The Questioning Librarian

Yesterday I finished Michael Shermer's book Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design , a book that I had been meaning to read for a while but I only now got around to doing (which seems to be the case for so many books, by the way). The subtitle says it all; Shermer, a frequent debater in the "conflict" between evolution and creationism, is out to destroy the notion of intelligent design. It isn't hard. After years of being on the attack against science tooth and nail, with the Discovery Institute leading the way and funded by radical fundamentalists, proponents of this failed theology have been pushed back on nearly every front, laughed out of the courtroom in Dover, and have managed to publish exactly one peer-reviewed paper. That's right, one. Even that one wasn't about promoting Intelligent Design, per se, but it was a paper critical of a very specific idea in evolution. In a valuable chapter, Shermer outlines the numerous evidences for ...

In the past two days, I have been stunned and awed by the news coming out of Egypt. It was so inspiring to watch the Egyptian people defying their tyrannical government this morning, defying the curfew and bravely attacking the Interior Ministry (home of the hated police forces) in spite of armed policemen guarding it. What wasn't inspiring was the diplomatic response to Egypt's moment. This morning on CNN one of the anchors was interviewing a former U.S. Ambassador to Israel. She posed the question to him, "How do we stop this?" and that surely he agreed that it had to be stopped. He nodded, adding that the U.S. is walking a fine line right now, not wanting to throw such a good ally as Hosni Mubarak under the bus but aware that he must change. The Ambassador informed the viewing public that the U.S. has supported Mubarak while urging reform since 1992. Hardly the inspirational moment that I had hoped to get from the diplomatic corps. This is the wrong angle to ...

Thanks to Michael Shermer for the link to this article, also for confirming that, yes, "Dr." Kent Hovind is still in jail after being convicted of tax evasion. Too bad he doesn't accept evolution, then he could pull the creationist canard that "well if we're nothing more than animals, then people will act like it," as an excuse. The occasion that now finds Hovind blasting Shermer and the Skeptics Society is a fundraising dinner for the organization; he is infuriated that somehow he even received the mailing, listing the top ten myths about evolution. "Shame on you!" he says, finger wagging, to the Skeptics Society. He goes on to discuss how he's debated (and apparently won, in his mind) debates with Shermer in the past, and decides to attack these "myths" as actually being true! In regard to debating Shermer, he declares that he "will do it again (plus 10 other evolution experts to assist him) any day of the week with 90% of my...

Yesterday afternoon, I was pleased to finish Richard Fortey's excellent book Dry Storeroom No. 1  detailing the behind-the-scenes workings of the Natural History Museum in Great Britain. Sounds like it would be a deathly dull book, doesn't it? In the deft hands of Fortey, however, nothing could be further from the truth! Richard Fortey is just the man to pen a book on this topic; not only is he an excellent writer ( Trilobite!  is another good example of his prose), but he has also spent his entire career at the NHM and has the view that can only be provided by an insider such as he. Retired since 2006, Fortey was the expert on trilobites for the museum, and his exposition of the inner workings of the institution are simple amazing. He proceeds in steps through the different divisions of the museum, mingling personal reflections with stories of the many, often colorful, characters who have worked there over the years and discussions of the history and work of each department...

That's right. Ken Ham posted on his Answers in Genesis website how disappointed and upset he was when he saw Glenn Beck and a Jewish rabbi discussing the Tower of Babel, not in a literal sense but as a figurative tale. Unsurprisingly, Glenn Beck saw it as a parable about socialism, how man all became the same, but then God brought down the tower and everyone became happy individuals again. It's an interpretation that could nicely be called "novel", but of course Beck has many such "novel" interpretations of things. Ken Ham's just mad that Beck doesn't (apparently) believe in a literal Babel. Here's the link:  http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2011/01/24/help-us-defend Ken wants us all to know that his supporters should pray, or give money, to help defend the truth of AiG from an unbelieving world."We need to be doing all we can to help people understand that the history in the Bible is true." Yes, because we all know that eve...

