Contrary to All Reason

Catholics embrace the science of evolution, but reject its method.

Miraculously, a Darwin-shaped figure appears inside the Holy Church.
Image: The Onion
Last year the Church of England personally apologized to Darwin for misunderstanding natural selection. Now the Catholic Church is following suit. The Vatican is sponsoring a five-day conference on Darwin to mark the 150th anniversary of The Origin of Species. In a statement on the opening day Cardinal William Levada, head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, said that Church doctrine does not conflict with evolution and that there is a "wide spectrum of room" to accept both.

According to the Associated Press:

"We believe that however creation has come about and evolved, ultimately God is the creator of all things," he said on the sidelines of the conference. But while the Vatican did not exclude any area of science, it did reject as "absurd" the atheist notion of biologist and author Richard Dawkins and others that evolution proves there is no God, he said. "Of course we think that's absurd and not at all proven," he said. "But other than that ... the Vatican has recognized that it doesn't stand in the way of scientific realities."

Of course, hearing the Catholic Church reject atheism is about as meaningful as listening to Newt Gingrich reject "European-style socialism" at CPAC. Both know what side their bread is buttered on. In 2002, according to former Church finance minister Edmund C. Szoka, the Catholic Church held at least $5 billion in assets and had seen their annual profits increase to $22 million. Now that we've entered a global recession they've even revived the old practice of granting indulgences to get yourself or a loved one out of purgatory. While official Church policy is that money is not required for a plenary indulgence, a donation could speed the process along. According to Rev. Chris Decker, pastor of St. Jude Catholic Church in Baton Rouge, LA:

When it comes to money, if people want to make an offering of thanksgiving, sometimes God moves us to action.

So Church officials aren't going to interupt the good thing they've got going, Darwin or no Darwin. But, because the scientific consensus is so strong, they're not able to appear serious any longer if they continue to deny that evolution is a scientific fact. This strategy to bring Darwin into the fold is merely an attempt to continue business as usual by attempting to rebrand natural selection as coming from divine origin. But I think the Catholic Church needs to better understand the definition of the word "absurd" if they're going to be flinging it about as they are.

ab·surd (adj.) utterly or obviously senseless, illogical, or untrue; contrary to all reason or common sense; laughably foolish or false.

Consider the following: Jesus Christ was sent by God (his father, but also himself) in order to die on the cross for the forgiveness of mankind. This was the ultimate sacrifice to atone for the original sin that accrued when Adam and Eve ate the apple in the Garden of Eden (an act that is also the explanation for why women experience pain in childbirth). This is official Church doctrine accepted from the divine authority of Saint Paul the Apostle in Romans 5:15-21.

However, since human evolution completely negates the story of Adam and Eve, that means there was no original sin. So, in other words, the Catholic Church's official view is now that a supernatural entity descended from the sky so that he could be brutally tortured as a way to forgive people for something that never happened in the first place. And this is somehow less absurd than the idea that people invented these stories to help explain phenomena they weren't able to figure out at the time?

I have no doubt that Catholics will eventually figure out a way to explain away the inconsistencies in their ramshackle worldview. 376 years ago Galileo Galilei was condemned by the Pope for daring to say that the Earth moved around the Sun. Psalm 93:1 states explicitly that the Earth "cannot be moved," and it was feared that any claim otherwise would shake Catholic faith in the divine authority of the Bible. Well, the Earth moves and the Pope still wears his red Prada slippers. Catholics managed to read around that quote and they'll do so again, no matter how absurd their justifications may be.

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Alito Rules to "Imagine" No Religion

Image: Billboard by the Freedom From Religion Foundation
John Lennon was invoked as part of a unanimous decision today when the Supreme Court ruled against a religious group in Utah trying to erect a granite marker in a public park.

In a case involving the Salt Lake City-based Summum, the court said that governments can decide what to display in a public park without running afoul of the First Amendment. Pleasant Grove City, Utah, rejected the group's marker, prompting a federal lawsuit that argued that a city can't allow some private donations of displays in its public park and reject others. The federal appeals court in Denver agreed.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the opinion of the court (pdf here) and stated that monuments do not fall under the First Amendment protection of free speech because "permanent monuments displayed on public property typically represent government speech" and that the religious group's argument "fundamentally misunderstands the way monuments convey meaning."

