Philosophers always have something to say on just about any subject. It’s in their job description. So it’s not a big surprise that a philosopher would want to comment in the ongoing back and forth between vocal atheists and accommodationists, more specifically, Professor Massimo Pigliucci on his blog, Rationally Speaking. As you would expect, there’s a great deal being said, but unfortunately, many of the core concepts used to justify his stance towards accommodationism are based on either wrong interpretations of what’s really being said and why, and a mix of truisms that don’t actually hold up all that well in the real world. Worse yet, we’re treated to the same old patronizing implication that atheists and those who insist on a secular standard have a very simplistic and naive worldview that simply fails to grasp the intricate complexities of accommodationism…

While that video was supposed to be a parody made in good fun, it really seems that accommodationists see the atheist movement as lacking ideas any more nuanced than expressed there. We can see this very clearly in Pigliucci’s post in which he solicits readers for their thoughts as to whether we should make concessions to religious groups, while at the same time dismissing the atheist opinion as narrow-minded, ignorant and in a venture towards extreme political correctness, even balks at the use of the accommodationist term.

A new word entered the atheist vocabulary of late: “accommodationist.” It is meant as a derogatory term toward those atheists and assorted rationalists who try to extend a metaphorical olive branch to moderate religionists and find common ground against the real danger, fundamentalism (of any kind, religious or not).

Since when has that term been derogatory? Accommodationists want to make accommodations for religious groups and this is why this term is used. Whether Pigliucci likes the term or not has nothing with do with how it’s meant. Sure, many atheists refer to this position as an erroneous one, but that doesn’t mean it’s a smear. I’d also like to point out that referring to “any kind of fundamentalism” is an appeal to the golden mean fallacy, a logical twist which assumes that the correct answer to any problem must lie between two extremes, which may work for a philosopher who tends to float in the clouds and focus on semantics, but not in science where many positions are either right or wrong according to the weight of objective evidence. Is Pigliucci saying that we should be extending an olive branch to people who insist that 2 + 2 = 5 because the real danger is sticking to the idea that the result is actually four according to the rules of math?

Contrary to what many people think, this isn’t a debate about pragmatic tactics in the culture wars, it is a matter of principle. Few people — possibly not even Dawkins — would disagree that, say, the fight for a true separation of church and state has to include a broad coalition of religious and non-religious groups, partly because the goal is in the interest of both parties, and partly because there simply wouldn’t be hope for just secular groups to prevail, considering that they represent a (sizable) minority of the population.

Why would secularism be in the interest of religious groups? Why would they possibly want to forgo the power to make laws or pass down edicts about everything on which they have an opinion? And if we’re talking solely about principle, why are readers being told that because secular groups are just too small to prevail against a religious majority? Oh no, we’re not talking strategy, we’re just talking about what it takes to win this thing. See, it’s completely different when we preface these points with a sentence saying it’s all a matter of principle. I’m not sure if the point here is to convince the reader that Pigliucci is only interested in the principle or just huddle with him in a strategy session, but it’s not making a good argument either way you look at it. On the one hand, there’s a reliance on the notion that the groups who benefit from dominating the public debate would decide to pull back since it was declared to be in their best interest to do so, and on the other hand, we have a bait-and- switch argument promising a discussion of core principles and ends with a textbook strategy session.

When Dawkins says that science can refute “the God hypothesis,” or Coyne claims that a 900-ft [figure of] Jesus appearing in London (why London?) would disprove atheism, they are making epistemological assertions that are founded on a naive understanding of philosophy of science (and it is interesting that both of these esteemed colleagues scoff at the very idea that philosophy has anything to contribute to the debate).

