Use of space

In Trinidad there are a lot of squatter communities on “the line” – after the railway was shut down in 1968, people built houses on the former rail line.  Nonetheless, this was done after the railways were shut down.

Things are a little different in Bangkok, it would appear…

Courtesy Canadian Cynic.

Are government employees required to remain neutral on illegal activities?

From the Austin American Statesman [H/T Joshua Rosenau]

[Texas'] director of science curriculum has resigned after being accused of creating the appearance of bias against teaching intelligent design.

Seriously?

Comer was put on 30 days paid administrative leave shortly after she forwarded an e-mail in late October announcing a presentation being given by Barbara Forrest, author of “Inside Creationism’s Trojan Horse,” a book that says creationist politics are behind the movement to get intelligent design theory taught in public schools. … Comer sent the e-mail to several individuals and a few online communities, saying, “FYI.”

And there’s something wrong with doing that?

Agency officials … said forwarding the e-mail not only violated a directive for her not to communicate in writing or otherwise with anyone outside the agency regarding an upcoming science curriculum review, “it directly conflicts with her responsibilities as the Director of Science.” [Emphasis added]

How so?

The memo adds, “Ms. Comer’s e-mail implies endorsement of the speaker and implies that [Texas Education Agency] endorses the speaker’s position on a subject on which the agency must remain neutral.” [Emphasis added]

What? The Texas Education Agency must remain neutral on the issue of intelligent design? Why? Intelligent design isn’t science. Teaching intelligent design in science classes has been ruled as a violation of the Establishment Clause. Presumably the TEA isn’t supposed to appear neutral on the issue of selling drugs to school children. So where do they draw the line? Is it supposed to remain neutral on the scientific value of astrology? Doesn’t Texas fine textbook publishers for each error in textbooks? How can you identify errors if you need to remain neutral on issues related to factual accuracy?

The call to fire Comer came from Lizzette Reynolds, who previously worked in the U.S. Department of Education. She also served as deputy legislative director for Gov. George W. Bush.

Oh, well…that makes sense. Someone who worked for George W. Bush. I’m sure they learned never to let facts – or the law – get in the way of ideology.

“This is highly inappropriate,” Reynolds said in an e-mail to Comer’s supervisors. “I believe this is an offense that calls for termination or, at the very least, reassignment of responsibilities.

“This is something that the State Board, the Governor’s Office and members of the Legislature would be extremely upset to see because it assumes this is a subject that the agency supports.” [Emphasis added]

Obviously, I have no idea what Comers said in her email, or how it was presented. But that’s still entirely besides the point. Why shouldn’t the agency support upholding the law and the constitution? Oh, yeah, I forgot – former Bush employee. Up is down and down is up.

More from Wesley Elsberry and PZ Myers.

Why we need to take IDists more seriously

It’s easy to make fun of cdesign proponentsists without a systematic study of the species. It’s easy to dabble – drop by UD every few months to read something stunningly bad. It takes real stomach to pay close attention to them, but without brave souls like James McGrath, we would be so much the poorer. Despite Bill Dembski’s “don’t blame me, I found it on YouTube” defence, it would appear that he is aware of the concepts of copyright infringement and plagiarism.  (Or maybe it’s just someone at UD, after all, Dembski claims not to know what goes on there, especially when he is busy composing fake letters from the President of Baylor).  As James discovered, the RSS feed from UD includes a pretty stern warning about copyright infringement for sites that reproduce their feed.

So how does this work?  Only creationists have intellectual property rights?

Sealing the deal

Cdesign propontentsist Guillermo Gonzalez was denied tenure at Iowa State University last May.  The reason given was his lack of scholarly publications and failure to attract grant money.  His supporters contend that he was denied tenure because of his support for intelligent design.  They have now threatened to sue

The news conference scheduled for Monday at the Capitol will include attorneys for Gonzalez, representatives of the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based organization that supports discussions of intelligent design in science classes, and one or more state legislators, staff of the Discovery Institute said.

Interesting to see them indentify the DI as “a Seattle-based organization that supports discussions of intelligent design in science classes“.  Actually they are so much more when it comes to ID.