He then quoted the song "Imagine" as an example since New York City erected a monument with that word to honor Lennon's death.

Some observers may “imagine” the musical contributions that John Lennon would have made if he had not been killed. Others may think of the lyrics of the Lennon song that obviously inspired the mosaic and may “imagine” a world without religion, countries, possessions, greed, or hunger.

The entire song was then entered into the Supreme Court docket. So, in a unanimous ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States we have the following opinion:


UPDATE: Summum is apparently a tiny religious sect founded by an ex-Mormon and is based on ancient Egyptian religious concepts. They even offer mummification for people and their pets (starting at the low, low price of $65,000). Doesn't seem any more bizarre than what's already out there in the name of religion. Incidentally, the park where Summum wanted to place their marker already hosts a statue of the Ten Commandments, which sort of sounds like an official government sanction of one religious belief over another. But what is it about Utah and their nutty religious cults?

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The Amazing Threat Alert Jesus

Your Sunday Skepticomic from ThreatAlertJesus.com



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The Blind Leading the Blind

Creationists spin-doctor the evolution of blind cave fish

Image: Jesus! vs. Darwin! by The Searcher
It's a tired old routine, yet time and again the same argument is taken off the shelf, dusted, buffed and then presented with a sly smile as if it were something new. Evolution, it's asserted, is only progressive and builds on earlier adaptations in its march forward through natural history. Therefore, if there is any evidence that a species adapted "backwards" it must mean that natural selection is flawed. However, the fallacy in this argument is that natural selection has nothing to do with progress, it's merely one of the mechanisms by which species successfully adapt to their environment. Genetic mutations don't have a direction in mind when there's a mistake in transcription or as a cosmic ray collides with a nucleotide of cytosine. If the organism succeeds once this genetic alteration occurs, they'll reproduce and spread the mutation further. It says nothing about a march of progress.

Those who oppose evolution without bothering to first understand it have repeatedly hailed this fallacy as a triumph. It was the centerpiece of the laughably bad polemic Icons of Evolution by intelligent design advocate Jonathan Wells (a detailed review can be found here). Now the same sickly horse has again been prodded out to market despite how often such duplicity has been exposed in the past.

In the latest edition of Current Biology (subscription required), Richard Borowsky found that blind cave fish whose genes for vision have mutated over the course of evolutionary history could have their vision returned by interbreeding with other blind cave fish with differently mutated genomes.

According to the review in Science Daily:

The study examined four populations of blind cave fish, Astyanax mexicanus, which inhabit different caves in northeast Mexico. Blind for millennia, these fish evolved from eyed, surface fish. The researchers' genetic analysis showed that the evolutionary impairment of eye development, as well as the loss of pigmentation and other cave-related changes, resulted from mutations at multiple gene sites.

In order to gauge how genetic make-up could bring about the restoration of vision, the researchers created hybrids of the different cave fish populations. Among these various hybrids, they found that nearly 40 percent in some hybrid crosses could see.

Fascinating stuff. These results support the view that different species each adapt to their environment in unique ways, precisely as evolutionary theory predicts. However, the results must have been a little too uncomfortable for intelligent design creationists because immediately both Uncommon Descent and Creation Ministries International (which produces the young Earth themed Journal of Creation) hit upon the news as evidence that evolution must be wrong. Dr. Carl Wieland, writing for Creation Ministries, objects to this evidence of multiple evolutionary trajectories and insists that:

It would not take long at all, once a group of fish are cut off from the daylight by some geological circumstance, for an eye-losing mutation to be established by natural selection as described.

