The Unholy Trinity.
November 1, 2008
Ah yes. It was only a matter of time, wasn’t it, before McCain rolled out the esteemed and intellectually challenged Arnold Schwarzenegger to make up his Rapturous Unholy Trinity? With talk of war heroes and backlashes, he wowed his audience and looked… well… suitably Arnie-ish.
I have no idea how Mr Schwarzenegger’s rhetoric and hyperbole sounds to your average American voter, but I would seriously hope that they find it as unimpressive and hollow as I.
A couple of points that got me shaking my head and sighing:
- Apparently, Mr Obama — with the money he used for television ads — could have bailed out the banks and paid off everyone’s mortgages. This was hyperbole, wasn’t it? He wasn’t really being serious, right? You see, from this side of the pond it’s difficult to be completely certain — but I’m going to assume that he was speaking literally, even though I realise he probably wasn’t, because I can
Obama’s campaign budget was estimated at the beginning of October as being somewhere in the region of $450 million. This was money raised for campaign purposes. The money allocated to television ads would have been a percentage of this. I don’t know the actual figures and it’s irrelevant, anyway. The point is, this money was never intended to be used as an economic crutch — or anything else other than campaign funds. It is preposterous to even suggest (with or without hyperbole) that it could have been used in any other way. Yes, it is rather excessive but, on an interesting side note, back in 2006 Arnold Schwarzenegger’s personal wealth was said to be around the $800 million mark. Hey, Arnie, why don’t you bail out the banks? Jerk. - John McCain was a prisoner of war. D’you know something, I have a deep-seated suspicion of war heroes who use their past exploits in this way. My great-grandfather (who died when I was about eight or nine) fought in the trenches in France during the First World War, and no one in our family knew anything of what he went through during that time — other than the fact that it was so distressing that he chose not to talk about it. Now this isn’t to say, of course, that everyone who talks about what they went through during battle is somehow embroidering the facts. People quite often need to talk, to share, to help others — from friends to historians — understand the reality of the situations in which they found themselves. But to use those memories, the dead colleagues and friends, the suffering… to use them on the campaign trail, to allow fellow campaigners to refer to them, that I’m afraid strikes me as cynical and inherently suspicious. There were many heroes during the Vietnam War, some in the Armed Forces, and some on the steps of the Kent State University. If Mr McCain is a real hero, it may well have served him better to not have used it for possible political gain.
There’s a definite superficiality to McCain’s campaign that seems to be predominating. Whilst I’m no political commentator — and certainly not the obsessive campaign-watcher that some are — it does strike me that this is the fundamental difference between McCain and Obama. Granted, the latter is far from perfect (anyone who chooses to be a politician is by definition imperfect in my book!) but he at least seems to have something like substance.
I may be wrong — but when I hear Schwarzenegger referring to Obama’s “scrawny little arms”, I tend to feel that I’m not.
Hey, Arnie! Another suggestion for you: why don’t you go and beef up your scrawny little brain?
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again:
Jerk.
Christopher Hitchens on (Not Literally) Sarah Palin.
October 30, 2008
Contrary to many a rumour out there, I don’t always agree with Old Hitch. But in this recent article for Slate, he takes the Republican Party’s vice presidential candidate and very ably shows her for what we all already knew her to be:
“With Palin, however, the contempt for science may be something a little more sinister than the bluff, empty-headed plain-man’s philistinism of McCain. We never get a chance to ask her in detail about these things, but she is known to favor the teaching of creationism in schools (smuggling this crazy idea through customs in the innocent disguise of “teaching the argument,” as if there was an argument), and so it is at least probable that she believes all creatures from humans to fruit flies were created just as they are now. This would make DNA or any other kind of research pointless, whether conducted in Paris or not. Projects such as sequencing the DNA of the flu virus, the better to inoculate against it, would not need to be funded. We could all expire happily in the name of God. Gov. Palin also says that she doesn’t think humans are responsible for global warming; again, one would like to ask her whether, like some of her co-religionists, she is a “premillenial dispensationalist”—in other words, someone who believes that there is no point in protecting and preserving the natural world, since the end of days will soon be upon us.”