“The main concern is one of academic freedom,” said Iowa Sen. David Hartsuch, a Republican from Bettendorf who said he plans to attend the news conference.

He said he thought Gonzalez was denied tenure because of his work involving intelligent design.

“We’re living in a day and age where there is nothing that is not politicized,” he added.

It’s interesting to see right-wingers standing up for intellectual freedom.  I assume that Senator Hartsuch was also a supporter of Ward Churchill, or at the very least, someone like Richard Colling?  I take it that his “nothing that is not politicized” comment is his attempt to justify his involvement? 

Reid said the Gonzalez case could turn into litigation in district court if all administrative options have been exhausted, which include appealing the tenure case to the Iowa Board of Regents in February.

That’s where things get interesting.  As Abbie advised creationists: If you have set yourself on fire, do not run.  Wesley Elsberry has a similar take on this situation

It’s one thing to shoot yourself in the foot. It’s quite another to plan to do it again. The DI can’t seem to help itself; it seems to be addicted.

He sees this as another Dover-like situation

Essentially, they will be walking into another courtroom and asking a judge to hear their arguments that “intelligent design” creationism is a legitimate scientific endeavor. I thought they had just spent the last year and eleven months castigating another judge for the temerity of actually ruling on that very issue, which they had urged him to rule upon in their amicus brief in the case.

It really does seem like a lose-lose situation for the cdesign proponentsists.  If they argue that ID is legitimate science, and that Gonzalez’s Privileged Planet book should be counted as legitimate astronomy, then they are, as Wesley suggests, asking a judge to rule on whether ID is science.  On the other hand, if they use the argument that a lot of people made back in May, that he was punished for his religious views, then it’s “game over” on ID.  (Ok, in reality it’s been “game over” since Dover).

I read their strategy a little bit differently – to me, it sounds like they are saying that Gonzalez was dismissed because he held non-mainstream opinions, that the thought police were out to get him – make it a blacklisting issue.  Are cdesign proponentsists the new communists?  That would make an interesting strategy.  Of course, in the world of academia, there’s nothing quite like suing your employer to actually get yourself on a “blacklist” of a sort.  No one wants to hire someone who sues his employer, or gets mobs on creationists to write letters complaining when you are denied tenure.

Of course, when it comes down to it, I think that the simple fact of being a cdesign proponentsist probably is reason enough to deny tenure in a science department – not because it’s a “politically incorrect” position, but rather, because it’s an anti-science position.  And why should you tenure someone who rejects the core mission of your department?

Dembski replies

At long last, Dembski has finally bothered to reply to the XVIVO plagiarism/copyright violation issue. Abbie addressed the broader issues pretty well. In short: when Dembski spoke at OU he used the “Inner Life of a Cell” video. The original narration had been stripped out and replaced with what Abbie called a “Big Gay Al” creationist-friendly voice-over.

Dembski’s defence has been to claim that he found it that way on YouTube. As he puts it

I took a version of the video that I found on the Internet, one with a voiceover that I thought would have the best educational value for my listeners. The version I used took the original soundtrack, which simply had some music, and added a voice. The voice, just to be clear, is not mine. I had nothing to do with modifying or recrafting the video. I received it, as it were, “off the shelf.”

In his world there are multiple versions of the animation on YouTube. Interesting that no one else seems to have come across the version that Dembski “found”. Interesting how he doesn’t say “and the video is/was available at [some url or other]“. Interesting that he seems unaware of the version with the original narration. DaveScot posted the original at UD nine months ago. I suppose Dembski has the good sense not to read anything DaveScot writes.

But even if this version of events were true, I am still stuck by the phrase: a voiceover that I thought would have the best educational value for my listeners. Doesn’t that just get to the heart of the intelligent design movement?

The intelligent design movement is premised on two ideas – that people stupid, and the Discovery Institute can use that stupidity to manipulate people by feeding them a misleading parody of reality. Although the talk was aimed at college students, Dembski decided that a scientific narrative was inappropriate for his audience – instead, a version which took out the science and replaced it with creationist propaganda was appropriate.

