Adulthood is realizing the high school bully is the good guyMaybe all those school anti-bullying campaigns have made society worse. The teachers and counselors are the new bullies.He served as a bulwark against degenerate antisocial behaviors and enforced normality.
Maybe you think that we should not have social norms, or that we should not enforce them. Well, we cannot have a society without norms, and we cannot have norms without enforcement.
The atheists hold themselves out as scientific, rational, and objective, but they have no substantive rebuttal to biologists who say human sex is binary.
Here is a weak attempt, from a 2018 Evolution Society letter:
Variation in biological sex and in gendered expression has been well documented in many species, including humans, through hundreds of scientific articles. Such variation is observed at both the genetic level and at the individual level (including hormone levels, secondary sexual characteristics, as well as genital morphology). Moreover, models predict that variation should exist within the categories that HHS proposes as “male” and “female”, indicating that sex should be more accurately viewed as a continuum.* Indeed, experiments in other organisms have confirmed that variation in traits associated with sex is more extensive than for many other traits.If you read this carefully, it acknowledges that several sex definitions can be given, such as XX/XY, SRY, or gamete size. The gripes are that (1) these definitions do not always align; (2) they may not be binary in theoretical models; and (3) they should not affect legal rights.*Here we are speaking of the multi-dimensional aspects that underlie male-ness and female-ness, including hormones, physiology, morphology, development, and genetic aspects. We acknowledge that many of these aspects are bimodal. Furthermore, some of these aspects are discrete categories (e.g., XX/XY, SRY presence/absence, gamete size, sperm production vs egg production, presence/absence of certain genitalia), but these categories don’t always align within individuals, are not always binary, and should be irrelevant to the determination of a person’s legal rights and freedoms.
Even if there are peculiarities in one-in-a-million freaks, or in mathematical models, they have almost nothing to do with current transgender issues. Nearly all trans people are unambiguously one sex, and then acting as another.
So what is going on here? Why would science advocates be so vigorously against good science?
I see two explantions. First, they are radical leftists who want to dismantle sex roles.
Second, they hate Christian nationalists most of all, and Christians line up against transgenderism, so their tribal loyalty is with the opposing view.
I’m not only a member and supporter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, but am also on its Honorary Board. Thus I was doubly distressed when I saw the post below on their website Freethought Now!, a post that completely ignores the widely-accepted biological definition of a woman—one based on the possession of a reproductive apparatus evolved to produce large immobile gametes—in favor of a definition based on self-identification.So he wrote an explanation of how mammalian sex works, for their site.
His essay has been deleted, as inconsistent with FFRF LGBTQIA goals.
Coyne wrote a whole book on his atheist beliefs, and is firmly anti-religion. But many of the atheist/humanist/skeptic organizations have been taken over by leftist sex advocates. They say that statements like "there are only two sexes" are driven by religious bigotry, and the best way to oppose religion is to promote transgenderism.
This means censoring Coyne's discussion of biological facts.
Religious folks are sometimes perceived as intolerant, anti-science, and aggressively unreasonable. However the FFRF and the trans activists are worse than any religious folks I know.
Update: Coyne comments:
the FFRF has a remarkable ability to place any kind of antiwoke ideology under the rubric of “Christian nationalism.” That’s why I wrote in my now-expunged piece, “As a liberal atheist, I am about as far from Christian nationalism as one can get!” ...Just to give both sides, here is a criticism on an atheism site:But it’s the last six paragraphs of the FFRF’s post where they explain why they took down my piece. It is because it caused “distress” and “did not reflect [the FFRF’s] values or principles.” I’m not sure what values or principles my piece failed to reflect. ...
they will not allow free and civil discussion about an article that they published, an article that concludes by saying, “A woman is whoever she says she is.” If that is not a statement ripe for discussion, then what is?
If you believe gender-related issues are tangential to atheism, I assure you that religious conservatives believe the topic is perfectly intertwined with their faith. Just as they used religion to fight marriage equality and abortion rights, they’re using the Book of Genesis in defense of their anti-trans beliefs. If you don’t want religion dictating our laws, and you believe LGBTQ people deserve civil rights, then you understand why these are issues atheist activists ought to care about.Coyne is not a religious or evangelical conservative. He is a leftist Jewish atheist biologist Trump-hater. He is also attacked at the Reddit atheism forum.And yet some prominent figures in our loose movement have spent years arguing the opposite, allowing white evangelicals to control the debate on LGBTQ rights — and often taking their side. Jerry Coyne, author of Why Evolution is True and Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible, is another one of those atheists who has spent years spreading anti-trans rhetoric on his website. His blog is now mostly a cesspool of blockquotes from his favorite conservative writers. A deep dive through his “sex and gender” posts will rid you of any respect you may have had for him. (Coyne gave a similar anti-trans talk at the Center For Inquiry’s CSICon in October. Dr. Steven Novella, who spoke at the same event, rebutted it here.)
Update: Coyne resigned, and so did Prof. Steve Pinker
From: Pinker, StevenThis was inevitable. I watched a FFRF video several months ago discussing political action, and they spent all their time talking about plans to pack the US Supreme Court with more leftists.
Sent: Saturday, December 28, 2024 11:49 AM
Subject: resignationDear Annie Laurie and Dan,
With sadness, I resign from my positions as Honorary President and member of the Honorary Board of the Freedom from Religion Foundation. The reason is obvious: your decision, announced yesterday, to censor an article by fellow Board member Jerry Coyne, and to slander him as an opponent of LGBTQIA+ rights.
