Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1954

P.Z. Myers is (Surprise!) Unmoved By Suicide of “Wealthy White” Robin Williams

I’m not exactly Mr. Sunshine, so you might think the curmudgeonly grousing of atheist blogger P.Z. Myers would resonate with me.

It rarely does, and yesterday I was reminded why. In writing about the suicide of comedian Robin Williams, Myers went from prickly to prickish in three seconds flat. Under the telling headline Robin Williams Brings Joy to the Hearts of Journalists and Politicians Once Again, Myers sneered that

[Williams'] sacrifice has been a great boon to the the news cycle and the electoral machinery — thank God that we have a tragedy involving a wealthy white man to drag us away from the depressing news about brown people.

Myers was referring to the killing of African-American teenager Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Missouri, this past weekend.

Boy, I hate to say it, but it sure was nice of Robin Williams to create such a spectacular distraction.

If that sounds cold and dismissive, that’s because it is. Getting pissy over Williams’ death as if it’s an irrelevant distraction is one thing (stunningly tone-deaf, of course, but rationally defensible); but the phrase “wealthy white man” is a gratuitous, sour putdown in this context. I have no idea why Williams deserved that.

Myers is angry that Brown’s death was supposedly wiped off the front pages by Williams’. That simply isn’t true. Every major news organization I checked has already put out multiple stories about the troubling shooting, and the Brown case will no doubt fill dozens more news cycles in months to come, whereas remembrances of Williams will be petering out in another week.

Even if it were accurate, though, it wouldn’t be William’s fault, now would it? Then why attack him with toxic snark?

(I understand that Myers’ main intent was to indict the media and politicians, but I found it impossible not to flinch at the rudeness and spite he throws the comedian’s way while he’s at it.)

It’s astonishing that, in Myers’ perspective, we apparently cannot give our attention to more than one story.

And it’s doubly astonishing that the same person who considers news reports of Robin Williams’ suicide inconsequential fluff saw fit to publish on his site, only one day earlier, a substance-free 15-word post whose main attraction was a photo of a cute bulldog puppy. Yes, really.

This seeming inability to examine the log in his own eye rather than the speck in someone else’s (thanks, Matthew 7:3!) has caught up to Myers before. Last year, after I wrote a half-amused post about a violent Muslim fundie who got his head chopped off in a case of mistaken identity, Myers thundered that I didn’t show enough regret over the victim’s death. However, we subsequently learned that Mr. Humanist of the Year unapologetically rejoiced in the death of a priest who was lost at sea; Myers even fantasized about personally killing other clergy, describing how he’d pick them off with a gun, like clay pigeons.

And now, we have his heartless, classless body blow to the still-warm corpse of Robin Williams.

Guess who I won’t be taking advice in empathy from?

Lest you suspect that I have some personal bone to pick with Myers (whom I’ve never met or corresponded with), atheist and fellow biology professor Jerry Coyne also thinks that the man’s post about Robin Williams is calloused and dickish. Coyne has even harsher words for Myers than I do:

This is one of the most contemptible and inhumane things I’ve ever seen posted by a well-known atheist. It reeks of arrogance, of condescension, and especially of a lack of empathy for those who loved and admired Williams not because they knew him, but because he brought them happiness and made them think.

Yes, we can care about the oppressed, but we can also care about the loss of someone who did a lot of good in this world. Let’s face it: few of us atheists will make the difference that Robin Williams did. In a time of immense brutality, it does no good to ride roughshod over the feelings of those of us who really did admire and respect Robin Williams. What is gained by that?

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

P.S.  Another upsetting take on Robin Williams’ suicide comes from Christian blogger Matt Walsh, who displays so little understanding of the causes and results of clinical depression as to make one-time sufferers like myself despair all over again.

I’ve seen it on the news and read about it in books, but I can’t comprehend it. The complete, total, absolute rejection of life. The final refusal to see the worth in anything, or the beauty, or the reason, or the point, or the hope.

The words rejection and refusal, of course, imply choice. The reality is that those who are in the bleakest throes of depression can’t just choose to appreciate life’s beauty or to entertain hope. By definition, depression makes that impossible.

