1. PZ Myers - Expelled from Expelled

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.

2. Blogger spreads the gospel of science

Comment #189938 by pzmyers on June 7, 2008 at 8:12 pm

Hey, now. Tom Paulson is actually on our side -- I talked to him for some time. This article is written as it is because American newspapers can't possibly publish anything written for anyone older than about 12 years.

As for Kent...it's a nondescript suburb of Seattle. It used to be a small farming community called Titusville, but around the turn of the last century it was renamed in a PR move -- it was a major hop growing region, so they named it after that other source of hops, the Kent district of England. So don't blame them too much...come on, "Titusville"? You can't get a name that sounds much more like a hick town than that.

3. Beware the Believers

Comment #151793 by pzmyers on March 29, 2008 at 12:04 pm

It doesn't matter if some of us don't find it funny (although, actually, I do --but then, I'm immersed in a small mob of younger people who listen to this genre all the time, and it's had a few years to grow on me). What matters is that the next generation does, and that they get the message right away. Evolution and atheism are cool, their proponents are loud and proud and a bit pushy...and that's a plus. This is the side we fuddy-duddies want to be on, because it's the side people under 30 want to be on.

4. Are Darwin's Theories Fact or Faith Issues?

Comment #120640 by pzmyers on February 2, 2008 at 7:36 am

Should I have done this debate at all? That's a really good question, and one I wrestled with before hand. I do have a policy of not dignifying creationists by sharing a platform with them. I even mentioned it in my opening when I explained that it was difficult to get a biologist to engage in this sort of thing, because a) the audience usually needs remedial instruction in the basics, not high-level arguments about the details, and b) our experience has usually been that creationists know they have no credibility in science, so they resort to cheap rhetorical tricks, packing the audience with a prejudiced claque, and playing games with the rules of the debate. All of that was definitely true in this debate.

So why did I do this, then?

I'm worried about talk radio. I don't listen to it, most of my peers don't listen to it, when I'm on long drives through rural Minnesota I flip through those channels real fast while I'm looking for NPR. It's easy to dismiss. How many of you tune in to your local evangelical station and actually listen to it?

Yet at the same time, it's HUGE. Where do those yokel creationists get all their information? Two major sources: their churches and their AM radios. I've talked to people at our local talk radio station and they reach a big audience. When I want to advertise our Cafe Scientifique series in town, I get on the dawn news hour -- when all the regional farmers are sitting down to breakfast with the radio, or hooking up the milking machines in the barn while the radio plays.

You might suggest Fox News as another source, but Fox News is the cleaned up, less in-your-face version of talk radio. Fox is the high-falutin', fancy pants big brother of talk radio. If you get incensed at the bias and inanity of Fox News, your head will explode if you spend much time on the AM frequencies.

So I made the plunge. I'm not going to do it often, but we need to at least make a token effort now and then to introduce reason into the swamp.

Other factors that helped me decide to do it: I have friends in the twin cities who listen to this station (in a "know your enemy" sort of way), and they assured me that the hosts were actually decent folks who were sincere. Completely deluded, of course, but they actually mean well.

Another was that this took virtually no effort at all. I sketched out a long list of evidence for evolution beforehand, when I thought that was to be the topic, but it was all off the top of my head, so it didn't take much work. I had to throw it all out when they changed the subject anyway, so what you heard was extemporaneous. So it cost me about two hours of time. No worries.

Another factor was that I was invited. This is a show that regularly hosts people like Ken Ham and Ray Comfort -- a totally wacko lineup of hardcore young earth creationists, and they were asking me to step right into the heart of the domain of ignorance. The audience for this show is almost entirely of people who never get their views challenged in any way. It's different than if a creationist rents a hall on a university campus and tries every trick possible to get academic acknowledgment. If one of my local fundamentalist churches invited me to discuss evolution with them, I'd also jump at that chance.

And finally, I had a strategy in mind: ATTACK. Maybe you noticed? I was not going to debate the details on their terms. I was going to charge in and right from the beginning point out the flaws in their reasoning, highlight their lack of evidence, and talk about how they distort and lie. I was not going to let them borrow academic credibility, I was going to turn that credibility against them. Simmons played right into my hands, fortunately.

