A Mystery Story by Joseph Shallit

My father, Joseph Shallit, was a journalist who also wrote short stories and books. Here's a short story he published in 1947, in Dime Mystery Magazine, called The Witch's Way. It is evidently based on some experiences he had in the Philippines while in the Army in World War II, and was anthologized as recently as 10 years ago, in the volume 100 Crooked Little Crime Stories.

Academic Vanity Scams

Today I was delighted to receive a letter from the American Biographical Institute (ABI) nominating me for an award.

"Dear Dr. Shallit," it began. "You have been chosen for a distinct honor that is unparalleled in regard to this Century's historical records... Your nomination is endorsed by the Governing Board of Editors for Great Minds of the 21st Century."

For only US $395, I learn, I can get a "Hardbound Luxury Keepsake Issue of the 2007/2008 Edition of Great Minds of the 21st Century embellished with gold engravings". For US $595, I can get a "Great Minds of the 21st Century Medal, a two-inch diameter medal stamped from a solid piece of metal with a hand crafted die and bearing the image of Great Minds of the 21st Century also finished in a radiant golden tone". For US $295, I can get a "Proclamation Plaque, a beautiful two color 8 1/2 inch by 11 inch certificate hand inscribed with your name and chosen citation proclaiming you as a Great Mind of the 21st Century and confirming your inclusion in this reference title."

How pleased I was to share such a prestigious award with someone like Tan Man Ho. Not.

Yes, it's an academic vanity scam.

No legitimate award requires you to pay for anything related to the award, and no legitimate institution would send a prestigious award announcement via bulk mail.

Believe it or not, a lot of people fall for this "nomination" and send off hundreds or even thousands of dollars for books and plaques commemorating awards and titles that exist only in the remarkable and lucrative imagination of the American Biographical Institute. (The "director" of the ABI also runs related organizations such as the "United Cultural Convention" (UCC) and the "World Academy of Letters" (WAL) .) My nomination letter helpfully includes a section where I can nominate ten colleagues (presumably suckers even more gullible than I am) for their own special recognition: a vanity scam combined with a chain letter.

This Wikipedia article helpfully summarizes some of the bizarre titles that people accept, such as "Ambassador of Grand Eminence" and "Genius Laureate of the United States".

Here are a few people, some notable, some not so notable, who have fallen for this solicitation, or from similar ones from the "International Biographical Centre" (IBC) in England:

Irving John Good, the renowned mathematician and statistician, lists on his CV the following dubious honors:

• "International Order of Merit" from the IBC
  
• "Man of the Year" from the ABI
  
• "Most Admired Man of the Decade", from the ABI
  
• "500 Leaders of Influence", from the ABI
  
• "International Cultural Diploma of Honor", from the ABI
  
• "The Key Award", from the ABI
  
• "American Medal of Honor", from the ABI
  
• "Hundred Most Intriguing People of 2002", from the ABI
  
• "Congressional Medal of Excellence", from the ABI (How much do you want to bet that the US Congress had nothing to do with this award?)
  

Timothy Goodwin, who is a "web analyst/developer by profession, a systems analyst, computer hardware technician, computer programmer and karate practitioner", has so many "awards" from the ABI and related organizations on his web pages that I can't list them all. Just a few highlights:

• "Ambassador of Grand Eminence", ABI
  
• "Congressional Medal of Excellence", ABI
  
• "Genius Laureate of the United States", ABI
  
• "World Medal of Freedom", ABI
  
• "One of the Genius Elite", ABI
  
• "Da Vinci Diamond Award", IBC
  

Helpfully, Mr. Goodwin also has a web page showing off all his medals.

Mr. Goodwin is listed as a "Life Patron of the International Biographical Association", which is probably more true than he realizes. I wonder how much he's paid for all those plaques and medals. Patron, indeed.

Erhard Kremer, a mathematician at the University of Hamburg, lists more than 20 honors from the ABI or the IBC, including "Genius Laureate of Germany 2005" (ABI).

Jagdish C. Ahuja, a statistician at Portland State University, lists 19 awards from the ABI and the IBC, including being named "One of the Genius Elite" and "Ambassador of Grand Eminence".