If, Mr. Walsh, by your own admission, you “can’t comprehend it,” then why demonstrate your cognitive deficit by secreting 1,500 unilluminating words on the topic?

(Image via Wikipedia)

South Carolina Board of Education Will Meet Today to Vote on Anti-Evolution Science Standards

We know South Carolina has a serious education problem.

This is not a Science textbook

This is the state where one candidate for Superintendent of Education didn’t know what the science standards were while another openly promoted Intelligent Design. It’s the place where a bill to make the Wooly Mammoth the official state fossil was laden with Bible verses.

In June, there was an attempt to revise the science education standards to weaken the concept of evolution:

… a state senator pushed to require students to “[c]onstruct scientific arguments that seem to support and scientific arguments that seem to discredit Darwinian Natural Selection.”

The assignment would have been unusually short since there are no legitimate scientific arguments that discredit evolution, or “Darwinian Natural Selection,” as creationists are fond of calling it. Within the scientific community, there is no debate about the validity of evolution any more than there is a debate about the validity of gravity. Fortunately, the proposed amendment failed.

Even though that failed, the state’s Board of Education will meet today to potentially approve a “compromise” on the topic of evolution.

What, you didn’t realize there was a compromise to be made? Neither do any real scientists.

Perhaps more importantly, the board of education didn’t even have a hand in drafting the revised standards.

These are the amendments they’ll be voting on today:

Scientific conclusions are tested by experiment and observation, and evolution, as with any aspect of science, is continually open to and subject to experimental and observational testing.

…

… all theories may change as new scientific information is obtained.

Talk about confusing students about the definition of a scientific theory…

While all of that is technically true, there’s no need to single out evolution. If you replaced that word with “gravity,” it would make just as much sense — which is to say none at all.

The ACLU of South Carolina is furious:

The thing is, in science there’s no such thing as “only a theory.” Unlike the popular definition of theory — a guess or conjecture — scientific theories are well-supported explanations for parts of the natural world. And evolution is a cornerstone of science, undisputed by any legitimate biologist. That’s why the ACLU has written a letter to the South Carolina Board of Education urging it to reject this effort to inject religion into the science curriculum by falsely undermining evolution.

Spreading misinformation isn’t a compromise, it’s a capitulation, and students in South Carolina deserve better. If a group of people wanted to teach 2+2=6, we wouldn’t compromise by teaching that 2+2=5. Undermining evolution by denying its validity will leave South Carolina students ill-prepared for college and for scientific careers. And, more importantly, it violates the First Amendment.

State Senator Mike Fair (R-Greenville), one of the strongest opponents of science education in the state, had a hand in this dumbing down of the science standards. In June, he even invited members of the anti-evolution Discovery Institute to speak to state officials. Fair thinks the Board of Education will approve the compromised standards:

“The courts are clear,” Fair said. “We can’t go where a lot of folks would like to go in the General Assembly. We beat around the bush the best we can do. … The classroom will not be harmed if they choose to reject it; it certainly won’t be harmed if they accept it.“

Bullshit. When government officials vote to alter the science standards so that evolution is singled-out as weaker than other valid theories, they’re sending the message that proper science doesn’t matter, that popular opinion can dictate scientific understanding, and that people who aren’t experts in the subject should determine how it gets taught.

The Board of Education must reject this amendment to the state standards before it opens the door to further attempts to chisel away at solid science.

(Image via Shutterstock. Thanks to John for the link)

Atheist Delivers Invocation in Colorado Springs, Citing “Sky Cake” and “Sky Baklava”

Eric Williams, a member of the Atheist Community of Colorado Springs, delivered an invocation at yesterday’s meeting of the Colorado Springs City Council:

Council Members, President [Keith] King, thank you for inviting me here.

Thousands of years ago, after emerging from relative obscurity, mankind began to form communities. The first ones were simple hunter gatherers, evolved to feed their own very small camps. Soon, these small camps and tribes began to join to each other, either through violence or simple needs. Either way, they saw joining forces as being the foundation for survival.

