I can't hear you

In my post the other day about the evolution dust-ups I mentioned at the very end my feelings about how the two sides of the argument are so far apart they can't hear each other. It's true of course in any dispute that engages people on a deep and non-rational level. I came across a good example of what I'm talking about via Ed from the excellent Dispatches from the Culture Wars. The example features a quote from a user of the ARN Design Forum message/discussion board.

The writer (Douglas Bender) is responding to a question about so-called 'abstinence only' sex-education, and his response is fascinating. He says, essentially, that the risks to the souls of the individuals engaging in premarital or promiscuous sex are perhaps more important than the risks to their physical well-being (pregnancy, disease, etc.); therefore "one should not teach them ways to destroy or taint their souls in 'safety.'"

In other words, if you're going to go out and do something that my religion says will endanger your souls, boys and girls, you're going to have to risk your body and your future to do it. These people don't much care that their misbegotten anti-sex education concept is not effective at preventing pregnancy nor at slowing the spread of sexually transmitted disease -- nor even that it doesn't do much to reduce the numbers of young people who go out and have sex, with or without the appropriate knowledge. What they care about is that they don't appear to be placing the immortal souls of our youth in peril -- a peril in which only they believe.

And we try to argue with them saying that their programs aren't effective and that kids are going to do it anyway, and we trot out our statistics and our examples of lives shattered and bodies ruined, but they don't care. That's not the problem, in their world. They don't want a secular society in which the public health system and the public education system work to prevent and/or address the real-world consequences of (in this case) raging teen hormones. They want sinners to be punished -- even if the "sinners" don't subscribe to their particular set of beliefs.

The middle ground is going away fast. There is less room every day for reasonable people to disagree and discuss and try to resolve anything. And it doesn't help matters when we dismiss the increasingly militant christian right as merely stupid and uninformed.

Don't even get me started about gay marriage.

Spinning World

Was at a friend's last night looking though his CD collection and came across an out-of-print CD I've been trying to find for a long time. The Heartbeats Rhythm Quartet is the band; "Spinning World" is the title. I'm listening to it now, and it's every bit as good as I remember. The old-time style combo includes Tara Nevins (fiddle, vocals, rubboard, triangle, tambourine), Beverly Smith (guitar, vocals), Rose Sinclair (accordion, banjo, vocals) and June Drucker (acoustic and electric bass, vocals). Most of the songs are written by Ms. Nevins, but there are a few traditional tunes as well (Cotton-Eyed Joe, Whole Bunch of Keys, Black Mountain Rag).

I saw them perform in the early 90s at the Winnipeg Folk Festival, both on the main stage and in small workshops. Not sure why I didn't buy the CD then and there, but I did have a cassette that had a few songs from it kicking around in my car for a while until it melted. I've been looking for it ever since.

This recording was released by Green Linnet in 1993. You can find the occasional used copy online or in your local used record store.

Green Linnet is a small label specializing in traditional/celtic music. They were involved in some pretty serious disputes over royalties & copyrights a couple of years ago, and subject to a demonstration organized by the American Federation of Musicians in the fall of 2003. Magpie has more here.

I have no idea why "Spinning World" is out of print, but I am pretty sure that the Heartbeats are not performing together nowadays. Some of you might know Tara Nevins from the group Donna the Buffalo. Her (sort of) recent solo project 'Mule to Ride' on Sugar Hill Records is worth checking out also, if you haven't heard it.

Darwin v Jesus

I've been thinking a lot lately about this whole new wave of monkey business over evolution, and whether it should be taught in schools. While I'm firmly in the mainstream science camp (and I'm a card-carrying member of the heathen commie intellectual elite to boot), I'm not going to make any particular argument here; I'm just trying to sort a few things out and make a few observations.

As a moderately well-educated person who has spent many of the last 20+ years living and working on the edges of science, I just can't understand what the fuss is about. I don't have what you'd call a deep understanding of evolutionary biology, but it seems to me that this "evolution" thing is not very controversial among working scientists. I don't know any scientists who practice a religion called "Darwinism," nor any who would say "Darwin was right; therefore Jesus is wrong." I can't think of a single practicing scientist who would try to ascribe inerrancy to Darwin's writings.