My letter to you last November (reproduced below) explains why I think these are grave errors. With this action, the Foundation is no longer a defender of freedom from religion but the imposer of a new religion, complete with dogma, blasphemy, and heretics. It has turned its back on reason: if your readers “wrongfully perceive” the opposite of a clear statement that you support the expression of contesting opinions, the appropriate response is to stand by your statement, not ratify their error.
Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has also resigned. The Friendly Atheist blogger writes:
Good riddance. It’s always nice when the trash takes itself out. I urge FFRF to replace them with people who advance their cause instead of setting it back.The trans activists regularly amaze me with how unreasonable they are. Read their opinions for yourself.
Alexander Rosenberg is an American philosopher and novelist. He is the R. Taylor Cole Professor of Philosophy at Duke University with secondary appointments in the biology and political science departments. He is also co-director of Duke’s Center for the Philosophy of Biology. ...This is after explaining that human differences in skin color and lactose tolerance are adaptive.[Q]skin color 5:15 is is one characteristic the question is 5:17 is there a a constellation of of uh of 5:21 characteristics that together make up 5:24 differential racial groups?
[A]simple answer 5:26 to that is no.
The fact is that DNA tests can identify a person's race, and it is reliably similar to how the person self-identifies, and is identified as others. So plainly there is a constellation of characteristics that identify race.
He tries to imply that the science of racial characheristics is disproved by skin color being adaptive. But evolution teaches that nearly all life characteristics are heritable, and adaptive.
what we 1:09 as consumers of biology have learned us 1:12 philosophers is that molecular biology 1:14 and evolutionary molecular biology 1:17 teaches us that um there's almost no 1:21 scope in fact no scope I'd say uh in 1:24 explanation of interesting features of 1:28 uh human population ations that require 1:32 or even aduce the concept of race what 1:36 we've learned from particularly the 1:38 sequencing of Neanderthal genes and 1:41 human genes across the planet uh is the 1:46 remarkable homogeneity of uh human 1:51 genetic inheritance and the complete 1:53 absence of systematic differences that 1:56 have any material reflection in um uh 2:01 social behavior human institutions uh or 2:04 even our adaptation to our environmentThey certainly found systematic differences. Europeans and Asians have Neanderthal genes, while Africans do not. Is that difference reflected in social behavior? That is hard to answer.
[Q] let me get 7:05 practical in the question of uh of race 7:08 because it it it it feels better to have 7:12 no real to have race not being grounded 7:16 in reality it feels better now that is U 7:20 that's that's that's an emotion we 7:21 should be aware of and I think that's a 7:23 good emotion um but that doesn't make it 7:26 right. what makes it right is the what is 7:29 is real in terms of the molecular 7:31 biology and how it worksThe interview goes on to give examples of racial differences in medicine.
[A] there are of course natural 8:54 bell-shape Curves in the distribution of 8:57 of all traits in various populations 9:00 are longterm environmental 9:03 factors that will tend to shape certain 9:07 genes as more prevalent in some 9:09 communities than others. so sickle cell 9:11 disease is a perfect example of 9:13 something that's characteristic of 9:16 African 9:18 Americans okay uh carried over from uh 9:22 uh the middle passage from from Africa 9:26 okay but these kind of traits do not 9:28 reflect anything distinctive of racesSo the disease is characteristic of one race, but not something distinctive?
He is really trying hard to give the answers that feel better.
Neanderthals survived several Ice Ages, and they must have developed traits to help them survive. It is plausible that some of those traits are reflected in genes that are still inherited today.
My main offense was that in a discussion of Leo Frank, who was lynched a century ago in Georgia, I expressed the opinion that there was no consensus that he was innocent. To support this, I said to just google it.
This infuriated some Wikipedia editors because googling it turns up a web site maintained by some disreputable folks, and Wikipedia refuses to link to that site.
It is not just disreputable people who are unconvinced of his innocence. Georgia officials have repeatedly been asked to pardon him postumously, and have refused to do it.
I am baffled that I would be kicked out over such an obscure issue. Wikipedia has hundreds of articles that are much more contentious.
Yes, he was only Jew ever lynched, and it appears that he was framed by a Black man. It is not clear whether his Jewishness worked for him or against him, and not clear what really happened. His story was instrumental in the founding of the Anti-Defamation League.
The editors who banned me also doxed me, and complained about my relatives and opinions on this blog.
Wikipedia is currently fundraising, but not for its server expenses. The NY Post reports:
Elon Musk urged his supporters not to donate to the nonprofit that runs Wikipedia after the organization budgeted more than $50 million to spend on controversial diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.Running its computer servers is only a couple of million dollars year.“Stop donating to Wokepedia until they restore balance to their editing authority,” Musk wrote Tuesday on X, where he has nearly 210 million followers.
Fitness, Mutational Load, and EugenicsThe paper says this would lead to eugenics, and he is against that. He also disagrees with the reasoning.
Matthew J. MaxwellIn 2016 geneticist Michael Lynch published a perspective in Genetics arguing that human physical and mental performance is declining at a rate of 1% per generation (Lynch 2016a). ... because medical interventions, such as “surgical procedures, pharmaceuticals, nutritional supplements, and physical and psychiatric therapies” have mitigated the effects of selection on “bad genes,” the incidence of deleterious mutations (mutational load) in the human population has, and will continue, to rise.
Lynch is not a fringe figure in the genetics community. He is former president of the Genetics Society of America, ...