Why London? Maybe because Dawkins is British and said London off the top of his head. And he’s right. Were supernatural forces to very openly and bluntly reveal themselves, atheists would have no leg left to stand on. It should also be noted that in the context of religious fundamentalism that’s so opposed by atheists, this literal, simple manifestation of the supernatural as proof of religious beliefs makes perfect sense. Plenty of theology busybodies like to go around saying that no one takes their deities that close to heart, but considering that we have prayer sessions about controversial legislation and people will pray for everything from getting to a very important appointment on time, to a parking spot in a crowded mall, that’s just not true. Finally, I can’t see how metaphysical discussions about epistemology have anything to contribute to hard sciences where ideas stand and fall by the weight of evidence in favor of them rather than how much you talk. It’s one thing to debate questions to which we have no real answers, but once a good, logical answer is found we’re really just going around and chewing the rhetorical cud rather than contributing anything of substance.

Say what you will about school board members in Texas, but they’re consistent. Now if only they used all their fervor in boosting academic standards instead of tearing tearing them down into absurd over-simplifications of science and history, declaring that well established and proven scientific ideas about space and time are up for debate because a young earth creationist says so, appointing a crazed zealot as their chairman, then threatening to replace him with a lunatic who has a searing hatred for all public schools after he managed to lose his seat, and even after their former chairman and two of his cronies are defeated in their re-election bids, to keep wailing away at ensuring that no kids in Texas are allowed to have a well-rounded curriculum. In the last few days, the state’s board of education showed through the kinds of mandates that would make any far right sophist proud, going as far as to ban the word “capitalism” because it’s used by liberal professors.

Yes, you read that right. Instead of taking their cues from academics, who many of the school board members loathe in their roiling anti-intellectualism, they apparently decided to ask Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh what Texan academic standards to peruse. How else can you explain the notion that the word capitalism has to be struck from that curricula so it could be replaced with a buzzword from archconservative economic think tanks solely on the basis of irrational, partisan hatred?

The board removed the word “capitalism” from [state] standards, mandating that the term for that economic system be called “free enterprise” throughout the standards. Board members such as Terri Leo and Ken Mercer charged that “capitalism” is a negative term used by “liberal professors in academia.”

Really? That’s the ironclad expert justification? To use the term liberal the same way one would pronounce a diagnosis and say that it’s used by college professors? How could there be a clearer example of the searing hatred the creationist/culture war faction of the Texas SBoE has for anything that even resembled knowledge or education that doesn’t simply pound students over the head with their personal ideologies? I don’t think the duo in question, Leo and Mercer, seem to have a working neural synapse between them. Or perhaps the two share a brain that was left on a dark, dusty shelf somewhere before the meeting began. How does one even begin to describe how utterly inane and imbecilic this kind of reasoning is and the damage it will do? While a horde of far right ideologues pat each other on the back, praising American exceptionalism as they dilute the crucial educational standards of the nation’s second biggest state with nonsense and propaganda solely for the sake of their personal self-validation, they drag the country farther and farther behind. And then, they have the gall to call these standards “world class.” Are they even talking about the same world as we are?

To put it plainly, the school board members who thought it would be a great idea to turn a social studies class into an audition for right wing talk radio and declare that when teaching the importance of considering any and all opinions in a democratic republic, the teachers should really just explain that the students have the right to buy guns under the Second Amendment, are societal parasites. They complain about intrusive, heavy-handed government intervention in business and society, yet they get themselves elected to government posts, issue intrusive societal mandates, take advantage of government-run medical care for them and their families, get a paycheck funded by taxpayers, benefit from all the things modern science gives them while viciously smearing scientists and academics, and produce nothing positive in their wake. The fact that American students aren’t quite on par with other students in the developed world in countless international surveys should be a glaring example of the cost of having these people mandate educational standards.

But then again, I’m sure they can find some tenet in their “exceptionalism” doctrine that can somehow “prove” that not teaching kids science or math and pounding them over the head with talking points borrowed from a partisan, hypocritical news pundit instead of involving them in social debates, somehow produces education so superior to the rest of the world that no standardized test could fully measure its sheer brilliance. Or simply call their critics “liberal academic demagogues” and spit in their direction, as they usually do.