I do know a few scientists who are deeply religious (christians but also jews, muslims & buddhists) and they just don't seem to find a conflict between their religious beliefs/practices and their understanding of biology, nor do they appear to find it necessary to spend time refuting such concepts as natural selection in their work or in their conversations.

I also know a few christians of the hard-core bible-is-the-inerrant-word-of-god persuasion and they seem to feel deeply threatened by science generally and poor old Darwin in particular. Their definitive argument seems to consist of the evidence that Darwin himself is dead, and Jesus is not, therefore education is evil and science classes should teach religion instead of science. I think I'm reading the bumper stickers correctly.

But in any case, the evolution-haters have come up with this "intelligent design" (ID) concept to replace the largely unsuccessful "creation science" efforts of a few years back. It's been written about all over the place lately; google it yourself, or you can look it up here at the Intelligent Design Network website. And TalkDesign.org is a website set up by the same folks as TalkOrigins.org; both of these explore the creation/evolution controversy, with the former focusing more exclusively on ID and its implications. TalkOrigins has a lovely FAQ page and an excellent archive.

Oh, and The Panda's Thumb is an excellent group blog in which the integrity of both science and science education are defended. Among other things.

So if I'm understanding ID correctly, one of their central points is that everything in the universe is so amazingly perfect that it couldn't be the result of a random process -- like, say, evolution -- and must be taken as evidence that an "intelligent designer" -- god, for example -- is running the show. On the one hand, this is a pretty harmless idea, and doesn't necessarily contradict natural selection, for example, as a description of the mechanism by which this "intelligent designer" constructs its designs. It does, however, seem to fall prey to the very thing I find most irksome about the popular understanding of Mr. Darwin's theory: namely that homo sapiens is somehow the "end product" of natural selection; that there is this orderly progression of increasingly sophisticated organisms from primeval ooze to lizards to monkeys to contemporary humans, such as we are. Like we evolved -- or someone evolved us -- on purpose. Seems goofy to me.

I know it's difficult to get your mind around it; didn't Galileo or somebody get into hot water for suggesting that the earth was not the center of the universe? This is sort of the same thing. We're not only not at the center of the universe, we might not even be the goal of evolution. Yeah, this is a bummer for some. And yeah, I know that it's disconcerting to think that it's possible no one is in charge. I imagine this is why religious traditions and creation stories are so essential to humans, and why pretty much every community of humans comes up with some way to account for it all and impose some sort of order. It's what we do.

And yes, I know that I'm going to go to hell for implying that there might not be a god. I told you already I was a heathen.

But I digress again.

What I was saying was that while such notions as those comprising ID are harmless enough on their surface, I am extremely nervous about the ways in which they are being used as levers to divide communities, ravage local school district budgets, and undermine the efforts of educators. (See Michelle Goldberg's recent Salon article, for just one recent example).

And this Darwin v Jesus argument is only one part of the current wave of hostility that I find increasingly difficult to stomach. Just as is the case on every other front in the ongoing culture war, the two sides of the argument are so far apart that they can't even hear each other. There is no middle ground. Everybody's getting more angry and/or more afraid.

And everybody's losing.

Science for everybody

PZ Myers over at Pharyngula is my hero for today. He's a scientist, which gives him a lot of points, but what he's doing right now is just too cool. He is implementing the Cafe Scientifique program in his little campus town of Morris, MN. Maybe you've seen the movie 'Fargo'? Morris is not far from there. Lots of gently rolling prairie. I haven't spent much time in Morris, but I have been there, and I love the idea of people there -- or anywhere -- talking about science over coffee or maybe a beer.

Here's an article about the Cafe Scientifique program implemented on the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus (my alma mater, I guess you could say).

