More fallout from the Ball State affair

May 25, 2013 • 9:59 am

As you surely know if you read this site, Eric Hedin, a physics and astronomy teacher at Ball State University (BSU), has been teaching a “science” course at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, that is heavily infused with creationism and its gussied-up city cousin intelligent design (ID), as well as a ton of Christian apologetics and accommodationism.

Hedin has also been accused by several students as proselytizing for Christianity in that class; more students are coming forward, but more on that later. After investigating, the Freedom from Religion Foundation sent a letter to BSU officials informing them of potential First Amendment violations of this class. BSU agreed to launch an investigation, which is happening now.

In the meantime, the case has become a bit of a cause célèbre for conservatives and creationists. IDers, of course, defend Hedin because he’s simply “teaching the controversy, although he doesn’t present anything other than a pro-religious view of science. No contrary views, by people like Victor Stenger, Sean Carroll, Steven Weinberg, or Lawrence Krauss, are ever presented.

I, of course, have been accused of being a bully and a coward, suppressing legitimate controversy, and so on. I’ve also been accused of calling for Hedin’s firing, which I never did (I simply want this class to be expunged from the science curriculum or transferred to “philosophy” or “religion”, with some real balance added).

None of this controversy bothers me a whit. What does bother me is that fellow anti-creationists P. Z. Myers and Larry Moran have, while decrying the class, defended Hedin’s way to teach it as he does, arguing that it’s a professor’s right to teach exactly what he wants to, even if that involves the lies of creationism and ID.

Evolution News and Views (an arm of the ID nonthink tank The Discovery Institute, has started a petition to defend Hedin’s “academic freedom”.  I quote from their article:

Questions about the evidence for design in the universe and the boundaries of science are perfectly legitimate topics for a university seminar. Indeed, these topics have provoked scholarly interest and discussion during much of the history of Western civilization, and the scholars cited in Hedin’s bibliography are some of the leading voices in these discussions. This fact hasn’t stopped the inquisitors at the militantly atheist Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) from launching a witch-hunt and demanding that Ball State University investigate, censor, and punish Hedin for his supposed misdeeds. Unfortunately, the university seems to have acquiesced to the demands for the witch-hunt, agreeing to investigate the spurious complaint from FFRF.

You can find the petition at the EN&V link. The gist is this:

“We, the undersigned, urge the administration of Ball State University to support Prof. Eric Hedin’s academic freedom to discuss intelligent design and related issues in the classroom. We call on you to reject demands by the Freedom from Religion Foundation to censor or punish Dr. Hedin for exercising his right to free speech.

Presumably P.Z. and Larry will want to sign it, since they’ve expressed exactly these sentiments.

The odious right-wing website for students, Campus Reform, has gone after me with an inflammatory headline, “Prominent professor argues that teaching creationism is like Holocaust denial.”

Well, that’s technically accurate, I suppose, but what I said to the Muncie Star-Press (I refused to talk to the reporter for Campus Reform) was this:

“It’s not that it’s not science,” he continued, speaking to the Star Press. “It’s science that has been discredited. It’s like saying the Holocaust didn’t happen.”

That’s a bit more nuanced, and I’ve explained my position more carefully elsewhere: those who say that professor can teach anything they want are tacitly approving things like teaching Holocaust denial in a European History class, or alchemy in a chemistry class. Of course the persecution of Jews (a Christian- and now Muslim-) based sentiment) is far more harmful than teaching creationism.

I should add that the Campus Reform reporter contacted the publicity people at the University of Chicago asking for their reaction. Her email:

I would appreciate a comment on behalf of the University of Chicago regarding Professor Coyne’s comment in reaction to Ball State teaching a “Boundaries of Science Class” in which he compared teaching creationism to denying the Holocaust.
Thanks for your time,
Macaela Bennett
I would say that’s pretty close to intimidation. As expected, the University of Chicago just laughed this one off after asking me if I wanted to respond.