With the state of education in many schools today leaving something to be desired, a number of parents have been taking their kids’ studies in their own hands and turning to homeschooling. Trouble is that a number of these parents have decided to do it not because they found the curriculums lagging, but because they wanted to keep their children away from those evil secularists and their corrupt ways. God forbid they have to suffer in science class and listen about evolution! Why just think, next they’ll be forced to give blood oaths to Satan and having ritual orgies, you know like those malevolent Darwinists do on a regular basis. This is why those who use their right to homeschool as a tool of indoctrination turn to books which lie about the theory of evolution and specifically target religious fundamentalists who need help in dismissing the science they’re told to fear.

From an empirical standpoint, there’s evidence that students exposed to creationist viewpoints do seem to be swayed by them and those who author anti-scientific textbooks for religious homeschooling say that we’ll just have to accept that creationism is just as valid as modern evolutionary theories. But this is argument is a disingenuous one. Sure you could sway someone without the proper scientific education to trust what you’re talking about as long as you position yourself as an authority figure and your audience doesn’t have the skills to critically evaluate your claims. This is exactly what creationist teachers tend to do, as shown on this blog by one educator who couldn’t keep his theology out of his science, failing in both areas in the process. And we should note that after encountering those who could refute his claims, his reply was to declare that I was just ignorant and that all the critique he received simply inspired him to keep proselytizing in class, i.e. the exact opposite of the message someone who’s been trained in science would get.

You can see that same kind of determination in textbooks intended for homeschooling as Jay Wile, who runs an apologetics curriculum, lashed out at Jerry Coyne for pointing out the obvious fact that the books written for religious biology lessons are riddled with errors and intentional misrepresentations of science.

Wile said that Coyne “feels compelled to lie in order to prop up a failing hypothesis (evolution). We definitely do not lie to the students. We tell them the facts that people like Dr. Coyne would prefer to cover up.”

Really? I suppose it’s not lying in the conventional sense when you sell your ignorance as valid facts but when you say that biologists are covering up facts while you run around furiously declaring that over a century and a half of scientific research never happened and every evolutionist is an evil, godless liar, you’re the absolutely last person who should open his mouth about honesty. Then again, I suppose when you think you’re lying and being a hypocrite because you think you’re defending your faith, this somehow lessens your guilt in the matter. What’s really happening is that Wile and his Apologia textbook series is trying to tap into the kind of paranoid, hysterical fear of evolution his audience desperately wants to see in a “textbook,” and when exposed to actual experts with fossils, genetic sequences, an extensive set of zoological studies, and hundreds of thousands of high quality, peer reviewed papers, he’s protecting his very lucrative business with Freudian projection. In fact, he barely tries to hide what’s going on…

The textbook carries a religious ultimatum to young readers and parents, warning in its “History of Life” chapter that a “Christian worldview … is the only correct view of reality; anyone who rejects it will not only fail to reach heaven but also fail to see the world as it truly is.” When the AP asked about that passage, university spokesman Brian Scoles said the sentence made it into the book because of an editing error and will be removed from future editions.

Whew, that’s one hell of an editing error. It would be sort of like this blog accidentally declaring that my goal is to turn all my readers into worshippers of Satan who sacrifice young virgins in their basements, according to some of the very best Satanic Panic pulp Christian fundamentalists have to offer and keeping it as the first paragraph of the bio page. Since day one. Until I’m called on it by a major news agency for a story which was going to be published in almost every major news outlet and say I’ll have it fixed next time the blog gets a big, sweeping update. I’m also kind of curious why this little editing error, which should be brushed off, was aimed at people who decided to send volumes of vicious hate mail to Jerry Coyne over his quotes in the AP article to call him everything from a hairy ape to things that are simply not fit to print. Really, no one is fooled when an apologetics book publisher tries to play expert and hide his true colors. We all know the game plan because we’ve seen it time and time again, and we know it’s not about the hunt for accuracy or a quest for the truth. It’s about a very long tradition for indoctrination for the sake of personal validation and no false indignation or excuse for obvious Freudian slips is going to somehow justify dragging children into the scientific Dark Ages as anything other than cheap proselytizing in the name of self-affirmation.

