Nietzsche was to Christianity as Marx was to capitalism. He was one of the fiercest critics of Christian fundamentalism as Marx was to capitalism. His problem was that far from creating a better world, Christianity created a state of slavery where doctrinal conformity was strictly enforced and entire cultures and religions were stamped out.

Islam was a reaction to this sterile conformity. Rather than the One Emperor, One Church, One State motif of the Byzantines, Islam presented itself as a religion of peace, where Muslim, Christian, and Judaism could live side by side. It sought to settle the quarrel between Christian and Jew by proclaiming that it didn't matter whether Jesus died on the cross; the only thing that mattered was submission to God.

I swore that when I had kids, I would NEVER give as an explanation because. My mother was famous for it. Me: Why??? Mom: Because. If she really wanted to make the point (and a power play), she'd say because I said so. arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Well, I never had kids. But I did end up with a few step kids. At first, any interventions on my part were always accompanied by explanation. I was a quick study though. I realized they didn't care WHY. They'd ask and ask and whine and complain and ask WHY again a thousand times. But they never really wanted to know why. They were only interested in what they wanted and finding a way to actualize it. They used my explanations as an opportunity to stage never-ending debates, refuting all of my very sensible and very adult-correct thinking.

Mothers. They do know what they're doing. It just takes years to figure it out. There's not much after the old because I say so.

Running for Office: It's Like A Flamewar with a Forum Troll, but with an Eventual Winner

That's not my phrase; its from Sean Tevis and he is running for State Representative in Kansas.

Sean Tevis was sick and tired of his state legislature representative in Kansas, an anti-evolution, anti-abortion, anti-gay, pro-surveillance nutjob named Arlen Siegfreid (tell me THAT name doesn't sound evil). So Sean put his name where his mouth was and decided to run against the guy. And he needs your help.

That could well have been the headline back in 1925.  For it was on this very date of  July 10, 1925 that the trial of a high school football coach and substitute biology teacher – John Scopes – began after he was arrested for teaching Evolution in Dayton, Tennessee.  It became known as the Scopes Monkey Trial – but many of us may be more familiar with it after being memorialized on Broadway and in film as "Inherit the Wind".

Creationism is Not science.  If some people think God created everything, that's fine.  They just can't call it a scientific explanation because the proposition that God created everything is untestable by the scientific method.  I persuaded one creationist just yesterday.  It went like this:

Her:  Evolutionists just want to leave God out of it.

Me:  That's correct.  Science is like a game with rules.  One of the rules is that the only evidence allowed is observable, verifiable evidence.  The rules of science exclude evidence from the Bible.  It's like a game of chess.  There are rules.  Creationists can't complain because science will not change the rules to accommodate them.  That would be like making an illegal move in chess and then arguing that the move should be legalized.

Yesterday, I posted a diary, Wherein I win the first ever Conservapedia challenge!, sharing my accomplishment for winning such a prestigious award, at least so I thought.

Anonymously, someone pointed this out on Conservapedia, "The Trustworthy Encyclopedia," so I was certain that they would reward my brilliance and expedience for completing their challenge:

At least one blogger has already claimed to have won the challenge: No Latitude. He cites and links to the following data: [snip, lots of cute PDF urls]

Of these, the last is particularly data-rich.

He couldn't wait more than a day to insult them. Just a day. A mere 24 hours. There was evening and there was morning, a Thurs day.

Who did McCain insult? Why, the faithful. The party faithful. The faith-full of the party. On the Wednes day, the news was revealed that a number of Christian Conservatives came out for McCain. Er, uh, I mean, they expressed their support for McCain's candidacy. They wavered, they weighed the choice, they prayed for guidance, and then they rose up with one accord to support John McCain.

How does McCain respond to their support? He makes changes to his campaign staff, and then he has the gall to speak of it as part of "a natural evolution." Evolution!

Oh, the insult of it all.  Why could he not speak of his plans as something he intelligently designed? Why? Why?

I used to blog as "No Latitude" to point out absurdities with religious nuts and neo-conservatives (and likely members of media who propagate their idiocy). I quit when I went back to school since I didn't have much time.

Lately, there has been an uproar, and I decided to find some more time. My posting about a new act of complete idiocy involves Conservapedia.

The link to the blog is: Conservapedia: Stubborn idiocy in action

There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who know about the subject of Today in History and those who do not.

In teaching the history of calculus, including this man is integral, especially if you don't want to believe the old lie, published and pushed by Isaac Newton, that he and he alone is the father of the study.

If you want to study the history of evolutionary thought, you start not with Darwin but with 17th century thinkers like this man.

If you want to get to the core of the Earth's composition, read what this man proposed about it.

