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Heh. I found this post buried in my list of drafts. For some reason I didn’t post it when I wrote it months ago. It seems appropriate now given what happened in Texas, so enjoy.

A woman in Ohio has stopped drinking Starbucks (registration for that link may be required) because her takeout cup had a quotation on it that expressed a vague notion of possible agnosticism:

Printed on the cup was: “Why in moments of crisis do we ask God for strength and help? As cognitive beings, why would we ask something that may well be a figment of our imaginations for guidance? Why not search inside ourselves for the power to overcome? After all, we are strong enough to cause most of the catastrophes we need to endure.”

It is attributed to Bill Schell, a Starbucks customer from London, Ontario, and was included on the cup as part of an effort by the company to collect different viewpoints and spur discussion.

“As someone who loves God, I was so offended by that. I don’t think there needs to be religious dialogue on it. I just want coffee,” said Incanno, a married mother of three who is Catholic.

That’s her right, of course, but I wonder out loud that her faith is so shaky that it is disturbed by a paper coffee cup. Be that as it may, where was she when Starbucks had this on a coffee cup?

Darwinism’s impact on traditional social values has not been as benign as its advocates would like us to believe. Despite the efforts of its modern defenders to distance themselves from its baleful social consequences, Darwinism’s connection with eugenics, abortion and racism is a matter of historical record, and the record is not pretty.” From Dr. Jonathan Wells, biologist and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design.

Yup, that Wells, a shill for The Discovery Institute who never gets within a glancing blow of reality. Starbucks says they put these quotations on cups just to air out various points of view. That’s fine, I suppose, up to the point where they spread sheer nonsense like that garbage from Wells (you need not imagine what PZ had to say when that cup came out). Even then, of course, that’s their right, but in today’s climate of public ignorance about science, publicizing quotations from the DI — which is populated with people who will lie outrageously and without hesitation to promote their religion — I wish they had a little more info on the cup.

And again, that woman from Ohio is free to buy or not buy whatever product she wants for whatever reason, just as Starbucks is free to print whatever it wants to on its cups. If Catholics boycott because of an atheist quotation, or atheists boycott because of a religious one, that’s the power of the pocketbook, and it’s a good one.

But everyone should be aware that Starbucks is, indeed, printing opposing views, so in that sense what they are doing is legit. I’ll note that not too long ago, a Starbucks cup featuring a quotation by Armistead Maupin about homophobia caused an uproar in Texas (well, Baylor University), too. I’ve seen both progressive and conservative quotations on Starbucks cups, though I’ll wait with bated breath for them to post an opinion from, say, David Duke or Charles Manson.

I’m sure glad I have my own pulpit here to talk about it. I’m not a huge fan of Starbucks — I drink it when I’m out of beans or in too big a hurry to make a cuppa joe myself — but something like this is hardly enough to make me avoid the place, or let it get me upset. Some folks really just need to switch to decaf.

After writing this, I found a long thread about it on Fark.com. In general, many Farkers are rude and immature — it’s a selling point! — but the respondents in this case have some interesting good things to say. And need I add? NSFW.

Update: Welcome, readers of Crooks and Liars! You may want to read the next blog post in this series when you finish the one below. This story gets better and better.

What the heck is wrong with Texas?

First, they get a creationist governor. Then their creationist governor appoints a creationist to head the State Board of Education.

And now, when Chris Comer, the Texas Education Agency’s director of science curriculum, sends out an email announcing a talk by anti_creationism advocate Barbara Forrest, the TEA forces her to resign.

Why? Hold on to your seats here, folks, because you won’t believe this:

[Texas Education] Agency officials cited the e-mail in a memo recommending her termination. They said forwarding the e-mail not only violated a directive for her not to communicate in writing or otherwise with anyone outside the agency regarding an upcoming science curriculum review, “it directly conflicts with her responsibilities as the Director of Science.”

The memo adds, “Ms. Comer’s e-mail implies endorsement of the speaker and implies that TEA endorses the speaker’s position on a subject on which the agency must remain neutral.”

That’s right, the Texas Education Agency must remain neutral when it comes to science versus antiscience!

If a speaker came advocating astronomy over astrology, would that cause problems for TEA? How about an HIV denier? Could they speak out against such a person?

Funny. I would think that it would one of TEA’s biggest goals to promote science over antiscience, and to actually teach people the difference between reality and fantasy.

So Ms. Comer has been forced to resign, and she claims that it is political in nature, and that she is being railroaded. I am of the very strong opinion that she is absolutely correct. It’s very clear that at most she might have deserved to be reprimanded for sending out the email, even if the TEA policy about neutrality is really stupid. But if you read the whole article you’ll see that petty politics and pro-creationist administrators are behind this.