As science blogs become more and more popular, communication experts are asking questions about their role in the world of science. To do that, one would think that the authors of the research papers on the subject would contact a wide swath of science bloggers, ask them about their efforts, where those efforts fit into their research projects if they do at all, and do a thorough analysis of the blogs’ posts and comments. But that’s not what usually happens and the new paper by Inna Kouper isn’t rushing to break the mold. Instead, it focuses on a small convenience sample of science blogs, coming up with conclusions based on her opinions of how those science blogs should work. So how does the science blogging world fare in her analysis? Not well. It’s described like a rowdy group of snarky, unruly kids who aren’t nearly as polite or scholarly as they should be.

Aside from puzzling references to blogging tools and social media interaction being novel apps despite being around for about seven years by now, the paper tries to pigeonhole science blogging into the realm of making the scientific process accessible to the world at large and seeking collaborators for original research. But the problem with this approach is that science blogs aren’t designed to do that. They’re sources for expert reviews of new studies, science headlines in the mass media, and uncensored opinions on matters that interest the authors. The communities they build, the kind of discussions they foster, and ultimately, the tones of the blogs are side-effects of their growth. Treating a blog as an entity which just disseminates scientific content it sees fit instead of a dynamic ecosystem driven by traffic patterns and reader feedback, misjudges what’s going on behind the scenes and why it results in a grab bag of many different blogs under the same umbrella. There’s a reason why Pharyngula, Cosmic Variance and Bad Astronomy are very different sites and that reason is not the authors’ neglect for the proper standards for a science blog. In fact, those standards don’t even exist.

Still, after picking out eleven blogs from a quick web search, Kouper veers off into analyzing their use of snark, sarcasm and other “undesirable means of communication” with a level of detail that seems unnecessary and beside the point. Lost in her bureaucratic dissections of science blogs is the fact that science bloggers often deal with manufactroversies and anti-scientific rhetoric, so all our negative reactions to it come from repeated exposure to conspiracy-speak, cranks, quacks and insults after speaking our minds or that after you get your share of experience with those who don’t let little things like reality or the scientific method to get in the way of their arguments, you learn that being nice to everyone simply doesn’t work. Instead of being given a genuine exploration of the science blogosphere, we’re treated to snippets and tut-tutting about our use of sarcasm or lack of patience with creationists and conspiracy theorists. I assume this is what it’s like to read the diary of a newly minted anthropologist who spent a few years on a distant island only to learn the proper ways to curse someone in the native language, ignoring the religious traditions, home life and the usual social interactions along the way. It’s a classic example of missing the forest for the trees.

This lack of required perspective plaguing the paper could be explained by the small content sample. Kouper only chose posts over a month from her small clutch of blogs and limited her analysis of comments to fifteen replies per post. Even worse, she based her demographic information on only one blog and concluded that a small number of replies from scientists, grad students and research assistants meant that science blogs are read primarily by academia and researchers who have “water cooler discussions about the latest papers.” So the goal of science blogging, she continues, should be making science more accessible to laypeople. Um, I’d like to ask where all the comments from non-scientists, vocal critics of science and cranks went. How does a normal palette of posts about atheism and religious follies on Pharyngula fit into her idealized picture? What about Phil Plait’s explanations of astronomy for those who aren’t experts? Oh, right. She didn’t include his blog in her sample. Neither did she include Respectful Insolence or many other skeptical sites.

What we’re left with at the end are sweeping recommendations based on very limited research, a tiny sample that doesn’t cover the full scope of the science blogosphere, very skewed idea of the blogs’ demographics, as well as faulty assumptions about the nature and goal of science blogging in general. We do popularize many scientific fields, but we’re not specifically looking for research collaborators. We’re concerned with correcting, analyzing and discussing scientific topics important to us, but we’re looking to start debates and discussions instead of disseminating edicts from on high. Our blogs are fluid entities driven by traffic patterns and readers who comment on our work. We deal with a wide variety of opinions from scientists and curious non-experts. It seems that all this was either lost on Kouper, or more probably, she didn’t really try to understand her subject in the first place and ended up with a paper that reads as if it’s appalled at their sheer variety, but tries to jam them all into a neat little box anyway with little regard for the social world they inhabit.