The pastor of Christ Church in Pleasanton, California, Robert W. Evans, is evidently not above a little worldly recognition: `In 1992, Dr. Evans was selected as the “Most Admired Man of the Decade” by the International Biographical Institute, and in 1993 he was selected as the American Biographical Institute’s “Man of the Year.” '

Paul Bartlett Ré, an artist at the University of New Mexico, "has been the recipient of a dozen major awards honors, including The Legion of Honor from the United Cultural Convention, The Order of American Ambassadors and The Genius Laureate of the United States, The World Lifetime Award from the American Biographical Institute, and The Da Vinci Laureate and Hall of Fame from the International Biographical Centre in Cambridge, England."


Although most who accept these honors seem to be men, a few women also display them with pride.

Dana Barry, a researcher at Clarkson University, lists on her web page the following nominations:

• "Woman of the Year", ABI
  
• "Leading Educator of the World", IBC
  
• "International Peace Prize", UCC
  
• "Einsteinian Chair of Science", WAL
  
• "International Educator of the Year", IBC
  
• "One Thousand Great Scientists", IBC
  
• "One Thousand Great Scholars", IBC
  

Sandra Breitenbach, a researcher at Oslo and Amsterdam, lists many of these awards. Just a selection:

• "American Hall of Fame", ABI
  
• "Great Minds of the 21st Century", ABI
  
• "Da Vinci Diamond", IBC
  
• "International Cultural Diploma of Honor", ABI
  
• "International Peace Prize", UCC
  
• "Ambassador of Great Eminence", ABI
  

Even the former president of Richard Stockton College, Vera King Farris, a woman with many genuine accomplishments, lists, apparently without irony, her “The Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Higher Education” from the UCC.

The UCC even awards a "Noble prize" (check the spelling; Alfred Nobel had nothing to do with it). Among its recipients is Shri V. K. Choudhry, a creator of horoscope software. I can think of no one more deserving.

The number of people who have accepted these "awards" (do a web search) is really remarkable. I guess everyone, particularly in academia, craves a little (or in some cases, a lot of) recognition. As for me, I guess I'll have to settle for "3rd place - egg carrying contest", that I received in 1962. But it did come with a nice ribbon.

Liars for Moses

So many fundamentalist Christians end up lying to defend their faith against evolution that it's easy to forget that other flavors of theist also play the same game.

Read this column by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, for example. In it, he repeats some of the dumbest creationist lies about evolution, such as

1. The second law of thermodynamics is in contradiction to evolution
   
   
2. Nearly all mutations are deleterious
   
   
3. Gould's theory of "punctuated equilibirum" means "giant leaps" in the fossil record
   

Add in the usual misunderstanding of what it means for evolution to be a theory, and the curious charge that "many scientists who harbor an unreasonable objection to faith are making science into a new religion", and the resulting mix shows Boteach to be about as smart as your average fencepost and not as honest. Perhaps sensing this, he includes a comment where a physicist praises him for his sagacity.

Just another liar for Moses.

Kirk Durston: Apologist for Genocide

Kirk Durston is a graduate student in biology at the University of Guelph, and the director of something called the New Scholars Society. This Society's mission statement is

"TO PROMOTE CHRISTIAN SCHOLARSHIP IN EVERY FIELD, WITH A SPECIAL INTEREST IN THOSE AREAS WHERE PHILOSOPHY, FAITH, AND SCIENCE INTERSECT, ESPECIALLY THE PROBLEMS AND ISSUES THAT ARISE OUT OF THAT INTERSECTION.

TO PROMOTE THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION WITH RESPECT TO THE SPIRITUAL ASPECT OF LIFE.

TO BE A RESOURCE TO THOSE FACULTY AND SCHOLARS WHO HAVE AN INTEREST IN DEVELOPING THE SPIRITUAL AREA OF THEIR LIVES, FROM A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE."

You can find their "statement of faith" here. It's the usual fundagelical claptrap about the bible being "uniquely, verbally and fully inspired by the Holy Spirit, and that it was written without error (inerrant) in the original manuscripts."

Durston is active in fundagelical affairs. For example, look at this interview supporting intelligent design. How many misrepresentations can you find there?

Durston spoke last Wednesday, June 20, at the University of Waterloo on the topic "Is Genocide Wrong? What are moral absolutes and where do they come from?"