Lynch avoided a policy recommendation:
What will it take to promote serious discourse on the slowly emerging, long-term negative consequences of policies jointly promoted by political, social, and religious factors? Should such a discussion even be pursued or should the process of accelerated genetic change simply be allowed to run its course — a slow walk down the path to what Hamilton (2001) called ‘the great Planetary Hospital’?”No serious discourse is likely. I do not know what it would take.
One of the forgotten facts of the story of Jesus’ life is that he came from a profoundly dysfunctional family. ...No, this is not important. The biblical Genealogy of Jesus is indeed confusing, and there are apparent inconsistencies.the pastor of the church, took as his text the first 17 verses of the Gospel of Matthew, known as the genealogy of Jesus. Those verses, a long list of names that ties one generation to another, are often skipped over in favor of the story of Jesus’ birth. To the degree that they have any meaning at all, it’s usually because for Christians it establishes Jesus as the heir to the promises God made to Abraham and David.
But as the pastor pointed out, Jesus came down to us through broken families: “one generation begetting brokenness of another generation begetting brokenness of another generation begetting brokenness of another generation.” There were murderers, adulterers, prostitutes and people who committed incest, liars, schemers and idolaters.
This would only matter for claiming some Jewish authority, but Christians do not care about that.
Merry Christmas.
Update: Video about another NY Times essay
0:10 DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS, THE "NEW 0:11 YORK TIMES" FEATURED AN 0:13 INTERVIEW WITH PRINCETON 0:15 UNIVERSITY RELIGION PROFESSOR 0:18 ELAINE, IT'S TITLED CONVERSATION 0:20 ABOUT THE VIRGIN BIRTH THAT 0:22 MAYBE WASN'T. 0:22 IT FOCUSES ON PAYPAL'S 0:25 SUGGESTION THAT QUOTE JESUS 0:26 MIGHT HAVE BEEN FATHERED BY A 0:28 ROMAN SOLDIER POSSIBLY BY RAPE.A priest responds:
1:53 I RECENTLY INTERVIEWED JORDAN 1:54 PETERSON BE. 1:55 HE MAKES AN INTERESTING CASE 1:58 BIBLICAL STORIES WHERE YOU 1:59 BELIEVE OR NOT THEY ARE 2:00 FOUNDATIONAL TO A FREE SOCIETY. 2:02 WHAT WOULD THEIR LOSS MEAN AND 2:04 WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF WHAT THE 2:05 "NEW YORK TIMES" IS DOING? 2:06 >> YEAH, THIS IS AN ASSAULT ON 2:08 THE ENTIRE STRUCTURE OF WESTERN 2:11 CIVILIZATION, WHICH IS FOUNDED 2:12 ON THE BELIEF IN ONE GOD WHO 2:13 REVEALED HIMSELF IN HIS SON AND 2:15 THAT BROUGHT TO FULFILLMENT THE 2:17 PROCESSES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 2:19 SO, WESTERN HISTORY IS FOUNDED 2:21 ON A GOOD GOD WHO IS JUST 2:25 CREATED MAN WITH A PURPOSE. 2:26 SINFUL MAN IS REDEEMED WHEN HE 2:28 ACTS VITTER YURESLY AND SEEKS 2:29 PARDON FROM GOD. 2:31 THE WHOLE CHRISTIAN ORDER 2:34 DEPENDS ON PERSONAL 2:35 RESPONSIBILITY AND ADHERENCE TO 2:37 THE TRUTH. 2:37 WE BELIEVE THAT GOD IS TRUTH AND 2:39 WE HAVE ACCESS TO THAT TRUTH. 2:40 ALL OF THESE HISTORIANS LIKE PAGELS 2:43 WHO TRIED TO DESTROY 2:45 CHRISTIAN FOUNDATIONS BY MAKING 2:46 IT INTO MYTHOLOGY. NO THEY ARE 2:50 AGENTS AND PROPAGANDISTS. 2:52 CERTAINLY NOT HISTORIANS 2:54 AND DON'T DISPLAY THE SKEPTICISM 2:55 OF THEIR OWN THOUGHTS THAT THEY 2:57 WANT US TO DISPLAY ABOUT 2:59 RELIGION. 2:59 WHERE ARE THEY COMING FROM?
I think this is backwards.
According to Wikipedia, Rabbinical Judaism did not get going until the 6th century AD. The chief text is the Talmud, and that was written around 500 AD.
The chief Christian text is the Gospels, written closer to 100 AD. Christianity had a well-defined set of beliefs by the time of the Nicene Creed in 325 AD.
You might say that both Jews and Christians revere the Old Testament, and that is considered more Jewish law than Christian law. That is true, but only shows that Judaism and Christianity have some overlap in their origin stories.
But Jesus was born in Bethelem, part of Jewish territory, you may say. Actually the area was under Roman occupation at the time. Paul, who was the chief proponent of Christianity for a while, was believed to have been a Roman citizen. Jesus and the other disciples may well have considered themselves more Roman than Jewish, for all we know.
So it seems to me to make just as much sense to say that Christianity is the oldest religion, and Judaism was a Christian sect that eventually split into a separate religion.
I would prefer to say that Christianity is a rejection of Judaism, but maybe I have it backwards, and it is more accurate to say that Judaism is a rejection of Christianity.
Islam also claims Abrahamic origins, so maybe Moslems think that they are the original true religion, and that Christianity and Judaism are rejections of Islam. Except that I do not think anyone would say that. Christianity and Judaism were well-developed when Mohammad founded Islam.
