Quotation of the Day

What always gets me with these climate-change denialists is the rationale they use to decry the work of the IPCC and other scientific bodes and scientists: It’s not that merely that they’re wrong, it’s that they’re running a scam so that they can get rich. That’s right—a guy representing oil interests first and foremost is accusing climate scientists of trying to get rich from global-warming research. That’s like Madonna complaining that some homeless street musician with an open guitar case for people to toss change into is trying to fleece the public.

Kevin Beck

Quotation of the Day

Flood geologists have rendered untenable the hypothesis that the Flood year spanned much of the relevant slice of time, by demonstrating that too much Mesozoic and Cenozoic sediment deposition was subaerial or was prolonged for years. The continued denial of the implications of their own findings is an example of what I call the gorilla mindset: the attitude that if something looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, but religious dogma says it is a gorilla, then it is a gorilla.

Phil Senter (h/t James F. McGrath)

Today's Crapfest

Being a Republican, I vote in the Republican primary. Please rest assured that no candidate that signs the idiotic “Candidate Vow” [PDF] put out by the group calling itself “The Family Leader” (and when exactly did “family” become code for bigotry?) is going to get my vote. This anti-science anti-humanity childishly-scribbled screed wants candidates to promise to support the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (which should never have been passed in the first place), to support a Constitutional Amendment redefining marriage as between one man and one woman (and why not add in “of the same race” while you’re at it?), to suppress “all forms of pornography and … abortion” (and to hell with the Bill of Rights, apparently), to reject “Sharia Islam” (which I include only because of the mind-numbing idiocy of the phrase), and to support overpopulation as beneficial to the American way of life.

Nobody who supports the continued over-population of the planet gets my vote. Nobody who calls scientific evidence “anti-science bias” or who uses a phrase like “complete absence of empirical proof” in that context gets my vote. And nobody who thinks that he (or society in general) gets to decide on what consenting adult I choose to marry will ever get my vote.

Quotation of the Day

When you look upon a global warming denialist, you are not seeing a person who is deluded, wrong, misinformed, or misguided. You are seeing a person who is intent on killing your grandchildren. You may want to treat them politely, you may want to be a dick to them. Do whatever works. But don't let them think for a second that you do not know what the consequences of their actions are. Don't let them get away with it.

Greg Laden

Impossible to Verify

I stumbled onto an internet meme involving an odd use of the phrase “natural history” that led me here, to a weblog entry entitled simply “Natural History is Not Science” by somebody calling himself Dr. David Shormann. The piece turns out to be the usual claptrap about how geology and astronomy and the like are “interesting, fun, and adventure-filled pursuit[s]” but not “real science” because you can’t examine a supernova in a laboratory or watch the continents drift in real time or whatever the nonsense of the day is—as it’s retread stuff I didn’t really pay attention. The thing that did catch my attention, however, was the author’s bizarre claim that it is impossible to ever verify a historical event. Speaking about the past he says “you can theorize all day long, but unless you have a time machine, you can never verify your ideas”.

WTF? Where’d that come from? Of course you can verify your ideas—or disprove them, for that matter. Here’s an example from something I’m working on right now. I have a narrative in front of me, a narrative that purports to be the true story of a man’s life in nineteenth century America. It has some quite interesting material in it, if true. But is it? According to Dr. David Shormann there is no way on earth that I can determine this, since I don’t happen to have a time machine. I guess I just have to take it at face value.

Or do I? The author claims to have been raised by a man named Drake on a farm adjoining the land owned by former President Andrew Jackson. No way I can test this, right? Think again. Our narrator supposedly lived there from say 1836 to 1847. This means that if I look at the 1840 census I should find an entry for a man named Drake somewhere near the entry for Andrew Jackson, and there should be at least one male inhabitant in the correct age range for our narrator. Finding that would tend to confirm our narrative; not finding it to disconfirm. (No evidence of this sort of course proves or disproves a claim; proof belongs to logic and mathematics, not to history.) There was no such man, by the way, not a good sign.

Our narrator claims to have met Kit Carson in a St. Louis hotel in 1847, and to have accompanied him thereafter to Bent’s Fort in Colorado. Well, Kit Carson’s activities are well-documented for this time-period. If the narrative were true we would expect to find other records of Kit Carson staying at a St. Louis hotel, and leaving town with a fifteen-year-old boy in tow. The records do indicate that Carson was in St. Louis in 1847, but he stayed at a private residence, not a hotel, and he went from there to Arizona with an army regiment and went on from there to California—not to Bent’s Fort. And no fifteen-year-old boy puts in an appearance. Not conclusive, but a bad sign.

