Hey dude. When you get to hell, tell ’em Neo sent ya!

It’s amazing what gets reported as news:

THE Catholic Church has revealed how growing interest in satanism and the occult has led to a rise in exorcisms across Queensland.

Well, for starters this statement is a little misleading. To be clear, what is actually on the rise is the rate of exorcism ceremonies being carried out. There is no evidence to suggest that any of these anecdotally reported cases involves anything that could be construed as supernatural demonic possession.

One priest, who asked not to be named for fear of “reprisals”, said he was carrying out at least one exorcism a fortnight.

Reprisals from who pray tell? Satan? Demons? The police? Other, saner priests?

Death cold coffee from the skies!

In case you’re interested, the asteroid TU24 has passed it’s point of closest approach, and we appear to have avoided fiery liquid death. (Although my coffee was a little cold this morning … Gah! Curse you TU24!)

Debating Science

I as a general rule, I don’t think that the debate format is appropriate to scientific topics. A debate necessarily has a winner, whose ascendancy is determined by their ability to make a superior argument in the eyes of some theoretically impartial adjudicator. Reality however, doesn’t really care about rhetoric or majority opinion, and neither should science. The debate format is a circus, lending equal weight to opposing views that may or may not merit such treatment and which may or may not fully encompass all of the possible views. It also presupposes that the debaters are themselves qualified to argue their points and that the adjudicating person(s) is similarly competent to impartially weigh the opposing arguments.

As a case in point, consider this debate between Christopher Hitchens and Jay Wesley Richards.

Expelled reviewed

Dan Whipple has seen and reviewed an advance viewing of Expelled. Sounds like it’s more or less what everyone expected – now we wait and see how it plays out.

(Via Pharyngula)

Expelled! No Intelligence Indeed

This is going to suck so very, very badly.

I first came across this movie via Pharyngula, where PZ outlined how he had been interviewed for the film under false pretenses. Eugenie C. Scott seems to have had a similar experience.

Ben Stein has a blog attached to the main site. Hoo boy. I’m not sure that I’ll ever be able to look at Ferris Bueller the same way ever again. Interestingly, he’s put a little header over his posts:

What we see below are two views of Intelligent Design’s place in science. One quote is from a brilliant, open minded and humble man…the other from a man typical of those who believe that they know better, but who don’t have much to offer, other than a closed-mind.

What on earth does humbleness have to do with truth?

Stupid Atheists! #3.1 Change is Bad. Except when it’s good.

In the last episode of Stupid Atheists! (or A Completely Impartial and Objective Look at the Bogus Things Stupid People Say About Atheism) I addressed church/state separation and stated that I though politicians had a responsibility to make decisions based on established science, logic and reason. I justified this by saying that any such decisions could then be logically supported (or refuted) and would be open to change or modification if new evidence was presented.

On reflection, I think that this statement might benefit from further clarification.

Politics and religion margaritas! Half price Sundays!

Take 1oz of politics. Add 1 oz of religion. Shake and strain. Serve garnished with generous dash of stupidity:

FEDERAL Liberal candidate Pastor Peter Curtis says homosexuality is a perversion and that gay men die from disease at many times the rate of heterosexuals.

Hmm, and just why does he think that homosexuality is a perversion?

“As a Christian, I do not agree with the idea of homosexuality. That’s the reality. I can’t put it any other way,” Mr Curtis told The Sunday Age yesterday.

Ah. His religion. A good reason then [slaps head].

Debating pseudoscientific nonsense

I’ve managed to scrape up some footage of the debate to scientifically prove god’s existence between two members of the Rational Response Squad and the dynamic duo behind Way Of The Master, Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort.

Here is video posted by the Rational Responders – they’ve edited it, so it’s not entirely unbiased:

You can also view a clip on the ABC website.

From what I can see Ray and Kirk just trotted out the same old painting/painter argument from design and their very own ten commandments version of Pascal’s Wager (which incidentally violated their own premise that their proof could be made without referring to the bible).

The Rational responders didn’t do too badly, but Ray is a polished speaker and can talk complete crap without flinching, so every time they stumble over a point it looks like they don’t know their material – and unfortunately appearances count for a lot in this kind of show-trial format.

Ray and Kirk’s arguments are completely devoid of anything resembling logic, reason or perception of reality. I mean seriously, that argument from design gets refuted every damn time ray says it (changing the analogy from a watch to a coke can to a painting to whatever, does not make this a better argument) and he still uses it. Is he is stupid or wilfully disingenuous? You can’t argue with these people, because they just ignore your explanations or refutations and repeat their same old debunked argument as though repetition makes their argument less stupid.

To be honest, I’m not entirely sold on the whole debate concept. I have long thought that it is generally bad policy to debate creationists (or other flavours of pseudo scientific lunatic for that matter). It gives the loonies a legitimacy that they don’t deserve and I think that the debate format contributes little to the understanding of an issue (and can actually trivialise the enormous weight of methodology and review that corroborates a legitimate scientific theory – victory in debate is generally more reflective of the winners skill at debate that the actual information presented). A theory like Darwinian evolution has survived 200 years of scientific critique and it is undignified and wrong to have to defend it adversarially against a guy who’s main argument is based on biblical literalism.