People say that Jesus was a Jew, but does that mean he had Jewish DNA or he subscribed to Judaism? I do not think that either was well-defined at the time. He had his own set of beliefs. Saying that he was Jew seems like just an anti-Christian thing to say.
Here is another view, from a Palestinian Arab:
Few figures in Middle Eastern or world history are as contested as Jesus of Nazareth. To Christians, Jesus is their Messiah, the Son of God, and God made flesh, the cornerstone of their religion, the world’s largest. During his lifetime, he was a Jewish rabbi living in first-century Roman Judea. ...I say that saying Jesus was a Jewish rabbi, or a follower of Judaism, is just as anachronistic. Rabbinical Judaism did not exist yet. Jesus did not teach based on the Talmud, and his message was not Jewish.Claiming that Jesus was Palestinian is not only anachronistic, it is as inaccurate as asserting that he was Israeli, Ottoman, Byzantine, or a Christian Crusader — since none of these identities existed in his time. Each reflects a later historical period and different sociopolitical realities. Superimposing any of these identities onto Jesus simply does not align with the reality of the first century or describe either his ministry or his followers.
Jesus’s identity was fundamentally Jewish. His teachings, as recorded in the Gospels, were thoroughly rooted in Jewish scripture and traditions and his arguments with the religious leaders of the various Jewish sects of the time — the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, and others — were internal debates within Judaism. Jesus lived in a Jewish society, addressed the concerns of his fellow Jews, and was ultimately executed by the Romans as “King of the Jews,” a title that reflects the way in which both his supporters and his enemies viewed him.
Merry Christmas.
Legal systems are grounded on the notion that we are morally responsible, but under determinism we’re not. Yes, we can be responsible for an act, but “moral” responsibility is intimately connected with libertarian free will; it’s the idea that we have the ability, at any given time, to act either morally or immorally (or make any any other alternative decision, even if it doesn’t involve morality). Yes, I know there are some who think that the justice system already implicitly accepts determinism, but they are wrong. For if it did, we wouldn’t have any form of retributive punishment, including capital punishment.So the criminal does not deserve punishment, but it is good to punish him anyway to deter others. Likewise we reward do-gooders, not because they deserve it, but to provide an incentive for others.As for rewarding good behavior, well, yes, you couldn’t have done otherwise than, say, saved a drowning person. But rewarding people who do good is a spur for other people to do good. Even if the rewarded people don’t “deserve” plaudits in the sense that their accomplishments didn’t come from LFW, handing out rewards for things that society approves of is simply a good thing to do—for society.
Coyne says he is a hard determinist, who believes that everything people do is pre-determined.
I believet that some people have free will, and some do not. Those without free will are essentially slaves, or robots.
If a wild dog kills and eats your pet rabbit, then the dog does not deserve punishment. However I may forcibly separate it from my other pets. I can do this because I have free will.
If I do not have free will, then there is no sense is telling me what I ought to do, or what is moral to do. I will do whatever I have been programmed to do.
I am trying to make sense out of Coyne's position. I think it would make sense if many heroes and do-gooders have no free will, and our authorities and judges and morally conscious citizens do have free will. Then our leaders can make good decisions, and some citizens will respond to incentives. The others are slaves, and can be thrown in prison if they fail to follow orders.
Okay, but Coyne thinks that it is a law of physics that no one has free will. We are all automatons. It is no use trying to persuade anyone of anything. You cannot make a decision, and you cannot influence anyone else's.
As I always say, “It’s much harder to convince a free-willer of the truth of determinism than to convince a creationist of the truth of evolution.”Not surprising. Why does he even try, if he is a determinist?
Sam Harris speaks with Matthew Yglesias about the future of Democratic politics. They discuss where the Democrats went wrong, the failure of identity politics, the Left’s reaction to the Daniel Penny case, what a second Trump term might look like, immigration and the border, gender and racial disparities in crime, wealth inequality, Matthew’s “nine principles for a common sense Democrat comeback,” and other topics.They are a little subdued about Trump, since the election.Matthew Yglesias is a columnist for Bloomberg and author of the newsletter Slow Boring. He has also written for The American Prospect, The Atlantic, and Slate. He co-founded Vox in 2014.
A top Yglesias complaint is that Trump is exactly what he appears to be, as opposed to the phoniness of every other major politician.
nobody has ever said to me about Donald Trump -- well if you only like if 30:56 you really knew him you know if you saw what he was like behind closed doors, he's so much more thoughtful, he's so 31:02 much Kinder than he comes across as and you hear that every other president. you know maybe it's BS but like people who 31:09 worked for George W bush people, who worked for Biden, people who worked, you know, people who lost Mitt Romney, Hillary 31:15 Clinton, their closest aides will say you know this person is so great. I I talk to people who work for Trump in his first 31:21 term and they'll say you know no like this guy's totally nuts it's um it's exactly what it seems like and that you 31:28 know that worries me.He tries to turn this into a negative, but I think that it is a positive. Trump is the most honest and transparent major politician I have seen. If you vote for him, you know what you are voting for.
The podcasts both voted for Harris, but they have no sense of what she stood for. She said whatever her advisors said was politically expedient. She would say that her values had not changed, but what were those values? Nobody knows.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a close adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump, on Friday endorsed Germany’s far-right party, a group with ties to neo-Nazis whose youth wing has been classified as “confirmed extremist” by German domestic intelligence.It is not that extremist, if it is polling at 19%.“Only the AfD can save Germany,” Mr. Musk posted to X, referring to the anti-immigrant party, the Alternative for Germany, by its German initials. ...