A bunch of religious websites have attacked me for instigating this kerfuffle, but they don’t deserve mention. And religious websites have taken an interest in the controversy; their articles, like this one at the religious World on Campus, are generally accurate, but never mention that intelligent design has been rejected by the courts as “not science” (I disagree; I think it’s dreadful science), and not eligible for teaching in public schools. And in this one, ID advocate Casey Luskin gets the last word:

Casey Luskin, research coordinator of the Discovery Institute, who has worked with similar cases over the years, said that often most of the class is happy to actually have an unrestricted conversation about where humans come from. Only “one or two passionate, intolerant atheist students are on a mission to persecute those who disagree with evolution,” Luskin said. He believes the critical students model behavior from leading new atheists who what to squelch dialogue, and points out that most science classes do teach intelligent design, although often in a negative light.

“If a professor is simply teaching about these ideas … from leading credible and solid scientists from both sides at the university level, I can’t imagine why it’d be considered unconstitutional,” Luskin said. “For most atheists, what they consider proselytizing is hearing intelligent design talked about in a positive way.”

I didn’t expect this to become such a big deal when I wrote to Hedin’s chairman (and then to the FFRF when he blew me off), but I’m not surprised. What surprises me is, as I said, the reaction of some colleagues that First Amendment restrictions don’t apply at public universities and, especially, that “academic freedom” mandates that a professor at such universities (and presumably private universities too) should be permitted to teach creationism—and only creationism—in a science class.

The heartening thing is that students who took Hedin’s class are now coming forward complaining about his Christian proselytizing in his science class (yes, he did it, and in a particularly repugnant way), and I should be able to post more about that this week. I just hope that if any such students are reading this, they’ll be willing to identify themselves and make their comments public.

A “betrayal of Islam”?

May 25, 2013 • 5:45 am

UPDATE: For an ex-Muslim’s take on the murder, Michael Fisher (in the comments below) recommends Maryam Namazie’s post, “On Woolwich: Islamism is the problem.” A snippet:

The decapitation was an act of terror, pure and simple, and characteristic of Islamism and far-Right politics which uses terrorism as a key tool in instilling fear and for social control. The main target of this terror is usually civilians in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere (and often with the acquiescence and appeasement of western governments via funding for or close relations with Islamic organisations and states, defending Sharia law, and the curtailing of universal and citizenship rights and secularism).

Of course times are changing. The new era of revolutions and uprisings – many of them women-led – is the real challenge to the far-Right, including Islamism, and terrorism. Only a humanity speaking on its own behalf can and will bring this movement to its knees. And whilst that fight has already begun, how it ends will depend on real solidarity with Islamism’s victims and dissenters and an unequivocal defence of universal human values, freedom, equality and secularism.

Go read her piece. Namazie is the most politically committed blogger at FreeThought Blogs—someone who really wants to really make a difference in our world—but she doesn’t get near the attention she deserves.

_______

After the horrible murder of a British soldier in London by two Muslim fanatics last week, Prime Minister David Cameron said this (from The Jerusalem Post):

Speaking after a meeting of the Cobra security committee on Thursday, Cameron said that Britain is absolutely resolute in its stand against violent extremism and terror.

“We will never give in to terror – or terrorism – in any of its forms,” he said, adding that there is nothing in Islam that justified “this truly dreadful act.”

He added: “This was not just an attack on Britain and on the British way of life. It was also a betrayal of Islam and of the Muslim communities who give so much to our country.”

“Nothing in Islam” that justified that act? I don’t think so. Just read the Quran (Eric MacDonald quotes a few relevant verses). This kind of attack happens over and over again, and it’s nearly always Muslims. Any religious reason for that?

As for a “betrayal of Islam”, it’s no more such a thing than it’s a “betrayal of Christianity” to work against equal rights for gays. For it all depends on what you consider “Islam” and “Christianity”. Let’s just say that this violence it’s an outgrowth of sentiments naturally inspired by Islam. In other words, it’s easy to read the Quran, hadith, and other Muslim theology in a way that would incite you to commit such an act.

