogeny.

While not quite as common in morphology, reversals are almost par for the course in molecular biology, particular when one is examining sequences that aren't under strong selection. With only four bases to choose from, reversals in non-coding regions come up all the time where they're the result of multiple hits (changes between bases that occur again and again over the course of history).

Example: Ancestral organism sequence - ATGACTAGG
12 Generations Later - ATGAATACC
37 Generations Later - ATGACTAGG

If this (ridiculously short) sequence were used to infer phylogeny all by itself, we would likely make the incorrect inference that organism-37gen was more closely related to the ancestral organism �" and be wrong about it.

Luckily, there are numerous ways to remedy the problem.

It's not "reverse evolution," though. That's a rather silly phrase. Evolution either goes forward or not at all.

27. Americans pray at the pump for cheaper petrol

Comment #179368 by Mike O'Risal on May 13, 2008 at 7:12 am

Richard Dawkins said:

I suspect that the prayer part of this story is another Onion type joke.

28. Americans pray at the pump for cheaper petrol

Comment #179366 by Mike O'Risal on May 13, 2008 at 7:09 am

SPS blasphemed:

If you think praying to Norman Fell gets results, I've got two words for you: Don Knotts....

29. Americans pray at the pump for cheaper petrol

Comment #179254 by Mike O'Risal on May 13, 2008 at 1:15 am

While these silly people have been praying to Jehovah for the price of gas to go down, I've been praying daily to the ghost of Norman Fell (Mr. Roper from 70's sitcom "Three's Company") for the price to go up.

The price of gas keeps going up, even though more people are praying to Jehovah than are praying to Norman Fell.

Therefore, the ghost of Norman Fell is more powerful than Jehovah. All those who worship Jehovah can thus rightfully be said to be sinning against the true deity, Norman Fell.

30. Turkey in radical revision of Islamic texts

Comment #135036 by Mike O'Risal on February 28, 2008 at 1:19 pm

They make this out to be a big deal, but I think I can give this religion all the reformation it really needs right here in this forum.

Forget all the supernatural stuff and treat others as you would like them to treat you.

Ta dah. All done.

31. State Approves Evolution As 'Scientific Theory'

Comment #129730 by Mike O'Risal on February 19, 2008 at 2:10 pm

This is particularly to liberalartist...

How's this for a track: I moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to Florida and, most recently, to Massachusetts. I don't think I ever quite got over the culture shock of North Florida, but I will say it's nice being back in the northeast (I was born in NYC), even if where I am now is a lot more expensive to live in than was Tallahassee.

I made a couple of good friends in Florida and I loved the biodiversity of the Big Bend/Panhandle. But would I ever move back there again? No way. Too many cultural aspects of the place are stuck in some previous century. I never lived in the southern part of the state and I'm told things are very different there, but I wouldn't consider going back to the north.

Funny how the world thinks all of Florida is like Miami when, in reality, most of the state is more like Mississippi.

32. Conservative Rabbis to Vote on Resolution Criticizing Pope's Revision of Prayer

Comment #124879 by Mike O'Risal on February 10, 2008 at 11:41 am

Two things occur to me about this.

First, I seem to recall from my youth that Jews don't believe that the messiah has come yet and they recite prayers and other ritual verbiage to that effect. For instance, Passover is coming up. Over the traditional Passover meal (seder), a work called the Haggadah is read, part of which states the hope that next year the seder will be undertaken in Jerusalem, an allusion to the erection of the temple and coming of the messiah at which time all dead righteous Jews will be physically resurrected and somehow transported to that city... a sort of rapture with a travel agent. Point being, Jewish prayer and tradition maintains that Christ wasn't the messiah and thus Catholics must be wrong about the whole Jesus thing. Why is this any less offensive than Catholic prayers maintaining that the Jews are wrong about the whole Jesus thing?

Second, would the conservative rabbis in question feel better if the prayer listed all of the religions that didn't believe in Christian messianic teaching rather than singling out the Jews? I could see this serving another purpose as well; the prayer would take a very long time to recite, thereby keeping the priests and their flocks in churches for hours on end which, I think, is a very good place for them to be for as long as possible. We all know what happens when certain priests have too much free time on their hands...

33. An Altar Beyond Olympus for a Deity Predating Zeus

Comment #122766 by Mike O'Risal on February 6, 2008 at 2:37 am

Some years ago, a fellow named Alain Danielou wrote a very interesting book entitled Gods of Love and Ecstacy: The Traditions of Shiva and Dionysus. In it, he points to a common ancestry for the respective Indian and Greek deities and mentions an incident that occurred when Alexander invaded India. He and his men were stunned to find the Indians already worshiping practically the same god who was so important to Alexander himself.

More about that bit of Greek/Indian religious crossover at http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander_t18.html

34. An Altar Beyond Olympus for a Deity Predating Zeus

Comment #122763 by Mike O'Risal on February 6, 2008 at 2:30 am

Everyone knows that Jesus was the first God. Nothing came before Jesus...