The AfD is polling at 19 percent, and its leaders appeared ready to make the most of the post, apparently hoping that it could help attract more voters and serve as a jumping-off point for communications with the Trump White House.
Here, terms like "far right" and "extremist" have come to mean opposed to flooding Germany with distinctly non-German immigrants.
The leftist press operates by comparing all their enemis to Hitler. It did not work in the USA 2024 election.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson made waves recently by giving his take on transgender athletes and how they should be allowed to participate in sports. The discourse around this tiny issue has become increasingly toxic, meaning it’s time for me to talk about it...They act as if some scientific research into hormones is going to make athletic competitions more fair.
6:11 The problem with treating trans women as female athletes, on the other hand, 6:16 is that at the moment it’s unclear how to do it well. So I think much of the disagreement you see 6:22 comes from the clash between the question of how do we deal with trans athletes NOW 6:30 and the question of how we should ideally deal with them one day.There is no way to do it well, and no research is going to provide a way.
They both acknowledge that all athletic competitions are unfair in the sense that some athletes have superior talent, strength, training, perseverence, etc. That is a feature, not a bug. Competitions is supposed to bring out the best.
Friendly golf games have handicaps that supposedly let players with different skills compete. Okay, but handicaps are not used in the big tournements.
The science tells us that mammals are unambiguously divided into males and females. The sexes are immutable. Males have a distinct advantage in most sports.
The human sexes are not just divided by athletic ability, but also by psychological traits and cultural roles. We have girls' sport to give opportunities to girls, and not to approximate scientific fairness.
Usually Tyson and Hossenfelder stick to their areas of expertise, but they have waded into the culture wars.
Apparently the respectable liberal prevailing opinion is that if a boy identifies as a girl, and if he is medically treated to diminish his masculine abilities, then the compassionate thing is to let him compete with the girls. But it ruins the whole idea of girls' sports. It is harmful to the girls, and harmful to the boy. Some European countries have quit doing these treatments on minors, because of the obvious harm and the lack of any good evidence of benefit.
Kamala Harris ran for President under a transgender platform. It was probably the issue she most identified with, besides abortion and open borders. I am expected some changes, now that she lost.
The greatest myth in the history of science and religion holds that they have been in a state of constant conflict. — Numbers (2009, p.1)He goes on to argue that Europe had a Christian revival in 1520-1720, and this stalled the progress of science somewhat.Is the science-based world we live in today the result of rationalism displacing religious dogmatism— the triumph of reason over faith, the victory of science over religion? This interpretation took root during the Enlightenment and remains popular among many in secular society, who see clear paral- lels between current evangelical resistance to Darwinism and Galileo’s condemnation by the Roman Inquisition in 1633 for holding that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
Today’s leading experts on the subject, however, tend to either strongly qualify or outright deny the notion that religion and science were historically in conflict. Neither did science undermine religion (Brooke, 2009), experts claim, nor has religion typically impeded scientific growth (Harrison, 2015). The rise of Christianity did not cause the demise of classical philosophy (Lindberg, 2009); the Medieval Church did not suppress the growth of science (Shank, 2009); and there was “no such thing as a [systematic] conflict between science and religion” in the times of Galileo (Shapin, 1998). His trial by the Inquisition is instead seen as a rare exception to an otherwise constructive relationship between the Church and science, evidenced by countless cases of scientists who were deeply religious, who were religiously inspired to do science, who were directly funded by the Church, or who owe their scientific productivity to the vast network of early modern cultivated clergymen (Brooke, 1991, Shapin, 1998, Harrison, 1998, Osler, 2001, Feingold, 2003, and Hannam, 2011, among many others). ...
The consensus is clear: “as a theory believed by working historians, the conflict hypothesis is dead” (Hannam, 2009); it “has now been thoroughly debunked,” as a “mixture of exaggerations, dishonest emphases, misunderstandings, and outright lies” (Hutchings and Ungureanu, 2022, p. 15); “erected on insubstantial foundations” (Russell, 2000, p. 15), it is nothing but “the greatest myth in the history of science” (Numbers, 2009, p.1).1
Evolutionist-atheist Jerry Coyne is unconvinced, but has some similar views:
Instead, I’d say that people like Numbers and Ruse adopt the “no conflict” hypothesis because it is more or less a “woke” point of view: it goes along with the virtue-flaunting idea that you can have your Jesus and Darwin, too. You don’t get popular by touting a conflict, as I’ve learned, but people love to hear that you can be religious and also embrace modern science.Numbers and Ruse are dead, so I don't know about them. But it is bizarre to say European science was held back by Christianity during 1520-1720. That was the time of Copernicus, Tycho, Kepler, Galileo, Boyle, Hooke, Newton, Leibniz, etc. The first great anatomy book was written. Europe lept ahead of the whole world in science.
While people like to point on a dispute between Galileo and the Pope, it did not hurt the progress of science. Galileo continued to get Church sponsorship, and to publish scientific works. No other religion wsa sponsoring scientific works.
One of his recommended books might be pretty insightful. The Anxious GenerationAnother similar rant, also influenced by Haidt, is Why Matriarchies Fail.We have raised a couple generations now that were over parented, protected from adversity while growing, never having a moment to grow, always adults lording over the kids to prevent any problem or harm. Where a mother is arrested for allowing her child to walk without an adult ensuring their safety. Where "free range" children are considered prima facie evidence of a crime and child abuse.
