My belated congratulations. Just noticed that ERV seems to be having a lot of fun over this announcement:

http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2010/02/the_scientific_communication_m.php#comments

She might think she’s the Chesire Cat, but I think she comes across more as the Red Queen.

Cheers,

John

But you are, obviously, free to believe whatever you want about me.

But I have to say, this focus on a single issue is starting to bug me. The problems of our family court system do not begin and end with religion.

That system is trying to find a way to allow families to be different and remain families without also being dangerous to themselves and others. And it fails at that more time that we like.
The legal complexities in those cases are basically the same ones that leave children in drug homes and/or in physically-abusive environments.
Your concern about these specific instances is certainly laudable, Kaghei, but they are not more important than cases of kids dying in homes where addiction, physical abuse or mental illness are the challenges.

And they do not have anything to do with my dispute with rrt.

People who pray – liberal or moderate -are not responsible for ideas about prayer that they themselves disagree with. 

But all this is obvious, and I believe you know that you’ ve been caught in promoting a deductive fallacy – you’ve got an agenda that the fallacy supports so you can’t give up on it.

It may sound reasonable to “agree to disagree,” but for that to occur each of us would have to see merit in the other’s position. 

Your position is based on a fallacy – I see no merit in it.

Ignorance isn’t just bliss, its a get out of consequence/responsibility card, for those holding, or at least convincingly implying, a strong conviction that prayer can “fix” diseases, starvation, etc., better than feeding your kid, giving them medical help, or properly educating them, or anything else. You just have to convince a judge and jury, and be in one of the states where they *allow* people to get by with it.

Are you honestly going to tell me this people do not advocate “prayer is good, and useful, and right”? For that matter, what do you imagine the position is of people with actual power, like the AiG types, who advocate denial of climate change, evolution, HIV, and numerous other things, sometimes “in combination”, with the express purpose of replacing “everything” that isn’t properly Biblical with a) Bible quotes and b) praying for people to be cured of.. well, everything from AIDS, to not believing in a proper literalist world view. Doesn’t matter that their cause is disingenuous, in that they advocate the power, rightness and effectiveness of asking god for everything you need, while feeling that they have to use misinformation, quote mining, false science, wacky museums, and other purely non-prayer based solutions to combat it. The end game is, we replace anything in science that doesn’t fit some orthodox literal reading of the Bible, or their interpretation of what that actually is, with stuff more Bible like, and replace all medical, psych, or other treatments, not to mention even our economic models, which currently also don’t “fit” their alternate universe, with praying people healthy, wealthy, and prosperous.

Sure, its not always practical to stop people getting drunk, pretty much impossible to stop people drinking at all, but that doesn’t mean that you stop arresting drunks, because it might offend “mostly sober people”, or tell all the bars that its now perfectly fine to change their “two drink minimum” rules to “five drink minimum”, as though the original rule itself wasn’t bloody idiotic. You don’t open the door to the drunk, just so the social drinkers don’t get pissed off at you telling them drinking is bad, if you over do it. Duh!!

I don’t mind if you still think my version is too weak to criticize. Again, I don’t expect us to agree on that. But don’t tell me I’m ignoring something I haven’t just because I don’t see it the way you do.

But unless there is also evidence that says someone thinks “prayer is good and useful and right” AND preferred over taking a child to a doctor, then there is no connection other than a casual one. As casual as the connection between a person who drinks five or six glasses a year on special occasions and an alcoholic behind the wheel of a car.

You keep avoiding that part.

I’m not averse to hurting feelings (unless it’s purely for that end). But that can be a factor in the democratic process, which I gather is supposed to be a big part of Chris’ message to the science community.

Ah, see. Now we are into politics. You know.. like one nut holding up both money to make jobs **and** the money being paid to people to keep them from starving, while waiting of those jobs to exist. Not to mention the whole, “We are still the tea party! Honest!!!”, wackos that figure that have hijacked that, and replaced it with a campaign of disinformation, lies, distortions, and the contention that the “solution” to everyone’s problems is, “Elect more right wing idiots like us, we are the *honest* ones!” You get the same thing between hard science, and the fuzzy, “You got science in my religion!”, types. The people that need to do something about it are either a) scared to, b) feel they are too busy too, or c) get told, by their own side, to tone it down and play things nicely. The end result is the scientific world’s equivalent of our current national Senate. One side doesn’t give a frack what works, as long as someone else isn’t the one doing it, and the other side is a->c above. The only thing worse than being (a) or (b), is being the jerk saying (c) is the right solution.

Lets put it another way, who here, at this point, if the Senate was discussing say.. Darwin vs. ID, and holding up 240+ ***scientific research projects***, including delaying key funding, which is resulting in people getting laid off, or entire projects canceled, wouldn’t be **just as annoyed** with the people telling us to work bi-partisan on science, as a **lot** of us are fed up with a) Obama not having the guts to directly and specifically call some of the clowns involved *by name*, or b) his party (which in this hypothetical being scientists that don’t want to glue the concepts together) refusing to do a damn thing to force the issue, despite having, in their hands, all the real power, not just to counter the disinformation campaigns being run, if they bothered, make sure facts got to the public, instead of just spin, and get things actually done?

Mind, the way its being done *may* be intentional, and with an end game of exposing the other side’s hypocracy and, in some cases, insanity, and could work, but it is, if anything, worse than being strident and uncompromising. Its being done, if it works, by backing the ignorant and self serving into as many corners as possible, then leaving them with no option but to prove themselves wrong, or change sides. Its an interesting plan, assuming that is what is intended, and its not all just a blind appeal for everyone to like him (as some, including PZ said they feared might be true when we elected the man), but.. I am pretty sure Mooney et al would have a seizure over such a strategy, since it doesn’t just represent being loud, uncompromising, and direct about the opinion of the lack of use that gods have in science, it would constitute the equivalent of taking organizations like Templeton, and arranging for them to shoot *themselves* in the foot, using a howitzer.

Personally, I would love to see it happen. But, assuming this is Obama’s intent, we don’t **have** any such person among scientists, that I can see. No one willing to play at compromise, for the pure purpose of showing how unwilling, and actively apposed, the other side is *to* make such a thing. Nor, I would argue, would most scientists be willing to put up with the complete bloody mess it would create, in the short term, while the truth of the situation was exposed (since a lot of science would get mangled in the process of running it through a blender of woo in such a circumstance). It would show the same thing that it has in the Senate. The complete ethical vacuity of many on one side, and the ignorance of a great many more, plus the complete inability of most of the other side to do the very thing we are being told not to – stand up and *be* strident and uncompromising on the issue of just where the line *should be*, and what isn’t acceptable.