Being An Atheist Is Easy

"Atheist" is a stupid word. So is "agnostic." The fact that we need both words is even stupider.

If you are a nonbeliever, you have probably heard the argument: "You can't disprove the existence of God." You might have heard it from a believer, or from a politically sensitive agnostic, but the basic assumption is that atheism means thinking that the existence of God can be disproved.

This argument is a ruse. Don't be deceived.

Atheists don't have to DISprove anything. There is nothing to disprove. You don't have to disprove something when there was never any evidence for it in the first place. Someone told us something, but they didn't present any evidence for it, so we didn't believe it. That is all there is to being an atheist. The burden of proof is on the believer, and if they can't provide it, the default assumption should be that there is nothing there.

This is the same reason why claiming that atheism is a religious belief is absolutely ridiculous. Why would not specifically believing something be itself a religious belief? Just because we aren't buying something doesn't mean that we are selling something else.

Imagine that I am sitting at a table with two other people. One of them says: "There is an invisible gnome in the middle of the table. He wants you to cut off your pinky finger, or he will use his gnome magic to destroy your soul after you die." Then he cuts off his finger. If you don't specifically believe him, and don't cut your finger off because the whole thing seems completely retarded, is that a religious belief? Do you really need a specific word (presumably "agnomist") to describe you?

Or what if the next day, and for every day after, a different person came in and told you that something else invisible was sitting in the middle of the table: a fairy, a dragon, a ghost... all without a single shred of evidence, and you see no reason to believe any of it, as every time there is clearly nothing there. Are you a polytheist now? Do you need a separate word to describe you for every unsubstantiated thing you don't believe?

Or, imagine this. After the Gnomist mutilates himself, you start stabbing the empty air over the table with your finger and shouting, "Look, you goddamn psychopath, there is nothing there!" (while conspicuously not cutting off your pinky). The third person sits with his hands folded complacently and says: "The existence of the gnome has not been proven" (also conspicuously not cutting off his pinky). Is the difference between you and him really so strong that we would need two different words to describe you? Neither of you believe in the fucking gnome! The difference is just one of temperament.

Why does not specifically believing in God need a word to describe it? Why do two slightly different shades of disbelief (agnostic and atheist) need to be distinguished? There is only one reason: Because so many people do believe in this one specific unsubstantiated thing (God), that they treat belief as the default. Atheism and agnosticism therefore become verbs, as though they require some kind of action, and not believing something with slightly different degrees of equivocation therefore become two different actions.

Don't let them get away with that. You don't have to do shit. It's Sunday, so sit back and take it easy, and let them do the work of getting dressed up and driving themselves to church.


This is the first Christmas song to actually bring a tear to my eye.

LNJ

Talking To Creationists

(Author's note: This is just the end of my last posting; I cut it off and made it a separate post to trim down the last one. So, if you didn't finish the last one, here is what you missed).

The evolution-creationism debate ultimately boils down to large masses of sheep who are concerned that accepting evolution will endanger their souls. Although I think that there are arguments that can be used to quell these concerns (see below), I do NOT subscribe to downplaying the fact that, compared to the general public, atheism and agnosticism are disproportionately common among biologists and paleontologists. It is disingenuous to pretend that non-belief is not a common side effect of the scientific mindset, or that there is not a perfectly good reason for this. Scientific non-believers, even the politically correct ones, usually have particular and explainable reasons for why they are not religious.

In order for evolutionists to have any claim of intellectual and ethical superiority over creationists (which is like shooting fish in a barrel), we have to be completely honest. It is highly disingenuous for supporters of evolution to try to create the impression that the views of obstinately persistent and articulate atheists like Dawkins and Meyers represent some kind of fanatical fringe within the scientific community.