[ illustration by Simon Varisto ]

After one of the biggest sci-fi blockbusters ever endured constant jokes and won few awards on Oscar night, it seems that quite a few blogs and entertainment industry articles are abuzz with one question. Is the Academy avoiding the science fiction genre, imagining sci-fi movies as little more than trivial popcorn flicks devoid of all important or political themes? For example, if someone were to re-imagine Heinlein’s tale of idealistic rebels becoming the very kind of authoritarian rulers they despised, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, would it be a less worthy movie than a historical biopic or an adaptation of another famous book? Does a film set in the future or using laser canons instead of guns immediately designate it as B-level pulp unworthy of critical attention?

Here’s the thing. I’m not saying that Avatar should’ve won an award for Best Picture since, as was said before, the story was an exercise in contrasts, pitting amazing visual effects against a painfully simplistic parable that relentlessly pounded every viewer over the head with an environmental message containing all the depth of a Captain Planet rerun. Sure, some cool transhumanist ideas were left in the final product because there was another chance to stuff something about unity with nature, but it was definitely not a serious contender for the title. It wasn’t the only science fiction movie however, and the far more dramatic and politically charged District 9 was also on the docket. It was thought provoking, inspired by real and brutal events, and had an ending that spoke volumes in just a few minutes of screen time. But of course, it couldn’t win against another politically inspired film based on real and very current events.

Giant shrimp eating cat food in decaying slums vs. bomb squads in Iraq? That’s an easy one for the Academy. The aliens and their shantytown were a metaphor? Yeah, whatever. Nerds. And that’s the problem. It’s hard to believe that in over 80 years of the Oscars being awarded, not a single science fiction movie has ever won an award for Best Picture. Even a fantasy movie managed to barge its way into this category after hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars poured into the Lord of the Rings Trilogy to the delight of fantasy lovers across the world. Are science fiction tales really that sub-par compared to war movies and drama? Considering how the votes have been going so far, I would think it’s safe for any filmmaker who decides to explore themes that aren’t on the Academy’s approved list of award worthy genres and looks into the future for an allegory of today, to abandon hope of ever being rewarded for the effort, no matter how well the movie turns out.

[ illustration by Tomasz Miazga, some images may be a tad NSFW ]

Be afraid, be very afraid of the imminent day when Peak Oil becomes a reality. That’s the message of the new special on NatGeo TV which shows what would happen if all petroleum under the ground suddenly dried up. Say goodbye to reliable energy delivery, global commerce, fresh food in supermarkets, cars, civil rule, and the $4 a gallon gasoline that got us all riled up not too long ago would seem dirt cheap by comparison. We would face a world where everyone must become a farmer, blackouts are common, food would be scarce, hospitals would quickly run low on vital supplies, and famines would kill millions of people across the globe. While this is a rather hyperbolic scenario, it does a good job of illustrating how dependent we are on petroleum and how the end of fossil fuel extraction could spell a terrifying economic depression. And that’s precisely the point…

Now, as already noted, a trillion barrels of oil wouldn’t suddenly vanish into thin air overnight. Instead, it would be harder and more expensive to extract as time went on. After a while, we’d need to resort to extracting oil out of shale and sands. More and more diesel and flex fuel cars would need to hit the road, running on alternative fuels and gasoline diluted with more and more ethanol to keep prices at the pump manageable. Eventually, a fleet of fully functioning electric cars would be necessary to offset the growing prices of gas. Plastics would also become more and more expensive, and recycling would become a must. But one day, the last few drops of commercially viable oil would make their way to the surface and a third of today’s energy needs wouldn’t be available to us anymore. Six months to a year after that, the last barrel of oil from strategic reserves would be used up. We have to be ready for the day that petroleum is no longer king so the switchover is as painless as possible and while our current fossil fuel of choice is done for the next 65 to 100 millions years, the world can just keep on going without missing a beat.