Durston made the usual nonsensical argument that moral absolutes exist, and that they only make sense if they come from a god. He claimed, for example, that if morals are relative, we would have not justification for claiming that the Nazi genocide of Jews was wrong. He claimed that those who follow "traditional moralilty" are happier and more successful. He insisted that Christians have a lower divorce rate than non-Christians. However, Durston's claim is at odds with a Barna survey that showed that atheists and agnostics actually have the lowest divorce rate (21%). When asked about this, Durston dismissed the evidence, invoking the classic "no true Scotsman" fallacy by claiming that many people say they are Christian when they are actually not.

Durston surveyed various ways to obtain moral guidance, but totally omitted a naturalistic approach to ethics, namely the view that ethical principles are part of our evolutionary heritage. There is a reasonable amount of evidence for this latter view, such as the work of primatologist Frans de Waal (e.g., Chimpanzee Politics, showing that chimpanzees apparently have a moral code) and the field of evolutionary psychology (e.g., Robert Wright, The Moral Animal). In general, his presentation was barely at the level of freshman philosophy paper.

But the most repulsive part of Durston's talk was when someone from the audience asked why Durston's condemnation of genocide would not apply equally well to the god of the Old Testament, who indulged in genocide himself, in particular the genocide of the Canaanites. Suddenly Durston's tune changed. Instead of condemning this genocide, Durston sought to justify it. Genocide was OK, he claimed, if his god ordained it. Indeed, he said that the only thing that prevented him from going and out murdering people for his advantage was his religious belief.

If God ordained genocide in our modern day, Durston said, he would obey. However, he said he would have to be very convinced that this call was correct. God would have to appear to all Canadians in an unmistakable way. If that happened, we would have to obey and kill those we were instructed to.

If there is any better example of how fundamentalist Christianity is morally bankrupt, I can't think of it. Any crime, no matter how vile, is OK if their god commands it. What else but religion could make a good person become an apologist for genocide?

Addendum (added October 26 2007): Kirk Durston has asked me to post this clarification regarding his views on genocide. He agrees that he would participate in genocide if God ordained it, but he says the conditions must be extremely stringent: it must be that (for example) God simultaneously appears to every Canadian, in an impressive and undeniable show, so that every single Canadian is convinced of his existence (even atheists) and also convinced that God wants us (for example) to kill Americans. Only under these very strong conditions, he says, would genocide be permitted.

In my opinion, I already summarized this view in the paragraphs above, so I don't understand the need for the "clarification", but I've added it anyway.

Dembski Misrepresents Me - Again!

Although I wrote a long critique of William Dembski's work back in 2002, he has never really addressed those criticisms.

However, he's been happy to insult me -- at one point calling me a "maniac", misrepresenting a conversation I had with Ruse, and misrepresenting the reason why I didn't testify in the Kitzmiller case.

In a recent interview, William Dembski misrepresents me again. He says: "Jeff Shallit, for instance, when I informed him of some work of mine on the conservation of information told me that he refuse to address it because I had not adequately addressed his previous objections to my work, though the work on conservation of information about which I was informing him was precisely in response to his concerns."

That's not accurate. Here's what I actually said in my e-mail message of March 3 2005:

I already told you - since you have never publicly acknowledged even
one of the many errors I have pointed out in your work - I do not intend
to waste my time finding more errors in more work of yours.

I find your failure to acknowledge the errors I have pointed out
completely indefensible, both ethically and scientifically.


It's not a matter of "adequately address[ing]" something, it's a matter of publishing a retraction to claims that are demonstrably false. At that point in time, Dembski had not done so, although eventually he did get around to admitting that the centerpiece calculation in his book was off by 65 orders of magnitude.

If Dembski thinks I have some obligation to read everything he's written and give him extensive comments, he's wrong. And, of course, those who do make the effort to wade through his pseudomathematics get labeled as "obsessive" - that's what he called Richard Wein.

You just can't please a creationist.

Groundhog Day

We have groundhogs in our backyard. It started with one, but now there are babies (see the photo).

Groundhogs, also known as woodchucks, are marmots; their scientific name is Marmota monax.

While I enjoy seeing them, my wife is not so happy that they are eating up the garden.

When the babies get a little older, we'll try to trap them with a live trap and relocate them.

America is Doomed

When travelling, I like to read the local newspapers.

On our way back to Canada from Utah, we spent the night in rural Illinois. The local paper, the Bureau County Republican carried an article about two young women who recently entered the 2007 State 4-H contest in Urbana, Illinois.

Heather and Hannah Pierson gave a speech entitled "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Back". According to the newspaper article,

The girls' speech was about raindrop therapy for horses using essential oils.