As far as mollifying the fears of creationists, I would like to suggest trying the following tactics:

1. Distinguish between infallible God (or Bible) and fallible creationist speaker or writer. Creationists are perfectly happy pointing out that scientists are fallible human beings, and that the scientific method is based on the recognition that any belief held by scientists can be totally wrong...but they do not want to apply the same criteria to themselves. Rather, they try to make it sound as though they are personally speaking for an infallible God, and that questioning their beliefs is the same thing as questioning God. Point out the difference. If a creationist (or any believer) claims that God exists, or that He believes or did anything in particular, than I am not really questioning God if I doubt it. God didn't tell me those things. A human being did. I'm questioning them.

Likewise, although creationists like to argue that accepting evolution or questioning the Genesis creation story makes God angry and will endanger your soul, the Bible says no such thing. The Bible (for obvious reasons) expresses no opinion on the subject of evolutionary theory, but more importantly, it attaches absolutely NO importance to the Genesis creation story. The story is told, and then forgotten; the Bible does not say that you have to believe it at all, even though the Old Testament has fucking rules for EVERYTHING. Pretty much all Christians (whether they want to admit it or not) selectively interpret the Bible, which explicitly supports child abuse (and murder), spousal abuse (and murder), and slavery. If you are going to pick and choose which of God's explicit instructions you want to acknowledge, then why make a big deal about a story that He never attaches any importance to at all? Although creationists may argue that questioning one part of the Bible means questioning all of it, the Bible doesn't say that either. This is the creationist's insecurity, not God's, Jesus', or the Bible's.

2. If you believe that God is responsible for the apparently random and meaningless events that guide our daily lives, then evolution should be no particular problem. If I won the lottery, broke my leg, got killed in a car accident, or met my future wife on a spur of the moment trip to Flagstaff, most modern Christians would be perfectly happy to ascribe this to being part of God's Plan. If so, than God is perfectly happy operating through materialistic, mundane, and non-miraculous events and accidents. However, if you suggest that things were any different in the distant past, people freak the fuck out. Why? All evolution really suggests is that the same processes happening right now (like mutation, microevolution, pain and death in the natural world, etc..) have been happening for a long time, and that there have been long term effects. If you can honestly believe that a jet crashing onto a highway past the end of the runway and killing a child in he backseat of the car is part of God's Plan, what is the fucking problem with evolution?

3. Point out that, even if you yourself are a non-believer, there are many evolutionist scientists who are also Christians. Intellectual partitioning is one of the great talents of the human species. "That's different" may be the most destructive words in any human language. Some dictator slaughtering entire villages somewhere in the third world is an atrocity, but the Israelites doing it when they got to the Promised Land...that's different. God wanted it. That motherfucker who cut me off on the freeway needs to die in fire, but when I did it to that other asshole...that's different. He deserved it. Injecting religious claims into biology is irrational and absurd, but believing that God exists and that Jesus was his son...that's different. You get the idea. Although I am pretty convinced that the entire scientific method (and the fact that it works at all) is at odds with the religious claim that faith is a valid path to any kind of truth...evolution is not a particular problem for religion.

Suggesting these tactics may seem contradictory to what I talked about at the beginning of this post, but I don't think it so, as long as you are honest about your own viewpoints...it's just that your audience doesn't have to agree with them. Introduce them to the idea of intellectual freedom. Hearing and understanding something does not slave them to having to believe it, or to not believing it. You may be a non-believer, and may have very particular reasons for it, but it is at least possible to be a scientist and evolutionist who also believes in God.

Anyway...

The Difference Between Persistent Rationality And "Dogma"

The VRTPALEO List discussion regarding the creationist video fiasco has been lively. Kevin Padian is clearly upset by this entire mess, which is understandable given the fact that he is one of the leading voices in vertebrate paleontology for the teaching of evolution, including being the president of the board of directors for the National Center For Science Education (NCSE). Getting duped by those douchebags in such a shamefully dishonest and underhanded scheme must be painful and absolutely infuriating. Kevin, rarely one to publicly say anything overtly critical or negative about anyone, has been dispensing some hurt on the VP list...and it's been beautiful.