Over the millennia, agriculture built even larger tribes. They became large villages, then towns, then cities, then city-states. And even farther, empires and great Kingdoms. These people in the later ages eventually became obsessed with power and greed, driven by their beliefs that their higher powers were better than any others. Patton Oswalt, a contemporary comedian, put it simply as, “My Sky Cake is better that your Sky Baklava.” These divisions caused chaos within the overall Sapien community for millennia.

Then, after centuries of great strife, the “Enlightenment” was born.

The United States was built upon the principles of this enlightenment. The Deists that formed our Constitution knew the dangers of sectarian strife and therefore enshrined secular government in our most sacred document.

With this in mind, I stand before the most basic unit of Human democracy: the City Council. The core unit of our lives as humans living within an inherently secular system. It’s the local government that actually guides the daily lives of the citizens of this great nation.

Let us therefore, this afternoon, provide both our vocal and thoughtful support to this most fundamental institution of humanity today, and hope that reason and thoughtful reflection will guide our elected leaders to lead this great city to where it could be.

So be it.

How about that, um, enthusiastic round of applause at the end?!

(Williams tells me one of the council members walked out on him, though I can’t verify that from the video.)

Remember: This is what Christians fought for in Greece v Galloway.

…

The Central Florida Freethought Community keeps a running list of transcripts of secular invocations around the country and you can see their compilation right here.

I Hope Everyone Wishes Upon a Star, Too

I’m pretty sure this is the last thing they need in Iraq right now…

You can read the full (satirical) article here.

(Thanks to Barry for the link)

Should a Critic of Evolution Be Invited to Speak at a Prestigious University?

This August, Intelligent Design advocate (or should I say cdesign proponentsist) William Dembski will be giving a lecture at the University of Chicago:

Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne, who teaches there, is rightfully furious:

So Dembski is going to come here and talk to a bunch of computational scientists about how evolution can’t be right because of his No Free Lunch Theorem, which has already been debunked (see here. here, and here for the debunking). I can’t believe that my own university, proud of its reputation and academic rigor, is presenting creationism as serious science. As my correspondent noted: “WTF is happening at my alma mater?”

University of Chicago, and especially those responsible for inviting speakers to this series, you should be ashamed of yourselves! Don’t you vet your speakers.

The Computations in Science Seminar organizers — including Dembski’s Ph.D. supervisor, who invited him to the school — say that they support his lecture, arguing in one email to Coyne that “A truly liberal university must include the widest possible dialog.”

But can you really have a fair dialogue when one side is thoroughly discredited? Coyne wondered if that logic would apply to inviting a homeopath, or a holocaust denier, or a flat-Earther to give a speech.

Larry Moran, a Biochemistry professor at the University of Toronto, says Coyne is on the wrong end of this conversation (even though they both wholeheartedly accept evolution):

… You can learn a lot about what people think by attending a lecture and seeing how they respond to questions and debate.

That’s what a university is all about. I also greatly enjoyed a lecture by William Dembski a few years ago. I got to meet him and I got to ask a question at his lecture. It was a very valuable experience.

Would Moran welcome other nonsense-peddlers, too? Yes he would.

… I think it might be informative for history students to hear the views of a holocaust denier and I’d love to have the opportunity to challenge the views of someone who supports homeopathy. I’d even tolerate a scientist who dismisses junk DNA.

It seems like the two of them are debating somewhat different things. Moran takes a more philosophical approach — if you hold an opinion, even one that’s been repeatedly debunked, let’s hear you out and debate the matter.

Coyne is saying this is settled science, not an issue worth debating, so there’s no reason to hear what the “other side” has to say. (In his view, the Ken Ham/Bill Nye debate should never have taken place, even if you think it was ultimately an embarrassment for Creationists.)

If that’s a fair assessment, then I would side with Coyne. Given that the budget for each talk in this seminar, including travel, lodging, and honorarium, is about $1100, I think that money could be better spent on someone who could discuss an actual scientific controversy instead of a fictional one like Dembski. Let a church bring him in, not a prestigious university.