As noted anti-creationist Genie Scott commented in the article,

“This just underscores the politicization of science education in Texas,” Scott said. “In most states, the department of education takes a leadership role in fostering sound science education. Apparently TEA employees are supposed to be kept in the closet and only let out to do the bidding of the board.”

As you might expect, PZ has some things to say about this as well. So does Josh. In fact, expect to see this news hitting the science blogosphere like a bomb.

The fight against antiscience, the fight against theocracy, the fight against nonsense will never stop, because their minions are always lurking somewhere. Keep fighting, people. We must never tire. Because if we do:

Texas:

Man, I hate being forced to insult someone. But he brings it on himself: Glenn Beck is an idiot.

He is a right-wing blowhard who talks endlessly about stuff he doesn’t have a clue about. A web search on him will yield endless idiotic rants where he is precisely wrong (his penultimate latest was claiming that people who hate America — meaning progressives — were getting their houses burnt in California. That dope doesn’t even know how conservative San Diego county is, let alone understand just how truly offensive such a statement is on its own merits).

So now he is pontificating on global warming and the SoCal fires. And what does this brain trust have to say?

BECK: We’ll tell you the truth. We’ll tell you the things that are politically incorrect. I’ll go on and I’ll tell you the fires have very little to do with global warming, if anything. The globe was the hottest in 19 — was it 1934, Stu [executive producer Steve "Stu" Burguiere], or ‘37? — ‘34, 1934 was the hottest year. A stat, by the way, that was, I believe, intentionally distorted by the guy the left holds up as the scientist on global warming. America’s temperature peaked in 1934. Since 1934, the hottest year on record was 1998. It has not gotten warmer since 1998. That’s a fact.

Now, why are these fires burning out of control? Al Gore and everybody else will have you believe that it is all about global warming. Well, really? A one-degree temperature change that happened at the first part of the century, not in the last part of the century, at least most of it, and a temperature change that hasn’t changed since 1998 is causing superfires in California and only California? Only America? It’s in the American borders. How is that possible?

His first statement is wrong, right off the bat: it’s nowhere near the truth.

First, 1934 was the hottest year in the US, not globally. Second, as I discussed extensively on this very blog, 1934 was just barely hotter than 1998, the second hottest year on record (again, in the US, not in the world). The difference is so miniscule that they can be considered to be tied.

Third, that stat was not intentionally distorted by James Hansen (the scientist he mentions obliquely). There was some recalibration done on the temperatures, and the numbers get shuffled around a bit. Not terribly much, in fact, and the overall conclusions on global warming don’t change.

Fourth, the fluctuations in temperature year-to-year are large, so you can’t simply state that it hasn’t gotten hotter since 1998. That’s meaningless. You need to look at longer trends.

Fifth, while the one degree rise in Fahrenheit has been going on for the past century, in fact the temperature has spiked upward since about 1980. That’s obvious from this graph (x-axis is years since 1880):

So in fact, Beck is wrong again: the majority of the rise in temperatures in the US has been over the past few decades.

Sixth, no real scientist is saying that global warming is causing these fires. What it’s doing is setting up conditions where things like this are more likely. Global warming affects global weather patterns, and it’s the Santa Ana winds that turned these fires from a nuisance into a killer. I’m not saying that GW is the trigger here; I’m saying that things will get wonkier from here on out. Count on it.

Glenn Beck has an astonishing record of saying astonishingly stupid things. He said this particular garbage on his radio show. I’m not surprised; AM radio is loaded with talk shows that spew nothing but hate, lies, distortions, and intolerance (I am only intolerant of willful ignorance and willful distortion of reality). But he also has an hour-long program on CNN every day! Why the heck does CNN give him any air at all?

I don’t like to call people names, but Beck is given a national audience, and his intellectual capacity is clearly such that he shouldn’t even be allowed to rant in public parks to passing squirrels. I’ve had enough of such idiocy, especially on matters of what is in fact and in deed life and death.

The South Carolina (motto: "First to Secede!") governing body is maybe not so much the bastion of science and reality-based thinking. But now, as reported in The Charleston Post & Courier, they join Texas in what I can only think of as utter stupidity:

State lawmakers shot down a request for extra financial help for low-income students who will attend South Carolina’s public colleges and universities next year.

Meanwhile, they approved $2.5 million to help low-income students attend Bob Jones University, a private school in Greenville.

Yes, that BJU, where it is was^* school policy to forbid interracial dating (I guess Thomas Jefferson wouldn’t be allowed to attend), and where, more to the point, they teach creationism instead of, y’know, reality.