"We apply then to certain areas of the horse, like the pressure points," Heather said. "It's used to calm them down, to help realign their spine and helps their immune system."


Now, you might wonder why a horse would need to have its spine "realigned" to begin with.


Hannah said they learned about the therapy a couple of years ago when their mother had a toothache. A neighbor gave her an essential oil, and the toothache was gone ina few hours. Then the girls watched a video on the subject.


Wow. A video! No wonder these young women are such experts in equine medicine.

My guess is that these girls have been suckered by a mixture of the quack therapy of Donald Gary Young or Heather Mack and homeopathy.

But, never fear, you reassure me. Certainly such foolishness. could not win a prize.

Wrong. The Pearsons took first place.

With such incompetence on display, it was not a surprise to learn that the girls are creationists.


Heather said her speech was about the evolution of the horse versus creation, and she had to do lots of studying to prepare.

"My mom bought me three books, and I also get things off the Internet," she said.


Wasn't there anyone advising these young women about quack health claims, or the scientific method, or the importance of evidence beyond the anecdotal?

America is doomed.

Here's a Journal I Won't Be Subscribing To

Today I received an invitation from Emerald Group Publishing to subscribe to the International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow. I have to admit, the topic is quite far from my research interests, and so I wouldn't dream of subscribing to it just for that reason alone. But something about the solicitation made me want to look more closely.

The letter inviting me to subscribe was headed, in large-point type, "Subscribe today and receive £75 worth of Marriott Cheques!"

What kind of journal, I thought, would use such a blatant marketing ploy, offering me the equivalent of US $147 worth of hotel vouchers that, according to the flyer, "can be used for accommodation, dining, spa or golf, in any of over 2,600 luxurious Marriott Hotels world-wide!"? The flyer adds "Go on - treat yourself!"

The mystery was resolved when I consulted the cost of subscription. For volume 17, issues 1 to 8, I would have to pay US $9,899 for one year of this journal. I'm used to exorbitant subscription prices, but this is ridiculous. No wonder they can afford to give away $147, when they're charging nearly $10,000 a year.

Everyone who is involved in this journal, from the publishers to the editorial board, should be ashamed of themselves. There is simply no rationale for such a price, other than making bucketloads of cash. Professional societies publish analogous journals for as little as $200 a year, and there are many electronic journals offering analogous content entirely free.

I am particularly offended by the idea that by subscribing, I would receive hotel vouchers to "treat [myself]". I would venture to guess that most people who make the decision to subscribe are not paying out of their pocket, but rather using grant, university, or industry funds -- in which case providing the subscriber with personal benefits could be seen as unethical.

I encourage all academics to boycott journals like this one, sending their scholarly work to journals that charge sensible prices, particularly electronic journals with free access.

A Parthenogenetic Lizard

Here's a picture I took of the Plateau Striped Whiptail ( Cnemidophorus velox), a lizard I saw in Chaco Canyon, northwest New Mexico.

Plateau Striped Whiptails are unusual because, like several whiptail species, they are primarily parthenogenetic; that is, females usually reproduce without the assistance of males.

Parthenogenesis in Plateau Striped Whiptails was first noted by biologist T. Paul Maslin [Science, 132 (1962), 212-213], who collected these lizards and found 102 females and only 2 males, both juvenile. Because of the presence of 2 males, Maslin cautioned that parthenogenesis was not conclusively established. Later, however [Copeia (1971), 156-158] Maslin reported raising whiptails in captivity without the presence of males, thus establishing parthenogenesis beyond doubt.

Another interesting thing about whiptails is the difficulty in distinguishing one species from another, so take my tentative identification with a grain of salt. In 1906, Hans Gadow wrote "Most of the 'species' are so plastic, so variable, that they may well drive the systematist to despair. Not two authorities will, nor can, possibly agree upon the number of admissible species." [Proc. Zool. Soc. London 75 (1906), 227-375; note that this reference is given incorrectly as "Proc. Roy. Soc. London" in several places online]. When a creationist natters about "fixity of species", this is a useful comeback.

There's a volume called Biology of Whiptail Lizards that's not in our library at Waterloo, but is at Toronto. I've ordered it by interlibrary loan. For those who don't want to wade through it, there's a summary by Donald Blanchard available.