And this is exactly what many environmental advocates want. Rather than try to kill all industry, as a number of vocal right wing pundits love to declare at every opportunity, what they’re really trying to do is to make sure the modern business world doesn’t get hung up on fossil fuels and realizes that there’s going to be a future when today’s essential commodities will become scarce, so the sooner we have viable alternatives on the market, the longer oil supplies will last and the easier the big transition will be. And how could it possibly hurt us to go greenward and to adopt more and more solar, biofuels, tide power and nuclear technology, perhaps a fusion reactor or two when they’re up and running? The only things we would lose are our short-sightedness and a game plan the end game of which ultimately leads in a depletion of a vital resource.

When we last talked about college education, the question at hand was whether the benefits of the standard four year degree and post-graduate studies were necessarily a guaranteed way to better jobs. But with tuition costs steadily rising and student loans becoming toxic debt new graduates might be paying off for decades, a new sentiment seems to be getting some mention. Why go to college in the first place? It’s expensive, picking the right degree for what companies will require in the next four years can be an exercise in precognition, and many elite colleges are often more interested in doing research than in simply teaching. So why not just call it all a scam, get some connections, then use your sheer moxie and savvy to make a living? And that’s the basic summary of the argument being advanced by financial writer and hedge fund manager James Altucher…

Sure it’s tempting to just put the money slated for your education in a bank, travel around or start your own little business like Altucher proposes, but it’s absolutely terrible advice for two reasons. First and foremost, asking someone who just got a high school degree to go start a business as a viable alternative to getting a degree is kind of like telling a novice rock climber to take on Everest for his first solo expedition. What kind of serious business can a newly minted high school graduate start without a millionaire parent to find it? What could he or she offer that would provide a steady income for years to come? It’s one thing to suggest an apprenticeship for about a year to give would be college students a good idea of what their jobs would really be and get some real work experience under their belts, but simply bumming around, learning to paint and reading books on a leisurely schedule is no substitute for a real education. Instead, perusing real world experiences and reading as many books as you can on the topics the truly interest you should be an addition to college lectures, not a substitute. Running a business is much easier with an understanding of accounting, management practices and basic grasp of coroprate law than by simply intuiting these vital skills on your own.

Secondly, and perhaps most telling, Altucher didn’t exactly follow his own advice, getting a degree in computer science and even becoming a doctoral candidate before running a hedge fund. Would he really want to trust an 18 year old just out of school to provide some sort of qualified service for him? How many people without a degree or experience has his firm hired, for what positions, and how long were their tenures? Just listing the problems with today’s state of higher education isn’t grounds for throwing the whole idea out the window and giving up on college in general. Do you simply throw cars away if they need maintenance and repairs and say that driving is completely useless because dealerships don’t necessarily offer good deals, vehicles need fuel and attention from mechanics on a regular basis so instead you’ll just walk? No because that’s a hyperbole, pure and simple. Colleges aren’t perfect but their shortcomings aren’t impossible to fix and their degrees are a mandatory requirement in applying for countless jobs. This is why taking Alutcher’s advice isn’t just risky, it’s downright irresponsible. And I’m also curious as to why he’s gotten attention from Yahoo! Finance and HuffPo in the first place considering that he offers nothing of value after passionately ridiculing higher ed…

Poor, poor Ken Miller. Despite being a biology professor at a prestigious university, authoring textbooks and a pair of popular tomes dismantling creationist rhetoric against the theory of evolution and having the respect of many non-theists and fellow scientists, he’s doomed to a life as a punching bag for rabid creationists and the vocal breed of atheists cast as convenient villains by accommodationist writers. That’s the gist of an article by reporter David Scharfenberg, who interviewed Jerry Coyne and PZ Myers for their views on Miller’s work and decided that instead of presenting a fair and nuanced view of their thoughts on Miller, he was going to ditch all the complimentary things they said about him and portray the biologists as rabid pitbulls who only have nasty comments about his subject. I suppose preserving the narrative was much more important than the facts…