In any case, the VRTPALEO List discussion is following the usual route that science and religion discussions tend to take there. People dispense anecdotes, offer advice and talk idealistically about "fighting the good fight" without actually planning to do anything (like me for example), go off on tangents about what bullshit Christianity is, and accuse the "militant" atheists going off on these tangents of being "dogmatic," and of "making things worse" by offering honest opinions. I want to address a couple things: the claim that Richard Dawkins and Greg Paul are "dogmatic", and the difference between being honest and "dogmatic" in religious discussions.

If the term "dogma" refers to an irrational and unsubstantiated position, then there is nothing dogmatic about the religious opposition of Richard Dawkins or Greg Paul. Emphatic, irritable, frustrated, and a bit pompous perhaps, yes. Dogmatic, no. I don't recall ever reading anything written by either of them that did not support their arguments with reasoning, logic, and evidence. That is the very antithesis of being "dogmatic". The claim that outspoken scientific representatives of the atheistic/agnostic community are "dogmatic" is one of the most oft-repeated and cheap-shot bullshit statements made by creationists and politically correct non-believers. There is a strong strain of (usually leftist) moral and intellectual cowardice in our society, which holds that if a non-believer even STATES their lack of support for a religious claim, or worse yet (horror or horrors) EXPLAINS that position, then they are being unreasonable, and that them incarcerating, blowing up, and beheading believers is the next logical step. This is complete horseshit; educated, rationalist, agnostic/atheistic secular humanists are generally among the most supportive of freedom of speech and worship for everybody. Even P.Z. Meyers, perhaps the most outspoken and caustic scientific atheist on this side of the Atlantic, recognizes the importance of allowing the religious to practice and advertise their beliefs in a free society...as long as freedom of speech applies in both directions.

The very fact that simply explaining a lack of belief in religion, and not wussing out just because a lot of people find your opinions discomforting, is seen as being "dogmatic" or "fanatical" is powerful testimony to how weak and irrational those beliefs really are. Don't gently poke that wet toilet paper with your finger! You're being too rough! Douglas Adams has one of the best quotes regarding this (taken from this speech):

Now, the invention of the scientific method and science is, I'm sure we'll all agree, the most powerful intellectual idea, the most powerful framework for thinking and investigating and understanding and challenging the world around us that there is, and that it rests on the premise that any idea is there to be attacked and if it withstands the attack then it lives to fight another day and if it doesn't withstand the attack then down it goes.

Religion doesn't seem to work like that; it has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. That's an idea we're so familiar with, whether we subscribe to it or not, that it's kind of odd to think what it actually means, because really what it means is 'Here is an idea or a notion that you're not allowed to say anything bad about; you're just not. Why not? - because you're not!' If somebody votes for a party that you don't agree with, you're free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. If somebody thinks taxes should go up or down you are free to have an argument about it, but on the other hand if somebody says 'I mustn't move a light switch on a Saturday', you say, 'Fine, I respect that'.

Religious apologetics, and the defense of it by politically correct non-believers, is like the Special Olympics of Reason. The reaction to using scientific reasoning and logic to question religion is similar to if an Olympic heavyweight boxer entered the Special Olympics and beat up a retarded kid. You can't do that! It's not FAAAAAAAIR!!! The rules are different! My response to the argument that science and religion are "non-overlapping magisteria" is addressed here, here, and here; one of Richard Dawkin's better commentaries on it is here.

Stuff.

What is wrong with this hamster?

And these squirrels?

And these?

And this one?

And this one?

What is going on in the world today? What the fuck is happening to our squirrels?

On a lighter note, there is this. Block out some time. It never stops.

Creationists Lie For Jesus, Again.