Why I Won't Be Voting for Ron Paul

If you read Reddit, or Wikipedia, you might think that Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul is the best thing since sliced bread. After all, he "believes in maintaining and restoring civil liberties". He's "both deeply principled and wholly uncompromised". He's "honest". Sounds great, right?

Unfortunately, he's also a total loon.

He's anti-choice. He's against human embryonic stem-cell research. He wants to return to the gold standard. He would deny US citizenship to those born in the US to illegal immigrant parents.

If that's not enough, read this piece, entitled "The War on Religion", penned by Representative Paul. In it, he subscribes to the absurd claim, advanced by the wacko right, that there is a "war on religion", conducted by "the elitist, secular Left". He claims (falsely) that the US constitution is "replete with references to God". (Actually, the Constitution, a profoundly secular document, does not mention "God", "Jesus", "Christianity", or "Savior". It does have one reference that could be construed as religious; namely, the formulaic "Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven" at the end.)

Having a president that is deeply principled can be a good thing. First, though, I'd want to make sure his principles are based on reality, not some bizarre Christian persecution syndrome.

Why Are Atheists Always Described as Militant?

Gustave Flaubert wrote a lovely book, Dictionnaire des idées reçues, published posthumously in 1913. (The title roughly translates as "Dictionary of Platitudes".) In it, he poked fun at, among other things, nouns that are nearly always accompanied by certain adjectives. Germans, he noted, are always described as "blond", a professor is always "learned", and jealousy is always "unbridled".

In a similar vein, the comedian Robert Klein once noted that President Garfield is nearly always described as "shot by a disappointed office-seeker". Klein went on to claim that if you look up Garfield in the dictionary, it says "See office-seeker, disappointed".

The intelligent design crowd plays the same game with "Darwinists". They never refer to their ideological opponents as scientists or biologists; they are nearly always "Darwinists", or, as Wesley Elsberry has pointed out, "dogmatic Darwinists".

Now look at this otherwise unnoteworthy article by Associate Press religion reporter Rachel Zoll, about the reaction to recent books by atheists Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. Notice anything, well, trite about the title? Yes, it's the "militant atheist" platitude. Atheists must never be described as intelligent, thoughtful, friendly, questioning, or thought-provoking. Instead, they must be described as "militant".

From the meaning of "militant", you might expect that Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens are burning down churches, or at least leading protests, stirring up crowds with their fiery rhetoric. You would be disappointed, of course. What Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens have done is write books. Hitchens is more of a curmudgeon than a militant, and Dawkins and Harris are both rather mild-mannered. Nobody is leaving their public events carrying torches and singing the atheist analogue of the Horst Wessel song.

I'm not sure when the juxtaposition of "militant" and "atheist" became a cliché. The earliest citation I've been able to find so far is a 1928 book review of Edward Lucas White's book Why Rome Fell by Elmer Davis. Davis wrote, "Militant atheists ought not to read it; they will be too likely to swallow it all uncritically."

Whatever the origins, the term "militant atheist" eventually became a description to be used whenever the writer wanted to express disapproval about nonbelievers. Madalyn Murray O'Hair was often so described; a 1970 article in Time sneered at her attempt to found a new church. True, O'Hair was, by all accounts, a nasty person. However, when she was killed in 1995, obituaries routinely referred to her as "militant". Her murderer, however, was not so categorized.

When Jerry Falwell died recently, newspaper obituaries rarely described him as "militant", even though the adjective fit him much better than mild-mannered atheists like Harris. Ironically, however, the Associated Press obituary by Sue Lindsey, referred to Falwell's father and grandfather as "militant atheists".

Flaubert would have appreciated the "militant atheist" cliché. In Dictionnaire des idées reçues, he reported the following platitude about atheists: "A nation of atheists could not survive." Sadly, that cliché is still prevalent today among the morons of the Religious Right.

Added June 6 2007: over at Pharyngula, commenter Jurjen S., whose command of history is evidently better than mine, tells me about the League of Militant Atheists, an anti-religious group in the Soviet Union from 1925-1947. Probably this is the source of the term "militant atheist"; indeed, many of the 1920's citations for this phrase discuss actions in the Soviet Union.

Added January 4 2011
Google's n-gram viewer

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=militant+theist%2Cmilitant+atheist&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

has now revealed some earlier uses of the term: the earliest I have found is from Progress: a monthly magazine of advanced thought, Volume 6 edited by George William Foote, in 1886. On page 466 he writes "He was not only an Atheist, but a militant Atheist..." Perhaps this is the earliest usage of the term. But as the google n-gram viewer indicates, the term really took off in the 1920's, with the rise of the "League of Militant Atheists" in the former Soviet Union.

