Author: VD

Charlotte Allen notices the obvious in the Washington Post:

“Women ‘Falling for Obama,’ ” the story’s headline read. Elsewhere around the country, women were falling for the presidential candidate literally. Connecticut radio talk show host Jim Vicevich has counted five separate instances in which women fainted at Obama rallies since last September. And I thought such fainting was supposed to be a relic of the sexist past, when patriarchs forced their wives and daughters to lace themselves into corsets that cut off their oxygen.

I can’t help it, but reading about such episodes of screaming, gushing and swooning makes me wonder whether women — I should say, “we women,” of course — aren’t the weaker sex after all. Or even the stupid sex, our brains permanently occluded by random emotions, psychosomatic flailings and distraction by the superficial. Women “are only children of a larger growth,” wrote the 18th-century Earl of Chesterfield. Could he have been right?

Short answer: yes. But the women’s foolishness she mentions is far from harmless, unfortunately, it will likely require the collapse of Western civilization – or at least its partial conquest by non-feminized cultures – before it will be universally acknowledged that permitting female influence in government does not yield significantly better long-term results than permitting children a similar influence. If this statement upsets you, then I’d be very interested in hearing what, precisely, you believe the difference would likely be. As it stands, most government policy revolves around giving anyone who screams loud enough whatever they want.

It’s been said that if women had run the world from the start, we’d still be living in caves. That’s an exaggeration, of course; matriarchal societies actually tend to produce grass-hut dwellers. To me, the interesting question is if a post-patriarchal culture will survive long enough to return to hut-dwelling or if it will simply die out altogether.

Science aficionado Scott Hatfield raises a hypothesis and asks a question:

Vox likes to talk of scientistry, scientody, and other self-appointed neologisms, and the unmistakable impression I receive is that he resents the relative standing of science in the intellectual world and would like to see it taken down a peg. In this respect Vox Day, the ‘Christian Libertarian and Forensic Atheologist’, has more in common with the science envy displayed by post-modern readers in the sociology of science.

Resents? Science envy? By no means! After all, by one of the temporary definitions of science put forth by the science fetishists, I am myself a member of the secular priesthood, if a low-ranking one. And I hasten to point out that the aforementioned neologisms are merely my labels for the definitions of science provided for us by an atheist scientist, they’re not my definitions. I would like to see a reform of scientistry in defense of scientage and scientody; it’s precisely because I value the latter two that I tend to oppose the former.

In return, I should very much like to know Scott’s definition of science, if PZ’s is unsatisfactory.

I was getting ready to put this dog to bed when I came across a cute little note from fellow Molly winner Blake Stacey about the effects of a series of posts over at Pharyngula. Essentially, the owner of that blog (PZ Myers) was instrumental in marshaling his readership to investigate possible plagiarism and other sins in a peer-reviewed publication, as described here.

What makes this especially fascinating is that it shows that peer review is (of course!) not perfect, as it is done by human beings; at the same time, it shows that the larger role of the scientific community to ‘review’ the reviewers is well-served by the existence of a network of science bloggers! So, Vox, if you’re reading this, please acknowledge that science blogging, even if not science itself, contributes to an important part of the scientific method, which is peer review.

I will certainly do no such thing! I will, however, acknowledge that science blogging, while not science itself, contributes to an important part of the scientific PROFESSION, which is peer review. Ironically, Scott provides us with an illustration of why the distinctions between scientistry, scientody and scientage are so important. Peer review is nothing more than a form of professional group editing, as one commenter previously pointed out, peer review is no more science than a group of editors writing the daily unsigned editorial for the opinion page is news.

“Meta-science” is good, but in this case, “not-science” is better.

I think my publisher was a bit taken aback when I let him know that not only was the journal of the Savitri Era Learning Forum interested in publishing an excerpt from TIA, but that I was entirely inclined to permit them to do so. He was sympathethic, however, when I pointed out that it would be hypocritical of me to openly declare that I am pro-crazy, then turn up my nose at the first Zen-science journal to come along. Besides, from my perspective, random gurus with German names living in India have at least as much intellectual credibility as any of the Unholy Trinity.

To the publisher’s eternal credit, he threw up his hands and said, “hey, why not,” and promptly granted permission. I love BenBella, I really do.

