Mars rover launched

December 3, 2011 • 1:09 pm

The Mars Science Lab was launched a week ago, and is scheduled to land in the Gale Crater of Mars during August of next year.   The object is to place a one-ton vehicle, or rover, called “Curiosity” on the surface to move about for about 690 days. Its average speed will be about 30 meters per hour. Among its other tasks, Curiosity will try to answer the long-standing but unresolved question about whether Mars harbors life.

The Wikipedia page gives a ton of useful information, and this cool 5.5 minute animation shows how Curiosity will land and deploy:

The landing is an extremely complicated multi-step process. Check out the rock sampler at 4:13. I’m not sure which of the many experiments envisioned is shown at the end; perhaps an informed reader will tell us.

Isn’t it amazing what our species has been able to do? Everything involved in this mission to Mars was crafted from the substance and atmosphere of Earth, transformed through the mentation of a big-brained primate.

Professor Martin Brasier—a well-known paleobiologist at Oxford—and his son Alex were invited to the launch and took these two photos, which I reproduce with their permission:

h/t: Rixaeton

Case study: religion pushed to change its “morality” by secular considerations

December 3, 2011 • 7:16 am

Alert reader Sigmund called my attention to a 3-minute video on the BBC News website, “Ashamed to die: stigma of HIV/Aids in America’s south.” (The title comes, as the site notes, from an upcoming book by Andrew Skeritt.) Rather than rewrite Sigmund’s take, I’ll just reproduce it here.  Do watch the video.

I thought I’d draw your attention to a small item on the BBC website about a town in the south of the USA that has a big HIV problem (they claim this is common in the south).
It is interesting to me for two reasons.

First, this is a disease that has a treatment strategy that is derived from evolutionary biology (a combination therapy that simultaneously hits several viral specific pathways, rendering it improbable that the virus can mutate into a resistant form). In treatment terms it is enormously successful and is a model that cancer biologists are aiming to replicate.

The second is the religious aspect of the piece. The piece focuses on a female pastor who seems to have dropped her religious teachings about sexual behavior in favor of practical measures such as handing out condoms and encouraging people to get tested and treated —in other words,it is a good example of religion being pushed into a moral change, not by any theistic insight, but through applying basic secular morality to the situation.

As I said in my debate with John Haught, there’s neither a method nor an inherent trend in theology to reassess and alter its moral stands in view of changing conditions. Religious morality appears to change under only two conditions: either secular morality moves ahead of religious morality, causing it to change (e.g., treatment of women and gays or, in this case, condom use and birth control), or scientific advances show that the scriptural basis of religious morality is simply wrong (e.g., there’s no Adam and Eve and hence no Original Sin).

If a religion’s moral dictates remain fixed in stone for centuries, even under the press of secular advances, then that religion loses adherents.  This, of course, is what is happening to Catholicism in so many places.

Elaine Ecklund continues to whitewash the atheism of scientists

December 3, 2011 • 5:09 am

Elaine Ecklund, a sociologist at Rice University, is making a career out of trying to pretend that American scientists are less atheistic than they really are. I’ve written about this extensively (just type “Ecklund” into the search engine of this site), as have others. Jason Rosenhouse at EvolutionBlog, for example, has pointed out how Ecklund distorts her survey data to inflate the degree of scientists’ religiosity and spirituality.

Science Daily recently highlighted a new paper by Ecklund and Kristin Lee in The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, “Atheists and agnostics negotiate religion and family.” I’ve only skimmed the paper lightly, so I’ll just quote the Science Daily report, most likely an unedited or lightly edited press release from Ecklund’s university.  The study is based on exactly the same data Ecklund collected 5 years ago for her book, Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think. Science Daily reports:

Some atheist scientists with children embrace religious traditions for social and personal reasons, according to research from Rice University and the University at Buffalo — The State University of New York (SUNY).

The study also found that some atheist scientists want their children to know about different religions so their children can make informed decisions about their own religious preferences.

“Our research shows just how tightly linked religion and family are in U.S. society — so much so that even some of society’s least religious people find religion to be important in their private lives,” said Rice sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund, the study’s principal investigator and co-author of a paper in the December issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

So what was the surprising finding among America’s “least religious people”? Ecklund’s sample of 275 natural and social scientists from 21 “elite U.S. research universities” showed this:

The researchers found that 17 percent of atheists with children attended a religious service more than once in the past year.

OMG!