Of course, if Dr. Wieland had bothered to read the actual article (rather than merely the press reports that creationists are so fond of) he would have found that Astayanax mexicanus “evolved from eyed, surface-dwelling forms which only reached the area in the mid-Pleistocene,” that is, between 600,000 to 1 million years ago. How does Borowsky know this? This is where references matter. Earlier research by Ulrike Strecker and colleagues, published in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution (subscription required) showed that mutations occur in freshwater fish at a rate of 1.5% per million years. By analyzing the differences in cytochrome b genes between currently living species and then dating the nearest common ancestor of each in the fossil record, Strecher et al. proposed that Astyanax first arrived in the Yucatan no earlier than 900,000 years ago, just as Borowsky states. How can Wieland be so certain that “it would not take long at all” for such mutations to occur? Not presenting any evidence to back up his assertion we can only wonder how he determined this. But then, already walking down a blind alley, Wieland goes on to make matters even worse by asserting that:

Cave fish have arisen by processes that in fact demonstrate the opposite [of natural selection]—deterioration of function, consistent with the ‘natural’ direction of genetic change in a fallen world.

Here the good spin-doctor rests on the fallacy that has failed so miserably for so long: if evolution is about building up then mutations that result in deterioration must prove evolution is false. But even more than this, the fact that these cave fish have lost their vision supports Dr. Wieland's contention that the sin of man has affected all of creation. If you’re a little confused then you’re in good company. Apparently Wieland (and other Young Earth Creationists in general) think that Adam and Eve’s violation of God’s dictates resulted in the beginning of genetic change. Prior to the “fall” there was no aging, no genetic deterioration and no death. Far from revealing additional evidence to the already weighty tome of evolutionary theory Wieland instead sees evidence of God’s divine plan. And Creationists accuse scientists of imposing their views on nature? Of course, why God in his infinite wisdom would feel it necessary to put out the eyes of a few Mexican fish to punish humans for their hubris is anyone’s guess. But I suppose that's why it's called blind faith.

References:

Borowsky, R. (2008). Restoring sight in blind cavefish. Current Biology 18: R23-R24

Strecker, U., Faundez, V.H. and Wilkens, H. (2004). Phylogeography of surface and cave Astyanax (Teleostei) from Central and North America based on cytochrome b sequence data. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 33(2): 469-481. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2004.07.001

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It's All in the Method

Your Sunday Skepticomic from John Trever.



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How Secularization is Destroying America

Your Sunday Skepticomic from Russell's Teapot.



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Religion Masquerading as Science

Your Sunday Skepticomic from Cox and Forkum



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Polyamory and the Evolution of a Jealous God

Dawkins critiques the myth of monogamy as morality

God the voyeur wants to know what happens in your bedroom.

Image: Adam & Eve by Enrico Baj
In my earlier post, The Origins of Forbidden Love, I highlighted the absurdity of our culture (and dogmatic religions in general) in regards to sexual infidelity. Today, Richard Dawkins has an article in Newsweek that challenges this nearly ubiquitous social “crime” of infidelity. As the good doctor states:

“I want to raise another question that interests me. Why are we so obsessed with monogamous fidelity in the first place?. . . The underlying presumption -- that a human being has some kind of property rights over another human being's body -- is unspoken because it is assumed to be obvious. But with what justification?”

“Even sticking to the higher plane of love, is it so very obvious that you can't love more than one person? We seem to manage it with parental love (parents are reproached if they don't at least pretend to love all their children equally), love of books, of food, of wine (love of Chateau Margaux does not preclude love of a fine Hock, and we don't feel unfaithful to the red when we dally with the white), love of composers, poets, holiday beaches, friends . . . why is erotic love the one exception that everybody instantly acknowledges without even thinking about it? Why can a woman not love two men at the same time, in their different ways? And why should the two – or their wives -- begrudge her this?”

From the perspective of humans as primates, this view is perfectly obvious. Chimpanzees and bonobos (who share around 99% of our DNA) have what’s referred to as a multimale-multifemale mating system. Females have sex with multiple individuals in their troop and make positive choices about which males they’re most interested in. The evolution of sexual jealousy is seen in nascent form in our evolutionary cousins as a sexual partner that is observed mating with another male frequently results in the former male interrupting their l’amour. Males also compete with each other in what biologists refer to as “sperm competition.” Large amounts of ejaculate will be produced in order to “wash out” a previous males' contribution. Chimpanzee and bonobo males are extraordinarily well endowed in the testicle department as a result. A large testicle-to-body size ratio is therefore a strong predictor of a multimale-multifemale mating system.