(Having said that, I’m going to completely contradict myself by saying that there are a couple of people I’ve heard debate whom I consider exceptions to the rule. Dr Steven Novella of the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe podcast is a clear and precise speaker who knows his material and is adept at not allowing logically dubious assertaions to go unchallenged. You can hear him here defending the scientific legitimacy of the field of Psychiatry against Dr. Fred Baughman.
When it comes to debating evolution, I don’t think I have heard anyone better than Dr Massimo Pigliucci. He is brilliant, charming, articulate and funny, grinding creationists to make his bread. More Infidel Guy audio with Dr Pigliucci debating Robert Allen here and “Dr” Kent Hovind here.)

My Kung Fu is the best, puny atheist!

In response to the Blasphemy Challenge sponsored by the Rational Response Squad, Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron have decided to challenge two atheists to a debate to prove god’s existence. From this article:

Two Christians are meeting two atheists in a televised debate with the subject the existence of God, and Ray Comfort, a best-selling author and expert on Christian evangelism, says he can prove the existence of the Almighty in his allotted 13 minutes – without mentioning the Bible or faith.

This I have to see.

“We are excited that the network has decided to do this, because we have something very relevant to present,” said Cameron. “Most people think that belief in God is simply a matter of blind faith, and that His existence can’t be proven. We will not only prove that God exists, but as an ex-atheist I’ll show that the issue keeping so many people from believing in God – Darwinian evolution – is completely unscientific. It’s a fairy-tale for grownups.”

Evolution is “unscientific”? This can’t be going anywhere intelligent…

Comfort told WND he’s constantly amazed at “how many respectable men of God say you cannot prove God; that it’s only a matter of faith.”

“I’ve seen atheists backslide when they’ve heard me provide them proof,” he said.

I have audio of Ray Comfort debating the existence of god at an atheist conference. His argument was a bizarre blend of anecdote, personal revelation, scripture as evidence and poorly realised analogy. One could be forgiven for thinking that his strategy was to say stupid things until the atheist’s head exploded from the agonising barrage of wrongness.

“Most people equate atheism with intellectualism,” Comfort said, “but it’s actually an intellectual embarrassment.”

Well, someone here is an embarrassment. I’ll follow this one and keep you posted.

Headless french scientists and global warming skepticism

Almost missed this one.

From the article:

Hard-core global warming sceptics will descend on Canberra today for the release of a book claiming environmentalism is the new religion.

Well. This should be interesting.

“Environmentalism has largely superseded Christianity as the religion of the upper classes in Europe and to a lesser extent in the United States,” Mr Evans says in the publication.

Says who?

“It is a form of religious belief which fosters a sense of moral superiority in the believer, but which places no importance on telling the truth,” he says.

Since when has any religious belief been contingent on truth or evidence? But seriously, Environmentalism is manifestly not a religion and this is just an unsubstantiated ad hominem attack.

“The global warming scam has been, arguably, the most extraordinary example of scientific fraud in the postwar period.”

Interesting – are they accusing any specific researchers of fraud? Or is it just those nasty “scientists” in general?

The function is organised by the Lavoisier Group, founded in 2000 by Ray Evans and former mining executive Hugh Morgan to test claims that global warming is the result of human activity.

Ah, and suddenly it starts to become clear. You can find the Lavoisier Group’s official site here and their Source Watch profile here.

From their website:

Given the doubt and uncertainty about both the science and the economic consequences of Kyoto, a group of Australians, concerned that there has been very little ongoing public debate about these proposals, founded the Lavoisier Group. We are of the view that the science behind global warming policy is far less certain than its protagonists claim, and we also believe that the economic damage which Australia would suffer, if a carbon tax of the magnitude canvassed in AGO documents were imposed, would be far, far greater than is currently appreciated in Canberra.

It’s interesting the way that people with different agendas look at risk. To the average person, who’s only direct stake is in the general effect on their lives, the potential consequences of global warming are so dire that it is worth starting to address the claimed problems now, even if they are not convinced of the effect. However, to someone who has a vested interest in industries contributing to global warming, any shred of opposing evidence or differing opinion can be enough to outweigh existing evidence or scientific consensus, because to them the financial ramifications outweigh the potential harm to the environment.
It’s a bit like when evidence started to emerge that smoking might be harmful – even if you weren’t convinced, the seriousness of the potential outcome were so great that it was certainly in your best interests to err on the side of caution and act as though it was true until such a time (if ever) it might be proved otherwise.

But back to the article:

Mr Evans is a longstanding friend and colleague of Mr Morgan and a committed activist on issues such as workplace reform through the HR Nicholls Society, which he founded with federal Treasurer Peter Costello.

So the group is founded by people with a vested interest in debunking global warming, and no expertise in climate science? Well, what reason could you possibly have to think them biased?

In an interview with The Age last month, Mr Evans acknowledged that last September’s visit by former US vice-president Al Gore to promote his Oscar-winning global-warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth had helped generate a lot of publicity on climate change.

But he described Mr Gore’s film as “bullshit from beginning to end”.

Wow. Great technical criticism.

“The science from the anthropology point of view has collapsed. The carbon-dioxide link is increasingly recognised as irrelevant,” Mr Evans said.

By you maybe matey, but considering your interest in the industry, forgive me if I’d like to see some actual positive evidence about that before I take your word for it.

Considering his contributions to the accuracy of scientific methodology, I suspect that Antoine Lavoisier would not have considered himself well represented by the group that has taken his name.