Opinion polls surveying British Muslims show this:

  • 20% sympathize with the 7/7 bombers, while almost 25% say those bombings were justified
  • 78% support prosecution of the publishers of the Danish cartoons that mocked Islam
  • ” Sixty-eight percent support the arrest and prosecution of those British people who ‘insult Islam.’ When asked if free speech should be protected, even if it offends religious groups, 62 percent of British Muslims say No, it should not.”
  •  “12% of young Muslims in Britain (and 12% overall) believe that suicide attacks against civilians in Britain can be justified.  1 in 4 support suicide attacks against British troops.”
  • “25% of British Muslims disagree that a Muslim has an obligation to report terrorists to police”
  • 32% of British Muslim students think that killing in the name of Islam is justified, while 40% of those students think that Muslims in the UK should be under sharia law.

It looks like a lot of Muslims, and not just a tiny minority of extremists are “betraying the principles of Islam”.

The good news is that the Muslim Council of Britain, as it should have, denounced the murder, which leaves a two-year old child without a father. Let us now hear them denounce other Muslim barbarism from now on, defend the right to criticize Islam, and decry the sentiments given in the statistics above.

Thirty percent of Muslim students in Britain don’t see anything wrong with killing in the name of Islam. That is not a “tiny minority,” and these are educated Muslims.

It’s politically expedient for Muslims to decry violence done in the name of Islam, and I applaud them for doing so. But if they had the upper hand in Britain, would they still feel the same?

Let the apologists now raise their familiar cry that murders like this are simply motivated by politics—by the horrible British occupation of Muslim lands. But if that is the case, why are civilians often the targets? I adamantly maintain that this kind of violence is almost uniquely inspired by Islam, which, at present, is much more invidious than other faiths.  Those who maintain otherwise are blinkered apologists.

Caturday felid: Stewie, officially certified as world’s longest cat, dies

May 25, 2013 • 4:35 am

I am sad to report that Stewie, a Maine Coon cat certified as the world’s longest moggie, died February 4 at the age of only 8.  He lived in Reno, Nevada, and succumbed to cancer.

I’ve reported on Stewie before, and on his official certification as Longest Cat, but didn’t know of his death. As the Reno Gazette-Journal reports:

Robin Hendrickson, Stewie’s owner, said she received the [Guiness Book of World Records] certificate in the mail.

The certificate reads: “The longest domestic cat ever was Mymains Stewart Gilligan at 123 cm (48.5 in) long. He was owned by Robin Hendrickson and Erik Brandsness (USA) and was measured on 28 August 2010.”

Stewie was certified as the longest living domestic cat before his death. Friday’s certificate certifies him as the longest domestic cat ever, according to Guinness Book of World Records.

This was one large cat—almost the size of a wildcat.

Stewoe

Stewie

Stewie 2

The Gazette-Journal also notes:

Stewie worked as a therapy cat to help people in medical care and also served as an ambassador for animal causes.

The measurement!:

Measurement

The victory certificate:

Cerfificat

Rest in peace, Stewie.

h/t: SGM

Uncle Eric is back!

May 24, 2013 • 11:54 am

After bidding farewell to blogging, Eric MacDonald decided that it’s really in his blood after all, and he’s restarted Choice in Dying, promising to contribute semi-regularly. I’m very pleased about this—though also a tad annoyed because I bid him a lachyrmose farewell on his last post. Eric’s always worth reading, for he’s erudite, thoughtful and mostly right (though he still thinks that there are ways of knowing beyond science!).

Anyway, visit his redesigned site here, and have a look at his latest post, “Radical Islamic violence or anomie and self-radicalisation?” It’s a trenchant indictment of religious “fundamentalism,” arguing that such fundamentalism falls more naturally out of Islam than other faiths.

Here’s a snippet, in which he defends Anthony Grayling against Jonathan Rée’s criticism that Grayling ignores the subtleties of Sophisticated Faith when arguing against religion:

