Great Mayans think alike.

All over the net, people are worried about the end of the world because of TEH MAYANZ. The Mayans knew everything about the universe and the future, though it's doubtful how much credit they should get, since alien technology might have been involved. They correctly predicted the Harmonic Convergence, which ushered in the current age of peace and prosperity. Unfortunately, the Mayan calendar 'ends' on 12 December 2012, hence the current Net freakout.

People have been predicting the end of the world for a long time. For reference, here's a long list of failed prophecies. (Notice how the author of this list seems to think the end is coming nonetheless.)

Let's examine the claims of the prophets of 12-21-12 (or 21-12-12, thank you).

• Via Satan's Rapture: A massive 'comet planet' will hit the earth, as predicted by Nostradamus (clever fellow).
• From Survive 2012: The earth's magnetic polarity will reverse, causing 'pure, unimaginable horror' as food and transport disappear and compasses go awry.
• On ViewZone: The earth will pass through the Galactic Equator as the major planets line up, causing gravity to go haywire.

I'd like to add one more:

• Mass amnesia, as the predictions fail to come true and people inexplicably forget they ever believed all that stuff, and go on to the next thing.

Isn't it great to be rational? It saves you so much worry and trouble. Tell you what. If you're going to believe in the Mayans, don't be a wimp about it; do it properly. Perform human sacrifice. Starting with your own dumb self.

Too much credit for the religious metaphysicists

I must be the last person to read "Why Darwin Matters" by Michael Shermer. I like Shermer, and I enjoyed "Why People Believe Weird Things". So this book is a general explanation of evolution and a takedown of creationist arguments. It also gets into recent legal actions where ID activists, having come up empty on the science, are attempting to wedge creationism into schools. It's a fun and interesting read.

But I've run aground on this bit where Shermer argues that religious people can 'believe' in evolution. He mentions the three possibilities for how science and religion can interact:

• the 'Conflicting-Worlds' model: science and religion is describing the same thing, and one must be wrong
• the 'Same-World' model, where science and religion are both describing aspects of the same thing, and both do a good job of it
• and the 'Separate-Worlds' model (which is basically the 'Non-Overlapping Magisteria' argument): that science describes the physical world, religion describes the spiritual, and this can work because the two don't converge.

Inexplicably, Shermer plumps for the 'Separate-Worlds' model:

Believers can have both religion and science as long as there is no attempt to make A non-A, to make reality unreal, to turn naturalism into supernaturalism. Thus, the most logically coherent argument for theists is that God is outside time and space; that is, God is beyond nature — super nature, or supernatural — and therefore cannot be explained by natural causes. God is beyond the dominion of science, and science is outside the realm of God.

And there the chapter ends.

Shermer is careful here. He's arguing that this is the only plausible road that theists can take, without saying he's taking that road himself. And yet, by leaving it there, he's making it sound approving.

You could take a Carnival cruise ship through the holes in the NOMA argument. Okay, if God is outside time and space, he's outside time and space. What's he doing creating planets, then? Or dictating books, or appearing to prophets, or healing the sick, or finding your car keys? As soon as he interacts in the physical world like believers claim he constantly is, then the two realms collide, and we can examine things to check for goddy effects. (None so far; keep you posted.)

Not surprisingly, I'm an unabashed 'Conflicting-Worlds'-ist. But check out Shermer's paragraph on it:

This "warfare" approach holds that science and religion are mutually exclusive ways of knowing, one being right and the other wrong. In this view, the findings of modern science are always a potential threat to one's faith and thus they must be carefully vetted against religious truths before acceptance; likewise, the tenets of religion are always a potential threat to science and thus they must be viewed with skepticism and cynicism. The conflicting-worlds model is embraced by extremists on both sides of the divide. Young Earth creationists, who insist that all scientific findings must correlate perfectly with their own (often literal) reading of Genesis, retain a suspicious hostility of science, while militant atheists cannot imagine how religion could contribute anything positive to human knowledge or social interaction.

To read Shermer erecting the scarecrow of militant extremist atheism is particularly disappointing. 

Imagine that he's talking about Gershon's equation: 2 + 2 = 4. If this equation ran up against some religious tenet, you'd hear people saying, "Oh, two plus two could equal five in a spiritual way. To say that two plus two equals four and can only ever equal four is some kind of extremist point of view. You must be a militant fourist. Who's to say that the fiveists can't contribute something to our understanding? Maybe the answer isn't five exactly, maybe it's closer to four. But coming right out and saying it's just four... well, that just seems a bit extreme." And then Shermer says, "The only way to think the answer is five is if you believe that it's five on a non-material plane that doesn't interact with this one. Therefore, you can be a fiveist, and still accept that the answer is four."