I’m not sure that Miller is particularly flattered by an article which casts him as “an honorable man” surrounded by mindless lunatics from both sides of the debate, in keeping with the Mooney/Hagerty/Gilgoff/Ruse style of portraying atheists. You see, in the press, atheists are not allowed to hold complex or nuanced opinions. They must be single-minded, condescending, cantankerous loudmouths with nothing of value to add to a debate, the exact counterpart to fundamentalist caricatures and just as dull and unpleasant. It’s really dishonest and crude, and yet this is exactly what so many reporters today seem to do. They’ll wipe their dirty shoes all over a group of atheists, reduce what these atheists say in interviews down to a few simple sound bytes reinforcing the big story, and refuse to acknowledge that there was anything more to the atheists’ position than what they chose to quote and how they decided to re-interpret these quotes. This is in part how Mooney got his $15,000 grant and a trip to England, and how reporters create controversy where there really isn’t one.

Now you might ask, what about religious fundamentalists? How can you ridicule the coverage atheists get but not acknowledge that the Religious Right gets the same kind of short end of the media stick? Well, we had a chance to hear plenty of anti-evolution activists rant and rave in their own words and on their own blogs. That’s why in my refutations of creationist arguments, I link directly to the source where they’re free to say what they’d like and how they’d like to say it without a reporter in sight. Whatever ignorant statements they make to incur a scathing critique from science bloggers was their choice to make. Although even a friendly reporter might not stop you from being a rhetorical menace to yourself, as the Scharfenberg piece illustrates with this quote from Miller about the potential role of God in our daily lives via quantum magic…

This sly intervention, Miller argues, is vital to the Creator’s project: if God were to re-grow limbs for amputees, for instance — if God were to perform the sorts of miracles demanded by atheists as proof of his existence — the consequences would be disastrous. [...] “That would reduce God to a kind of supranatural force and by pushing a button labeled ‘prayer’ you could accomplish anything you wanted. What would that do to moral independence?”

Really, the idea of the universe’s quantum mesh being putty in a supernatural being’s hands is something I’d expect from New Age sophists rather than a distinguished scientist. And let’s be serious, fundamentalists are not just using the prayer button anytime they want, they abuse it at every opportunity. The idea that God isn’t supposed to get in the way seems to just beg the question of why we need a God if we’re not going to directly interact with him. While a kind of Deist, refined watchmaker of a deity might be just fine for Miller and a host of theologians, for billions of people, gods are very personal and they also push that prayer button whatever they get the chance, hoping for a miracle. This argument about moral independence is an age old way of excusing the inability of the faithful to provide definitive proof for their deity and that faith translates into direct actions by a supernatural entity. It’s a red herring to put it bluntly. But Miller and other accommodationists using theological hand me downs as legitimate reasons to squeeze religion into science is ok because those atheists are just bad people who don’t have a single nuanced or valid opinion in their heads, right?

Ultimately, this kind of accommodationism isn’t about building bridges between facts and faith. If it was, there wouldn’t be a crew of rabid atheist villains in the narrative. Instead, atheists would be treated with at least the slightest modicum of respect and their positive words about Miller and religious scientists would be given the time of the day. Instead, writers like Scharfenberg, Ruse and Mooney are far more interested in pandering to their religious readers with backhanded swipes at the atheist menace. Oh they’re willing to build bridges and have open dialogues, just as long as those icky unbelievers aren’t involved since acknowledging that atheists have something of value to say might tick off their religious readers and result in one less payday.

[ illustration by Lina Blixt ]

Honestly, it wouldn’t be surprising if Ken Ham and his crew of professional anti-science demagogues went on an expedition to find Noah’s Ark in the ruins of Atlantis, but instead, they decided to use the legend started by Plato to determine a date for the destruction of the city using the Bible. By mixing Greek mythology with a very liberal Old Testament genealogy, they came up with a date range of 1818 BC to 600 BC. In other words, a thorough scriptural analysis by these keen minds yielded a window of probability spanning twelve centuries in order to cover any and all estimates by anthropologists with sheer vagueness. And just to be on the safe side, they also declined to mention whether Atlantis even existed while pondering whether it could’ve been sunk by The Flood and looking at Google Maps to pin down its possible location. In the attempt to prove that you could pick up the Bible to answer history’s mysteries, they really demonstrated that it’s as good as a random guess.