Once more, dear readers, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review proves itself no friend of the environment, nor a help in finding solutions to America's coming energy crisis. No, instead, they remain stuck in the past, helplessly, willingly, in thrall to the gas, oil and coal companies that once powered our country but whose time has now come. The good editors at the Trib decided to take aim at solar power in their editorial "More 'green' folly." The occasion? The shutdown of Evergreen Solar, Inc. in Massachusetts after two years there and $30 million in state subsidies. This serves as an excuse for the attack against green technology that follows. http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/s_719316.html The editors claim that alternative fuels are a white elephant, the only thing green about them their "insatiable appetite for the public's green." They "remain affixed to the public dime. And that's neither palatable nor sustainable...

While I'm on the subject of email hoaxes, I thought I'd address another of these pernicious lies that seem to start with a randomly forwarded email. They then come to take on a life of their own where they become "true" because everyone agrees after having read the same email and failed to even take the most basic checks on it. This time, I'm talking about the persistent lie about the Presidential dollar coins. I've been forwarded this email twice, both times having been disappointed that the sender (same person) failed to fact check, and apparently forgot that I already replied as to the untruth of the email. The substance of the email claims that, first, the national motto "In God We Trust" has been removed from the new dollar coins, and it is such an outrage that everyone should refuse them if offered. Further, in the conspiracy-mindset of many in this country, they claim that this is yet another strike in the liberal-atheist "war" o...

I have email! In my inbox yesterday, I had been forwarded an email by a friend purportedly telling about the exciting new discovery of the Bakken Formation in the Dakotas and Montana where, this email claimed, the United States had more oil than "the entire Middle East!" Further, it made the astonishing claim, allegedly backed up by the US Geological Survey, that this formation contains 500 billion barrels of oil, which would not only end U.S. dependence on foreign oil and give Americans their light sweet crude at "just $16 PER BARREL!" But wait, there's more! The deposit will fuel the economy "for 2041 years." Here I can only assume that the unknown author meant we would have enough until  2041. Sounds good, doesn't it? Smells like snake oil to me. The fact-checking website Snopes.com kicks this one to the curve. The Bakken Formation is, in fact, real, but the projections given are, naturally, vastly inflated. Given that, according to Snopes, ...

Ken just can't stand all the bad press he's been getting in the blogosphere over his "Ark Encounters" project, as well as for a lifetime spent trashing science and promoting a fable. He complained about it twice on his Facebook page in the past few days; he consoled himself with the statement of a friend that "Nothing reveals the heart of a man more than blog space!" Ham writes that it makes him think of a verse from the Bible, Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?" So, for everyone out here, a (mercifully) brief glimpse into the inner workings of Ken Ham's mind. Blogs=heart of man. Thus bad blog press=wicked sinful man. Or more succinctly, blogs critical of him signal the sinful nature of man. Because after all, lying to children, parents, the general public, the people and government of Kentucky, whether willfully or not, isn't wrong if it is done in the service of God, right? ...

I happened upon the website for Answers in Genesis this morning and found, under Ken Ham's blog, a lovely post where he has put up the account of a young girl who visited the Creation Museum. http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2011/01/18/a-day-at-the-creation-museum/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+KenHam+(Around+the+World+with+Ken+Ham) Isn't it great to know that, right now, even as I write this, children are being encouraged to believe that which never was, that which science has continually shown to be untrue? Instead of giving the future of America a first-rate education in the sciences, and the reality of what science is telling us, we get a definite subculture in promoting a delusion, that of a literal, six-day creation. This child writes of seeing representations of Adam and Eve, of Methuselah, and Noah building the Ark (just how exactly did he fit all of those animals on board...and if the waters covered all the world,...

Well, as I suppose most of us know, the 19th and 20th Centuries saw great advances in achieving equal rights not only for minorities but especially for women. Think of how far we've come (and also how far we have yet to go), from a state where women are essentially property of their fathers and then their husbands, their sole occupation (at least for women with husbands wealthy enough to support them) being to stay at home, tend to the house and bear as many children as possible. Few careers were open to them, and often jobs such as teaching were a temporary matter until a suitable marriage was possible. Now women are in the workplace in force, are theoretically equal under the law and many career paths are open to them. Marriage is not a complete necessity, and they can vote and own property under their own name. But, never fear, there are always people ready to take us back to the glorious past where men were men, women were in the kitchen and blacks were conveniently out of si...