While you're over at Pharyngula, I encourage you to look around at his archives and follow some of his highly excellent links. Added bonus: on the left-hand side of the page you can even click on a skull & crossbones icon that will toggle the whole site into pirate mode.

RIP Dr. Thompson

Was very sad to hear today of Hunter S. Thompson's death, though Giblets offers another, more gonzo way to look at it, over at fafblog!.

The Rude Pundit, on the other hand, believes he really did it.

[update 2-22-05, 10 am] Cintra Wilson has what might be my favorite piece on the subject up at salon.com (subscribe or watch the ad):

"If artists are the uninsulated emotional conductors for the rest of society, Thompson was a one-man power grid of paranoia, revulsion and defiance. He was a canary in our collective coal mine, an ulcer on our societal tongue, a warning. He was physically a big and strong enough man to recklessly embody the idea that we should all Beware of Where We Are Headed. A shuddering red flag."

Indeed. Here's the link.
[/update]

And another thing

Media Matters for America has lots more links about Mr. Gannon or whatever his name is here. Forgot to add that earlier.

Update to previous two posts:

There's more on the Gannon/Guckert bizarreness at salon.com [note: you have to be a member or watch an ad & get a day pass to read the whole stories]: Eric Boehlert sums up the whole thing nicely in "Jeff Gannon's" Secret Life and Giving "Gannon" a Pass and Fake News, Fake Reporter.

While you're at salon.com, Michelle Goldberg has a nice piece about the Darwin Versus Jesus Problem, called The New Monkey Trial, and her 2002 articles Fundamentally Unsound and Antichrist Politics are excellent on the 'Left Behind' premillenial dispensationalist business.

Premillenial Dispensationalism: why should I care?

You know those bumper stickers that say things like IN CASE OF RAPTURE, THIS CAR WILL BE UNMANNED or IN CASE OF RAPTURE, CAN I HAVE YOUR CAR? They are referring to this belief-- a "theory," if you like, apparently based mainly on highly subjective interpretations of the prophecies in the New Testament book of Revelations (and I guess some other places in the NT -- I'm no theologian), that the judgment day we've heard so much about will be upon us sooner rather than later. All is not lost, though, to the adherents of this theory: their god is merciful -- at least to those who play by certain rules. You see, before wreaking almighty havoc with his creation here on earth, this god will somehow gather up the righteous -- or merely the saved, depending on whom you ask (these are definitely folks who fall in the "good works are not enough" crowd) -- and transport them bodily into heaven where they will get front row seats to watch the remaining heathens who refuse to accept Jesus Christ as their savior go through seven years of tribulation. You know, the plagues of locusts, rivers of blood, solar and lunar eclipses, little tiny metallic horsemen buzzing around stinging people. That kind of thing.

Some of those who remain will be allowed to accept salvation at the end of the seven years, but it doesn't let them off the hook as far as all the plagues and calamities go -- and if they die in the meantime they don't get taken up until the end. They still have to do time in the grave and they have to wait with the riff raff until god has finished smiting all the unbelievers and then, after the Glorious Appearing of the messiah, they get to join their previously raptured friends and relatives, who will say "I told you so" for the ensuing thousand-year reign of Jesus in some kind of holy christian paradise.

A major proponent of this theology is Tim LaHaye, who wrote the improbably popular "Left Behind" series. You can read more about it at his website. He has some kind of Rapture think tank sort of thing going, called the Pre-Trib Research Center and appears to be moving an awful lot of product in the meantime.

There are a fair number of believers who are studying both scripture and the news, and keeping tabs on which prophecies have been fulfilled. Check out the "prophetic speedometer of end-time activity" at raptureready.com if you want to see how close we are to the big event.

As I personally am not a christian nor a serious student of theology, I can't really speak to the theological problems of premillenial dispensationalism. There are, however, a few serious christians who take on the version of it as presented in the "Left Behind" series that has been wildly popular in certain circles.