In contrast to this, gorillas live in a single male-multifemale mating system and the large bodied males have testicles so small that anatomists have reported difficulty in even finding them. This is because there was no selection pressure from the gorilla mating system to produce a large amount of ejaculate (but this doesn’t mean that gorilla females always mate exclusively with their “harem leader,” with predictably jealous tantrums if the alpha male discovers the tryst). Gibbons are monogamous “lesser” apes and likewise have relatively small testes for their body size. In all of these cases the mating system of the primate species in question can be predicted based on male testicle size.

So this leads to the obvious question: are humans more like chimpanzees and bonobos or more like gibbons and gorillas. Unequivocally, (and as you would expect from the genetic evidence) human testicles are more like chimps and bonobos. In fact, in their analysis of the seminal protein genes SEMG1 and SEMG2 (genes that code for semen coagulation or “mating plugs” found exclusively in multimale-multifemale systems) Sarah Kingan and Steve Dorus found a direct correlation between the average number of sexual partners that females of a species will have and the selection for this gene in males. Humans lie closest to chimpanzees and bonobos at both of these loci and this strongly suggests that humans evolved with a multimale-multifemale mating system.

While sexual jealousy is a natural part of such systems, our human predilection is quite extreme and is largely enforced in a completely one-sided, patriarchal form. As I explored in my earlier post, the likely explanation is that religious dogma sought to control female sexuality as if it was the “property” of the male.

“With the power of the state to punish any violation of the law, women were relegated to the status of chattel and their sexual choices were constrained by the threat of capital punishment. It has only been with the rise of secular democracies, and the reduction of religious authority, that women have begun to reclaim their sexual freedom. The last thirty years has seen the largest rise in women’s economic and social power in human history (mostly confined to the West). It’s not coincidental that women have also seen the greatest freedom from sexual coercion and control during this same period.”

While sexual jealousy is unlikely to ever go away, we can take some comfort in the fact that our large brains allow us to recognize the absurdity of our natural reactions and to behave differently if we choose. Far from this being a call to engage in random and frivolous sex, what I (and Dawkins) are suggesting is that monogamy is not the unparalleled moral good that certain well-funded institutions have made it out to be. A committed relationship to a devoted partner is a wonderful experience and, I for one, much prefer it to a life of wanton bachelorhood. By all means be honest and true to your partner (male or female). But also be honest and true to yourself. As a society and as individuals we should understand the diversity of people’s sexual interests and talk about it openly, without clothing our language with a veneer of false piety.

References:

Kingan, S.B., Tatar, M., Rand, D.M. (2003). Reduced polymorphism in the
chimpanzee semen coagulating protein Semenogelin I. Journal of Molecular Evolution 57:159-169. doi: 10.1007/s00239-002-2463-0

Dorus, S., Evans, P.E., Wyckoff, G.J., Choi, S.S., and Lahn, B.T. (2004). Rate of molecular evolution of the seminal protein gene SEMG2 correlates with levels of female promiscuity. Nature Genetics 36: 1326-1329. doi:10.1038/ng1471

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Which Sweatshop Would Jesus Exploit?

Christian company uses Chinese sweatshop to make crucifixes.

Capitalist Jesus asks, "What are the residuals on $4.6 billion?"
My friend over at Atheist Revolution has a regular series entitled Know Them By Their Deeds, in which he asks the simple question: what sort of morals do we find among the so-called Moral Majority? Expect to find this story prominently displayed in the coming weeks as the controversy breaks.