Most of the scientific community has known for years that the idea of a link between vaccines and autism is simply wrong. "Dr." Andrew Wakefield somehow managed to get his study claiming a link between the two published in the British medical journal  The Lancet in 1994, a lapse on their part. In the years since, based on the tireless and, I would say, heroic, efforts of investigative journalist Brian Deer, The Lancet  made a full retraction of Wakefield's paper in February of last year. The UK General Medical Council investigated, and subsequently condemned Wakefield in light of Deer's work,  calling the good doctor, "callous, unethical and dishonest." Strong words from a major medical organization. And now, we have a study done by Deer, published in the British Medical Journal  (BMJ) further discussing and dismissing Wakefield's work, calling it an "elaborate fraud." Surely with all the continual and overwhelming denunciations of this man a...

In their long-running vendetta against any measure of environmental protection, the editorial columnists at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review took aim yesterday at Virginia's proposal to place a twenty-cent tax on plastic bags in a well-meaning effort to both tamp down on the use of plastic bags and raise money. Here's the full editorial: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/s_718253.html In "Bagged", the Trib first takes issue with the fact that the tax is based on Ireland's similar tax of 20 pence, faulting them for not taking exchange rates into account in determining the 20-cent tax (irrelevant). The author calls this proposed tax "long on liberal rhetoric but precariously short on any discernible public benefit," claiming that, according to a study of the Wall Street Journal  plastic bags "take up a minuscule portion of landfill waste" and are thus handily defeating any claim that plastic bags in any way are detrimental t...

I recently finished Stephen Hawking's newest book, "The Grand Design" last night, and I thought I would spend the post today talking a little about it. It was very well-written, and written at a level that makes it an accessible text for the educated public. A layman interested in the findings of physics, such as myself, can pick it up and not feel lost because they never took physics beyond high school. What Hawking, and Mlodinow, have to say (and it isn't clear who did most of the writing of the two) is fascinating as they chart the historical progression of science in answering the Big Questions that they mention at the start of the book; Why is there something rather than nothing, why do we exist, etc. They discuss the nature of reality, the historical progression of scientific naturalism, quantum theory, the search for the Theory of Everything and other topics. It was all easy to understand, save the chapter on quantum theory which I struggled through. As I sai...

Yesterday's post had me so disconcerted and upset that I felt I had to continue on for one more day. There are several, specific claims made by the Cornwall Alliance, the group behind the "Green Dragon" series that I felt were worthy of being singled out for rebuttal, though the entire production seems to be based upon false information and premises. Here's another, slightly modified, promotion for the series: The first idea is that environmentalism is a world view. Well, yes it is. Let's be clear about that, certainly, but it is a world view premised upon caring for the earth and all the inhabitants of it; fighting climate change, pollution, deforestation, overfishing and so forth. Environmentalism is about looking around our planet, seeing the problems rather than pretending that they do not exist and taking solid action to fix those problems. And make no mistake, cloaking yourself in the rhetoric of religion and the idea that "God will take care of us...

Perhaps I'll start with this one. I shouldn't be surprised, I'm sure, but I still am regardless. At just the time we need to bring everyone in to address this issue, radicals from the "religious right" step in to act as corporate lackeys to cloud the issue. Watch this video. Yes, that's right. Environmentalism is a false god that will destroy your Christian faith, bring down God, indoctrinate your children, establish global governance, turn us all into pagans, and so on and so forth. It's hard to find a place to begin attacking the stupidity and wrong-headed assumptions about this video. Just when people start to grown concerned about the state of the environment, the useful idiots are sent in to assure us that, it's ok, don't recycle, keep driving your Hummer, dump oil in the Gulf, whatever. Just don't worry, because God gave us dominion over the earth and we can do whatever the heck we want because God will take care of us. Well, a person...

I've been thinking about starting this for a while; I already have a blog, but it is a blog for an organization to which I belong and is for said organization rather than my own personal playing field. So that's where "The Mockingjay" comes in; this is my personal blog, for what it's worth, where I can post...well, whatever I want. Hopefully it leans toward being erudite rather than whatever comes to mind. What's my goal? Yes, I do actually have a goal aside from having an outlet for my personal thoughts. My idea is that this will not only be a place to share any thoughts, especially reviews of books I read or what few movies I see, but this is a place dedicated to shining the light of truth upon false claims and ridiculous ideas of all stripes. Too much passes for knowledge and information that is utterly untrue, irrational or simply stupid, and in the last few years my tolerance for this has grown progressively lower. Time for Reason to push back against ir...