The following was posted by Kevin Padian on the VRTPALEO list. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that Kevin wants the message dispersed as widely as possible, and post it here:

Got your attention? Good. Here's a recent video called "Evolution, theGrand Experiment," that dozens of VPers helped to make, innocent of the fact that the smooth-talking and obviously intelligent filmmakers were young-earth creationists. As the publicity says, it was "filmed over 12 years on three continents and seven countries," and you can get it for twenty bucks on Amazon. It's being widely shown on cable TV. And it's being used in testimony for a current trial about whether and how to teach evolution in schools.

http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Grand-Experiment-Episode-1/dp/0892216972

The scientists punked by these twerps include Jim Kirkland, Phil Gingerich, Angela Milner, John Long, Gary Morgan, Irena Koretsky, TasserHussain, Gunther Viohl, Peter Wellnhofer, Tim Rowe, Annalise Berta, Phil Currie, Bill Clemens, Paul Sereno, Dave Weishampel, Nick Czaplewski, AndyKnoll, and Monroe Strickberger ... and yours truly. It's not that what all of you say in the video is wrong. It's that the filmmakers have taken it completely out of context. They have represented the honest uncertainty of science as fraud and hoax.

Oh, except for the supreme a**holery of Storrs Olson, king of the knuckleheads. He plays right into their hands, as you would expect.

The lesson would seem to be: unless you know personally and trust who filmmakers and media folk are, don't talk to them. Except, of course, if they are from National Geographic. The best thing about this film is that it blows a new protostome into the scientific pretensions of some of that magazine's staff, who ignored Tim Rowe's evidence that Archaeoraptor was a fake, and instead went with the counsel of an (unnamed but widely known) advisor to NG who stated that "all these fossils have been altered anyway."

You may want to consider buying this video and showing it to your students with your own narration. You could even build a non-majors course inscientific inquiry and evolution by showing and stopping this film, interspersing your own evidence and perspective, and showing how some people are happy to lie for Jesus and any other religious icon.

Thanks to the NCSE staff for putting us on to this scam.

AronRa again. How can these douchbags seriously claim that thier opposition to evolution has anything to do with morality?

Hitler Does Not Fall Into The Atheistic/Agnostic Rational Secular Humanist Evolutionist Paradigm

AronRa also addresses the issue.

One Of The Best Things I've Seen In A While

I don't think even Sagan said it better than this. I'm just not sure what was up with the clip of Rutger Hauer from Blade Runner.

Familiarity can breed contempt with the cosmic scale of deep time and space. We throw around numbers like millions and billions as though it was nothing, and I find sometimes that I have become so used to it that I think I actually understand what these numbers mean.

I don't. Neither do you.

The human brain cannot comprehend a number like a million. It isn't made to. We can hold a number like a hundred in our head, and with a little effort, a thousand. Beyond that, it gets sticky. Draw a timeline stretching across your wall spanning 6,000 years, all of human recorded history and then some. If you stare at it long enough, you might be able to, just barely, fit the whole thing in your head, and understand it as multiples to the length of your life. But you have no fucking concept of a million.

Try all the conceptual games you want. The age of the universe is a calender year. The age of the Earth is the distance between your outstretched arms. These tricks may give you a sense of relative length; the age of the Earth is this much longer than the time that complex life has existed; dinosaurs lasted this much longer than the human species; but you don't understand those numbers in absolute terms. You have NO IDEA.

It always boggles my mind a little when scientists are accused of making the human species insignificant, as though the size of the universe, or the length of time that the Earth has existed, makes our span short and unimportant. I refer to this as looking through the wrong end of the telescope. Our (relatively) minuscule corner of the universe is amazing. The sliver of geologic time we exist in is amazing. The human species is amazing. Your individual life is amazing. It isn't that we are billions of times less important than the scale of time and space; rather that the universe is a billion times more extraordinary because it can hold the human species, and billions and trillions of things that are just as incredible...and unlike the tiny, petty myths of religion, the amazing things that science shows us are, as far as we can tell, actually real.

Like the creator of this clip, I have a hard time sometimes comprehending what people see in religion, or ever have.

Excuse me now, I have to go take a leak.

Don't Impose Personal Style When Reviewing a Paper

A vertebrate paleontologist of my acquaintance just got back a final review of a paper that he had previously resubmitted, and asked my opinion on the numerous edits to the paper, many of which he felt were unnecessary. This raises an issue on reviewing papers that Bill and I have bitched to each other about in the past: the imposition of personal style preferences on the reviewee.