(more…)

Monday, the Boston Globe ran an editorial that I found very irritating. The writer, Jeff Jacoby, points out that perhaps the greatest scientific mind of all time, Isaac Newton, was not only very religious, but was a young-Earth creationist. For Jacoby, this shows that science and religion can work hand in hand:

For Newton, it was axiomatic that religious inquiry and scientific investigation complemented each other. There were truths to be found in both of the “books” authored by God, the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature — or as Francis Bacon called them, the “book of God’s word” and the “book of God’s works.” To study the world empirically did not mean abandoning religious faith. On the contrary: The more deeply the workings of Creation were understood, the closer one might come to the Creator. In the language of the 19th Psalm, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”

Jacoby also has some fun with the idea that Newton today would never get a position at a University, let alone Cambridge, and in fact Jacoby spends much of his editorial on that subject:

When Genesis 1:1 says “In the beginning,” [Newton] determined, it means 3988 BC.

Not many modern universities are prepared to employ a science professor who espouses not merely “intelligent design” but out-and-out divine creation.

I call shenanigans.

(more…)

Whenever I write about politics, religion, or something that is not 100% straight-up science, I get a handful of protests in the comments, usually along the lines of "I came here because this is supposed to be an astronomy blog…"^*.

Well, for the n^th time, I’ll let y’all know: this is primarily a science blog, but not exclusively so. I think people like what I write about astronomy because I add a dimension of humanity to it, since I’m personally involved with some of it, and I know some of the fun back story. But that same humanity means I’m human, and I have other things on my mind too.

This may sound crass, but it’s true: it’s my blog, and I’ll write what I want to. If you don’t like it, there are lots of other sites about astronomy on the web. Spare me the lectures, the drama, and the grandstanding in the comments. If you don’t want to read my blog, that’s fine. I can’t please everyone, and by its very nature a scientific and skeptical blog will make some people upset. But I am not going to change my style, my topics, or my behavior (unless there is some evidence-based reason, of course). So if you’re gonna go, just go. Being dramatic about it in the comments won’t change anything.

But before you leave, take a good look at whatever it was that I wrote that ticked you off. Why? Because in a recent post, I was accused of bashing Christians, bashing religion, saying that all global warming deniers are also young-Earth creationists, and I’m sure if I look more carefully there’s something in the comments about me eating kittens, too. I never said any of that. People are reading their own issues into what I wrote, and and not reading what I actually wrote.

How ironic is that?

So here is my stance, for those of you who still don’t get it: I am a scientist, a skeptic, a science fiction fan, a father, a pet owner, and a human being. I have opinions, and I have a blog, and therefore I will write about my opinions. I try very hard to base my opinions on well-grounded, evidence-based reasoning, and I try very hard not to extrapolate beyond what is reasonable.

But I will not tolerate the attacks on science, whether they come from politicians, religious zealots, New Age gurus, or regular old folks. And I will speak out.

Update: Coincidentally, PZ Myers at Pharyngula just wrote a similar post (his is about religion), as did Chris Pirillo (about politics). Make of this what you will.

^* And why don’t these same people complain when I post about cartoons I like, or some funny website I found? After all, those are "off-topic" too. Could it be that I simply don’t have the same political or religious affiliation that they do, and they don’t like it? I know some people just don’t want to hear more about those topics, but still, I don’t think that applies to most of the folks who leave in a huff. I strongly suspect that many (but not all) of those who do leave in a flash of drama need to very carefully examine their own beliefs; they are guilty of precisely the crimes they accuse me of.

So now we have an ex-Surgeon General saying the Bush White House pressured him not to talk about stem cell research and other topics not deemed palatable by this troglodyte Administration that is so routinely antiscience that if they said the Sun rises in the West we’d have a hundred slavering "journalists" saying they have been saying that for years, and hardly anyone would notice.

Here’s what the former SG had to say about Bush’s White House:

“Anything that doesn’t fit into the political appointees’ ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried,” Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as the nation’s top doctor from 2002 until 2006, told a House of Representatives committee.

Shocker.

I’m glad he spoke up. But hey, maybe this would have helped a bit more five years ago. He was the frackin’ Surgeon General, the top doctor in this country and in charge of this nation’s health! a spokesman for health in this country!

What makes this worse is that I remember quite well a Surgeon General who spoke her mind, and to heck with the repercussions. Can you imagine any person in this current Administration, let alone the Surgeon General, saying "Condoms will break, but I can assure you that vows of abstinence will break more easily than condoms"?

And why, oh why do we hear about these things long after it’s too late, when lives have been lost, when procedures and laws have been ossified, and we condemn an entire generation to a future that they can’t afford?

I’m looking at you, Colin Powell.

Here’s some advice: speak up. Now. I’ve already contacted my Senators and Rep several times since I’ve moved to Colorado, and I’m not planning on stopping. I’ve got things to say, and I’m going to say them.

Hat tip to Angela Gunn.