A new report by the National Labor Committee documents how the Association for Christian Retailers mass produces crucifixes in a Chinese sweatshop under appalling conditions. The company is the largest supplier of Christian merchandise in the United States with reported earnings of $4.63 billion in 2006. Ed Brayton (of ScienceBlogs) reported on this breaking story for the Michigan Messenger. According to the report:

"Crucifixes are being made at the Junxingye Factory in Dongguan, China, by mostly young women — several just 15 and 16 years old — forced to work routine 14- to 151⁄2-hour shifts, from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 or 11:30 p.m., seven days a week. There are also frequent 17- to 18-hour shifts ending at 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. and even monthly all-night 221⁄2- to 25-hour shifts before shipments must leave for the U.S. All overtime is mandatory, and anyone missing even a single overtime shift will be docked a full day’s wages. It is common for the workers to be at the factory at least 100 hours a week.

"Workers are paid just 261⁄2 cents an hour, which is half of China’s legal minimum wage (already set at a below-subsistence level) of 55 cents an hour. After fees deducted for room and board, the workers take-home wage can drop to just nine cents an hour.

"Workers are housed in primitive dorm rooms sleeping on narrow double-level metal bunk beds that line the walls. There is no other furniture, and the rooms reek of perspiration. The walls are filthy, smudged with black, while spider webs cling to the ceiling. The bathrooms are so damp and dirty that moss grows on the floor. ...Anyone missing a day due to sickness will, as punishment, be docked two-and-a-half day’s wages. Workers fear that they may be handling toxic chemicals, but they are not told the names of the chemicals and paints, let alone their potential health hazards."

But don't worry. I'm sure Jesus was there with these girls every step of the way, reminding them that if they take any unauthorized bathroom breaks they'll be beaten with a rubber hose. Afterall, it's his image they're producing and he's entitled to 12%. (On a totally unrelated note, what was that little issue about graven images?)

My faith in the Moral Majority is starting to erode a little. What's next? Trent Lott stepping down as Republican Congressional leader amidst allegations of hiring a gay prostitute?

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Animal Torture in God's Name

From Jesus to the Jesuits, animals afflicted with religious cruelty.

The cat piano developed by Roman Jesuits in the 17th century.

Image: Magia universalis, 1657

The Bible is full of descriptions of cruelty to animals. When Jesus exorcises a demon from an afflicted man (see Luke 8:27, though Matthew 8:28 states there were two men) he sends the spirits into a herd of pigs who he then commands to drown themselves in a lake. Why he couldn't have merely drowned the offending spirit(s) without the intermediary isn't explained. However, the religious interpretation that animals are merely to be used for human purposes meets a truly despicable level in this example from historian Anthony Grafton:

Roman Jesuits "developed the cat piano (a clavier whose keys, when played, drove nails into a set of imprisoned cats carefully chosen for their voices, a musical and non-lethal cat massacre . . . guaranteed to cure the most melancholic ruler of his lethargy).

Ghandi has stated that moral progress can be judged by how animals are treated. How exactly can one claim that the Bible offers great moral lessons when such treatment is condoned?

Reference:

Anthony Grafton (2002). Magic and Technology in Early Modern Europe, Dibner Library Lecture, Smithsonian Institution Libraries, p. 18

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Perfect Happiness

Your Sunday Skepticomic from Russell's Teapot.



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Wedging Religion into Science (Again)

Answers in Genesis promotes miseducation in America

Image: Tom Toles/Washington Post
As AiG is currently attacking public science education (and, surprise, not because our science standards are ill preparing our students) I thought it would be appropriate to repost this article from the last time they tried to pull this nonsense. It's organizations like this that continue to ensure that our nation's understanding of evolution reaches a whopping 33rd out of 34 countries (just ahead of Turkey).

--

Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis and creator of the Creation Museum, is currently promoting his new book by submitting sample chapters on his group's website. Entitled War of the Worldviews the book teaches Young-Earth biblical literalists strategies on how to argue against the evidence for evolution.

At the beginning of the chapter he chastises Christians for adopting “flaky evidence” to support their views.

Over the past several years, some so-called “evidence” for creation has been shown not to be reliable. Some of these are

* supposed human and dinosaur footprints found together at the Paluxy River in Texas.
* the small accumulation of moon dust found by the Apollo astronauts.
* a boat-like structure in the Ararat region as evidence of Noah’s Ark.
* a supposed human handprint found in “dinosaur- age rock.”
* a dead “plesiosaur” caught near New Zealand.