I'm sure Shermer knows this terrain, which makes his support for NOMA all the more baffling. Is he trying to trick the rubes into thinking that evolution's okay? In that case, what you'll get is people making a nominal committment to science being okay, while being ignorant of what science is, or any of its implications. Which seems kind of dishonest to me. 

The fact is, religions are trying to describe the physical world, and they're getting it wrong, and science is getting it right. And if they're trying to describe the spiritual world, they're doing a pretty crap job at that too, since they can't seem to agree with each other on any but the most obvious ethical points. Science, on the other hand, gives us better and better descriptions of the physical realm, with a way of disproving bad explanations.

Republicans are on record against mothers

I was amused by this:

Republicans Vote Against Moms; No Word Yet on Puppies, Kittens

Congressional Republicans force a revote on a resolution for Mothers' Day in order to snarl the workings of government, but inexplicably end up voting against the uncontroversial and symbolic resolution. I'd love for the Democrats to hang this around their necks in the fall, and ask them why they came out against moms.

But at least they're not beholden to Big Parents.

Post 500

How about that? Somehow I've thought of 500 things to say. Or one thing, with 500 variations.

500 % 100 = 0, so by tradition, this is an open thread.

Plant rights

Wesley J. Smith at the Weekly Standard has written an article lambasting the Swiss for their supposed stand on "plant rights".

Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, that gang of lying clowns who are attempting to take advantage of the uncertainty of science so they can wedge Intelligent Design into schools. I hope you'll forgive me for spoiling that surprise, but it'll make the author's point of view so much clearer if you know that at first, instead of having to wait until the end of the article like I did, when they unveil the author's identity and you realise you could have put the whole thing in the bin to start. Then again, it is the Weekly Standard.

As a vegetarian, I suppose I feel the same about plants' rights as meat-eaters do about animal rights. I eat plants because I have to eat something, and I have no problem with doing so because they don't have feelings, despite what you've heard about their psychic powers. Having feelings requires having a brain, and there's nothing in a plant that corresponds to that kind of structure. On the other hand, I try not to waste plants or treat them mean because I used to read "The Lorax" like every other kid, and someone's gotta speak for the trees, man. Plus I like to eat plants, and I want to make sure there's enough of them around for later.

Smith's discussion of the legally binding nature of 'plant rights' is (surprise) misleading. I've read the committee report that he mocks as ludicrous. It's kind of interesting, less of a policy statement than a report on a group discussion. The committee differed widely on what constitutes a good reason to destroy or use plants, and the report explains this up front. It discusses the various views of panel members, but about the only solid conclusion they came to was that plants shouldn't be arbitrarily destroyed for no rational reason. Which, you know, seems kind of hard to disagree with unless you're an unreconstructed Dominionist, like Smith seems to be.

Here's Smith's take:

What is clear, however, is that Switzerland's enshrining of "plant dignity" is a symptom of a cultural disease that has infected Western civilization, causing us to lose the ability to think critically and distinguish serious from frivolous ethical concerns. It also reflects the triumph of a radical anthropomorphism that views elements of the natural world as morally equivalent to people.

Isn't it weird that it's okay to anthropomorphise nature into a god-being that cares for us, but it's not okay to anthropomorphise a plant? And if you've never seen them anthropomorphise a fetus, well, you're missing out.

Why is this happening? Our accelerating rejection of the Judeo-Christian world view, which upholds the unique dignity and moral worth of human beings, is driving us crazy. Once we knocked our species off its pedestal, it was only logical that we would come to see fauna and flora as entitled to rights.

You knew it was going to be teh Athiests, didn't you? Well, that's pretty interesting. Let's take a look at that Christianity and how it 'upholds the unique dignity and moral worth of human beings' (courtesy of the Brick Testament):

Slavery: okley-dokley.

Women: keep 'em quiet.

Humans: debased sinners.

Well, I feel special now.

What Smith is saying is what all conservatives from Archie Bunker onward have been saying: everyone used to know their place. People were at the top of the ladder, we ate animals and cut down all the trees we wanted, everyone was happy, and no problems ever came up. Until the '60s, when hippies created all those environmental problems out of sheer faith, because believing things makes them come true and ignoring things makes them disappear, by the grace of dog. And so Smith tries to contrast New Age woo against good ol' Abrahamic religion, not realising that both are different manifestations of the same problem: the human tendency to embrace unreason. 

One rational perspective would be this: Even though plants do not show evidence of consciousness, it would still be morally (the report does not say legally) wrong to destroy them arbitrarily. Humans are one species among many, and we have a great capacity for help or harm. Plants have a certain right to exist, as do humans. The way we manage plants (indeed, how we manage everything) needs to be considered wisely and rationally, and with a view to minimising our impact on nature.

All of which is implied by the Swiss report, but you wouldn't know it by the way Smith pulls the most controversial minority opinions out of the text. A creationist quote-mining? Now there's a real surprise.

Tip for Nixon's grave: dance first, then piss.

