The Questioning Librarian

This morning I finished watching Django Unchained , the latest Tarantino film to grace movie theaters across the country. There were plenty of critics, but also plenty who loved the film, including myself. The movie follows Django, a freed slave, as he becomes a bounty hunter and seeks to find and free his wife, shooting a good number of Southern slaveholders in the process. The film is partly a revenge fantasy, as Django kills the overseers who whipped his wife, her current owner, and most of the slave master's hired guns and overseers. It seems that quite a number of stories that we enjoy center around the quest for revenge, whether it is The Count of Monte Cristo, the "Kill Bill" series of films or Charles Bronson's character in Death Wish.  It must say something deeply about our culture, perhaps even us as a species, that we take such delight in witnessing characters take revenge on those who have wronged them, almost universally choosing means that are outsi...

It is easy to get frustrated, and never more so when witnessing the absolute gullibility of humanity. We all know, of course, about the strange beliefs that some people hold, that aliens abduct and probe humans, that aliens built the pyramids, that planes disappear in the Bermuda Triangle and that Bigfoot is walking around somewhere in the undiscovered wilds. We may shake our heads at the fact that some people swallow an endless number of conspiracy theories, seeing the hidden hand of the Freemasons, the Illuminati, the Jews, or some other secretive power behind the workings of the world. We rightly mock and ridicule anyone who seriously believes that FEMA is setting up detention camps, just waiting for a crisis to allow them to impose a fascistic "New World Order" on the United States, or that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a false flag operation. These are easy targets, however, and only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to wrong and foolish things that we believe. ...

This is a call to action. Now, with evolution under assault, and also much of science in many different fields facing similar treatment, we who love and respect science have a duty to speak out to defend it. As much as we might wish it otherwise, creationism, in spite of losing nearly every battle it has fought thus far, is not dead by any stretch of the imagination. Instead, creationism evolves over time, taking new guises in hopes of getting into the classroom, forcing its views on the entire body of students. We who are on the side of science have fought them as well, but the battle is ongoing. Science in the classroom remains under assault, with evolution, climate change and modern geology being the prime focus of irrational attacks.  The anti-science opposition is vocal, persistent, well-organized and well-funded, and they have long triumphed in the minds of much of the public. Whether it is Answers in Genesis with its Creation Museum, and now the taxpayer-supported Ark Encou...

Congratulations to Answers in Genesis! You are now an award-winning institution, having become the proud recipient of the Upchucky Award, the second distinguished prize of that name, given by the National Center for Science Education to the most egregious, anti-science promoters of creationism, acting bravely in the face of all facts, logic and reason! http://ncse.com/evolution/second-annual-upchucky-awards-announced It was a tough field this year, what with the creationist teacher who branded crosses onto several of his students using a Tesla coil being in the running, but thanks to the lunacy of AiG's "Ark Encounters" project, supported with taxpayer money by the governor of Kentucky (stand proud, Kentuckians!) Ken Ham's brainchild pulled ahead and won. Its particular brand of crazy was, this year, just enough to make all rational folk throw up, if only just a little. Thanks for the endless entertainment, AiG. I would say, "Keep up the good work," we...

Welcome to the mind of the shameless, and apparently heartless, Ray Comfort, creationist and so-called Christian apologist extraordinaire (also known as "the Banana Man" in rational company for one of his less-spectacular arguments for the existence of God. Seriously, look it up, it's rather amusing). In a recent blog post, he writes that atheists, who obviously can't "blame God" for the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, must view it as a positive, part of the workings of evolution that is itself a good process bent on improvement. Such a foolish misunderstanding of what evolution is (likely a purposeful one, used to attack his critics, like Oxford professor Richard Dawkins) never fails to get my hackles up. Full article here:  http://raycomfortfood.blogspot.com/2011/03/atheists-explanation-for-killer-quakes.html First of all, it does not follow that an atheist, lacking a God to "blame" in Comfort's view, would view any such tragedy as a pos...