As a Brit, there is very little I can do directly to prevent her and McCain from gaining office. And yet the choices that you, my American friends and readers, will soon make will have consequences on a global scale. This impacts on us all. As imperfect a political specimen as Obama might be, he’s far superior to McCain and Little Miss Full of Shit. So please, use your vote wisely.
Don’t give these inbred arseholes the opportunity to, amongst other things, possibly make the End of Days prophecy a reality.
Buses and Atheism — A Natural Progression?
October 21, 2008
When I think of buses, the first thing that springs to mind is not an opportunity to promote atheism. The way some of those sons of bitches drive, I’d actually expect quite the opposite! Haven’t you ever prayed on a bus? I know I have! (And before anyone sees this as an opportunity, I’m joking! I don’t pray — never have in any meaningful way — and, well, this gentleman is certainly not for turning, so save your breath )
However unlikely and bizarre the proposition might seem, however, if all goes according to plan there is a distinct possibility that from January of next year buses in the UK may be seen driving about with slogans such as “THERE’S PROBABLY NO GOD. Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Your Life” emblazoned on the sides.
I must admit, however militant an atheist I can occasionally be, at first glance I had mixed feelings regarding this. And then I read this:
That swung it for me. It’s a clear and necessary reaction to the persistent encroachment of toxic myth on the lives of those of us who wish no part of it. As I’ve said many times before, I’m perfectly happy for other people to believe whatever they wish — once that belief encroaches upon what we know to be true or is used in an attempt to convert me, however, then a reaction is justified and morally correct.
For more on this and details of how to donate to the campaign, please visit here.
All Hail the Strawmen!
October 11, 2008
Whilst catching up with the posts at homoeconomicusnet, I came across a piece that John had written on the sorry excuse for a journalist, Quentin Letts. As John points out:
“[...] he [Letts] has written a book on Fifty People Who Buggered Up Britain. He rails against the removal of corporal punishment from schools, that Britain is broken and the European super state is coming, when what we need is some more church going.”
Richard Dawkins is, of course, on the list at number 30.
What a complete and utter buffoon this Quentin Letts is! The last time I was truly miserable I was in a church! Admittedly, it was for a funeral service, but I found absolutely no comfort in the surroundings, the mythos behind them — and certainly not in the bumbling bloke in a frock up front.
I was an atheist long before I even knew who Richard Dawkins was. But Richard certainly reinforced my ability to argue from a position of a lack of belief. And in so doing he did not weaken my happiness. With books like Unweaving Rainbow, he did, in fact, the exact opposite.
Quentin Letts is unoriginal, facile, thick as pig-shit and clearly deluded in more than one sense of the word. And he isn’t funny.
(I bet he’s really ugly, too.)
Pope says world financial system “built on sand” -Times Online
October 6, 2008
Pope Benedict XVI today said that the global credit crisis shows that the world’s financial systems are “built on sand” and that only the works of God have “solid reality”.
via Pope says world financial system ‘built on sand’ -Times Online.
And, of course, he utters this banal observation surrounded by opulence, no doubt wearing a pretty gold cross around his neck that’s studded with diamonds and rubies and whatnot, the Catholic Church itself worth — what? — trillions? “Works of God?”
Opportunistic and wholly unconvincing. Typically.
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Madonna makes dedication to Pope
September 7, 2008
“I dedicate this song to the Pope, because I’m a child of God,” she told 60,000 fans in the Italian capital. “All of you are also children of God.”
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Madonna makes dedication to Pope.
Oh shut up and sing (or should I say lip-sync?), for… erm… Christ’s sake.
Episode Three of “The Genius of Charles Darwin.”
August 20, 2008
As some of you may have noticed, I didn’t get round to writing a summary of the final episode of Richard Dawkins’s Channel 4 series “The Genius of Charles Darwin.” The truth is, I’ve only just got round to watching it myself — and forgot to make notes!