The main purpose of a review is to determine how successful you have been at getting another human being into your brain. If you have done a good job, the reviewer will find your arguments and reasoning compelling, and agree with your conclusions. However, a more fundamental purpose of reviews is to find out if you have been successful at getting a reader to understand what you are trying to say at all. Anyone who has written a paper (and who actually cares about how good it is) knows that there comes a point after you have re-written and re-edited it over and over again when you are incapable of evaluating your own writing. Your brain knows the patterns of words on the page so thoroughly that they seem natural and right even if they are actually unclear. One useful trick is simply to put the manuscript down for a while and refuse to look at it until you have forgotten what you wrote, but a better route is just getting someone else to read it who has NOT been staring at the same goddamned words for weeks on end. YOU know what you are trying to say, but that doesn't matter if your reader doesn't. You aren't writing to yourself.

A helpful reviewer knows how to reword confusing sentences in a way that improves clarity, such as by breaking it up into chunks, moving a verb to the front on the sentence, clarifying the subject of a sentence, or just completely re-writing it.

For example: "The shape of the lacrimal, the length of the maxilla, and the number of aveoli in the dentary, are all means by which Smilosuchus and Pseudopalatus may be differentiated."

The reader's brain wants to know up front why these things are being listed. Don't keep it in suspense. Try:

"Smilosuchus and Pseudopalatus may be differentiated by the shape of the lacrimal, the length of the maxilla, and the number of aveoli in the dentary."

Also, shorter is better; a major part of becoming a good scientific writer (or good writer in general) is learning to convey the same amount of information with fewer words. You want your reader to have to spend as little time and do as little work is possible to understand your meanings so that they do not lose consciousness before finishing the paper. If there is a paragraph, or a couple of consecutive sentences, that are twice as long as they really need to be, a good editor can condense the whole thing without loosing information.

For example: "The maxilla of Pseudopalatus has an elongate anterior process. The anterior process of the maxilla has a raised anteroposteriorly oriented ridge on the lateral surface. The maxilla also has a rugose lateral surface. Also, the posterior end of the maxilla contacts the jugal. Moreover the shape of the suture between the maxilla and the jugal is serrate in lateral view."

Condense to: "The maxilla of Pseudopalatus has a rugose lateral surface, an elongate anterior process with a raised anteroposteriorly oriented ridge on the lateral surface, and a posterior suture with the jugal that is serrate in lateral view."

All the same information, two lines shorter.

However, it is important to make a distinction between writing clarity and writing style. Just because a writer didn't say something the way that you personally would have written it does not mean that your way is better. Getting back "corrections" on a paper which are strictly stylistic can be extremely annoying. For example, someone might write something like:

"Contrary to the findings of Goober (1965), the maxillae of Smilosuchus and Postosuchus both have a first aveolus twice the size of the more posterior aveoli."

I might personally have written this as: "The maxillae of Smilosuchus and Postosuchus both have a first aveolus twice the size of the posterior aveoli, contra Goober (1965)."

My way cuts down a few words, but not in a really major way, and the meaning of the first sentence is perfectly clear. Therefore, I personally wouldn't edit it. The difference is mostly one of personal style.

Or, someone might write: "The anterior PORTION of the maxilla is mediolaterally expanded", whereas I would write "The anterior PART of the maxilla is mediolaterally expanded", but I know what the fucking word "portion" means in the context without having to think about it.

Another problem some reviewers have is with colloquial terms, such as "the lacrimal is sandwiched between the prefrontal and the maxilla." "Sandwiched" is a fairly unambiguous term, and I know instantly reading this what the sentence means. I probably wouldn't have used the word personally, but I wouldn't suggest changing it. This is a style difference, but not one which hurts the ability of the reader to absorb information.

Incidentally, the particular examples I used were not from a real manuscript. I made them all up, so I hope you weren't taking notes. Douchebag.

WOW.

Wow.