5. Are Darwin's Theories Fact or Faith Issues?

Comment #120222 by pzmyers on February 1, 2008 at 10:44 am

KKMS is definitely a Christian talk radio station --young earth creationists through and through. They're promoting a trip to Ken Ham's Creation "Science" "Museum"! Simmons didn't do his research, but that didn't stop him from writing a whole book claiming that there are no transitional fossils...and that kind of tells you all you need to know about the ID movement right there.

6. Former Evangelical Minister Has a New Message: Jesus Hearts Darwin

Comment #95067 by pzmyers on December 7, 2007 at 9:36 am

Dowd is something of a huckster. I'm not surprised he got a collection of endorsements from scientists -- I have never met an author who was more persistent in pushing for reviews and commendations. I actually reviewed the book a while back. I was not enthused.

This is the only book on evolution I have ever read that also gives instructions in how to speak in tongues, and even recommends it.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/07/thank_god_for_evolution.php

7. Double-checking Dawkins

Comment #93236 by pzmyers on December 2, 2007 at 1:25 pm

This was on an Apple II, not a Mac, and it really isn't at all surprising. Back in those days (and I remember them well!), if you were doing any programming at all on 8-bit systems with memory mapped I/O, you got to know the locations of the various I/O sites fairly well. I couldn't do it any more, but once upon a time I also had them all memorized -- the places you could read to get the last keystroke, the routine to read the joystick port (which was tricky -- you had to strobe a write-only location, then read until it hit 0 again), and then there were all the fun and really dangerous addresses that managed the floppy disk controller...

Anyway, this was just a factoid that tells you Dawkins was an informed computer user of his time.

8. Can we at least demand 'Secular Communion'?

Comment #86942 by pzmyers on November 10, 2007 at 1:36 pm

I think Nusmus and "the author" need to go sit in a corner with a dunce cap on their heads until they grow a sense of humor.

9. Response to My Fellow 'Atheists'

Comment #77264 by pzmyers on October 8, 2007 at 11:03 pm

You are quite right -- I toss them in the dungeon and forget about them.

If this is the same Philos -- and just using the same pseudonym is not enough to condemn him -- he was pretty vile. This was a guy who rushed to my site after the 35W bridge disaster urging atheists to rush to the site and tell the survivors and those who had lost loved ones that there is no god, more or less dancing on the corpses to mock those who didn't believe in his god.

If this were the same Philos, he's trolling this site hard.

10. Response to My Fellow 'Atheists'

Comment #77230 by pzmyers on October 8, 2007 at 8:03 pm

I have no idea who Philos is, and no one of that name is banned at my site. This, though...

Professor Dawkins, I am a long time fan & agree with what you say but please tighten up your language and distance yourself from the wanna-be-atheism-frontispiece of a trainwreck, PZ Myers.

Gentlemenly discourse, please.

11. OUT Campaign Launched, 'Scarlet Letter' Shirts Now Available!

Comment #59500 by pzmyers on July 29, 2007 at 9:03 am

Sweden sounds like a very nice place, except for the incredible parochialism of some of its inhabitants. Sweden is in planet Earth, correct? Have you looked at the Middle East or Africa recently? How about North America, where the military is well stocked with fundamentalist fanatics with scary weapons?

When the whole world is like Sweden, then we can relax on this one issue, and I'll agree with you. For now, though, the context is humanity, which doesn't quite share your sensible opinions. In fact, we have whole communities that share a belief in the Santa Claus equivalent, and they are willing to kill for that belief.

12. OUT Campaign Launched, 'Scarlet Letter' Shirts Now Available!

Comment #59485 by pzmyers on July 29, 2007 at 8:14 am

Here's a constructive suggestion.

The point of the Out campaign is to get people to stop being so shy about publicly admitting their disbelief; don't get hung up on the fact that the RDF is offering a t-shirt to encourage people to open up. If you don't like the t-shirt, don't get it -- just follow the spirit of the campaign and get out there and make your ideas known.

If you like the t-shirt the campaign is selling, wear it.

If you like some other t-shirt that promotes atheism or ridicules religion, wear that.