Oddly enough, the term "militant theist" gets no citations at all.

Creationist Crackpots Create Canadian Museum

If there are any Recursivity readers from Alberta, I'd like to hear about their impressions of this new creationist museum that recently opened near Calgary.

Darwinism = Fascism?

You know the intelligent design advocates are losing the game when they have to refer to Darwinists as fascists.

They've been playing this silly game for a while now, and Wesley Elsberry has been collecting these comparisons; see here and this article by Elsberry and Perakh.

Here's the most recent example of this kind of over-the-top rhetoric. Local ignoramus Denyse O'Leary calls Darwinists "brownshirts". With an epithet that strong, you might expect something really awful. Perhaps Larry Moran has been beating up ID advocates in the streets of Toronto? Setting fire to their homes and businesses?

No, the offense in question was that someone in Toronto put up posters about the BBC documentary A War on Science, Evolution vs. Intelligent Design showing at the local theatre, and happened to put a few in a location that Denyse didn't like. How... awful. Why, that's just the same as the Nazi brownshirts!

Of course, O'Leary offers no evidence at all that it was "Darwinists" that carried this dastardly deed. I'd be willing to bet it was someone who works for the theatre.

But maybe I should be kinder towards poor Denyse. In the comments to her article, she reveals that she didn't know the origin of the term "brownshirt" and suggests "blackshirt" instead. What a command of history Denyse has!

That's Denyse, the deep thinker and charitable Christian, for you.

Theist Crackpottery Invades CACM

Communications of the ACM (CACM) used to be an interesting publication. Back when I was a teenager, I remember reading articles such as Ritchie & Thompson's on UNIX, and Aho & Corasick's on string matching using automata. Later, CACM published breakthroughs like RSA, and the Turing award lecture of Kenneth Iverson.

Now, however, I barely find CACM worth reading. True, occasionally the "Inside Risks" column has something interesting to say, but most of the articles seem to be about software systems. For example, the April 2007 issue has articles entitled "Consumer Support Systems", "Designing Data-Intensive Web Applications for Content Accessibility Using Web Marts", and "Managing Risk in Offshore Systems Development". Long gone are the days when one could actually find an algorithm or a proof in CACM.

However, the April 2007 issue did carry one item of interest: a long, rambling, and incoherent letter to the editor from one Tim Croy of Houston, Texas, entitled "Stop Chasing the AI Illusion".

Croy starts by praising the Turing award lecture of Peter Naur, an embarrassingly cranky piece of work. Although Naur won his award for "fundamental contributions to programming language design and the definition of Algol 60, to compiler design, and to the art and practice of computer programming", he chose instead to talk about artificial intelligence (AI) and its perceived inadequacies. Naur has been apparently peddling these ideas for some time, but hasn't been able to get them published in a reputable venue, so he put them in his Turing award lecture.

Next, Croy goes on to say that AI "is based on an article of faith (held by atheistic materialists) that the human person is merely a highly evolved biological machine it is theoretically possible to replicate as an electromechanical machine, or computer". (Note the terminology shared with intelligent design crackpots.) I don't see why this is "an article of faith"; I see it as a working hypothesis that seems to be widely supported by our current knowledge of neuroscience, physics, and computer science.

Croy then goes on to claim that dropping a pencil is proof of the existence of God. (I kid you not.) Here's what he says:
"We have discovered the `what' and the `how' (description) but not the `why' (cause). Forgetting this distinction, when someone asks why the pencil falls to the table, we mistakenly answer `gravity'. In the realm of description (physical science) the experiment is a demonstration and confirmation (proof) of the theories of motion and gravity. But in the realm of causes it is a proof for the existence of God."

Wow.

Croy concludes that "Naur also aimed much-needed light on the dishonesty, not to say totalitarianism, of the American academic-scientific establishment."

Whenever you hear anyone raving about the "dishonesty" and "totalitarianism" of the "scientific establishment", better get out your crackpot-o-meter. "Dishonesty" here appears to mean "they refuse to publish drivel in their journal".

CACM has really jumped the shark with the publication of this letter.

Towards a Canadian Republic

I'm an American citizen who has lived in Canada for nearly 17 years. People often ask me, why haven't I adopted Canadian citizenship? After all, it's now possible to hold dual citizenship; both my kids, for example, are dual citizens of the USA and Canada.