I’m happy to say that Oklahomans aren’t actually that stupid (despite the senators they have elected).

John Howard out!

Australia’s pro-Iraq War, anti-Kyoto Accord, George W. Bush allied Prime Minister John Howard conceded defeat in Australia’s General Elections. He also conceded that it was very likely that he would lose his own seat in Parliament. At long last, a favourable result in an election.

The BBC’s Nick Bryant, in Sydney, said Labor had swept back into power by harnessing an anti-government backlash.

Mr Howard had found himself on the wrong side of public opinion on the Kyoto protocol and the war in Iraq, our correspondent said. Many people also seemed to be simply tired of Mr Howard after 11 years of his rule.

Blair is out, now Howard. Bush will be out in January 2009 (unless the Democrats have the sense to impeach him first), and while a Democratic victory is likely, it isn’t a given. And what’s really up in the air is whether the Democrats can get an effective majority in the Senate. But that’s all in the future. For now, I’m happy to celebrate the end of the John Howard era in Australia. About time!

Update: Steve Clemmons at Huffington Post added this interesting tidbit

Beyond ending the lockstep dance between George Bush and John Howard, Kevin Rudd’s win also means that Peter Garrett, former lead singer for Midnight Oil, will be Australia’s next Climate Change Minister

Cool!

Perfectly phrased

Tonight on Countdown Keith Olbermann called the George W. Bush Presidential Library “the creation museum of Presidential libraries”.  Perfect.

The Design of Life

The long-awaited and much-hyped update of Of Pandas and People is finally out. From UD.

The Foundation for Thought and Ethics has just published The Design of Life. This definitive book on intelligent design (ID) comes as a shot across the bow to dogmatic defenders of Darwinian orthodoxy. Written by two key ID theorists, mathematician William Dembski and biologist Jonathan Wells, it presents the full case for intelligent design to a general audience.

“A shot across the bow”? That’s quite a claim for a hypothesis that has failed as badly as intelligent design. I suppose I should acknowledge a key phrase there: dogmatic defenders of Darwinian orthodoxy. They’re challenging Huxley, aren’t they? (It’s always fun to throw down the gauntlet to someone who’s been dead 112 years.) Not the neo-Darwinists, not the non-dogmatic defenders…just people who “dogmatically defend” the 150-year-old predecessor of modern evolutionary biology. Are they planning to show that Darwin was wrong on the mechanism of inheritance? (That would be up there with MikeGene’s discovery of pleiotropy.) But no, I wouldn’t expect anything that sensible from that pair of clowns. Dembski and Wells? Mr. Show-me-every-single-step-or-I-won’t-believe-it and Mr. HIV-denial. Hilarious.

The press release continues

Critics, in dismissing The Design of Life, contend that intelligent design has collapsed in the wake of the 2005 Dover trial. Author William Dembski responded, “Those same people have been announcing intelligent design’s demise every year since 1990. Strangle it as they might, intelligent design just won’t die. The Design of Life shows why the better arguments and stronger evidence are now on the intelligent design side.”

“[T]he better arguments and stronger evidence are on the intelligent design side”? Then why keep them from us? I spent a whole evening listening to your presentation and you delivered nothing but the same old crap. So were you saying up “the better arguments and stronger evidence” for the book? It’s so unkind of you to keep all these “arguments and…evidence” under wraps.

According to FTE president Jon Buell, The Design of Life is not intended for high school students; it is aimed rather at college/university students and adults who want a clearer understanding of why a growing number of scientists doubt Darwin.

I see…so, post-Kitzmiller the tactics have changed. Makes sense. The Kitzmiller trial revealed the missing link between “creation scientists” and “design proponents” (“cdesign proponentsists”), revealing the creationist roots of ID. But there’s always the college market. Bob Jones University, Regent University, Liberty University…lots of places that are free to teach crap instead of science. Presumably that’s the market, though at $35 a copy it falls in a price gap between exorbitantly priced textbooks ($70-150) and books people actually buy to read (I don’t think hardcovers have crossed the $30 threshold yet).