35. Atheists to celebrate at Darwin Day in Coconut Creek

Comment #121891 by Mike O'Risal on February 4, 2008 at 9:54 am

Epinephrine:

As an example, I'd like to share a video taken during the first attempt at marking Darwin Day at Florida State University a year ago. A fundamentalist preacher attempted to disrupt the event and the speaker explains that the point of the event wasn't to get anyone to discard their religion, but to make them aware of what Darwin's works actually say. Point being, it's ridiculous to form an opinion about something that you've never actually bothered to find out about.

Enjoy: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q_RtAeRWInU

36. Atheists to celebrate at Darwin Day in Coconut Creek

Comment #121878 by Mike O'Risal on February 4, 2008 at 9:37 am

First off, remember that this article was written for a newspaper in Florida. That's an important point; there's an agenda at work in linking Darwin Day specifically with atheism and featuring this particular event because of who is sponsoring it.

In fact, there are Darwin Day observations going on all over the state. Far to the north, for example, two events have been scheduled at Florida State University (in Tallahassee) alone. These have not so far gotten coverage from local press; neither group conducting the events is specifically atheist.

Secondly, people here seem to be equating "holiday" with "religious observance." Here in the US, we have a number of non-religious holidays every year. That we celebrate Presidents' Day (combined Washington and Lincoln birthdays) isn't indicative that we consider presidents to be gods. Martin Luther King Day isn't observed because anyone thinks that the civil rights activist descended from the heavens. Valentine's Day may have religious origins, but most American's have long since dropped the "Saint" that used to come at the beginning and spend the day eating chocolate and exchanging sexual favors, not attending mass. Those who equate Darwin Day with a religious holiday are the same people who would equate evolutionary biology with religion to begin with; that there are people who wish to mark the birthday of someone whose ideas revolutionized biology and contributed tremendously to our understanding of how the world actually works really has no bearing on our bumper crop of religious literalist ignorami.

That being said, it's too bad we don't also commemorate people like Einstein and Boyle with their own holidays. Perhaps we could eventually combine them all into a Science Day �" but why would the fundamentalists object any less vociferously to that than they would to marking Darwin's birthday in the first place?

Remember what Martin Luther said about religion and reason:

"Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but -- more frequently than not -- struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God."

"Reason is the Devil's greatest whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil's appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom ... Throw dung in her face to make her ugly. She is and she ought to be drowned in baptism... She would deserve, the wretch, to be banished to the filthiest place in the house, to the closets."

"To be a Christian, you must "pluck out the eye of reason."

"Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his Reason."

(taken from various writings by Luther)

37. Atheism and Violence

Comment #117813 by Mike O'Risal on January 29, 2008 at 5:45 pm

I don't get it...

Why do these Creationists keep writing these long, fallacious screeds when they could just as easily write one phrase — "The same bullshit." — and be done with it?

It would make things so easy!

38. 'Telepathic' Genes Recognize Similarities In Each Other

Comment #116758 by Mike O'Risal on January 27, 2008 at 10:49 am

I find the use of the word "telepathic" to be rather unfortunate in this context. My first thoughts on reading this had more to do with complementary distribution of charges across the surfaces of complementary strands of DNA in homologous genes... perhaps something along the lines of Van der Waal's force at work.

But telepathy? C'mon. Now we'll have the Woo Crowd breaking out Ouija boards to divine the distribution of alleles in zygotes!

39. Moderates Storm The Religious Battlefield

Comment #106250 by Mike O'Risal on January 2, 2008 at 2:52 pm

Newsweek has lots of bad article because John Meacham (sp) is the editor and he is a weenie. He is one of those, "atheists are the same as fundamentalists" hopeless self proclaimed moderate types.

40. Pope's exorcist squads will wage war on Satan

Comment #104687 by Mike O'Risal on December 29, 2007 at 5:56 am

Courtesy of MouthAlmighty's post (no. 41 on this thread), I do:
http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=55627

"Pope Benedict XVI has no intention of ordering local bishops to bring in garrisons of exorcists to fight demonic possession."

In a new course on the topic, being offered by the pontifical university Regina Apostolorum in Rome, Father Paolo Scarafoni has warned that Satanic cults are making inroads in Italian society

41. Pope's exorcist squads will wage war on Satan

Comment #104675 by Mike O'Risal on December 29, 2007 at 5:29 am

...the Vatican appears to have denied the report!

42. Pope's exorcist squads will wage war on Satan

Comment #104669 by Mike O'Risal on December 29, 2007 at 5:19 am

I'm surprised that nobody's brought it up yet, so I will.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith is the name currently given to the Vatican institution formerly known as the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Yes, that Inquisition.

In essence, then, the man who formerly the head of the Inquisition became Pope and is now organizing Inquisition field offices around the world to root out "godlessness" while maintaining that disbelief in Jehovah and belief in other deities are inspired by Satan.

Does this sound familiar yet?

43. Biologist fired for beliefs, suit says

Comment #96117 by Mike O'Risal on December 10, 2007 at 3:03 am

I've been looking over Liberty University's "doctrinal statement" this morning:

http://www.liberty.edu/index.cfm?PID=6907

As well as their Faculty Handbook:

http://www.liberty.edu/media/1109/FacultyHandbook.pdf (warning: 185 page PDF!)