But is that really so astounding? Some atheist scientists want to expose their children to different religions to let them either observe the worship or to allow them to decide for themselves whether they want to be religious, and, if so, what religion would they choose. Indeed, the report gives that and other reasons for that behavior:

“The individuals surveyed cited personal and social reasons for integrating religion into their lives, including:

  • Spousal influence — Study participants are involved in a religious institution because of influence from their spouse or partner.
  • Desire for community — Study participants want a sense of moral community and behavior, even if they don’t agree with the religious reasoning.”

Remember, we’re talking about only 17% of atheists with children—one in six—who go to church more than once per year. Twice would qualify. And apparently many of those atheists aren’t married to other atheists.

Indeed, Ecklund and Lee’s paper notes that “having a religious spouse or partner was the main reason that scientists who were not religious involved their children in a religious community with no clear gender differences [sic].”  So most atheist scientists are taking their kids to church not because of the irresistible pull of faith, a sneaking sympathy with religion, or even a desire to expose their kids to worship, but simply to placate their spouses.

Ecklund continues to recycle her old data, desperate to find evidence, however thin, that scientists are religious.  Why? Because she wants to show that religion is alive and well in America, even among the godless.  Here’s her conclusion as given by Science Daily:

Ecklund said the study’s findings will help the public better understand the role that religious institutions play in society.

“I think that understanding how nonreligious scientists utilize religion in family life demonstrates the important function they have in the U.S.,” she said.

Now the antecedent of “they” is unclear (Ecklund is a dreadful writer), but I’m pretty sure she and Lee are referring to “religious institutions,” not to “nonreligious scientists.” In other words, they’re trying to show how religion itself  has an important function in America.  Well, maybe it does, but not among this group, since 83% of atheists scientists don’t expose their kids to church.

Why does Ecklund continue to trawl her data for dubious conclusions like this, publishing paper after paper distorting her results to show how religious we atheist-scientists really are?  Well, he who pays the piper calls the tune, and if you check who funded Ecklund and Lee’s research, you’ll find this acknowledgment:

This research was supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, Grant #11299, Elaine Howard Ecklund, PI.

Are you surprised? Ecklund has given Templeton great value for their money, producing exactly what the Foundation wants.  Her incessant stream of papers, all pretending to show the same conclusion form different angles, shows how canny Templeton is in promoting a comity between science and faith.

h/t: Devin

Caturday felids: classic album covers kittified

December 3, 2011 • 4:50 am

The Kitten Covers, a creation of artist Alfra Martini, gives an awesome selection of classic album covers—reimagined with kittens (go to the site for moar). Here are my favorites:

x

I love the Garfunkel cat, so true to the original album:

Alfra explains her art:

Obviously music is a great passion. We’ve got thousands of vinyl records in our collection here at the AHE house in Gowanus, Brooklyn, and of course, we have a little kitty named Lois, whom we rescued from the street. I also have a huge rock poster collection, because I’ve always been fascinated by rock n’ roll iconography. It can be at the same time so freakin’ hip and so silly! With kittens in the mix, well, it just amplifies this dichotomy, wouldn’t you say? Anyhow, The Kitten Covers just happened one day when staying home while recuperating from a cold. I’ve worked both in graphics and in vintage poster restoration, so I’m a freak about details. And since I have very little free time, I’ve learned to work fast. I was hoping to make some friends laugh but had no idea how popular The Kitten Covers would become. I’ve seen other “alternative cover” concepts done with tacos and legos, but frankly, I’m a little surprised no one’s done kitties before. After seeing the finished products, they just seem so … inevitable, no?

Muslim students boycott evolution lectures in London

December 2, 2011 • 12:26 pm

According to The Daily Mail, Muslim students training to be doctors at University College London—an excellent school—are boycotting the lectures on evolution because those lectures contravene the dictates of Islam.

Muslim opponents to Darwinism state that God created the world, mankind and all known species in a single act of creation, rather than the evolutionary process of gradual change through random mutations and natural selection.

Professors at University College London have expressed concern over the increasing number of biology students boycotting lectures on Darwinist theory, which form an important part of the syllabus, citing their religion.

Similar to the beliefs expressed by fundamentalist Christians, Muslim opponents to Darwinism maintain that Allah created the world, mankind and all known species in a single act.

Steve Jones emeritus professor of human genetics at university college London has questioned why such students would want to study biology at all when it obviously conflicts with their beliefs.