It’s worth noting that school officials aren’t presenting Dembski’s view as legitimate. But that shouldn’t matter. They’re giving him a platform and that’s what ID-proponents crave more than anything. Just as Ken Ham will be saying for the rest of his life, “Bill Nye debated me!” Dembski will be able to add a line to his resume that he was invited to give a speech at the University of Chicago. It’s irrelevant how awful that speech is and how much pushback he gets. For that reason, I’m with Coyne: I don’t know why U of C professors would invite him. He’s not bringing anything of value to the table.

I would take issue with one thing Coyne says. He believes inviting Dembski will hurt the school’s reputation. I think that’s overblown. It’s not like Harvard’s reputation was sullied when a student group brought in Ann Coulter in 2002. Hell, controversial figures speak on college campuses all the time — they even give commencement addresses — and the criticism tends to fade away quickly. This, too, will blow over soon.

It doesn’t mean people shouldn’t criticize the committee inviting Dembski, but it’s hardly going to leave a mark on campus.

A Public High School Football Team in Georgia is Pushing Christianity on Players and There Are Pictures to Prove It

How much proof do you need that a public high school football team has an illegal dose of religion infused into it?

How about a picture of a team prayer?

How about a Bible verse quoted on the team’s workout log sheet?

How about a religious banner hoisted up by cheerleaders during one of the games?

All of those images come from the Chestatee High School football team in Gainesville, Georgia. Earlier today, the American Humanist Association’s Appignani Humanist Legal Center sent Hall County School District administrators a letter warning them about the legal implications of coaches pushing faith onto the students:

We have been informed that the school’s football coaches have been using their position to promote Christianity on the football team by integrating Bible verses into functional team documents and team promotions in various ways; meanwhile, they have been either leading the team in prayer or participating in team prayers on a regular basis. This type of religious activity, by government employees in the course of their duties as public school football coaches, is a clear violation of the Establishment Clause. This letter demands that CHS coaching staff cease leading, participating in, or encouraging team prayer, and that the school remove all Bible verses and other religious messages from team documents and related materials

District officials are aware of the issue and told a local newspaper that they are investigating the matter and will respond soon.

It’s entirely possible the district could argue that the cheerleaders’ banner is student-created, the same argument made by the cheerleaders in Kountze, Texas. But that, mixed with all the other instances of prayer, makes it very unlikely that this is an isolated incident.

If the coaches are leading the prayers, and the AHLC says Head Coach Stan Luttrell did just that, it’s certainly unconstitutional. And it’s hard to imagine any way of rationalizing the Bible verse on the workout log.

It goes without saying that if the AHLC’s letter is accurate, there’s immense pressure on all team members to go with the flow. If they complain, they risk alienating their coaches and losing playing time. That’s why the whistleblower (who knows if it’s a team member) must remain anonymous.

By the way, it’s not like the prayers seem to be helping them out. Last year, the team

Taxpayer-funded Catholic Schools in Ontario Force Students to Take Religion Classes, Even if They Request Exemptions

In Ontario, Canada, where Catholic schools receive public funding, a new report by The Globe and Mail indicates that students who want to withdraw from religion classes for academic reasons are being denied. Mind you, these aren’t just comparative religion classes — they are classes in which you’re told what to believe.

Earlier this year, an Ontario court ruled that students could be exempt from those classes at a Catholic school, but many Catholic school administrators have decided the law only applies to “students whose parents declared themselves as public-school supporters”:

The Durham Catholic District School Board gave that reason when it rejected Carolyn Borgstadt’s request for an exemption for her son, Cameron, who has been diagnosed with autism. He is about to enter Grade 12 and hopes one day to work in construction. The 17-year-old will need strong math skills to succeed in an apprenticeship, and his parents believe he would be better upgrading his math credits than learning about faith.

But Ms. Borgstadt said she has been told by the school principal that Cameron isn’t entitled to an exemption. “I feel that my son has been cheated,” she said. “It’s 70 minutes every day for an entire semester. Nobody needs that much religion, particularly when you’re talking about a child who’s struggling in the school.”