And let’s face it, how could you possibly be expected to resist a name like Koantum Matters?

Another college atheist writes in defense of Sam Harris:

I read your book today. I too, was a Chrsitian, and a fairly conservative one. But I had some questions about it, and Sam Harris book turned me away from it. I found most of your attacks on Harris to be erronous. Except for when you talked about Harris glossing over the evils of Stalin and Mao (you’re dead right there) it sounded like you were distorting what Harris said, or at least what he meant. Also, I never read that Harris thoguht religion was worse than rape–did you make that up?

It’s very strange that this kid could see through the spurious nature of Harris’s No True Atheist defense of communism, yet not recognize the ridiculous nature of the Red State argument and other Harrisian fabrications. As for the hope that I’m dumb enough to simply fabricate quotes relating to a controversial subject, well, here’s the notorious statement right here:

Saltman: “Your analogy between organized religion and rape is pretty inflammatory. Is that intentional?”

Harris: I can be even more inflammatory than that. If I could wave a magic wand and get rid of either rape or religion, I would not hesitate to get rid of religion. I think more people are dying as a result of our religious myths than as a result of any other ideology.

It’s sad that a child raised Christian would turn away from the faith of his fathers. But one despairs for the human race to know that anyone could do so on the basis of arguments made by Sam Harris. Mercury in the vaccines is the only plausible explanation.

UPDATE – Speaking of vaccine damage, another TIA reviewer is obviously quite reliable on the details in his review of the response to Clinton, Sam, and the crew:

Robert Beale, right wing blogger, video gamer and part-time Christian fantasy novelist is the literary equivalent of Ann Coulter, and his frequent invocation of the Holocaust, race, gender, class and other cultural hot buttons on his Vox Populi blog is an exercise in intellectual bomb throwing.

I particularly enjoyed the claim that I confuse correlation with causation, when I specifically point out that it is the very high level of correlation that suggests causation. The New Atheists, on the other hand, are permitted by their acolytes to assume causation without even demonstrating correlation in the first place.

Richard Dawkins has demonstrated why evolutionary biologists should stick to biology. Now a soon-to-be physics PhD demonstrates why physics majors should stick to physics in his cursory attempt to review a single chapter of TIA:

1. Entirely, well, idiotic argument that religion has not produced means to destroy the world while science has. Of course religion has not produced a means to feed people, while food has, which means religion is useless. Wow… bad start, Voxy.

Uselessness has nothing to do with it. Imminent danger to the human race is the subject at hand, due to Sam Harris’s assertion that Science + Faith = Human Extinction. Since it has been proven that the danger cannot derive from Faith, even eliminating Faith from the equation means that the threat to humanity will still remain so long as Science exists. Logic therefore dictates that either Harris is incorrect – in which case he has no argument against Faith – or he should be advocating the End of Science. Bad logic, Andy. I note that claiming that food has produced a means to feed people is a tautology… stick to the math, college boy, it’s clear that both logic and analogy are beyond you.

2. More arguments that knowledge is evil. Yawwwwn…

Is he stating a belief that absolutely no knowledge is evil? Or even dangerous? Because I certainly don’t argue that knowledge is inherently evil, (although I think I could make a fairly convincing case for the knowledge of the taste of a virgin’s still-beating heart), I do argue that some knowledge can be dangerous. I find it hard to believe that he seriously disagree with this, I suspect he’s merely intellectually careless.

3. More refutations of Harris’ argument that religion can cause evil. Argument entirely identical that it’s not the man who commits murder who’s at fault, it’s the knife, whose existence is responsible. So far so bad…

Again, Andy can’t do analogy correctly. His man-knife example rests on the fact that “man” is a sentient object and can be responsible for murder, but “knife” is not and therefore cannot be. However, both “Religion” and “Science” are equally abstract concepts and equally capable of being held responsible (or if you prefer, not responsible) for endangering humanity. If one must bring murder into it, both Motive and Means are considered relevant factors in proving a crime, in fact, Means is the more significant factor. So far, still got nothing, Andy.

4. A sort of an argument that not all current science is “good” science, as if that means something, or as if he’s discovering something no one knew.

