Greece, Civil Unions in Hawaii and the Huffington Post:: Ethical Dilemmas about GPFM

My twin has a piece up at the Huffington Post arguing that the veto of Hawaii's civil union bill by its Governor Lingle was not motivated by the reasons that Lingle gave. I'm having some qualms about linking to the Huffington Post. The website has had a long history of pushing anti-science and fringe medical beliefs, including homeopathy and claims that vaccines cause autism. Most recently, they've branched out into anti-evolution propaganda with a piece by David Klinghoffer of the Discovery Institute claiming that evolution was the root cause of Nazism. These issues with the Huffington Post are discussed in detail in this Salon piece and this statistical analysis. I'm concerned about driving traffic to a website which has such attitudes towards science and the scientific consensus. Moreover, it raises serious questions about their otherwise apparently good political coverage. In particular, if they cannot deal with empirical issues well, why should one think that they can deal with issues involving politics where far more cognitive biases come into play? I'm curious what readers think about this issue.

Meanwhile, I can without any concerns link to my father's recent piece at the Oxford University Press blog which discusses what lessons that the United States should take away from the Greek financial crisis. The piece gives a balanced view about the economic and demographic issues that face the United States today and how they compared to Greece.

Creationism and Intelligent Design in Great Britain

In the comments thread to my last post Lautreamont pointed to a recent study about belief in creationism and intelligent design in Great Britain. The study showed that over 80% of the people in Great Britain reject intelligent and creationism. A larger percentage (89%) rejected intelligent design than those which rejected creationism(83%). Given the big-tent nature of ID this is surprising. This rejection may be explained by definitional issues since some theists will accept "creationism" as the general idea that God created the world but reject "intelligent design" in the sense that they consider this belief to be exclusively theological rather than scientific in nature. There are also some young earth creationists who reject intelligent design as not having enough explicit emphasis on the Bible. Without a more thorough examination of the study and the phrasing of the questions it is hard to say. Note also that the percentage who are rejecting creationism is much higher than in the United States where approximately half the population are young earth creationists.

Razib over at Gene Expression has also blogged on this story and has some analysis on the geographic breakdown of belief. He raises two points that are worth noting: He notes an unusally high percentage of creationists in London and suggests that this may be due to Muslims living in the city. The study's authors speculated in contrast that this may be due to the relatively high Pentecostalist presence in London. Razib also discusses the high percentage of creationists in Northern Ireland and speculates that this may be due to the internecine religious fighting creating a general push towards more extremist views.

There are two paragraphs specific paragraphs from the article that are also worth noting:

The poll also revealed some extraordinary views on more recent writings, with 5% of adults thinking Darwin wrote A Brief History of Time, a bestseller on the science of spacetime, which was written by the Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking and is widely regarded as the most popular science book never to be completed by its readers.

A further 3% of those surveyed thought Darwin wrote The God Delusion, by the arch-atheist and Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins, while 1% thought Darwin was the author of The Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver.

It could be worse. We could have people who thought that Darwin, Dawkins and Hawking wrote the Bible.

Don McLeroy Jenkins: Epic failure by the creationists. Again.

Some readers may be vaguely aware that Texas is going through their aperiodic burst of anti-evolution sentiments from their school board. Don McLeroy, the current Chairman of the Texas State Board of Education has managed to effectively lay the groundwork for any possible legal challenge by his opponents.

First a bit of background: The creationists used to try to teach creationism next to evolution. The federal courts said that was unconstitutional because of that whole First Amendment thing. It can be so pesky and inconvenient sometimes. Then suddenly a mutation showed up and they started to teach “creation science” which was completely different from “creationism.” The Supreme Court in Edwards v. Aguillard ruled that this was nothing more than thinly disguised creationism.[1] Then miraculously, a new mutation occurred. Now, there was “intelligent design” which had nothing to do with that unconstitutional “creation science” thing. Not all. (Actually it wasn't a single mutation but a series including a well-preserved transitional form). In Kitzmiller v. Dover, this new variation was ruled unconstitutional. The latest version is “teaching the controversy.”

However, McLeroy has gone and shot himself in the foot. In a recent editorial, he justified teaching the controversy by saying that, under the new proposed curriculum “claims about evolution … will be challenged by creationists.” Oops. He said the c-word. I can see his legal allies carefully planning a case in front of a federal judge to explain how what they want has nothing to do with creationism at all. And then he arrives, running into the courtroom screaming “McLerooooy Jennnnkins! Creationism!”

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[1] If one does have opportunity to read this decision, I strongly recommend reading Scalia’s dissent as well. It gives one real appreciation for Scalia’s intelligence and thoughtfulness and raises serious issues that are worth thinking about.

Modern Geocentrism

Naftali was kind enough to give me a copy of a tract that he received in the mail. This isn’t any ordinary tract. It is geocentrist. That’s right: There are people who still believe the sun revolves around the earth. They even direct you to a website, www.geocentricity.com , apparently run by one Gerardus D. Bouw who has a PhD in astronomy from Case Western University and is a professor emeritus at a small Methodist university.

I’m not going to discuss in detail why geocentrism is stupid or why this website contradicts itself. I will however briefly note that the proponents cannot make up their minds whether all evidence is completely consistent with both geocentrism and the standard view of the universe, or whether there is in fact actual evidence for geocentrism. Logically, either but not both of these can be true.[1]

There are four similarities in both the geocentrists’ rhetoric and the rhetoric of anti-evolution proponents.

First, the geocentrists base their views on their interpretation of the Bible. According to the pamphlet, “The change in theories damaged our viewpoint of the Bible, which is geocentric. The King James Bible is openly geocentric.” This is almost identical to what anti-evolutionists say. For example, Answers in Genesis, the largest Young Earth Creationist ministry in the United States, emphasizes that it is devoted to “defending the Bible from the very first verse."

Second, the geocentrists assert that “if the earth is not fixed on center stage of the universe, then life on earth and man himself are essentially meaningless.”[2] This claim is identical to claims made by all sorts of anti-evolutionists, such as young earth creationist Henry Morris and intelligent design proponent Phillip Johnson.

Third, the geocentrists attempt to disguise what they talking about by changing its name. However, their disguises are even more superficial than those of the anti-evolution proponents. The geocentrists claim that they aren’t proponents of ideologically-driven “geocentrism” but rather the modern, scientific notion of “geocentricity,” just as creationism became creation science and then later became intelligent design and “sudden emergence theory.”

Fourth, the geocentrists emphasize that they have supporters who have PhDs, some of which are even in physics and astronomy. This claim is identical to how anti-evolution proponents point how they have supporters who have PhDs in mathematics, chemistry, and even cell biology.

To all this one might retort that geocentrists are a tiny minority. However, 18% of the population of the United States thinks that the sun revolves around the earth. Geocentrism is so common that Answers in Genesis has felt a need to respond to it in multiple articles on its website. The next time an anti-evolution proponent makes one of these arguments, ask the person, “Hey! I’ve heard geocentrists make the same claim. How is your claim any different?”

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[1] Actually, I can’t resist pointing out another example of how interesting these people are. Bouw correctly explains arrow notation and then uses it to make an apologetic argument for how you don’t want to be in hell for 10↑↑10 years and that eternity is even worse.

[2] Bouw also claims that heliocentrism leads to the mistaken notion that man is the measure of all things as opposed to God. I’m a bit confused how to reconcile this with the claim that humanity not being at the center of the universe makes humanity meaningless.

Edit: Fixed mistake pointed out be Harry below.