Suggesting that religious texts can “flourish as many-layered parables, teeming with quarrels, follies, jokes, reversals and paradoxes” is all very well, and it is doubtless true. But the texts themselves, as sacred, can be used in a much more single-minded fashion, as Christian fundamentalists and Muslim radicals demonstrate, and it is this use to which religious fervour is most likely to be attached. And the point is that religion, at its worst, is a form of ideological zealotry. This is what drives religious belief. No one who thinks of the scriptures of any religion as “teeming with quarrels, follies, jokes, reversals and paradoxes” will ever capture the religious imagination, which teems with unreflective passion and fervour instead, and looks to holy writ to support actions prompted by such religious emotion. Anyone who has managed a congregation of religious believers knows this. Academic discussion of the complexities of the scriptures is all very well, but it doesn’t bring in dollars, and it is dollars and numbers of ardent believers that allow religions to flourish or to be seen to flourish. And this leads to people who murder abortion providers or blow up people who are enjoying the exhilaration of watching a marathon. And dismissing those who do such things as outliers, or as individually radicalised, simply overlooks a central feature of all religion: that it is driven by a universalising enthusiasm that gives meaning only to the extent that others share it. Fundamentalism thus lies at the heart of religion, and no amount of clever hermeneutics will change that. Religions whose texts provide the occasion for violence — as Islam does with almost monotonous repetitiveness — will in fact produce people whose religious fervour will be expressed in violent and destructive ways.

Welcome back, Eric, the Official Website Uncle™!

My interview at Random Rationality

May 24, 2013 • 10:54 am

A while ago I had a longish phone interview with the website Random Rationality, which they transcribed and put up a few days ago. It’s mostly about evolution, but covers other stuff too.

You’ll learn, for instance, what time of day I wrote on this site, (I have a “strict regiment,” one of several transcription problems), and about my “science operation” (that’s “sinus,” as you may recall). But beyond those errors and the verbal jumping-about inherent in  a conversation, it’s not too bad.

Pope Francis inadvertently performs exorcism, then condescends to atheists

May 24, 2013 • 7:33 am

I had some hopes for Pope Francis, but of course that was stupid. He’s the head Catholic, for crying out loud, so how wonderful can he be? At any rate, there were two Popeish incidents of note this week.

First, Francis inadvertently exorcised demons from a young man! As Newsmax.com reports:

Is Pope Francis an exorcist?

The question has been swirling ever since Francis laid his hands Sunday on the head of a young man after celebrating Mass in St. Peter’s Square. The young man heaved deeply a half-dozen times, shook, and he then slumped in his wheelchair as Francis prayed over him.

The television station of the Italian bishops’ conference said it had surveyed exorcists, who agreed there was “no doubt” that Francis either performed an exorcism or a prayer to free the man from the devil.

The Vatican was more cautious Tuesday. In a statement, it said Francis “didn’t intend to perform any exorcism. But as he often does for the sick or suffering, he simply intended to pray for someone who was suffering who was presented to him.”

. . . The Rev. Giulio Maspero, a Rome-based systematic theologian who has witnessed or participated in more than a dozen exorcisms, says he’s certain that Francis’ prayer on Sunday was either a full-fledged exorcism or a prayer to “liberate” the young man from a demonic possession. He noted that the placement of the pope’s hands on the man’s head was the “typical position” for an exorcist to use.

“When you witness something like that — for me it was shocking — I could feel the power of prayer,” he said in a phone interview, speaking of his own experiences.

Vatican The Devil
“Why you do this to me, Francis?”

And the honeymoon’s over, for Francis is apparently obsessed with Satan, something that I thought the Church had quietly shelved, now describing hell as only “alienation from God.” Apparently not.

Fueling the speculation [about the exorcism] is Francis’ obsession with Satan, a frequent subject of his homilies, and an apparent surge in demand for exorcisms among the faithful despite the irreverent treatment the rite often receives from Hollywood.

Who can forget the green vomit and the spinning head of the possessed girl in the 1973 cult classic “The Exorcist?”

In his very first homily as pope on March 14, Francis warned cardinals gathered in the Sistine Chapel the day after he was elected that “he who doesn’t pray to the Lord prays to the devil.

“He has since mentioned the devil on a handful of occasions, most recently in a May 4 homily when in his morning Mass in the Vatican hotel chapel he spoke of the need for dialogue — except with Satan.

“With the prince of this world you can’t have dialogue: let this be clear!” he warned.

Experts said Francis’ frequent invocation of the devil is a reflection both of his Jesuit spirituality, his Latin American roots — and a reflection of a Catholic Church weakened by secularization.