Well it seems that, once again, I don't have to search very hard to find something to write about. Take Chris Taylor, for instance, once a teacher in the great state of Texas who decided to spill his guts on Twitter, perhaps being overly-burdened by the fact that he never made these beliefs known while he was in the classroom. After proclaiming his desire to go back to teaching, he promises to "shove my beliefs down the throats of my stds." Just in case you were wondering, he means students, not STDs. I'm not concerned with some of the political statements that follow, about Israel re-annexing the Gaza Strip and the need for Canadians to listen to Beck and Limbaugh to become smarter (up for debate in their own right, but not my concern here; everyone is entitled to their own political opinion, no matter how uninformed and ignorant it may be). No, my concern is with his blatantly evolution-denying posts (well, in fairness, I'm concerned about most of them, but th...

Listening to NPR this morning while I was getting ready to leave, I was struck by the feature story that I was hearing over the airwaves, about the intersection of climate change and religion in Kiribati. In this little nation, where the overwhelming majority are deeply religious, many of the 33 islands are but six and a half feet above sea level while the most modest projections for sea level rise are around three feet according to IPCC estimates (which, according to the book I'm in the process of reading by Peter Ward, failed to take into account several factors which makes this estimate moot anyway; the actual rise in this century will be much higher, followed by endless centuries of rise). But even in this nation, surely a sign of the grim reality of climate change, as certain freshwater sources become increasingly saline and undrinkable, deniers exist. One interviewed man based his opposition on the Biblical Flood story of Noah in which, after the Ark landed on dry land, say...

In Mansfield, Texas, the school district won a grant to teach Arabic classes. Originally labeled as mandatory, the district has since backed down, dissembling that they are not, in fact, mandatory. Still, parent remain "concerned" that their children might be exposed to a language other than English. They fear that learning Arabic might somehow transform their children into Koran-reading Muslims; it's a marker of that fear that the district has made clear that teaching Arabic does not involve religious training. The upset parents said that they should have been told months ago about the grant, to what end I'm not quite sure. Bigotry is on parade here, the irrational fear of the "Other." America needs translators of Arabic, and also Mandarin Chinese, now more than it ever has, and such people are exactly what it does not have. If this country ceases to be great, it will be because of unfounded fears like this in Mansfield. We should not stop the important...

It's no secret; I hate stupidity, and it doesn't matter whether it comes from the Left or the Right, whether it's religious or secular. I still hate it, and feel free to hold it up for public mockery. So it is with an article in yesterday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette , noting that a number of religious authorities, including several clergymen, said that it was alright for locals to pray for a Steelers' victory in the Super Bowl. Completely disregarding the fact that they didn't win, am I the only person who finds this kind of talk simply ludicrous? Even if one believes that there is a God who answers prayer, I fail to see how such a Deity, who must surely be the most busy entity in existence, would care about a single game on one day that in reality is far less important than most people seem to think. This is a blatant sop by Western Pennsylvania religious figures to a public whose devotion to the Steelers approaches a quasi-religious level. While most may sim...

It is hard to say where to begin when dismantling something this irrational, so I suppose I should follow the advice of the king in Through the Looking Glass to Alice, to start at the beginning and keep going until I've reached the end. A common misconception that ran through media stories about Stephen Hawking's latest book,  The Grand Design , was that Hawking claimed that there is no God. Nonsense. In the book, Hawking claimed that modern physics has no need  of the idea of God to explain the world as we know it. He never claims that there is explicitly no God; there is a difference between the two, and it is clear that neither of the authors of the letter took the time to read it and find out for themselves (nor is it obvious that they would have the intelligence to finish it or comprehend any of it). The second false assertion is that "We have evidence that God exists." No, we do not. Belief or non-belief in a God or any Deity remains a matter of personal faith...

I was recently made aware of a letter that was written to The Clarion News , the local newspaper of the town in which I attend college. The authors of said letter purport that the Bible is a better source of information about the world than "science" (their air quotes, not mine). They then go on to make a series of false, unsupported and outright wrong claims about what the Bible says versus what "science" said. They are also extremely generous in their interpretation of Scripture to support their own case and careful to pick out old positions in science to make it seem ridiculous. Shooting them down is child's play. I wish that I could link the entire article, but one has to subscribe to The Clarion News  in order to view it and, even were I a subscriber any readers could not view it even by selecting the link. I was provided with the transcript which I reproduce here. No copyright infringement intended; naturally I don't lay claim to owning any of this n...

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...

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...

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...