But allowed to watch shemale midget scat pR0n on the Smartphone they got when they turn 5 years old.
So it isn't terribly surprising that young people grow into physical adults, yet stuck in a strange childish funk, and need chemical assistance to deal with their depression. That in recent years, atypical antipsychotics are being normalized.
Life out of balance. Raising children requires two parents, usually one male, and usually one female. Today, the male input is largely subjugated, while the female is elevated. And the epidemic of single female parent households makes the childrearing with no male input at all - no male input wanted.
In a normal situation of bonded parents, the female excels at nurturing and keeping the children alive and healthy, The male provides protection and teaches boundaries that allow the children to become successful adults.
But in today's western world, males are considered useless, and are not needed, and females have the force of law, much of society, and especially media to enforce that. To the point that a growing number of young men are leaving to find mates in other countries where they are not considered the cause of all problems.
Witness the oncoming attacks with me daring to not tow the prevailing party line.
I have a number of friends that partnered with Philippinas, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, and a couple other nationalities. Not a divorce in the lot, and they treat each other like kings and queens.
Side note: so many American women who don't need a man are enraged by men that they reject leaving to find love elsewhere. You would think they would celebrate the enemy leaving them alone.
Point is, what we are doing is failing terribly.
Even now though, there are some interesting actions. The recent election was decidedly female versus male. The democrats were blindsided that a gynocentric campaign failed to attract males. They were shocked that young men didn't vote en masse for Harris, adding to the landslide that all females were going to vote for her.
They figured that the enemy (read the stereotype old white racist men) were going to vote for orange man, but young men were raised right and would join the curb stomping.
But these young guys, who were told that by virtue of brandishing a penis - they were the enemy, and they were the cause of every problem, and they were the oppressors, started finding it kind of odd that the oppressed victims were better educated, given preference i hiring and promotions, and given rights without responsibilities. So we could have a woman CEO playing victim to young guys who were raised on Ritalin, and living in their parents basement.
Finally, the over reach of sexual harassment has reached comical terms, not to mention a variable thing. Harassment is now determined by how attractive the guy is. Saying that you like a woman's ear rings is sexual harassment. Since it can end a man's career, the only winning move is to not play the game.
So make no mistake, orange man is probably not going to help these young guys very much at all. But they have experienced what Democrats, colleges, the media and the courts have done for some time now. Many of the young guys don't dislike Harris either, they dislike the direction things have taken. And while it isn't popular to note, there are women out in the wild who do not hate men. So the gynocentric campaign managed to blow through almost 2 billion to get landslided in the electoral college.
This is going to take along time to return to any sort of normalcy.
Daniel Penny’s Acquittal Is a Win for Civilization ...What is she saying at the end? That wealthy Jews have been financing Black riots, but lost interest when the leftist activists starting celebrating the murder of Israelis? It does appear that Black Lives Matter has peaked.The more you looked at him, the more you realized he looked like a specific Roman statue: the Dying Gaul. Same curly hair, sharp nose, prominent chin, mustache, jawline, everything.
The Dying Gaul is famous as a representation of dignity in defeat. ...
Then Donald Trump won the presidency. Suddenly, Daniel Penny’s tribe was a defeated people no more. ...
Is the era of Black Lives Matter over? ...
Despite their loud talk, I expect few riots — but the reason has more to do with internal dynamics on the left. The October 7 attacks by Hamas opened up a rift between the Democratic party’s donors and its activist class. Protests like those of 2020 cost money, and the people who bankrolled that summer are less willing to write checks now that the recipients of their largesse have, in many cases, cheered on the massacre of Israeli civilians.
The Penny prosecutor, Dafna Yoran ( pronounced "urine"), was born and raised in Israel. She is a lesbian who is gay-married to a 'Peruvian pro-Black Lives Matter artist' named Ana De Orbegoso. She is a far-left activist driven by revenge fantasies against "Nazis". During the trial, she called Penny the White man, as she identifies as Jewish non-white.
Unrelated, but see: 9 VOLT | SMOKE DETECTOR HORROR FILM (Trailer, 2024). I think it must be a racist joke, and not a real movie.
If Christianity is right, all other religions are wrong:Christianity has built great civilizations. Not those other religions. So yes, Christians do have reason to think that they are more right.Jesus Christ was the Messiah—so the Jews are wrong.
Jesus was divine and resurrected—so the Muslims are wrong (“Jesus son of Mary, Allah’s messenger—they slew him not nor crucified him, but it appeared so unto them.” Qur’an, 4:157).
There is only one God—so the Hindus are wrong.But, of course, the Christians have no better reason to think they’re right than Jews, Muslims, or Hindus do.
And religion often inspires people to do bad things that they would not otherwise do. For instance, at this very moment in Syria and Iraq, perfectly ordinary Shia and Sunni Muslims can be found drilling holes into each other’s skulls with power tools. What are the chances they would be doing this without the “benefit” of their incompatible religious beliefs and identities?Again, this is an argument that Christianity is better than Islam.
While I have spent a fair amount of time thinking about the brain, I do not think that the reducibility of consciousness to unconscious information processing has been established. It may be that the very concepts of mind and matter are fundamentally misleading us.Interesting admission. He almost concedes that we might have souls. Odd for such a hard-core religion hater. If we have souls, then how can we address their health, except by religion?
