Oh Those Amusing Polls

Polls are always funny. Depending on how you word things, you can get almost any result. Even scientific polls need to be carefully worded, weighed, and cross-polled for errors. But unscientific polling, as done by newspapers and websites, are down-right hilarious.

I particularly love polls that have to do with science. As if it matters what people believe! Even in a controlled poll, asking a question like - "Do you think humans and apes have a common ancestor?", given to an American group, will undoubtedly show the majority saying "No". What do we take from this, other than the lack of scientific knowledge in the American populous? For that purpose, polls about science are extremely enlightening. Unfortunately, to non-scientists (or, at least, to lesser educated people) those poll results seem like a referendum on the issue - one that proves them correct in their beliefs. Science doesn't work like a democracy. Facts tend to win, whether the majority like them or not.

Back to the unscientific polls. Every day MSNBC.com runs a number of polls - usually alongside a controversial story. I suppose they are fun, as long as that's all you take from them. While unscientific, you get a "fairly" intelligent group response. People who read the news and use computers to do so are generally going to score a little higher than average intelligence. So I was interested to see what the results would be in a poll today about whether you believe being gay has a genetic basis. Here's the current poll results -

Do you believe sexual orientation is rooted in genetics? * 46056 responses
Yes, people are either born gay or not.40%
Partly, it's probably a combination of nature and nurture.27%
No, it's a choice.32%

The closest thing to a correct answer, of course, is the one the got the fewest votes. Had they finished that response with "and other biological, but non-genetic factors", then it would have been about as spot on as research has been able to articulate - so far. Not that it matters. It's not a scientific poll, and even if it was it wouldn't matter what people think. The facts are the facts. But the most important fact is one that is not even considered - that it doesn't matter, because we need to allow people to live their lives in happiness and freedom, whatever their orientation.

Polls... blah...

Come On, People! It's SO OBVIOUS! They Hate Us For Our Freedoms

Some people don’t want us to go on the offensive. They want us to understand the other side of the issue. They wonder why we don’t understand the historical basis for what is happening.

I understand perfectly well. But the bottom line is that some people really hate America. In particular, they hate our freedoms. They hate the very ideals that have made our country a beacon of freedom throughout the world. They seem to be willing to do whatever it takes to undermine our freedoms.

I’m sorry if this post offends those who feel we should be inclusive and understanding people. I have made a point of always attempting to be such a person myself. But sometimes you have to say enough is enough.

So to any of my fellow Americans, whether Liberal or Conservative, Republican or Democrat, I say the following: Stop hating what our country is all about.

Stop making laws (or, worse, breaking laws) regarding peoples individual freedom. Stop fighting illegal wars against sovereign countries based on lies. Stop firing independent prosecutors because they don’t act politically. Stop imprisoning people and denying them basic habeas corpus rights. Stop torturing people. Stop spying on U.S. citizens outside of the basic legal way that is already in place to spy when you have reasonable cause. Stop attempting to ruin our educational system by teaching superstition alongside legitimate science. Stop attempting to short-circuit science itself, by disallowing basic research based solely on religious reasoning. Stop denying that our consumer-based society plays a role in the health of our planet and of the other species that inhabit it. Stop intruding on people's individual sexual life-styles. Stop suppression of games, movies and music that offends your personal sensibilities. Stop insisting that our free country is nothing more than a religious state. Stop attempting to strip the greatest political document in history, The United States Constitution, of all the meaning endowed in it by the Founders.

America – Love It, Or Leave It. You clearly hate America, so why don’t you just go start your own theocracy somewhere else? Might I suggest looking for some available property in Mesopotamia?

Thoughts on the Christian Nation

This post is inspired by recent reading at You Made Me Say It, Spanish Inquisitor and No More Hornets.

Much of the Christian anxieties around the issues of "in god we trust" and "one nation, under god" revolves around the notion that these these are parts of our nation's traditions (traditions that they highly approve of) and don't want changed.

I was telling my wife (a Christian) about the 1997 Treaty of Tripoli in which our government clearly stated "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." The President of the United States of America at the time was George Washington.

My wife is a naturalized U.S. citizen and still does not know our history in depth. At first she thought that this Treaty of Tripoli must be some sort of anomaly. She looked me with raised eyebrows and, as if holding a trump card, said simply "one nation, under God".