Over the course of high school in Ontario’s publicly-funded Catholic school system, students are required to take four semesters’ worth of religion classes, for 70 minutes a day. It’s a lot of wasted time if you understand the basic doctrines of various faiths but have no desire to practice them.

Many of these parents aren’t even atheists. They just want their children to bulk up on, say, math and science courses so that they’re more competitive when applying to colleges.

Maybe we shouldn’t be so surprised this is happening. It’s a result of mixing church and state, where the Church thinks it’s above the law. If Ontario tax money didn’t go to the Catholic schools, they would be welcome to dictate curriculum to students. As it stands, the courts may have to step in again just to keep the Catholic schools in line.

By the way, it’s worth noting that Canadian doesn’t have one universal school system. Every province does things a little differently and Ontario in unique in giving Catholic schools privileges typically afforded to public schools. CFI Canada and the Canadian Secular Alliance have been fighting to end those privileges for a while now.

(Image via Shutterstock. Thanks to @jesserude1 for the link and Ian Cromwell and Veronica Abbass for educating me on the topic. Slight revisions have been made to this post since it originally went up.)

An Indiana State Park May Soon Be Home to a Statue of a Kneeling Soldier in Front of a Christian Cross

Whitewater Memorial State Park in Liberty, Indiana is about to receive a large veterans memorial statue featuring a kneeling soldier… and you totally know where this is going:

If that doesn’t scream “America is a Christian Nation,” I don’t know what does. It’s like a Stephen Colbert wet dream, with an eagle, a soldier, and a cross all in one.

That sculpture was designed by

That monument was nixed by a judge for being an endorsement of religion.

I have no doubt that this one — with one Christian cross and no Jewish star — will face the same fate.

Of course, supporters of it are claiming that no one in their right mind would have a problem with the carving. It’s about the troops! But the criticism isn’t about the soldiers’ sacrifice. It’s about the Constitution they fought to protect. This statue, in a government park, violates that document. Even if Bias doesn’t put a stop to it, somebody will.

It’d be best to just donate that statue, private donations and all, to a local church where it belongs.

(Thanks to David for the link)

Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin Condemns Upcoming Black Mass

Last month, there was a controversy in Oklahoma when the Dakhma of Angra Mainyu church scheduled a Black Mass at the Oklahoma City Civic Center. In case you’re unfamiliar, a Black Mass distorts and inverts a traditional Catholic Mass, and that offends certain Catholics who believe their traditions are the only ones that matter and cannot be mocked in any way. What really sets them off is the fact that a supposedly consecrated communion wafer may be used in the evening’s festivities.

Because the Civic Center is a public facility, officials had no choice but to allow the ritual to take place there. Even if the symbolism is offensive to some, it’s not reason enough to reject the group.

It wasn’t surprising when Bill Donohue of the Catholic League claimed this was persecution:

Oklahoma City had better think twice about this. The Civic Center is funded by the taxpayers, many of whom are Catholic, and they are not obliged to pay for attacks on their religion. Moreover, there are strictures that must be respected. To be specific, performances at the Civic Center are not permitted if they violate “community standards,” including works that are “illegal, indecent, obscene, immoral or in any manner publicly offensive.” One does not have to be Catholic to know that if Catholics believe that a consecrated Host is considered sacrosanct, then public displays of desecration meet the criteria as outlined.

Oklahoma City is setting itself up for a lawsuit.

No they’re not. You don’t have to like the event, but you can’t stop them from having it any more than you can prevent the Civic Center from hosting the play Corpus Christi which depicts Jesus as a gay man living in Texas.

That won’t stop the complaints, though. Yesterday, Oklahoma’s Governor Mary Fallin issued a statement condemning the Black Mass. To her credit, she understood that it was legally sound:

“This ‘Black Mass’ is a disgusting mockery of the Catholic faith, and it should be equally repellent to Catholics and non-Catholics alike,” said Fallin. “It may be protected by the First Amendment, but that doesn’t mean we can’t condemn it in the strongest terms possible for the moral outrage which it is. It is shocking and disgusting that a group of New York City ‘satanists’ would travel all the way to Oklahoma to peddle their filth here. I pray they realize how hurtful their actions are and cancel this event.”