Design your own: I had a thread with lots of suggestions for a godless logo. Steal liberally.

If you want something with more depth than a simple slogan, go talk to people. Stand on a soapbox on a streetcorner. Attend a UU meeting. Organize your own local atheists group.

Write on a blog. Write a book. Make a youtube video. Sing a godless song.

Everyone is getting stuck on the shirt, which is just one outlet for getting the message out. Seriously, you don't have to wear it. But find some way to help the cause instead of carping pointlessly.

Damned atheists. You can be so self-defeating.

13. OUT Campaign Launched, 'Scarlet Letter' Shirts Now Available!

Comment #59347 by pzmyers on July 28, 2007 at 8:52 pm

Sweet jebus, Henri, are you some kind of kook?

- so the Red Cross and the New York Yankees are religions?

- a matter of taste.

- and of course, hiding in the closet and not telling people that you disbelieve in their superstitious nonsense is the height of bravery.

- a matter of taste, again.

- this is a t-shirt. It does not create a religion. And I think it is perfectly reasonable for people to question atheism. I encourage everyone to question.

- THIS IS A T-SHIRT. It does not create a sect.

Look. It's a campaign to make atheists a little more visible. That's all. Freaking out and acting as if you're being recruited to join the Walking Dead is ridiculous.

14. OUT Campaign Launched, 'Scarlet Letter' Shirts Now Available!

Comment #59317 by pzmyers on July 28, 2007 at 7:27 pm

So be eloquent. Some people can also just wear the t-shirt as shorthand. This is not a zero-sum game where doing one is at the expense of the other.

Multi-pronged approaches are not only a smart idea, they're necessary.

15. OUT Campaign Launched, 'Scarlet Letter' Shirts Now Available!

Comment #59311 by pzmyers on July 28, 2007 at 7:11 pm

You keep saying it is a sign of weakness. Get over it. We live in communities, we are social animals, working together is one of our strengths.

Unless you're a hermit living in a cave and subsisting on roots and grubs, you are also a member of multiple groups.

16. OUT Campaign Launched, 'Scarlet Letter' Shirts Now Available!

Comment #59306 by pzmyers on July 28, 2007 at 6:45 pm

Wearing a shirt with a bold A on it is part of an "annoying 'F you, I'm an atheist'" trend? Good grief. How pathetically sensitive are you?

I could see the problem if this were a "punch your priest" campaign, or a "spray graffiti on a church" campaign. It's not. It's simply being upfront about being an atheist.

Some people seem incapable of handling even that minimal amount of self-expression, though.

17. OUT Campaign Launched, 'Scarlet Letter' Shirts Now Available!

Comment #59305 by pzmyers on July 28, 2007 at 6:42 pm

Identifying with a group is not pointless or a sign of weakness. It is an ordinary human thing to do. A simple common symbol that just says "I don't follow a religion" is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

This is also just a t-shirt. You don't have to wear it. You don't have to wear it all the time.

I don't understand the whiners here at all. The RDF is not asking you to sign over your mortgage to them...they're just providing a t-shirt you can buy if you want, and encouraging people to be bold about their unbelief. If you aren't willing to at least openly admit to being an atheist (in whatever way you want, it doesn't have to be with a red letter A), then this place isn't for you anyway, and your complaints are irrelevant.

18. Beliefwatch: Blasphemy (Challenge)

Comment #15594 by pzmyers on January 1, 2007 at 1:50 pm

Oh, no...it's a strategy to make it impossible to damn myself. I don't believe in demons, either, so I can't attribute the miracles to them. Can I blame them on the human capacity for self-delusion instead, and will that count?

I think that all it really means is that it doesn't matter what you say -- a wily theologian will make up a rationalization to skirt the problem. It must be so easy to be unshackled from the bindings of reason...

19. The Blasphemy Challenge

Comment #14156 by pzmyers on December 21, 2006 at 10:04 am

It's rather silly for Dembski to brag about the number of hits he's getting. He is being linked heavily right now because there are a large number of us who can scarcely believe how inane he is -- it's like watching the clowns at the circus.

Really...we're laughing at him, not with him.