So she was duly impressed when I informed her that neither the words in the pledge, nor the words "In God We Trust" on the money, were there from the beginning.

When I also pointed out to her that, as incredibly important as she finds Jesus personally that if the Founders had shared her feelings, when establishing the Constitution, they almost certainly would have had the words "Jesus Christ" appear in several (if not many) places.

The fact that they did not, and barely mention (pretty much with a collective shrug) "God", should speak volumes about their intent. When you realize that it is true that most of the Founders (not all) were indeed Christians (of various sects), then one can only reasonably conclude that they were determined to leave "Jesus Christ" out of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights, Federalist Papers, etc. Hardly what one would expect from designers of a "Christian nation".

Even though my wife is an immigrant, I truly believe there are many (if not most) natural born citizens who still are not aware of these facts. Once properly educated, there will be less resistance to the proper discontinuation of these terms on money and in the Pledge. Is it a big issue with me? Not at all. But that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be changed.

UPDATE 10/14 - In the opinions section of this post "The Exterminator said...
Just two minor corrections to your details:The Treaty of Tripoli was formalized when John Adams, not George Washington, was president.And there is no bare mention of god in the Constitution. There's no mention whatsoever."

I'm happy to be corrected. God was mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, but it is in the most general, non-Christian sense, and the Declaration has exactly zero impact on the laws by which our nation lives under.

More Daniel Dennett

Personally, I just can’t get enough of the guy. But if you have never read Dan Dennett's absolutely brilliant book “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” then please at least take the time to watch this video. I always attempt to post videos that I think are worth watching, but this one is is a must-see in my opinion.

The book is one of the most powerfully written supports of the Theory of Natural Selection (and, equally, an overwhelmingly indisputable rebuttal of so called Intelligent Design) in history. He wrote it over a decade ago. You would think – hope – that the proponents of Intelligent Design (Behe, Dembski, Miller et al) would have read and deeply digested this book. Had they bothered to do so, I highly doubt they would have bothered further with their ID scheme. Clearly, they did not – could not – have done so. It completely bewilders me that ID could have arisen after this book was published.

This is a high quality video, apparently released quite recently, in which Dennett himself gives us an over-view of the book. It is compelling and thorough. I would suggest that if you do have the book on your future reading that you pass on this video because it is such an excellent summary of the book. On the other hand, if you think you probably won’t get to the book, then by all means take this opportunity to watch. Even those who are steeped in evolutionary theory will be enlightened by some of his unique insights. Fair warning – it is over an hour long and by the end you will wish it was two!

For some reason the imbed is not working on this video, but click here and it will take you right to it.

One World...

That's all we've got.

Where is the love?


(Some disturbing imagery... skip this one if you think it might upset you)

Evolution Presented in Highly Understandable Fashion

I've mentioned Sean B. Carroll a few times in posts recently. I wanted to present a video of some of his work in Evo-Devo because I think it has become such an important new area of evolutionary study, and the work he does is right up at the front of it.

Hopefully I will soon find what I'm looking for. In the meantime, I found this. While he doesn't get in to his own field very much in it, what he does do is provide a great primer in the basics of evolution. I'm guessing most people who stop by here would find it interesting but a bit of "old news". There might be some though who don't understand how evolution could possibly work and thus continue to believe that all of the wonderful diversity we see could only possibly have been the product of design.

If this sounds like you, and you are truly interested in discovering for yourself if evolution as currently understood could be a fact, then this video is for you. Sean Carroll speaks to a group of high school students and lays out the historical background for the theory, plus the more current aspects of our knowledge, in a way that anyone can grasp. I can tell you that the work he does is a powerful new tool for our deeper understanding of evolution, but here he simply and eloquently describes the processes for profound change over the course of time.

Can Bush Be Stopped Legally When He Is Above The Constitution?

A very scary overview of where we have come to. Discussion between Keith Olbermann and Neal Katyal, the 2006 "Lawyer of the Year" and former National Security Advisor in the U.S. Justice Department.

Some Hopeful War News

Today the McClatchy Press ran the following story:

"New military leaders question Iraq mission"

In short, despite the administrations repeated attempts over the years to promote only those who agree whole-heartedly with their position on Iraq, those who haven risen to the top are expressing deep doubts about the direction of the war on terror.