It certainly does mean something. It means either “bad science” should be held against science, or “bad religion” should not be held against religion. Pick one, I don’t care. And, of course, it also eviscerates the romantic idea that mutable science can be the basis of an objective and rational moral standard.

5. Argument that there are some things we’re better off never knowing. Ridiculous for a variety of reasons, ranging from the fact that there will never be agreement as to who gets to decide which knowledge must never be pursued, to the fact that making a subject taboo is possibly the best way to ensure someone explores it.

Yes, this is why scientists publish information on making nuclear weapons and biological agents in public journals available for free download on the Internet. I submit that the idea that humanity is better off knowing every possible piece of information is not only stupidly short-sighted, it’s downright insane.

6. Oh lordy… “for the first two-thirds of the scientific era, life expectancy was comparable to that of ancient Rome.” I think he thinks this is somehow meaningful, because apparently if the progress of medicine, as measured directly by life expectancy, does not exactly match progress in every other discipline of science, this invalidates all of science.

Andy apparently scored rather better on his Math than his Reading Comprehension. The fact that science has not altered human life expectancy anywhere nearly as much as is commonly assumed doesn’t invalidate anything about science, it invalidates a claim to a specific benefit of science made by many science fetishists.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why you should never be impressed by the mere possession of an expensive piece of paper sold to an individual by a paper-selling institution, or expect those possessing such pieces of paper to be capable of even the most rudimentary reading comprehension or logical analysis.

We have a Broncos fan in our midst…. No, I only jest in order to show that if I’m so ruthlessly insensitive that I will publicly poke fun at a guy condemned to life in a wheelchair or a poor little crippled boy* for the sake of my own amusement, just imagine what I’m willing to do to you.

Now, wheelchairs. One of the regulars has a request:

I’m disabled and, now that I’m finishing up school, am looking into buy a wheelchair-accessible van to use for employment. It’s proving to be more costly than I first anticipated, so I’m investigating places that might be able to help me out a bit. I’m searching out local charities and agencies, but would like to spread the net as widely as possible, so thought that you (among others) might be worth asking for leads. Can you suggest any philanthropic groups in the US who might be appropriate?

This is a subject of which I remain thankfully ignorant, but I imagine some of the more charitable and/or less fortunate in our midst might know something about it. If you’ve got any thoughts on the matter, post them here please.

* Won a much-treasured Bane award for that, actually. I like to consider myself an award-winning cruelty artist.

In which we are reliably informed that the New Atheism is dead:

So basically Vox “Turbo Porsche” Day is confining his attention to the three least credible atheists in the entire movement — all of whom are already being disavowed and renounced by significant numbers of atheists, who are waking up to the fact that those three have contributed little or nothing to the most important battles of their day. Wake me up when Day and WorldNutDaily are ready to take on a less easy (and more relevent) target.

If any atheists would like to point me towards any more difficult and more relevant targets, I’d be happy to consider their arguments as well. But it seems I have done such a number on Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens that they are now described – by atheists – as being “the three least credible atheists in the entire movement”. Now, I’m openly contemptuous of all three men and find them to be worthy of very little credibility, let alone respect, but even I wouldn’t go quite that far.

By the way, it’s not “Turbo Porsche” these days, it’s “Lamborghini Libertarian”. Do try to keep up.

I’ve argued that what now passes for “school” is nothing more than a statist propaganda factory meant to intellectually cripple children for a long time, but now a California appeals court has confirmed this to be the case:

A California court has ruled that several children in one homeschool family must be enrolled in a public school or “legally qualified” private school, and must attend, sending ripples of shock into the nation’s homeschooling advocates as the family reviews its options for appeal…. Specifically, the appeals court said, the trial court had found that “keeping the children at home deprived them of situations where (1) they could interact with people outside the family, (2) there are people who could provide help if something is amiss in the children’s lives, and (3) they could develop emotionally in a broader world than the parents’ ‘cloistered’ setting.”

There are few things more mindlessly cruel than sentencing a child to public school. The school Nazis know their factories are under threat, which is why they are ratcheting up the pressure on families who don’t obediently send their children to the intellectual death showers.

The second print-run left the printers today, so the books are on their way to the distributor. Figure about a week for them to get to Amazon and get processed, then another three days to your house. I’m sorry about the delay.