If you fancy the idea of a universal language based not on artificial, invented symbols but how people naturally conceive of things, such that language barriers are no longer formidable, check out his characteristica universalis.

I could go on much longer, but there is not time to fully catalog the plenitude of scholarly contributions made by Gottfried Leibniz, who was born on July 1, 1646.

Now this is just funny.

Everyone remembers Conservapedia, right? The "Conservative answer to liberal bias on Wikipedia", or something like that. A strong proof of the theorem that it is impossible to distinguish between genuine wingnuts and parodies of same.

Well, the folks at Conservapedia have really stepped in it this time. A few weeks ago, a scientific paper was published showing strong evidence of evolution in bacteria. That being against the declared Conservative worldview, Conservapedia wrote to the author of the paper and demanded all the raw data so that they could show that the experiment was invalid.

He responded...

I hesitate to wade into these waters, but I'll do it anyway. I'm a person of faith, I think God is here and interacts with us, and the world around us. If we're perceptive enough (maybe "receptive" would be better) we can feel the interaction. Which is why I didn't even try to post on the front page diary entitled,

"What a Coincidence!
by DarkSyde
Fri Jun 27, 2008 at 06:50:33 PM PDT"

which deals with the discovery of a fossil of a four-legged fish, in the appropriate geologic time frame, which supports the concept of evolution. No problem. I also believe that the science of evolution is correct.

As some of you know I am an Experimental Psychologist so I get updates as to research that just came out. Although it is not political I try to share it on here for discussion.

If you're interested the actual article is in

Aaker et al. Recalling Mixed Emotions. Journal of Consumer Research, 2008;

More after the breakhere

Today's 5-4 ruling that rejects the death penalty for child rapists shows the clear divide not just on the Supreme Court, but in American society in large.  If we needed any further example of how polarized we are in this country, decisions such as these are more than eager to point it out.  If we needed a means to gauge how we have evolved over the centuries, this easily provides it.  

This decision also makes a strong case for the need to elect Barack Obama in November.  A McCain Presidency would swing the balance of the court ever more resolutely towards the right and undermine reform measures passed by what will likely still be a Democratic-controlled Congress.  The majority of American society still favors the procedure, but our appointed and elected gatekeepers have asserted they know better than the rest of us and made the decisions for ourselves.  This authoritarian impulse one either embraces as a necessary means of control or rails against as running contrary to the popular will.    

This is one of the few studies (bottom of list, 2008, PNAS, Blount et al.pdf) that actually has the potential for opening a window as large as the one Galileo's telescope opened for astronomy.    Most writers pivot the definition of evolution on a dime.  This is not an original observation.  The word "evolution" has been modified in an attempt to reduce some of the ambiguity and reduce dizziness from spinning on that dime.  When the word refers to  heritable genetic change it is often written "micro-evolution."  When the word refers to a possible explanation of the origin and diversity of life, it is often written "macro-evolution."  Depending on the results, the current theory of evolution may have to be significantly modified so that the meaning of evolution is confined to genetic change.  The implications of this study could give rise to a new theory so different from the present one that it would require a history lesson  to reconnect it to Darwin.  

I had fun today.  I gave a talk at the Math Science Innovation Center in Mechanicsville Virginia.    It was part of a conference on

Fractals: A New Lens on the Natural World
A Conference for 6-12 Science Teachers

 My talk was not on fractals but was entitled: TEACHING  SCIENCE THAT MATTERS: REFRAMING THE QUESTION IN SCIENCE, and can be viewed from my webpage.
 I was dealing with  issues that may reflect back on the way science is being taught.  The three examples I was using for them were

Global warming and climate change
Evolution vs. creation ("Intelligent" Design)
Determining when something is "alive"

 I thought some of you might be interested in what Complexity Science has to say about these issues and their relationship to "standard" science.  Look below the break if this is of interest to you.  I'll suggest that there is relevance to this election in what I had to say

The LA legislature has passed an anti-evolution law that is poised to be signed into law by Gov. Jindal. Please read the email posted below the fold for what you can do to try to stop it.  It's a small chance, to be sure, but this law is a definite wedge that will resonate nationally (or at least in places that would have us return to an 18th century understanding of the world).

Updated:  More info and links to bill text here http://www.ncseweb.org/...

Every time someone lops off Creationism's head, it sprouts two more.  This time it's couched in terms of "critical thinking" and supported by that dark horse in the Republican VEEPstakes, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (details below the fold).

Hercules defeated the Hydra by cauterizing the necks each time he lopped off a head.  I wonder what the present-day analogue is that applies in this situation:  never letting another state legislature have a Republican majority again?