Oh, crap. I missed Nixon's death day celebrations. About fourteen years ago, the mean little man from Yorba Linda went to his infernal reward, and made the world a better place. But he never paid for his crimes, and so neither will any American president, ever again.

Better make up for lost time with a reading from Hunter Thompson, written just after the corpse turned cold.

If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin.

The tragic American postscript to this eulogy is that Bush the Younger makes Nixon look good. History may excuse viciousness, dishonesty, and lack of conscience when combined with competence. Bush has none, and throws in ignorance and arrogance besides.

McCain = Bush, part 2

Can you tell the difference between Bush and McCain? Can anyone?

Not me; I scored 2 out of 5 on the Bush-McCain Challenge, and here I thought I was doing so well. Maybe you'll do better.

Beware the enemies of reason

We try to present both sides here at Good Reason.

Here's a recent scientific advance.

Scientists employing a gene therapy have provided partial vision to patients who were nearly blind from a condition known as Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA) -- a severe form of retinitis pigmentosa. Initial results from the clinical trial, which was funded in part by the Foundation Fighting Blindness, were published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

All three patients, who had severely abnormal vision before entering the study, can now read several lines on an eye chart and are able to see better in dimly lit settings. One was also able to navigate better after the injection.

And on the other side, here's movie star and absolute fool Ben Stein:

Stein: …Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.

Crouch: Good word, good word.

Read that again: science leads you to killing people.

At its simplest level, science is observing and keeping what works. The opposite approach is faith, which equates to not observing, and keeping something even if it doesn't work. You'd think it would be difficult to defend something that doesn't work, but here we are in the 21st century, and people like Ben Stein are still using their seemingly limitless capacity for selective observation in the service of keeping outdated and ineffective dogmas. Science, on the other hand, is making the blind to see and the lame to walk, which is more than any guru, priest, or prophet has ever done.

Beware anyone who demeans reason, logic, and science. I've heard many people do this. I've heard naturopaths scoff at the mention of the scientific method. I've seen church leaders dismiss 'man's reason' as inferior to religious tenets. I've read creationists bad-mouthing the process of peer review. And now I see Stein denouncing science itself. They have to do this because reason, logic, and science don't support their phony claims. When you see this, it is a sure sign that that person is promoting something that doesn't deliver the goods.

Okay, I've changed my mind. Religion is child abuse.

(via Pharyngula)



See, I always used to feel uncomfortable when people would say that religion was a form of child abuse. That's a bit harsh, I'd think. Some children are abused for real, and it's not the same as being brought up in a religion. Which would you pick, real live sexual or physical abuse or church?

Ah, but not all abuse is the same. There's the kind of abuse where your body is beaten or used for someone else's pleasure, and then there's the kind where your mind and reasoning powers are harmed or co-opted for someone else's idea of reality. (In both kinds, the abusers were frequently abused themselves.) And if your parents, your neighbours, and your community enable this kind of abuse, you may not end up like this kid (or the three others featured in the BBC show 'Baby Bible Bashers'). But you might end up like the pile of rubes cheering in the audience.

Seriously, what kind of people applauds this kind of performance? Certainly it's a curiosity, but think of the harm done to this child. He should be out looking at rocks or digging around outside, wondering about things, not being so damn certain about everything. Think you could actually explain evolution to him? No way. The mental blocks are already up. And for every child like this, there are millions more being indoctrinated into a false magical worldview. The people who ought to be building them up are robbing them of the ability to reason, and I think that's criminal.

Fake meat

What's for dinner?

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is offering a million-dollar prize for the “first person to come up with a method to produce commercially viable quantities of in vitro meat at competitive prices by 2012.”

You'll have to excuse me, but the idea of giant containers of artificial animal tissue makes me just a mite queasy.

What's wrong with soy? If it's not meaty enough for you, you're doing it wrong. Tonight I had some delicious fake chicken in black bean sauce, with rice and stir-fried vegetables. It was sali-very good. I know of a couple of places in Perth to get the stuff, but I usually go to Sri Melaka on James St in Northbridge.

Just don't read this description on how it's made. Doesn't sound like they're describing anything I've eaten.

Soy protein usually arrives at a food manufacturer in the form of a dry powder. Soy protein is coiled and globular, while real meat proteins are fibrous, so the challenge is to change the soy’s molecular structure. The food manufacturer exposes the soy protein to heat or acid or a solvent, and then runs it through an extruder to reshape it. “When you denature the molecules, they open up and become more fibrous,” says Barry Swanson, a professor of food science and nutrition at Washington State University and a fellow at the Institute of Food Technologists. “Then you hold them together with a gel, such as carrageenan or xanthan gum, something that will hold a little bit of water, and what you get is something that vaguely resembles a piece of meat.”

Oh, that's a ringing endorsement. I'll have to invite him over for stir-fry, and show him how it's done.