Today, the scientific consensus is that Plato’s story about Atlantis was a morality tale since it’s mentioned in a pair of dialogues about ancient Greek theology as an exploration on the topics of virtue and humility. But it may be possible that he based the story on a real civilization in his backyard, the Minoans. Until an eruption on the island of Santorini triggered the collapse of their civilization with a devastating one-two punch of volcanic ash and a tsunami, they flourished and were among the most advanced civilizations of their time. Or at least that’s how the story goes. According to Answers in Genesis however, the Minoans don’t fit the bill because they lived in the Mediterranean while in their interpretation, Plato’s account placed Atlantis past the West coast of Africa, deep in the Atlantic ocean. Funny enough, the eruption that dealt the blow to the Minoans also does match the timeline they derive since it happened around 1600 BC but it does so by sheer luck since they’re spanning an immense period of time in their estimate. But yet, the always accurate Bible didn’t point AiG to the civilization that seems to be the closest match to Atlantis and shares an uncannily similar history to that of the fabled city state? Well that’s a little bizarre…

Even stranger is the author’s intent of trying to find land bridges and calculating ocean levels during the end of the last Ice Age, placing all the events about 8,000 to 9,000 years ahead of when geology says they happened, often mentioning the Great Flood of Genesis as a jump off point for the dates. Of course, the problem is that a global flooding would’ve destroyed this planet as we know it and if it happened just a few thousand years ago, our world would still be recovering from its after-effects. Having sea levels rise by over a thousand feet would require more water than is contained in the entire Earth and even if it somehow happened, the air would grow thicker with water vapor, global temperatures would soar, breathing on the surface would be impossible, and oceanic ecosystems would suffer. Land life as we know it would be extinct overnight. The weight of trillions of tons of water might trigger tremors and affect undersea volcanic activity. With no evidence for a Great Flood or a real city of Atlantis outside of parables, we’re left with the story of the Minoans being used as an allegory in a duo of Socratic dialogues heavy on theology and metaphysics as the only possible explanation for Atlantis.

And even there, the Biblical accuracy touted by the staff of Answers in Genesis and their ringleader, manages to produce an estimate spanning some 1,182 years and hits on the correct date by sheer luck. That’s roughly equivalent to you giving us a prediction that by 3200 AD there might be another world war and getting it right by both the vagueness of your claims and by giving yourself roughly 1,200 years for something to happen. When we consider that the majority of recorded human history contains accounts of one war after another, and with two world wars behind us, chances are pretty good that eventually, a global armed conflict will happen again, making your prediction an exercise in presenting a logical conclusion as prophecy.

update 03.07.2010: the first edition of this post incorrectly stated that the end of the Minoan civilization was not caught by AiG’s sweeping estimate. The error has been corrected and the post was edited to account for how this estimate managed to catch the right date, and put this kind of estimation in proper perspective.

Popular supplements and treatments sold under the very permissive DSHEA rules are often singled out by a lot of skeptical bloggers for their uselessness in homeopathic cures or the potential harm they could cause to those who aren’t mindful of how they’re produced and marketed. But that doesn’t mean that all of them are useless or dangerous. When used properly and according to scientific advice, they can actually have very real health benefits. But how do you know which supplements you should research and why? That’s where David McCandless’ website Information is Beautiful may help with a terrific visualization of both popular and niche supplements ranked according to the weight of scientific evidence for their efficacy and given a “worth it” line.

To see what might not be worth your time and find out what these supplements seem to do best, see the full version and to better find which vitamins of herbs might aid in curing what ails you, try filtering the graphics by their area of efficacy in the interactive edition. One interesting thing you might note is that some very popular supplements are spread pretty evenly above and below the worth it line. Just goes to show that popularity and solid scientific evidence don’t necessarily go hand in hand…