To make up for it, I’m going to suggest that you read the excellent summary provided by John over at Homo economicus’ Weblog. You could do a lot worse than add this blog to your feedreader. John has excellent credentials and his blog is always a good, well-informed read.
One thing I would like to talk about regarding this particular episode, however, is the attitude of teachers in British schools to the teaching of Darwin/evolutionary theory. In the course of this episode, we are introduced to a gentleman called Nick Cowan, who is a science teacher at Liverpool’s Blue Coat School (the school isn’t named in the documentary, but this gentleman didn’t take much finding!)
Mr Cowan can be seen in this segment, about seven and a half minutes in, and in the following segment — and if you haven’t already seen the documentary, or if you haven’t guessed, he is a creationist.
Watching, I was utterly dumbfounded. At one point, Dawkins asks the viewer if he/she would want someone like Mr Cowan teaching their children, and it was like being five and at a pantomime all over again! I actually shouted “no!” at the screen, that’s how strongly I felt about this issue.
Choosing my words carefully, I have to say that from where I’m sitting Mr Cowan’s credentials as a science teacher of any kind are completely undermined by the nonsense he spouts during this segment. If I had kids and this man was teaching them I would have been waiting at the school gates on Tuesday morning suggesting very strongly that he should be dismissed.
Now some might argue that because he isn’t teaching creationism as part of the science curriculum (he teaches it in a general studies class), I shouldn’t have an issue with this. But the man is a scientist, for God’s sake! (Yes, that was deliberate.) A scientist believing in God is bad enough, but I can just about accept that. But a scientist (okay, a science teacher — not always the same thing!) believing in creationism?… no, it’s too much of a dichotomy, and whilst he might be able to live with that and rationalise it using the unscientific intelligent design copout, I certainly can’t.
It is extremely depressing. People like Nick Cowan are potentially damaging our future understanding of science and quite possibly contributing to shortages of properly qualified scientists in science-related industries. Evolutionary theory is a fundamental part of biology. It’s vital that these kids have an accurate and truthful understanding of it, that they know just like I know, just like Dawkins knows, just like many, many of my regular readers know that it is a fact. The evidence is so overwhelming that it is now, in spite of what creationists and intelligent design proponents might claim, simply absurd to “believe” otherwise. It is a fact, as Dawkins points out, in the same way that gravity is a fact.
As my former headmaster, Phil Willis MP, says concerning the creationist packs that were sent to five thousand secondary schools in the UK back in 2006,
“This is quite frankly a distraction that science teachers can well do without.”
In April of 2006, the Royal Society summed it up quite perfectly, however. I leave you with their comment and the first segment of Episode Three of “The Genius of Charles Darwin”.
“Young people are poorly served by deliberate attempts to withhold, distort or misrepresent scientific knowledge and understanding in order to promote particular religious beliefs.”
Episode Two of “The Genius of Charles Darwin.”
August 14, 2008
As promised, this is my summary of the latest episode of Richard Dawkins’s new Channel 4 series on Charles Darwin, for the benefit of those overseas who do not have access to YouTube. These are in effect little more than notes I made whilst watching and whilst I’ve tried to be as accurate as possible, there may be a few errors — though I would hope not!
Feel free to ask any questions and I’ll do my best to answer them.
The Genius of Charles Darwin Part Two Summary.
Humans don’t have Dominion over animals. We are animals. We are the fifth ape. This raises questions about our morals and manners. Are they just a veneer? If survival drives evolution, why don’t we live in a purely dog eat dog world?
Is genocide etc a survival method?
This episode deals with the questions that Darwin himself skirted around — questions concerning the evolution of human beings, what it means for us to be evolved. The question is more urgent than ever. Darwinism is increasingly being attacked by religious groups and others for excusing selfishness and barbarism.
Dawkins takes us into the Darwinian heart of darkness to look for answers and hope.
Natural selection is the driving force of our evolution but that doesn’t mean that society should be run on Darwinian lines. Dawkins abhors it as a principal for organising society.
A brief summary of evolution by natural selection then follows.
At London Zoo back in the 1830s the arrival of the first apes outraged polite society. The young Charles Darwin saw the truth staring back at him, however. All life related, Darwin realises.