 He told the Sunday Times: ‘I had one or two slightly frisky discussions years ago with kids who belonged to fundamentalist Christian churches, now it is Islamic overwhelmingly.’They don’t come [to lectures] or they complain about it or they send notes or emails saying they shouldn’t have to learn this stuff.”What they object to – and I don’t really understand it, I am not religious – they object to the idea that there is a random process out there which is not directed by God.’

I suspect that many of those Muslims would be considered religious “moderates.”  Religion, even in its less extreme forms, poisons everything.

Over the Alps in a glider

December 2, 2011 • 8:48 am

Don’t miss this! Even if you’re having a horrible or stressful day, watching this 13-minute clip will calm you down and cheer you up.

What you want to do with this stunning video is to click though to YouTube and then click the icon in the lower right-hand corner to fill your screen with the picture.  It’s a long glider flight (no engine!) over and through the Alps by an Italian pilot, courtesy of The Atlantic. If you have a big screen, it’s like you’re in the cockpit with the pilot.  What a view!

Here are the stats:

Flight date: April 13, 2011
Pilot: Alberto Sironi
Glider: Ventus 2 CXT
Takeoff from ACAO (VA) Italy.

And here’s a map of the flight: the distance was 1002 km with an average speed of 123 km/hr:

Clearly this is a pilot of great skill, who uses the updrafts in the mountains to great advantage. Wouldn’t it be nice to ride with him?

h/t: Michael

Sophisticated theologians circumvent Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality

December 2, 2011 • 6:54 am

Q: Why is Jason Rosenhouse like a hot dog?

A: Because he’s on a roll.

Forgive that, but Jason really is putting up some good posts about religion on EvolutionBlog. His latest, “The Bible and homosexuality,” shows how a couple of theologians and Biblical scholars, intent on showing that the Bible really is a good source of morality, manage to get around the palpably obvious statements in Leviticus mandating that homosexuality is a sin deserving of death.

Jason’s analysis rests on two PuffHo pieces, one by David Lose (whom we’ve encountered before), and the other by Richard Elliott Friedman and Shawna Dolansky.

I won’t summarize Jason’s piece because you need to read it—especially if you think that new “sophisticated” theology has any substantive content—but the upshot is that the authors manage to wave away what God says about morality by judicious circumlocation.  And this, of course, is motivated by non-goddy and purely secular changes in morality since the Bible was written.  Friedman and Dolansky even manage to argue that “The biblical prohibition is not one that is eternal and unchanging.”

But that’s bogus, because if anything must be true about Biblically-based morality, it must be unchanging. Theists have no truck with secular morality precisely because it evolves over time, while they perceive Biblically-based morality as the unalterable mandate of God.

I’m starting to realize that there is no sophisticated theology; there are merely evasions and fancy language to get around the problematic lack of evidence for God and the palpably immoral statements in scripture.

 

More creationist lunacy in Texas

December 2, 2011 • 5:03 am

UPDATE:  David Hillis just finished meeting with the committee in charge of designating these charities and sent me this dispiriting email:

The State Policy Committee, which oversees the State Employees Charitable Campaign, “thanked me” for “bringing the problem of the ICR listing to their attention”, and noted that “hundreds of other charities on the state list are similarly problematic” regarding the state law requiring groups to provide health and human services. They agreed that it is a problem, but noted that their committee is being dissolved, and that the new Texas Sunset Advisory Commission will take over overseeing the list next year. They declined to take any action, and left it up to the TSAC to fix next year. In my opinion, they demonstrated an amazing lack of responsibility to do what they were appointed to do.

Not surprising, perhaps, but an amazing example of ineffectiveness by a state-appointed committee.

_______________
The latest evolution-related travesty to come out of Texas—and there have been many—involves a bizarre discovery by UT Austin biology professor David Hillis, who has been featured on this website. Poring over a list of state-designated charities providing “direct or indirect health and human services”, Hillis discovered an odd inclusion: the Institute for Creation Research (ICR).  Like the other “charities” on that list, the ICR is approved for state employee donations, which can come as a direct deductions from the employee’s payroll.

As the Austin Statesman reports:

“The Institute for Creation Research is an anti-science organization,” Hillis said. “They work to undermine the mission of the university and of science in general, and especially the science that is the very basis for health and human services. How could such an organization possibly be listed as a charitable organization to be supported by state employees?”

Officials of the institute did not respond to a request for comment.

The organization’s listing in a brochure distributed to state employees offers the following description: “Science strongly supports the Bible’s authority and accuracy. With scientific research, education programs, and media presentations, we equip Christians to stand for the Truth.”