“FTE enlisted William Dembski and Jonathan Wells because the public needs a book that compares the argument for design, point by point, with the argument for no-design,” noted Buell.

Argument for no-design? Oh, like the Snoke and Behe paper, which uses a non-selectionist model, and then tries to use it to conclude that selection is too weak? Or Dembski and Marks, who used an incorrectly-initialised run of Tom Schneider’s “ev” evolutionary computation program. Talk about attacking a straw man. Argument for no-design? And here I was thinking they were attacking “Darwinian” evolution.

The book covers the origin of life, origin of species, and origin of consciousness, as well as other controversial areas. “We now know so much more than Darwin did” said author Jonathan Wells, who also wrote The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design (Regnery 2006). “Instead of just papering over more cracks, it’s time to take a fresh look. The Design of Life did,” said author Jonathan Wells, who also wrote shows why it is no longer possible to be an intellectually fulfilled Darwinist.”

Let’s see…Jonathan Wells. First he wrote Icons of Evolution. When that was shown to be totally flawed, he re-packaged it in PIGDIG, which was described as being “not only politically incorrect but incorrect in most other ways as well: scientifically, logically, historically, legally, academically, and morally.”. Will he get it right on his third try? Or does he just re-package the same old crap?

Things get even funnier when you go across to the book’s website. There’s a page titled “The Buzz”. Ahh, you think, buzz about the book. Let’s see what people say about it. There are nine quotes on the page. The first one is from Publisher’s Weekly; since it doesn’t say otherwise, I’ll assume it’s about the book. The next three quotes are about The Design Inference. Then two about No Free Lunch. The next two are simply about Wells, including the very enlightening: “Wells is a leading figure in the intelligent design (ID) movement.” That’s buzz? Well, I suppose in the sense of “annoying noise in the background”. Finally there’s this quote from the IDEA website: “William Dembski is perhaps the foremost researcher into intelligent design theory. His work turns intelligent design into a practical rather than purely theoretical theory”. Let’s see – an assault not only on facts, but also on English.

Looks like there’s nothing to see here.

Dembski at OU – the video

Matt Dowling has posted the video of the Dembski talk: parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

PZ’s comment on it was “The man can drone on“; Abbie said he was a really bad speaker.  My thought at the time was “he’s so much more entertaining a speaker in this context than he was at church”.  In retrospect, he was a bad speaker.  But it was still a major improvement.

It appears that the famous Q&A is on there too.  Sweet.

Chavez and religious freedom

The right wing in America devolves into fits of apoplexy at the mere mention of Hugo Chavez.  And while I’m no fan of his, he seems to have more respect for the rule of law than does the current American administration so beloved by the same right wingers.  So it’s highly amusing to see the man Pat Robertson wanted assassinated assert his right to “practise Christianity in public” in Saudi Arabia.

In addressing an OPEC summit in Saudi Arabia, Chavez crossed himself.  According to Caribbean News Net, “under Saudi law, the act of practising a religion other than Islam in public and non-Islamic religious symbols are forbidden.”  Chavez also made reference to Christ

“The only way to peace, as Christ said, is justice,” he told the audience. “All of us here have engaged in the Third World’s struggles, the people who have been colonised, invaded and oppressed for centuries.”

While a reference to Jesus would not have been problematic, calling him Christ is an assertion of his being the promised Messiah, which may also be problematic under Saudi law.   The Saudi press seemed to see it as “grandstanding” to his home audience

Jamal Khashoggi, editor of the daily al-Watan, said Iran and Venezuela wanted to create a “media frenzy” in Riyadh to grandstand to their own publics back home.

It was American disrespect for Islam that drove people like Osama bin Laden to his war against the West.  I rather doubt Chavez would create the same sort of ill feeling.  Why?  Because it’s never “what you say”, it’s a matter of who says it.  Things like this are only meaningful (and thus, only offensive) in the context of power differentials.  Chavez doesn’t have the ability to enforce his will on the Saudis.  Nor is he likely to be seen as having the desire to do so.  Not so for the US.

H/T Religion Clause.