Perhaps most ambitiously, Fred Clark in his highly excellent weblog Slacktivist has undertaken a page-by-page exegesis of the series, which is archived here. He's only up to page 71, but it's fascinating. I'd been reading the series for a while when I came across his comments, and was relieved to learn that this was not in fact an essential tenet of mainstream christian doctrine.

Carl E. Olson in his altogether too-kind (IMHO) review of the 12th installment of the Left Behind Series in the National Review Online, explains:

"As a Catholic, I have every desire for people to become Christian and embrace the Gospel. But I see several serious problems with the "Left Behind books," of which I will just mention a couple.

"First, the "left-behind" theology is not the "Christian" or the "biblical" view of the end times, despite what LaHaye says, or what the media sometimes echoes. Premillennial dispensationalism and the belief in a Rapture event separate from the Second Coming is rejected, either explicitly or implicitly, by the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches, and nearly every major Protestant denomination. Dispensationalism, with its particular views about the nature of the Church and the role of Jews in end-times events, was created in the 1830s by former Anglican priest John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) and later systematized in the United States by C. I. Scofield (1843-1921) and Lewis Sperry Chafer (1871-1952). Hal Lindsey's 1970 best-selling "The Late Great Planet Earth" took popular dispensationalism into secular culture, a feat repeated by the "Left Behind" series.

"As Evangelical scholar and Wheaton College graduate Ronald M. Henzel has decisively shown in his book, "Darby, Dualism, and the Decline of Dispensationalism, Darby built his entire theology on a radical dualism between heaven and earth that was unprecedented in the history of orthodox Christian thought. As Henzel notes, no dispensationalist has ever "been able to offer a single point of continuity between Dispensationalism and any other school of theology." This would all be as meaningful and esoteric as learning to lip-sync songs by Grand Funk Railroad except that the influence of dispensationalist thought in North America has been tremendous. Throughout the 20th-century it had a powerful pull on cultural and political matters, especially shaping perceptions of the Middle East and attitudes towards the nation of Israel."

And it is this influence on secular politics and culture that is of interest to me, and sometimes keeps me up late at night.Here are a couple of examples:

• The Godly Must Be Crazy: Christian-right views are swaying politicians and threatening the environment in the online environmental news magazine Grist
• Apocalypse Please an article by George Monbiot

Anyway, more on this later -- especially as regards the whole global climate change thing.

Seriously Weird

OK, here's some serious weirdness. On January 28, blogger Atrios noted that an individual working under the name Jeff Gannon is allowed to be credentialed for White House briefings under what is apparently a pseudonym, despite strict rules against this -- for example, married women reporters must be credentialed under their married name, even if they use their maiden names as their byline.

It seems this "Jeff Gannon" person had acquired something of a reputation for lobbing huge fluffy softball-type questions during the press conferences, and was even called on by the president in one of his "Q&A" events. The "news service" that he worked for, Talon News, turned out to be owned by a GOP operative type out of Texas. Gannon's articles (which have since been removed from the site) are said to have consisted mainly of verbatim transcriptions of White House press releases.

Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with agreeing with the administration; I know some people think that way and that's their right. But it starts to look funny if a person gets White House credentials under a different set of rules than everyone else, has no history as a reporter or writer, and then shows up at press briefings and doesn't even bother to actually write anything. Maybe it's just me, but I think that's kind of odd.

And I'm not the only one who found it odd. Turns out, there's this whole web of bizarreness associated with this guy Gannon, or Guckert, or whatever his name is.

• Here's a New York Times article about it (subscription required).
• The always delightful S.Z. at World O'Crap summarizes the early findings here.
• Americablog has been all over the story as it gets increasingly strange.
• Digby at Hullabaloo.
• Also check out The Raw Story.
• Of course, Giblets over at Fafblog! sees the whole thing as an opportunity, bless his heart.

Anyway, it seems like a way bigger deal to me than an occasional blowjob or a real-estate deal that didn't even turn out to be all that shady. Where are the special investigators? But the clincher, in my view, is that the guy is just obviously not any kind of a journalist or writer at all. Here's the statement he left up on one of his websites noting his return to private life.