One of the greatest problems with religion is that it is built, to a remarkable degree, upon lies. Mommy claims to know that Granny went straight to heaven after she died. But Mommy doesn’t actually know this. The truth is that, while Mommy may be honest on every other topic, in this instance, she doesn’t want to distinguish what she really knows (i.e. what she has good reasons to believe) from (1) what she wants to be true or (2) what will keep her children from being too sad in Granny’s absence. So Mommy is lying—either to herself or to her kids—and we’ve all agreed not to talk about it. Rather than learn how to grieve, we learn to lie to ourselves, or to those we love.So maybe religious folks tell themselves convenient lies. But this is coming from Harris who wrote a whole book against free will, and arguing that we are all pre-programmed automatons. If so, no one chooses what to believe. Truth is not a requirement. We just believe what we are programmed to believe, whether true or not.
Harris is some sort of Jewish Atheist Leftist Buddhist Trump-hater. He lacks the free will to make an informed judgment on Trump, but regularly posts stupid rants against him anyway. He says that he does not even have a feeling of free will. It is all based on his DNA or whatever he thinks is determinitive.
Here is his moral gripe with Christianity.
The truth is that even with Jesus holding forth in defense of the poor, the meek, and the persecuted, the Bible basically condones slavery. As I argued in Letter to a Christian Nation, the slaveholders of the South were on the winning side of a theological argument — and they knew it.Christians believe in free will, and freedom of the human spirit. The truth will set you free. Those without free will are the real slaves.
News:
A federal appeals court struck down Nasdaq (^IXIC) rules designed to encourage more diverse company boards, the latest defeat for DEI policies across corporate America.Christopher F. Rufo has suggestions for Trump to shut down DEI.The decision handed down by nine judges for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans concluded that the Securities and Exchange Commission should not have approved the Nasdaq rules in 2021.
These rules would have required the thousands of companies listed on the tech-heavy exchange to have at least one person who self-identified as female on their board, or explain why there was not one, along with at least one person who self-identified as either from a racial minority or as LGBTQ. ...
"We hold … that the diversity rules cannot be squared with the Securities Exchange Act of 1934," they said in the 9-8 ruling.
The SEC, they added, failed to establish that the diversity disclosure rules were related to the purpose of the Exchange Act — which "exists primarily to protect investors and the macroeconomy from speculative, manipulative, and fraudulent practices, and to promote competition in the market for securities transactions."
The United Healthcare CEO killer has been caught. No, he is definitely not a hero.
This is old news. Most historians agree that FDR was hostile to Japan, at the least.
And yet FDR is portrayed as a great hero.
I just mention this as an example of how the Deep State can lie to us.
The performance of young children on the ‘mirror self-recognition test’ varies hugely across cultures, a new study has shown. This is the test that involves surreptitiously putting a mark on a child’s forehead and then seeing how they react when presented with their mirror image. Attempts by the child to touch or remove the mark are taken as a sign that he or she recognises themselves in the mirror. Studies in the West suggest that around half of all 18-month-olds pass the test, rising to 70 per cent by 24 months. Chimps, orangutans, dolphins and elephants have also been shown to pass the test, and there’s recent debate over whether monkeys can too.They found that non-western kids do poorly, with kids as old as 6 flunking it in Kenya.
Does this mean that Kenyan IQ is lower than that of chimps and dolphins? No, I don't think so. Interesting anyway.
A sick Ohio woman who killed and ate a cat was hit with a one-year jail sentence on Monday as a furious judge slammed her for the repulsive stomach-turning act.I don't know what prompted her to eat a cat, but animals are not like human children, and it is not cruel to kill and eat an animal.“To me, you present quite a danger to our community,” Stark County Common Pleas Judge Frank Forchione told Allexis Ferrell, 27, the Massillon Independent reported.
“This is repulsive to me. I mean, that anyone would do this to an animal. And an animal’s like a child. I don’t know if you understand that or not,” the judge said. “I can’t express the disappointment, shock, disgust that this crime has brought to me.
“This is repulsive to me,” an Ohio judge told Allexis Ferrell as he sentenced her to jail for eating a cat in August. Canton Police Department
“I don’t know what could prompt anyone to want to eat a cat.”
He then sentenced Ferrell, who pleaded guilty to a felony charge of animal cruelty.
She cannot be deported because she was born in the USA.
Bloomberg reports:
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan to fix immigration in Canada depends on the biggest exodus of people since at least the 1940s — one that many economists doubt is feasible.The British government is similarly unpopular for replacing its population. Could Canada, Britain, and the USA all be wising up at the same time? We shall soon see whether they have to guts to do mass deportations.Slamming the brakes on record-setting population growth requires 2.4 million non-permanent residents to leave or change status over the next two years, according to the government’s forecasts, which also see 1.5 million new temporary arrivals during that time. ...
The new plan — in which the overall population is set to slightly shrink, once all factors are considered — represents a sharp reversal from a population boom that strained housing, the job market and public services. Once a proponent of mass migration, Trudeau is backtracking amid souring public opinion on immigration and weak polling numbers for his Liberal Party.
Also:
Police have carried out dawn raids in several cities in Germany and France in an internationally coordinated operation to smash a network accused of smuggling migrants to Britain in small boats.While Whites are declining:
The European Union has recorded its lowest number of births in over 60 years, with a dramatic 5.5 per cent decline from the previous year marking the largest annual drop on record.Yes, I know, the White women can just abort their babies, and replace them with immigrants.
Also in France, the government is unpopular for its immigration policy:
A new poll shows that nearly a majority of French people do not want any immigration at all, both legal and illegal.The poll from CSA, which was conducted for Europe 1, CNews and the Journal du Dimanche, showed that 48 percent of French people want zero immigrants coming — that means not a single migrant entering French territory.