My answer has always been the same: I'll seriously consider becoming a citizen when Canada removes one citizenship requirement: that I swear allegiance to "Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, her Heirs and Successors".

As an American who is proud of the republican tradition (small "r" in "republican", please), the citizenship requirement that one swear allegiance to a person seems unappealingly feudal to me. Paul McCartney famously observed that the current Queen is a pretty nice girl, but that doesn't mean I want to swear allegiance to her. As for her heirs, Prince Charles seems like a sanctimonious git, and he'd be one of the last people I'd swear allegiance to. And who knows what further heirs might be like?

Now a Toronto lawyer, Charles Roach, has brought a class action suit against the requirement. This press release argues that "the government should not force people to swear to things they don’t believe in to gain citizenship".

I entirely agree, although I don't know how strong his legal argument is. Canada's Attorney General, though, is not convinced, and apparently is trying to have the complaint dismissed on the grounds that it is "frivolous".

Canada should follow the lead of Australia and remove this archaic and childish requirement.

Canadian Libel Law Needs Revision

I've written before about how Canadian libel law stifles open and robust public debate on the issues. Canadian politicians such as Tony Clement, Jacques Parizeau, Lucien Bouchard, and Brian Mulroney have all engaged in reprehensible libel suits meant to stifle criticism and investigation of their activities.

Now there's yet another disgraceful example. Wayne Crookes, a Vancouver businessman and former Green party organizer, is apparently suing Wikipedia, Google, and openpolitics.ca for libel for articles about him.

In the US, such a suit would have little chance of success because of the "public figure" exception. Crookes is clearly a public figure and the public is not served by attempting to censor the discussion about his record.

For more about Canadian libel law, read Kimberley Noble's Bound and Gagged.

Why Respect Religion?

The latest issue of Canadian Humanist News has this quote from American journalist H. L. Mencken:

"The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. Its evil effects must be plain enough to everyone."

Mencken's warning seems appropriate when we read this utterly ridiculous opinion piece by Cardinal George Pell of the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, Australia.

Pell claims that global warming is "nonsense" purveyed by "zealots" who paint "extreme scenarios to frighten us". Pell knows that global warming is nonsense, because "January also was unusually cool".

But the worst is yet to come. In arguing against human causation for global warming, Pell states, "We know that enormous climate changes have occurred in world history, e.g. the Ice Ages and Noah’s flood, where human causation could only be negligible."

That's right. Cardinal Pell thinks that Noah's flood was an actual, historical event.

Can someone explain to me why this kind of moronic religious commentary deserves any respect at all?

If Fascism Comes to North America, High School Principals Will be Leading the Way

There are good high school principals. I remember one I had that was willing to break the rules and allow me to enroll in a high school chemistry class even though I was rather young.

But many high school principals seem to be fascists-in-training. All over North America, high school principals are abrogating the right of students to speak their minds, even out of school.

By now, most people have heard about the "bong hits 4 Jesus" case. That case, which is currently before the US Supreme Court, high school student Joseph Frederick unfurled a nonsenical banner with the message "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" while the Olympic torch passed through his town. His principal, Deborah Morse, confiscated the banner and suspended him. The outcome of that case is still pending, but we can depend on authoritarians like Scalia to side with the principal.

In another case, Bloomington, Minnesota Principal Steve Hill confiscated a student's Blackberry pager and erased photographs he had taken after a protest at the school. Ironically, the name of the high school is Thomas Jefferson High School.

Principals don't always win, however. In another case, the Indiana Court of Appeals has ruled that a student cannot be ruled a juvenile delinquent for criticizing her principal, using 4-letter words, in an online forum. Judge Patricia Riley found that the student's speech was protected by the Indiana Constitution.

Principals clearly have a lot of authority, and they can and should wield that authority inside the school in a responsible fashion. Students have the right to political speech, and what students do outside the school is their own business. Instead of being so thin-skinned, principals should use these kinds of events to teach the students a thing or two about the importance of free speech in an open society. By doing so, they would earn the respect of their students far more than any respect gained from the usual two-bit authoritarian posturing.

The Discovery Institute Lies Again

That fountain of lies, the Discovery Institute, has produced yet another lie.