I have to agree with Dan Arel who thinks the condemnation should really be pointed in another direction:

I will eagerly [await] the governor [condemning] Catholic mass as the organization is still swamped in child sex abuse scandals around the globe, but apparently those don’t seem to be as disgusting as Satanists performing a faux ritual.

By the way, Fallin also said this in her press release:

The black mass in Oklahoma City reportedly is being organized by the Satanic Temple of New York City, which last year submitted plans for a public monument of a seated Satan on the state Capitol grounds to counter a monument of the Ten Commandments.

There’s actually no direct connection between the Satanic Temple and the event in Oklahoma, though there is a loose tie between the organizers of the two masses. But who needs to verify facts when you’re full of outrage?

I emailed with Satanic Temple spokesperson Lucien Greaves last night to double-check that they had nothing to do with this event and he confirmed that for me:

The Satanic Temple has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this “Black Mass”. Despite how our own event that was scheduled to take place at Harvard was portrayed a few months ago, we always intended an academic presentation that was to explore the historical mythology of the Black Mass along with what we billed as a Black Mass “re-enactment”.

Greaves also implied that there’s not even a hint of support from his group to the Oklahoma contingent:

It appears that their attempted imitation of our Black Mass event is another transparent and desperate bid for attention. Unfortunately, Catholics and local officials seem only too happy to give them all of the publicity they like. If they instead let the event pass without feigning superstitious outrage, I’m confident it would be an underwhelming, under-attended event.

As it stands, there’s plenty of attention on the event, but no word on how many tickets have been sold.

(Image via Shutterstock.)

Court Rules Against Texas Parents Who Stopped Homeschooling Their Nine Kids Because “They Were Going To Be Raptured”

One of the biggest concerns I have about the Christian homeschooling movement is that its proponents usually oppose any form of regulation. They don’t want anyone checking up on parents to make sure they’re doing the bare minimum necessary to educate their children, a stance that allows neglectful parents to slip through the cracks.

How homeschooling is supposed to work

Michael McIntyre and Laura McIntyre are perfect examples of what I’m talking about. In 2004, they removed all nine of their children from a private school so they could be homeschooled. But Michael’s brother Tracy said he “never observed the children pursuing traditional schoolwork” when they were supposed to be learning.

The reason?

Tracy overhead one of the McIntyre children tell a cousin that they did not need to do schoolwork because they were going to be raptured.

It wasn’t until their 17-year-old daughter Tori ran away from home so she could “attend school” that the McIntyres were more closely scrutinized. When Tori’s high school needed to know her level of education and what curriculum she had used so they could place her properly, administrators contacted her parents… and they refused to cooperate. They argued that a previous Supreme Court ruling let them off the hook from compulsory, regulated education for their children beyond eighth grade.

A lawsuit resulting from that clash was temporarily resolved last week when an Appeals Court ruled that the Supreme Court’s decision didn’t apply to them:

The appeals court ruled that educational regulations did not prevent the McIntyres’ First Amendment right to “free exercise of religion.” The court said that 1972 court case which found that Amish did not have to send their children to school after the eighth grade did not exempt the McIntyres.

“No parents have ever prevailed in any reported case on a theory that they have an absolute constitutional right to educate their children in the home, completely free of any state supervision, regulation, or requirements,” the ruling stated. “They do not have an ‘absolute constitutional right to home school.’”

What does that mean? Well, in Texas, you can’t homeschool your children with no oversight whatsoever. It flies in the face of everything the (conservative Christian) Home School Legal Defense Association wants, which is invisibility from regulators, but it’s what’s best for the children.

By the way, how about a huge Internet hand for Tori McIntyre for realizing that she was deprived of an education and having the courage to go seek it out for herself? I hope that, like children who were raised in the Westboro Baptist Church but who later escaped, her siblings will follow in her footsteps.

No word yet on whether the HSLDA will fight the ruling.

(via Religion Clause. Image via Shutterstock)