East Africa — the birthplace of Dawkins and more importantly the birthplace of the human species. Between five and six million years ago there lived in Africa an ape that had two children. One of those children gave rise to us, the other was destined to give rise to the chimpanzees.
Richard Leakey and his family have uncovered the hard evidence in the Rift Valley. Charts the evolution of our human ancestors. A brief examination of fossilised human skull development. Leakey talks about the way we react to the fact that we are the fifth ape. He tells a story about watching people at a zoo who in turn were watching apes. He says that you can see that as an individual looks at an ape he/she will be unconvinced that the ape is like them but as they look around at the other people with them they think, Yeah, there is a similarity between those people and the ape… (I’ve paraphrased this to make it clearer.)
We are so closely related to chimps that it isn’t entirely ridiculous to ask if we might breed with them.
We are the human animal. Dawkins has often wondered what it tells us about human society now. Half the world is still horrified by the reality of our origins. As we go into the break, Dawkins asks a black guy, “I’m an ape — are you an ape?”
“No,” he answers. “I’m a human being.”
Why should the fifth ape “love thy neighbour”? Darwin shied away from the evolution of man.
In Kenya, religious groups are trying to ban the National Museum exhibit of human fossils.
Turkana Boy. Homo erectus. More precious than the Crown Jewels to Dawkins (and me!)
The Evangelical movement in Kenya is running a “hide the bones” campaign. A minister shows a complete unwillingness/inability to understand evolution. He asks, “What is evolution’s goal?” Dawkins explain that it has none. It has no purpose or morality.
What does that mean for us/society? Struggle. Each working for its own benefit. Explanation of strangler fig.
Next Dawkins addresses the claims that Darwinian ruthlessness/purposelessness damages society. Business likes the dog-eat-dog concept. Summary of robber-barons and social darwinism. Similarities between economic systems and biological systems. A businessman says that there’s a risk to the analogy. Not a straightforward law for financial success. Merely an analogy.
Eugenics overview. A slippery slope to horrific consequences. Eugenics is not Darwinism. Hitler was not a Darwinist.
Darwin argued that evolution was driven by brutal struggle for survival. So why altruistic behaviour — grooming, warning cries etc? Brings on Steven Pinker to explain the brain’s evolution. Guilt and trust operate in much the same we as lust. Moral emotions can be explained in evolutionary terms, just like fear.
Darwin on peacocks tail. Tail wins sexual partners. Peahens perform “selective breeding” much like pigeon fanciers. This Darwin defined as “sexual selection”. Survive and be attractive.
A segment on American single women selectively breeding. Sperm donors. Their criteria for donors include everything imaginable — from shoe-size to pets. Do they want altruism/niceness, though? Yes! Don’t want typical alpha males. Nice guys win!
How did animals evolve “nice”? How can genetics explain altruism? We are vehicles for the genes inside us. They are “immortal” because they are passed on. Summary of the concept of the selfish gene.
If they are selfish, why do they promote altruism in bearer? The first part of the answer is kinship selection. Altruism directed at “family”. Parents protecting their offspring. The other part of the answer is “reciprocal altruism”; you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.
Humans are still “nicer” than this explanation seems to suggest, however. Dawkins explores this problem.
We are introduced to the primatologist Frans De Waal. He is critical of Dawkins’s selfish gene theory, of what he calls “veneer theory” — the idea that morals are a thin veneer on our underlying nastiness. De Waal then moves onto “social Darwinism” (yawn)… Dawkins also hates social Darwinism.
Dawkins believes the urge to help has ancestral roots. Hardwired into us. It benefited us once, we behave as if it still does. (And it does.)
But we also rise above natural selection. Altruism is the pinnacle of human civilization. Dawkins asks a charity worker why she feels the need to help/be good. She was a war child. She knows what it was like to be hungry…
Natural selection gave us big brains. We can empathise, plan and build a society we want to live in. Our evolved brains empower us to rebel against our selfish genes.
[Episode two can be seen here.]