Again, he claims to have bought land on the Sacramento River and ranched there from 1867 to 1872. If he did, there should be a title transfer recorded in the land records there (and there isn’t). And he should have shown up in Sonoma county or thereabouts in the 1870 census. Instead he shows up in that census at the opposite end of the state, in Santa Barbara county, landless and breaking horses for a living.

And again he spent time in the 1860s fighting the Apaches with General Crook—when General Crook according to army records, newspaper accounts, and a host of other documents was fighting the Shoshones in Idaho. He was the scout who brought in the Modoc leader Captain Jack in 1873 according to his own account—but reporters on the scene make no mention of him, assigning that feat to a regular army detachment, assisted possibly by some Warm Springs Indians. This is supported by the military records, by recollections of participants, and by contemporary references, none of which so much as allude to our narrator’s participation in events.

Now, not everything in this guy’s narrative failed to pan out. He claims for example to have been in Seattle in 1888, and sure enough, his name appears there in the city directory, just as it should. He claimed to have known Buffalo Bill Cody—and there are witnesses who saw Buffalo Bill embrace him and give him a seat of honor when he showed up as an old man at one of his wild west shows. But when so many records of the time fail to bear out his story, or worse yet, place him elsewhere from the place he claimed to have been, it’s impossible to take his account very seriously.

My point is this: contrary to Dr. Shormann’s claims, it is entirely possible to verify, or to controvert, historical hypotheses. Police investigators do it every day. So do epidemiologists. Realtors. Lawyers. Accountants. It’s part and parcel of the way we do business in the world. And we don’t need time machines to do it.

Quotation of the Day

…[D]oughnuts, even Spudnuts, don’t come close to the movement to improve American education inspired by the Soviet launch of Sputnik. From just getting history horribly in error, Palin came close to ridiculing American business with her idea of meeting the challenges like space exploration, with doughnuts and coffee. Doughnuts and coffee will not lift student test scores, nor are they the answer to lifting our economy today and keeping the U.S. competitive and on top, in the future.

Ed Darrell

More Picking on the Clueless

Even as I wrote the “Picking on the Clueless” entry the other day, another member of the Clueless Brigade, one Michael Aprile, was contributing his two cents (and that’s overvaluing it considerably) at Pharyngula. This guy, who obviously knows nothing about the topic, had the temerity to lecture P. Z. Myers, a practicing biologist, on the subject of “Macro evolution”. An excerpt follows:

There is nothing wrong with being a fool, but teaching others to be one is unacceptable and irresponsible, at the very least. Furthermore, to have a degree or degrees in biology and to still believe in Darwinian theory, shows ignorance in the worst degree. Macro evolution is founded on absolutely nothing but blind faith. No evidence has ever been provided for it. Several hokes and false attempts, but no real evidence. A large group of sciences, including biologists, have concluded that the theory is false.

Now of course I would point out that no evidence has ever been provided that there is a distinction between macroevolution and microevolution; the assumption behind that is the notion that there is something, some sort of mechanism, that would prevent many small genetic changes from accumulating until two populations are no longer capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. Until such a mechanism has been observed in action the term “macroevolution” is essentially hand-waving and gas.

P. Z. Myers rips the poor fool apart in the manner of Yahweh speaking to Job out of the whirlwind:

I’ve split half-billion year old stones to expose the shells of trilobites, I’ve seen the bones of Tiktaalik, I’ve held in my hands the skull of Neanderthal. I’ve compared the genes of mice and flies, I’ve studied the embryos of grasshoppers and fish, I’ve read thousands of papers produced by a scientific community that values curiosity over money. I’ve also read dozens of books by creationists, and I can say with complete confidence that they, and you, Mr Michael Aprile, are full of shit.

Ah, yes, way to go, Dr. Myers.

Picking on the Clueless

I have a number of open tabs in my browser that I’d like to get rid of; two of them are witless comments on science. The first comes from one Bill Belew, who writes for Examiner.com. This extremely short piece has got to be one of the stupidest I’ve ever read on any scientific topic. Bill asks: “Who or what is making the natural selection?” Rather than take the time to brush up on the topic he blunders on:

Selection implies there is a selector, no? Choice implies chooser, right?

And on what basis does the selector make his/her/its selection?

It seems to me folk do not want to acknowledge a Creator or Designer to the universe but would very much like to personify all that is around us and give it the ability to design. What’s up with that?

Well, I don’t know, Bill—the question that strikes me is, Have you ever thought of, oh, doing a little homework before publishing? I guess not.

Almost as idiotic is the following paragraph from Kent Hovind’s doctoral dissertation:

The idea that evolutionists try to get across today is that there is a continual upward progression. They claim that everything is getting better, improving, all by itself as if there is an inner-drive toward more perfection and order. This is totally opposite of the first and second law [sic] of thermodynamics. It goes against all scientific evidence that has been accumulated. Yet, this lie is what many men believe today. We don’t see it happening anywhere in our universe today. We don't see any evidence of this in the fossil record.