Now the liberal prime minister, with the Nazi-sounding name, seems to admit all of this. From a speech:
This happened by design, not accident.Yes, it is unforgivable.Policies were reformed…
Deliberately …
To liberalise immigration.
Brexit was used for that purpose…
To turn Britain into a one-nation experiment in open borders…
Global Britain – remember that slogan…
That is what they meant.
A policy with no support… [Political content redacted]
Well that’s unforgivable.
When they put Brexit on the ballot, they should have given the British another option to stop the immigration
Zionism versus BolshevismI do not know whether these opinions had anything to do with England entering WWII against the Nazi, with post-war treaties, or the creation of Zionist Israel.A STRUGGLE FOR THE SOUL OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE.
SOME people like Jews and some do not; but no thoughtful man can doubt the fact that they are beyond all question the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world. ...
Good and Bad Jews. The conflict between good and evil which proceeds unceasingly in the breast of man nowhere reaches such an intensity as in the Jewish race. The dual nature of mankind is nowhere more strongly or more terribly exemplified. ...
First there are the Jews who, dwelling in every country throughout the world, identify themselves with that country, enter into its national life, and, while adhering faithfully to their own religion, regard themselves as citizens in the fullest sense of the State which has received them. Such a Jew living in England would say, "I am an Englishman practising the Jewish faith." ... The National Russian Jews, in spite of the disabilities under which they have suffered, have managed to play an honourable and useful part in the national life even of Russia. ...
International Jews. In violent opposition to all this sphere of Jewish effort rise the schemes of the International Jews. The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race. Most, if not all, of them have forsaken the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world. This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, ...
Terrorist Jews. There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistical Jews. It is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews. Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish leaders. ...
A Home for the Jews. Zionism offers the third sphere to the political conceptions of the Jewish race. In violent contrast to international communism, it presents to the Jew a national idea of a commanding character.
For a more modern view comparing Bolsheviks and Nazis, see this movie on X-twitter. I am not endorsing this, as it appears to include some anti-Jewish propaganda.
The U.S. conservative political commentor Candace Owens was refused a visa to enter New Zealand for a speaking engagement because she had been banned from another country, immigration officials said Thursday.She said that some of the reported experiments were implausible because they had no medical value. I assume that she is wrong about this, but she ought to be able to express her skepticism without having her travel blocked.News of the ruling came weeks after neighboring Australia also rejected her visa request, citing remarks in which she denied Nazi medical experimentation on Jews in concentration camps during World War II.
Geoffrey Hinton - Will Digital Intelligence Replace Biological Intelligence?He respond to the AI criticism that LLMs hallucinate, by saying that human memory is just as bad. He gives as an example an analysis of John Dean's Watergate testimony:In this profound keynote, Vector co-founder Geoffrey Hinton explores the philosophical implications of artificial intelligence and its potential to surpass human intelligence. Drawing from decades of expertise, Hinton shares his growing concerns about AI's existential risks while examining fundamental questions about consciousness, understanding, and the nature of intelligence itself.
John Dean, the former counsel to President Richard Nixon, testified to the Senate Watergate Investigating Committee about conversations that later turned out to have been tape recorded. Comparison of his testimony with the actual transcripts shows systematic distortion at one level of analysis combined with basic accuracy at another. Many of the distortions reflected Dean's own self-image; he tended to recall his role as more central than it really was. Moreover, his memory for even the “gist” of conversations was quite poor except where that gist had been rehearsed in advance or frequently repeated.Wow. John Dean was the White House lawyer, and he never should have been allowed to testify against Pres. Nixon. But he did, and recited events in extraordinary detail. I did not know that his recollection was mostly wrong.
I had read that the Woodward-Bernstein accounts were mostly wrong, to the extent that facts could be checked.
Many people deny that mass immigration over time will fundamentally change countries.He has a good point. People can see the small changes, and have trouble seeing the big changes.This is a similar kind of mistake as evolution denial.
One is abowritesut e: volution at the level of a species and one is about evolution at the level of a country.
• Evolution deniers
Evolution deniers accept that "microevolution" happens. They also agree that different species exist. They just don't think that a large number of small mutations over time can lead to a new species.
• Mass immigration impact deniers:
Similarly, mass immigration impact deniers accept that micro changes happen. They acknowledge that individual immigrants can have different cultures and views than the host population on average. They also agree that countries with large differences between them exist. They just don't believe that a large number of immigrants over time can lead to a fundamentally changed country.
Both groups of deniers often demand to be shown direct evidence of transformation in progress. For example, "Show me the monkey turning into a human" or "Show me that California has turned into Mexico." A snapshot may not clearly reveal an ongoing process, but that doesn't mean the process isn't taking place.
In both cases, the evolution has taken place in the past. For example, with the Yamnaya expansion, countries evolved into different societies and cultures. However, since this happened long ago, there is limited evidence illustrating these changes. Similarly, our shared ancestor with chimpanzees evolved into different species, including humans. But since this also occurred long ago, the evidence is limited, allowing evolution deniers to raise questions.
In general, people find it difficult to intuitively understand the impact of many small changes over time. This difficulty, combined with ideological beliefs that lead them to want to deny it, is why many otherwise sensible people deny that evolution takes place.
A long time ago, people did not care about invasive species, because the immediate effect was small. Or people did not understand the different ecology of different species.
California, Canada, London, Paris, etc. have been transformed into something different. It should be plain for anyone to see.