Most well-meaning, informed creationists would agree in principle that things which are not carefully documented and researched should not be used. But in practice, many of them are very quick to accept the sorts of evidences mentioned here, without asking too many questions.

Initially I was impressed. Could Ham be urging his readers to seriously engage the scientific evidence in an effort to make reasoned arguments? Alas, this was not the case. His answer to the flaky evidence that creationists have long used is, rather, don’t use any evidence at all!

When someone says they want “proof” or “evidence,” not the Bible, one might respond as follows: “You might not believe the Bible, but I do. And I believe it gives me the right basis to understand this universe and correctly interpret the facts around me.”

Let’s just apply that logic in another way, shall we? There are few scientists today who would argue that bats are actually birds rather than mammals. Pesky issues regarding bone structure and their nursing of infants make this a difficult theory to gain support for. But suppose all of the science isn’t in, the same way that all of the science isn’t in about continental drift (has anyone actually watched continents move?). Isn't there room for an alternative theory?

The Bible clearly states (Deuteronomy 14:11 & 14:18) that bats truly are birds, and they’re unclean birds at that. So by Ham's logic, this evidence deserves equal weight to that of the so-called experts. But as you’re answering a question on your zoology midterm that asks “Are bats birds?” (this is a very introductory level class) and you answer “Yes” I would encourage you NOT to attempt Ham’s suggested response to your science teacher after it's been marked wrong.

Likewise, a solid majority of astronomers (perhaps a little more) accept the evidence that the Earth spins on its axis daily and orbits around the sun. However, the Bible does clearly state that “all the earth: the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved.” (1 Chronicles 16:30). In fact, there are several passages that lend credence to the potentially lucrative field of Christian Geocentric Science (see Job 9:6-7; Job 37:18; Psalm 19:4-6; Psalm 93:1; Ecclesiastes 1:5; you get the picture).

So when someone claims there is evidence for this so-called Heliocentric Theory (afterall, it is only a theory and it's not as though anyone can feel the Earth move) you can simply tell them,

“You might not believe the Bible, but I do. And I believe it gives me the right basis to understand this universe and correctly interpret the facts around me.”

Is it legitimate to use such a response? Should the federal government force teachers to mention this competing theory in science classes? If your answer is yes, than you’ve probably purchased Ham’s book and added to his reported $125,000 yearly salary.

In a related note, as Ham is encouraging the Young-Earthers to back away from “flaky evidence” he might want to take his own advice. During a lecture criticizing the evidence for evolution last year Ham laid the following egg:

He pointed out cave drawings of a creature resembling a brachiosaur to make the case that man lived alongside dinosaurs after God created all the land animals on Day 6.

Cave drawings are evidence? That's what that crank von Däniken tried to pull. This would simply be comic, except for one thing. They're not in on the joke and are teaching hundreds of thousands of children at home schools across the country this very rubbish. They're forming think-tanks, founding law schools and funding politicians and they will not listen to reason. They're being taught not to.

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Lord Ram and his Army of Monkeys

Existence of God questioned before India's Supreme Court


Lord Ram with his vaanar sena building a bridge to Sri Lanka

The Indian government withdrew a report submitted before the Supreme Court that challenged the existence of the Hindu God Ram. The report was in connection with a proposed shipping canal between India and Sri Lanka.

According to the story linked at RichardDawkins.net:

Hindu hardliners say the project will destroy what they say is a bridge built by Ram and his army of monkeys.

Scientists and archaeologists say the Ram Setu (Lord Ram's bridge) - or Adam's Bridge as it is sometimes called - is a natural formation of sand and stones. . . They said there was no scientific evidence to prove that the events described in Ramayana ever took place or that the characters depicted in the epic were real.

As a result the Bharatiya Janata Party (conservative Hindu nationalists that led the government until 2004 - basically the equivalent of modern Republicans) condemned the report for questioning the “faith of the million.” Large-scale protests by Hindu hard-line organizations (which blocked roads and allegedly set a bus on fire) ultimately caused the government to withdraw the report.