Additionlly, the story gives the following 6 reasons for some hope:

1. The Democratic takeover of the Senate and the House of Representatives last January.

2. Bush's choice of Gates to replace Rumsfeld, one of the main architects of the war. Gates was a member of the independent bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which called for the United States to reach out to Syria and Iran and "strongly urged" a drawdown in Iraq.

3. A shift, completed this week, in the military's top uniformed leadership from administration loyalists to officers who are more concerned about the growing strains on the military.

4. Mounting evidence, in a variety of official reports in recent weeks, that Iraqi forces won't be prepared to take over from American troops in significant numbers until late next year at the earliest, and that Iraqis have made little progress toward political reconciliation.

"Barring that, no amount of troops and no amount of time will make much of a difference," Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

5. Mounting evidence, most recently in a United Nations report, that the war against al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan is faltering, in part because Iraq is tying down so many U.S. troops.

More forces are needed in Afghanistan, and "we can't send them because we're bogged down" in an "intractable civil war" in Iraq, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said Wednesday.

6. Bush's low approval ratings and popular discontent with the Iraq war, which have prompted some legislators to reconsider their support for the president's policy as next year's elections approach.

So the word for the day is "HOPE".

EVOLUTIONary middleman MEME

I was “tagged” recently by my friend The Exterminator over at No More Hornets to participate in The Evolution Meme. My task is to write about how my blog has evolved since its inception on August 19, 2005 and to provide 5 blog entries that demonstrate the evolution. I’ve been pretty lazy with my blogging lately and have put this one (and a number of others) off on a back-burner. I feel kind of bad about this one in particular, so the sooner I do this the better (proving that atheists can have a guilty conscience).

My very first blog entry very much represents how I still feel and how I still attempt to do this blog. I will say that there have been “adjustments”, but no major change of focus. Much like real evolution which occurs at extremely small points in the genome, and can only be detected after a very long passage of time, my blog retains the features I had in mind over two years ago.

I found this post about 6 months down the road. I was doing exactly what I talked about in my introduction by leading readers to a science blog that I found interesting, while discussing science and evolution.

About 18 months ago I made my first departure from the stated goals of the blog and talked about politics. In this case, it was about the possibility of expanding the “war on terrorism” by attacking Iran – potentially with battlefield nukes.

I thought this would be a good one to point out now, since we seem much closer to such a war than we were at the time I pleaded against it. As time has gone on, I have tossed in politics more and more, though I certainly don’t want this ever to be a blog specifically dedicated to such. However, as rational thinkers, we have a duty to speak out anytime and any place where we see a lack of clarity. In the case of this particular administration, it’s not just a lack of clarity but an assault on many of the fundamental values of a free society. I don’t have deep political interests, but it’s important to point some things out.

Perhaps the biggest change in my blog occurred earlier this year. During the previous 12 months, I had given my blog very little attention and was only posting every month or so. I decided to get into it a bit more and resolved to put up a couple of new items every week and, if inspired, even more. One of the first posts I put up at this time was one in which I encourage others to do as I do and read more about science.

I’ll end with a demonstration of yet another “adjustment” I made. I don’t consider myself a prolific writer. I can write quite a bit when the mood is right. But I can go months without writing at all. I figured to stay true to my demand on myself that I post regularly, regardless of how I was feeling, I was going to have to approach it with a new strategy. I would find interesting videos and news stories that were representative of my own point of view and post them along with a short comment from me. Some people have told me they stop by my blog specifically for this material. In other words, they like the videos and stories better than they like what I write! Somehow it doesn’t shock in the least. Here was one of the first ones I put up - no surprise that it deals with science and evolution!

Now, in conclusion, I am to select 5 fellow bloggers and tag them. I don’t know how it works if they have been tagged at an earlier time, but I’m just going to tag them without searching to find out.

Tales of an Ordinary Girl
Grumpy Lion
Fresh Brainz
The Choice is Now
The Loom

Is America a Christian Nation? Let's Ask Founding Father, Thomas Paine.

Here's a few of the many great quotes from the great American patriot and thinker.

For additional great reading, pick up his book "The Age of Reason" which is an effective demolition of the Holy Bible as being the inerrant words of an omniscient being and of Jehovah as a loving god worthy of our respect.

(You can also read the entire book online at infidels.org)