The results of polls vary, but at a minimum 30% of Americans believe that Satan is a real person, while 62% believe the Hornéd One is not a real person, but a symbol of evil. I suspect Frances is in the former category.

In other Popey news, the Guardian and other venues report that Francis admitted two days ago that atheists can be good people. That’s about as delayed—and necessary—an admission as the church’s 1992 statement that Galileo’s punishment was an error after all.

Atheists should be seen as good people if they do good, Pope Francis has said in his latest urging that people of all religions, and none, work together.

The leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics made his comments in the homily of his morning mass at his residence, a daily event at which he speaks without prepared comments.

He told the story of a Catholic who asked a priest if even atheists had been redeemed by Jesus.

“Even them, everyone,” the pope answered, according to Vatican Radio. “We all have the duty to do good,” he said.

“Just do good, and we’ll find a meeting point,” the pope said in a hypothetical reply to the hypothetical comment: “But I don’t believe. I’m an atheist.”

Well, I suppose that’s all he can say. I don’t quite get the last part, but I wonder whether that “meeting point” is Heaven.

I’m so glad to lean that I’ve been redeemed by Jesus, and I’m sure religous Jews will be happy as well.  Such redemption, of course, goes against the teachings of many other Christian religions, especially in America. If you want to tick off a liberal Christian like Kenneth Miller or Francis Collins, ask them if you think that you (as an atheist) are going to hell. When I asked Lutheran theologian Lea Schweitz this in our discussion in Charleston, she equivocated, saying that there were “many interpretations” of what hell is. Her church, however, thinks otherwise.

h/t: Chris, Martim, Dom

Soul song week. 6: “Ask the Lonely”

May 24, 2013 • 3:55 am

Levi Stubbs (born Levi Stubbles, 1936; died 2008) of the Four Tops had perhaps the most soulful voice of all the male Motown singers. It was raw and plaintive, and could be heard on many Sixties classics, including “Bernadette”, “Reach out, I’ll be there,” “Baby, I need your loving,” and perhaps their biggest hit, “I can’t help myself.”

But my favorite of all the Four Tops songs is this one, written by Mickey Stevenson and Ivy Jo Hunter and released in 1965. It didn’t do as well as many of the group’s other songs, but wins for sheer emotional power.

Live, non-lip-synched footage of early Motown songs is rare, so I was glad to find this clip. The video quality is poor, but the audio—and Stubbs’ voice—fully redeems it. I consider it one of the greatest soul-music performances ever filmed.

You can hear the original recorded version here.

081017-four-tops-hmed.grid-6x2
The Four Tops. Left to right: Abdul “Duke” Fakir, Stubbs, Lawrence Payton, Renaldo “Obie” Benson

Four-pound hairball removed from tiger

May 24, 2013 • 3:32 am

Big cats get big hairballs, which I suppose we might have guessed.  Ty the tiger, from Widlife Rescue and Rehabilitation, was clogged up by a hug hairball (he lost 100 pounds), which had to be surgically removed.

WTSP News has the story, pictures, and a video:

The hospital says Vernon Yates with the not-for-profit Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Inc. brought in the 17-year-old male jungle cat to see a specialist on Monday, after the tiger had not eaten on his own for nearly two weeks. Dr. Brian Luria performed an ultrasound and took X-rays before using a scope with a camera to determine the problem, which appears to be a giant hairball.

Yates says Ty sheds quite a bit this time of year, which may be why the hairball is bigger than usual.

The hairball was too large to be removed using the scope, so Ty was scheduled for surgery.

The hospital tells 10 News Wednesday afternoon that the surgery appears to be a success and Ty is resting comfortably.  And that hairball?

It weighed in at four pounds and was approximately the size of a basketball.

Yates estimates Ty, who is pretty old as far as tigers go, lost about 100 pounds, and he has been force-feeding the animal.

Before surgery

Tiger 3

Ty goes under the knife:

tigher 5

Success!

Hairball

It’s huge (4.01 lb = 1.82 kilo):

Hairball 2

The announcment: Ty is okay.

announcement

A big groggy, but on the mend:

Final

h/t: Amy