You can see the ICR website (the outfit is in Dallas, Texas) here; they even have a research page, as well as an “Evidence for God” page.

If you’ve been involved in fighting creationism, you’ll know that the ICR, headed by Henry Morris, was once a very influential outfit (Ken Ham once worked for them).  The ICR’s metier was “scientific creationism,” the view that the very facts of science actually supported the narrative of the Bible.

One of the ICR’s “classic” publications was Morris and Whitcomb’s The Genesis Flood, arguing that the facts of geology supported the story of Noah’s flood (Morris was a hydraulic engineer).  Another book, which I used as a text when I taught “Evolution vs. Creationism” at the University of Maryland, was Scientific Creationism, which came in two versions, one including religious material and the other, intended for public school classrooms, leaving out the Jesus stuff.

(I should say a word about that class, which was one of the most engaging teaching experiences I’ve ever had. It was a nonmajors course intended to inspire students to think critically about evolution and creationism.  Every Monday I would lecture as myself, giving the evidence for one aspect of evolution, such as radiometric dating or the fossil record.  On Wednesday I would lecture as a creationist, trying to overturn all the stuff that crazy evolution guy said on Monday. [I was very well versed in creationist arguments.]  This, of course, deeply confused the students.  On Friday we would all sit down and talk about the conflicting viewpoints, trying to adjudicate them. [We also had debates, in which I assigned all the creationist students to defend evolution, and the evolution-accepting students to defend creationism.]  And although the class began with a nearly equal mixture of evolution-accepters and evolution-deniers among the students, by the end of the class the discussions had convinced more than half of the creationists of the truth of evolution. It was a deeply satisfying result.)

At any rate, the ICR is now headed by Morris’s son, John D. Morris, and has fallen on hard times since “scientific creationism” became supplanted by ID as the au courant form of creationism.

One would think that allowing state payroll deductions for donations to a creationist organization would violate the First Amendment, but other religious organizations are also on the list.

Charities included in the program range from the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund , which supports injured or ill service members, to Vegan Outreach , which promotes “ethical eating.” A number of charities have religious leanings, including the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the Jewish Community Association of Austin.

But scientists are arguing—and this may be a tactical mistake—that the ICR is too religious.

But the Institute for Creation Research espouses such a strongly sectarian view of the origin of life that its inclusion “was enough to get me riled up,” said Daniel Bolnick , an associate professor of integrative biology at UT who studies the evolution of autoimmune disorders. “It gives them legitimacy they really don’t deserve.”

John Hoberman, a UT professor of Germanic studies, said the institute is “an adversary of the values a research university stands for” and that its activities “do not qualify as the sort of humanitarian activity we associate with charity in the proper sense of the word.”

Perhaps it would be better just to mount a general First-Amendment challenge on the grounds that the state should not be involved in promulgating religion of any sort. The committee that decides who’s on the list is electing a new chairman this week, and Hillis and other UT biology faculty have filed a formal complaint against the ICR’s inclusion.

The response: according to the Texas Freedom Network, a state representative, Leo Berman, has called for Hillis—a tenured full professor, highly respected evolutionary biologist, and member of the National Academy of Sciences, to be fired!

Berman is a piece of work:

Rep. Berman on Thursday sent a statement to the Austin-based political news website Quorum Report (subscription required), charging that Prof. Hillis “fears debate on evolution vs. creationism” and that “Godly professors of science who are creationists fear retribution” from scientists like Hillis:

“Professor Hillis would do well to take a sabbatical from science and do a little research in the social studies. … The meaning of Academy, or University, or College, is a place to seek the truth.  How can you determine the truth when you only hear from a Professor Hillis and his joy of shoving evolution down someone’s throat.

If I were Chancellor, I would fire him for trying to deny individuals of their first amendment rights.   As a legislator, I think removing tenure if he has tenure and putting him back to work, would be the best thing the state can do.”

Rep. Berman is one of the most extreme right-wing lawmakers in Texas. This past spring, for example, he promoted anti-Muslim hysteria by proposing legislation he said would ban Sharia law in Texas (even though the First Amendment already bars religion-based laws). His legislation failed to pass. He also insists that President Obama wasn’t born in the United States and has even suggested that the president’s election represented “God’s punishment on us.”

Ceiling Cat bless America, and best of luck to Dave and his colleagues. They might not win the battle, but I’m sure Hillis’s job is safe!