Culture

Here (7/15/2011).

For nearly a decade Democrats have sought a religious wedge issue that could separate big chunks of white evangelical voters from their Republican home. Now they’ve found it, and are thrusting at the Social Darwinist/Ayn Rand underbelly of American conservatism.

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Here’s a new, UK-based blog, The Darwin Deception,

Darwinism as an explanation for life is dead. The final death blow was administered by discoveries about intracellular nanomachinery, which amply satisfy Darwin’s own test of falsification. Dead, but it won’t lie down. …

Dude: Darwinism and a multitude of other dead ideas and popular delusions are crowded so thick, they can’t fall down when they die. Read More ›

Otherwise, what to make of this?

At Ricochet, Claire Berlinski (naughty girl, she is examining the intelligent design controversy as if there was something obvious to know about the universe we live in) says, (June 13, 2011),

What exactly is “political correctness?” Where does this idea come from, historically? What are its effects upon science, government, the public at large? Is it a single thing? How dangerous is it, really?

Depends. Some, who have dealt with PC on the ground, would say to anyone: Are you protected by a bureaucracy? Does your income and social position depend on others being forced to acknowledge you, even though you are useless or destructive to them? Are people expected to bark nonsense that upholds your position, for their own safety?

She adds, Read More ›

At Creation-Evolution Headlines, we learn (July 11, 2011):

Plants perform a wonder that has attracted the admiration of scholars from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome to modern times: the ability to reproduce mathematically perfect patterns. This ability, called phyllotaxis, can be described mathematically with the Fibonacci Series and the Golden Angle. The beautiful spirals in sunflowers, artichokes, cacti, dandelion heads and other plants continue to fascinate children and adults today, but those are not the only examples. Leaves on a stem can emerge in phyllotactic patterns like a spiral staircase, and depending on the environment, plants can switch patterns at different stages in development. Read More ›

… a theme on which psychology lecturers and pundits preached for decades, about how humans can easily be led to violate their moral standards if authorities tell them to? Maybe it’s so, but apparently the evidence, looked at in a fresh light, is much more equivocal. For one thing, the guard who took the led in creating the much-lectured situation was well aware he was playing a role, not “acting naturally”: Read More ›

In City Journal, (Spring 2011), New Republic editor Adam Kirsch offers an interesting reflection on Darwinism and liberalism, in his review of political thinker Francis Fukuyama’s latest, The Origins of Political Order :

Yet since ideas have consequences, the ideological victory of liberalism would be nothing to scorn—if it were really assured. Ironically, however, The Origins of Political Order itself gives reason for doubting this.

[ … ]

In The Origins of Political Order, Fukuyama makes a considerably weaker claim for liberalism:

[ … ]

The explanation for Fukuyama’s evolution must be sought, rather, in the realm of ideas—in particular, in the idea of evolution itself. Briefly put, Darwin has replaced Hegel as Fukuyama’s guide to politics. Read More ›

An Austrian atheist has won the right to be shown on his driving-licence photo wearing a pasta strainer as “religious headgear”.

In “Austrian driver’s religious headgear strains credulity” (July 14, 2011), BBC News tells us so

Readers may recall that pastafarianism first surfaced as the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a sort of street drama against the idea of design in nature, at Kansas school board hearings. It blossomed into a Web site. Austrian Niko Alm, learning that religious headgear is allowed in official photos claimed that “the sieve was a requirement of his religion, pastafarianism.”

Given that “the only dogma allowed in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is the rejection of dogma,” some think his three-year crusade a protest against the permissible religious headgear policy. Read More ›

At Not Even Wrong, (July 8, 2011), the blog for his book of the name, Columbia computer scientist Peter Woit goes after the defects of cosmic string theory and other bizarre cosmologies Here he notes a new book by Helge Kragh, Higher Speculations: Grand Theories and Failed Revolutions in Physics and Cosmology :

I’ve always wondered what historians of science would make of the increasing dominance of research in fundamental physics by unsuccessful highly speculative research programs, and have also often wondered if there are any relevant historical parallels to this situation. This book does a great job of addressing those questions, and it’s pretty much unique in doing so. Read More ›

Here’s Doonesbury’s daily dose of political correctness, this time on Darwin in the classroom, and here’s an on the ground response. Favourite panel line: Teacher: “Sorry, the government has mandated that I continue to fill your heads with this crap.” Here’s a great one on the difference between science as understood by the legacy media columnist (panel 1) and science on the ground (panel 2).

I discuss issues of drug policy in some detail in my first book, The End of Faith (pp. 158-164), and my thinking on the subject has not changed. The “war on drugs” has been well lost, and should never have been waged. While it isn’t explicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution, I can think of no political right more fundamental than the right to peacefully steward the contents of one’s own consciousness. Read More ›

Warmup act: The sky is falling.

In “From The Kentucky ‘Ark Park’ To Back-Door Creationist Legislation, Religious Right Forces Are Demanding State Support Of Fundamentalist Dogma, Rob Boston (Americans United for the Separation of Church and State Newsletter, July/August 2011) dispenses with nuances,

Attacking evolution means big money for the Religious Right. In Kentucky, a creationist ministry called Answers in Genesis opened the Creation Museum in 2007 at a cost of $25 million. Three years later, it had logged its one millionth visitor.

So is it any wonder that Kentucky, smelling more jobs and tax revenues, is eager to do business with the forthcoming Ark Park? Would Kentucky be better or more fairly governed if – absent of crime, sedition, or ethics issues – the government made the principals’ religious beliefs an issue? Read More ›

The day had to come. The day that the political correctness mob, feminist division, turned on Dawkins and his atheists. Apparently, in a response to a complaint about sexual harassment, Dawkins had said,

The man in the elevator didn’t physically touch her, didn’t attempt to bar her way out of the elevator, didn’t even use foul language at her. He spoke some words to her. Just words. She no doubt replied with words. That was that. Words. Only words, and apparently quite polite words at that….Rebecca’s feeling that the man’s proposition was ‘creepy’ was her own interpretation of his behavior, presumably not his. She was probably offended to about the same extent as I am offended if a man gets into an elevator with me chewing gum. But he does me no physical damage and I simply grin and bear it until either I or he gets out of the elevator. It would be different if he physically attacked me.

Bet Dawkins doesn’t know what hit him. He failed to buy into the “I feel like a victim, therefore my accusations are just” line that governs modern, materialist culture. And that’s just unforgivable.  😳

In “Atheists, your moral and intellectual superiors” (July 7, 2011), Canada’s Five Feet of Fury opines Read More ›

This vid is a comic rip on the theme of Darwinian atheist Richard Dawkins framed as coward for refusing to debate Christian apologist William Lane Craig, on a United Kingdom speaking tour:

Voiceover: “It’s not often that one atheist accuses another of cowardice for refusing to debate a Christian; it’ even rarer when both are Oxford dons. Richard Dawkins is facing that accusation because he has turned down an offer to debate a man regarded by many as the world’s leading defender of Christian belief.”

The vid comes from sources partial to Craig, of course, but features many voiceovers from Dawkins, giving his reasons, as well as links below. Read More ›