While I may have a personal stake in building a primate army I think I'll have to go with the archaeologists on this one.

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The Pro-Life Party

Your Sunday Skepticomic from Jim Morin



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Religion of Peace Death Match

Your Sunday Skepticomic from Joe Heller.



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Incan Path from Religious Beliefs to Evil Deeds

Child sacrifice emphasizes Dawkins' point about religion


Llullaillaco Maiden

In today’s Washington Post, Richard Dawkins has an op-ed entitled “Logical Path from Religious Beliefs to Evil Deeds” in which he lays bold Stephen Wienberg’s well-known quote that “With or without [religion] you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion.”

Dawkins states that:

Nobody is suggesting that all religious people are violent, intolerant, racist, bigoted, contemptuous of women and so on. It would be absurd to suggest such a thing: just as absurd as to generalize about all atheists. I am not even concerned with statistical generalizations about the majority of religious people (or atheists). My concern here is over whether there is any general reason why religion might be more or less likely to bias individuals towards all those unpleasant things in Christopher Hitchens’s list: to make them more likely to exhibit them than they would have been without religion. I think the answer is yes.

As it turns out, a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences was also released today demonstrating that Inca priests would fatten up certain children in order to sacrifice them to their gods. Using ancient hair samples from excavated mummies, British archaeologist Andrew Wilson and colleagues were able to identify distinct changes in the chemical signatures that reflect their diet in the time leading up to their ritual sacrifice.

As reviewed in Science Daily:

By analysing stable isotopes found in the hair samples, Dr Wilson and colleagues were able to see that for much of the time prior to sacrifice, the children were fed a diet of vegetables such as potato, suggesting that they came from a peasant background. Stable isotopes of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen from an individual's diet are deposited in their hair where they can remain unchanged over thousands of years.

However, in the twelve months prior to sacrifice, the isotopic evidence shows that the Maiden's diet changed markedly to one that was enriched with plants such as maize, considered an "elite" food, and protein, likely to have come from charki (dried llama meat).

Sacrifices were performed on children between the ages of 6 and 15, many of them horrifically cruel such as on one individual named the Llullaillaco Boy (from where his body was found atop Mount Llullaillaco, a 6,739m volcano on the border of Argentina and Chile):

Previous research has shown that Llullaillaco Boy appears to have met a particularly horrific end. His clothes were covered in vomit and diarrhoea, features indicative of a state of terror. The vomit was stained red by the hallucinogenic drug achiote, traces of which were also found in his stomach and faeces. However, his death was likely caused by suffocation, his body apparently having been crushed by his textile wrapping having been drawn so tight that his ribs were crushed and his pelvis dislocated.

In line with Dawkins' sentiments, no one is suggesting that the Inca were immoral monsters nor does it undermine their incredible cultural and technological achievements. To do so would be an absurd generalization akin to undermining Michelangelo’s genius because his art adorns the Vatican, which was directly responsible for the atrocious burning of “heretics” and the unleashing of the murderous rampages known as the Crusades (or the Frankish invasions as they’re known in the Middle East).

What this archaeological evidence does is simply reinforce Weinberg’s (and Dawkins’) central premise, now with a historical window encompassing many thousands of years and multiple continents:

It is easy for religious faith, even if it is irrational in itself, to lead a sane and decent person, by rational, logical steps, to do terrible things. There is a logical path from religious faith to evil deeds.

Whether our focus is on the murder of homosexuals in Iran, the bombing of doctor's offices in the United States, or genital mutilation in Africa the evidence is abundantly clear. However, for those who believe that framing science means that scientists should confine their comments to more politically acceptable points of view, perhaps a politically acceptable figure from our nation's past should have the final word:

"God is an essence we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of there will never be any liberal science in the world."