In an opinion piece published in today's Dallas Morning News, John West and Bruce Chapman claim that comparing intelligent design proponents to faith healers or Holocaust deniers is absurd because "Faith healers and Holocaust deniers are not on the faculties of reputable universities. Scientists who support intelligent design are."

Well, Messrs. West and Chapman, welcome to my university, the University of Waterloo, which is consistently rated as the number 1 or number 2 comprehensive university in Canada. We have, on our faculty, Clifford Blake, a professor who claims that he has a supernatural gift to heal people. I wrote about his claims in three blog posts: Number 1, Number 2, and Number 3.

Messrs. West and Chapman also must think that Northwestern University is not reputable. Northwestern has a man named Arthur Butz on their faculty. Butz is the author of The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, a book claiming that the Holocaust is a hoax.

So the Discovery Institute lies again. Big surprise.

Here's what Messrs. West and Chapman should have said: "Like faith healers and Holocaust deniers, supporters of intelligent design can be found at many reputable universities. Their claims, however, say more about a dogmatic adherence to religion or nationalism than they do about a dispassionate search for the truth."

Rick Warren, Clueless Hypocrite

Newsweek has printed a debate between minister Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, and atheist Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith. Although I don't agree with Harris on everything, he certainly gets the better of nearly every exchange. Warren, on the other hand, comes off as a clueless hypocrite. Here are few excepts from their exchange, which, thanks to Newsweek's unpleasant site design, requires one to manually page through 10 pages of text.

Harris points out, "There is so much about us that is not in the Bible. Every specific science from cosmology to psychology to economics has surpassed and superseded what the Bible tells us is true about our world." Warren has no response.

Warren claims, "I believe [the Bible is] inerrant in what it claims to be." What? Has he never read any lists of contradictions to be found in the Bible?

In response to Harris's description of natural selection, Warren asks, "Who's doing the selecting?", proving he has no understanding of evolution. When Harris answers, "The environment. You don't have to invoke an intelligent designer to explain the complexity we see", Warren comes up with this non sequitur: "Sam makes all kinds of assertions based on his presuppositions."

Warren then describes his reason for believing that God answers his prayers: "One of the great evidences of God is answered prayer. I have a friend, a Canadian friend, who has an immigration issue. He's an intern at this church, and so I said, "God, I need you to help me with this," as I went out for my evening walk. As I was walking I met a woman. She said, "I'm an immigration attorney; I'd be happy to take this case." Now, if that happened once in my life I'd say, "That is a coincidence." If it happened tens of thousands of times, that is not a coincidence."

This is the sort of post hoc, propter hoc reasoning that leads people astray in so many fields, from reason to medicine. I never pray, and yet beneficial coincidences happen to me, too. Warren seems to have this childish conception of his god as cosmic favor-granter, routinely rearranging the universe for his personal benefit.

About the virgin birth of Jesus, Harris says "I consider it such a low-probability event that I—" and Warren cuts him off, saying, "A low probability? When there are 96 percent believers in the world? So is everybody else an idiot?"

Warren seems to think the probability of an event is related to the number of people who believe in it. Then we get this exchange:


HARRIS: It is quite possible for most people to be wrong—as are most Americans who think that evolution didn't occur.

WARREN: That's an arrogant statement.


But later we get this:


Interviewer: Rick, let's be blunt. Is Sam's soul in jeopardy, in your view, because he has rejected Jesus?

WARREN: The politically incorrect answer is yes.

HARRIS: Is that the honest answer?

WARREN: The truth is, religion is mutually exclusive.


So in other words, according to Warren, it's "arrogant" when Harris says it's "possible" most people could be wrong about religion. But Warren admits that he thinks (not it's "possible", it definitely is the case) that everyone who doesn't believe in Jesus has "their soul in jeopardy".

Now I've justified my charge that Warren is a hypocrite. How about clueless? Well, consider this exchange:


WARREN: ... I say, "God likes order," and the more we understand ecology, the more we understand how sensitive that order is.

HARRIS: Then God also likes smallpox and tuberculosis.

WARREN: I would attribute a lot of the sins in the world to myself.

HARRIS: Are you responsible for smallpox?

WARREN: I am responsible to do something about it.


Here Harris is clearly asking, is Warren the source, the cause of smallpox? But Warren misunderstands, choosing a different meaning of "responsible". Deep inside, he probably doesn't want to deal with the implications, which is that the god he worships as all-good is also the source of this scourge.

Rick Warren, clueless hypocrite.