After reviewing those, I can't help but wonder how Abraham can bleat with a straight face that he was "fired for his beliefs." These documents make clear that anyone at Liberty University can assuredly be dismissed for their beliefs, and Abraham had to agree to these rules when he accepted a position there. Nobody who was concerned about academic freedom could possibly look at this great heap of religious dogma, disagreement with which is grounds for the immediate termination of even a tenured lecturer, and say that academic and free inquiry could function in such an environment.

44. Biologist fired for beliefs, suit says

Comment #95927 by Mike O'Risal on December 9, 2007 at 1:34 pm

ADH wrote:

But positting a materialistic oriin for the universe and for life is clearly a metaphysical position. I'm afraid I will continue to disappoint you if you thought my theism was beginning to waver.

45. Biologist fired for beliefs, suit says

Comment #95859 by Mike O'Risal on December 9, 2007 at 11:07 am

Huh... the attorney representing Abraham was also the lead attorney on the infamous Terri Schiavo case (for the keep-the-braindead-woman-hooked-to-the-machine side, of course), and he was himself a graduate of Liberty University who maintains close ties with that bastion of crap.

Yes, there is definitely a rat to be smelt here.

46. Biologist fired for beliefs, suit says

Comment #95844 by Mike O'Risal on December 9, 2007 at 10:37 am

I'm rather curious about the context of the "casual conversation" between Abraham and Hahn, He'sAVeryNaughtyBoy. A postdoc telling the PI on his grant that he doesn't believe in the entire basis of the lab's research doesn't sound like something all that casual to me. I have a hunch, though I have no evidence, that Abraham had already told others in the lab and/or been outright prostletyzing before the "casual conversation" took place.

If folks want a real gasp-and-a-laugh, though, check out the loons that are representing Abraham free of charge:

http://www.christianlaw.org/

They take cases AND do prayer requests, and they don't charge fees to people who sabotage research centers, apparently.

And does it strike anybody else as indicative of a set-up that Abraham stepped straight from WHOI to an associate professor position at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University? He never published a single paper, either. Why would Liberty University even know who Abraham was if they hadn't discussed some sort of reward once Abraham "came out" and thus set the stage for this lawsuit?

47. Biologist fired for beliefs, suit says

Comment #95824 by Mike O'Risal on December 9, 2007 at 9:38 am

For more on this, including a link to a copy of the complaint filed in Federal Court, see:

http://vyoma108.blogspot.com/2007/12/more-on-nathaniel-abrahamwoods-hole.html

It'd be pretty funny to read the thing if this were only a parody. Not that it isn't close to one, but a prestigious research institution is losing money over this nonsense.

48. Religious scholars mull Flying Spaghetti Monster

Comment #88778 by Mike O'Risal on November 19, 2007 at 1:47 am

Why is it that someone who demands that they won't believe in something unless shown empirical evidence for existence can be labeled "militant," but someone who insists on the existence of something with no evidence at all not militant?

The label isn't particular appropriate for either condition, but it seems to me that someone who makes a forceful positive assertion that they cling to without any supporting evidence is engaging in at least the mindset that leads to militancy, whereas someone who demands proof is not.

49. Why Science Will Triumph Only When Theory Becomes Law

Comment #88163 by Mike O'Risal on November 15, 2007 at 2:31 am

@MuNky82:

I think that's better. Perhaps something even more official and, dare I say it, biblical-sounding could be useful.

The Evolutionary Codex?

Of course, a lot of people wouldn't know what that meant, either.

50. Why Science Will Triumph Only When Theory Becomes Law

Comment #88158 by Mike O'Risal on November 15, 2007 at 2:13 am

Evolutionary theory isn't a law... it's a number of laws clustered together into one coherent model. I think it would be more appropriate to make that already existent fact clear than it would be to start redefining language to suit colloquial usage. That is only going to lead to more problems.

For example, we can talk about laws of inheritance, laws of selection, laws of population growth. There are any number of mathematically quantifiable forces at work within the overall evolutionary model. When Creationists talk about "evolutionary theory not making predictions," for instance, the dodge is really that evolutionary theory *as a whole* isn't about making predictions; it's the application of specific principles embodied in the theory that are used to make predictions. Evolutionary theory as a monolithic concept is simply too broad to be applied in toto to some particular instance in biological science. That's not a shortcoming, anymore than the fact that we don't apply all of the laws embodied under "physics" to explain the Doppler shift.

We shouldn't call evolutionary theory a law because it *isn't* a law; it's many laws. In and of itself, evolutionary theory is like a higher taxon that comprises a number of more restrictive taxa, and it is these taxa — the order, family, genus and species — that are specific laws, in much the same way that Decapoda and Amphipoda are both Crustaceans.

If Creationists were to decide tomorrow that all crustaceans are shrimp, should we change taxonomy in order to shut them up for awhile... until they move on to their next set of demands?