- President John Adams

Reference:

Andrew S. Wilson et al. (2007). Stable isotope and DNA evidence for ritual sequences in Inca child sacrifice. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, to be published in advance online, 1 October 2007

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The Theology of American Empire

Foreign policy and the globalization of original sin



Ira Chemus, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado (Boulder) has a fascinating essay entitled "The Theology of American Empire" posted at Foreign Policy in Focus. He argues that our current administration's foreign policy blunders stem from a deeply flawed sense of moral righteousness based on the views of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr:

American foreign policy is built on a deep foundation of Christian theology. Drawing from the teachings of Reinhold Niebuhr, which applied the notion of original sin to the conduct of foreign relations, neoconservative thinkers believe that organized religion is the most effective institution in promoting moral absolutes and self-control and staving off a rising tide of moral relativism that is breaking down the bulwarks of social order.

Inspired by this neoconservative philosophy, the Bush administration ranks the world's nations according to a moral hierarchy with irrational, sinful enemies at the bottom and the United States at the top in a class by itself because its national motives are somehow untainted by original sin.

How is it then that so many Republican stalwarts in this “New Moral Order” are being arrested for criminal misconduct?

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Science vs. Norse Mythology

Your Sunday Skepticomic from The Pain - When Will It End?

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To view last week's comic click here.

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Creationist Dinosaur Hunters

Creationist revisions and baloney detection.



Richard Dawkins.net linked to this creationist comic strip this morning. It's really unbelievable, you have to see it for yourself. Spoiler alert: God saved the dinosaurs and then his followers systematically slaughtered them.

I know I'm supposed to be "framing science" so as not to intrude on people's delicate fantasy lives, but if ever there was baloney that needed detection this is it.

Credulous acceptance of baloney can cost you money; that's what P. T. Barnum meant when he said, "There's a sucker born every minute." But it can be much more dangerous than that, and when governments and societies lose the capacity for critical thinking, the results can be catastrophic -- however sympathetic we may be to those who have bought the baloney.

In science we may start with experimental results, data, observations, measurements, "facts." We invent, if we can, a rich array of possible explanations and systematically confront each explanation with the facts. In the course of their training, scientists are equipped with a baloney detection kit. The kit is brought out as a matter of course whenever new ideas are offered for consideration. If the new idea survives examination by the tools in our kit, we grant it warm, although tentative, acceptance. If you're so inclined, if you don't want to buy baloney even when it's reassuring to do so, there are precautions that can be taken; there's a tried-and-true, consumer-tested method.

What's in the kit? Tools for skeptical thinking.

- Carl Sagan, The Demon Haunted World

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A Religious Movement I Can Believe In

Buddhists put American Evangelicals to shame.


Monks march for justice in Myanmar.

Unlike the mainstream American religious movement over such frivolous issues as opposing family planning, trying to get prayer in school or forcing biology teachers to promote Intelligent Design pseudoscience, some religious movements are actually working to promote freedom and tolerance.

The New York Times is reporting today on thousands of Buddhist monks in Myanmar defying their country’s dictatorship to march for democracy and social justice. Not only are they resisting the government’s warning not to join the popular movement, they’re directly violating their religious leader’s directives:

On Monday the head of the official Buddhist organization, the Sangha, directed monks to confine themselves to learning and propagating the faith. It said young monks were being “compelled by a group of destructive elements within and without to break the law,” the newspaper said.

The minister was quoted by the newspaper as saying these “destructive elements” included the political party led by the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is being held under house arrest, remnants of the now-defunct communist party and some foreign radio stations.

While these monks may differ from me in epistemological questions and it’s doubtful we’ll ever see eye to eye on gender equality (Buddhist tradition, like Christianity and Islam, is largely patriarchal and homophobic) at least they’re putting their faith into practice and helping to make the world a place where we can celebrate diversity and freedom.

American evangelicals (the largest and most vocal religious activists in the United States) should be embarrassed. These monks are risking imprisonment or death to speak out for radical reforms that affect people’s lives. From their position of unprecedented privilege all American theists will march for is to post the Ten Commandments in courtrooms or because they think two guys kissing is icky. Where is the American movement for liberation theology that has been working for social justice in Latin America? Can you imagine James Dobson or Pat Robertson announcing that we need to send our donations to Chiapas to help the struggling Zapatistas? To shame.

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