And yet, people who gibber like this expect to be taken seriously. The mind boggles.

Quotation of the Day

Creationists are not the heralds of a coming paradigm shift; they are the rotting detritus of the old regime of unreason that has haunted the human race for far too long. There's a difference between maintaining an open environment that encourages fresh new ideas to emerge and tolerating the sloppy housecleaning that allows moldy scum to flourish.

P. Z. Myers

IDiocy? or Egnorance?

I haven't forgotten that third part of my dissection of "Our Christian Roots"; it's just a matter of keeping my nausea under control. Seriously. I had to reread a veritable shitload of William McGuffey's work, in order to see whether I could run down some alleged quotations, and in the process turned up some of his letters online. It's amazing what lurks in the various corners of the internet. (And let me note that I post these links as much for my own benefit as for that of anybody else.) It was interesting, in a dull sort of way, and help round out my picture of a guy I never liked that much. I never did find the alleged quotations, by the way, and I doubt very much that they are authentic, but, being me, I'd really like to know where they did come from, and not merely where they didn't.

And somebody at WikiSource screwed up the Gospel of the Hebrews page, and I spent a bit of time trying to clean it up, before I gave up and reverted it to the last reasonable version. No source given, no indication of translator (the all-important question being, are the translations in public domain?), extraneous material added, valid material deleted. A real mess.

Still, my day was somewhat brightened by this ERV post: What Makes an IDiot? It's tempting to blame people for their ignorance, especially when they sound off on a subject on which you, the listener, know a little something. ERV, however, distinguishes between IDiocy and mere ignorance:

But heres the deal. Not knowing what 'eponymous' means doesnt make you an idiot. Not knowing some really, really, really basic facts of evolution and anatomy doesnt make you an idiot.

It just means you dont know something.

I dont know lots of stuff. *shrug* Weve all had different educations and different upbringings. I wont call someone an idiot just for not knowing something, because Id be an 'idiot' on lots of topics too.

What makes one an IDiot is not knowing something, plus being arrogant-- so goddamn arrogant-- you turn up your nose at people who *do* know something, and refuse to learn.

That about sums it up. Read the entry.

Letters to the Editor

My attention was caught by an exchange printed in the Naples Daily News. On the one hand, Ed Weilhoefer, possibly a retired professor of mathematics, wrote a letter to the editor criticizing the creationist propaganda film Expelled. On the other hand we have a "Guest Commentary" by V.J. Falcone, "an adjunct professor at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut," complaining that "Ed Weilhoefer’s letter the other day was beyond the pale". Adjunct Professor Falcone poses as the voice of reason and moderation, but--

Ed Weilhoefer wrote:

The fact of the matter is that “Expelled” is a propaganda film, produced under false pretenses by a radical front for creationism. Joseph Goebbels’ ghost must be gleeful that his villainous art is alive and flourishing in the United States.

V. J. Falcone's response:

Finally, after some unsubstantiated statements which he calls "the fact of the matter," he claims that "Joseph Goebbels’ ghost must be gleeful that his villainous art is alive and well in the United States." Have you counted the number of letter writers who inject the Nazis into their essays? It’s de rigueur: If you disagree with me you are a Nazi, Nazi-like, Nazi-leaning, Nazi-wannabe.

Please. No more Nazi comparisons except when dealing with political issues that justify the allusion.

Nice evasion, Adjunct Professor Falcone, but what about dealing with the actual issue? or is it possible that you really don't know exactly who Joseph Goebbels was? I see that you "[lecture] graduate students in education on the U.S. Constitution, teaching controversial issues, morals and values, and 'thinking about thinking,'" so you certainly ought to know. In case you don't, however, let me inform you that Herr Goebbels is generally regarded as the gold standard for propaganda efforts, whether fake documentaries, fake academic studies, or fake histories. (Although in my opinion, having actually seen some of Goebbels' efforts, they are crude hack-work compared to the work of the Discovery Institute, or other think-tanks I could mention.) If you really didn't know this, you should be ashamed of yourself. Ed Weilhoefer's use does indeed deal with a political issue that justifies the allusion. If you do know, then you, Adjunct Professor Falcone, have gone way beyond the pale in misrepresenting what Ed Weilhoefer actually wrote.

Ed Weilhoefer goes on to refer to the deceptive tactics used by the film-makers to get interviews, and notes that "[t]he film is a diatribe against the American university system and an attempt to undermine science." To this V. J. Falcone has nothing to say. Then comes this passage:

Let’s face it: Americans trail far behind other Western nations in science education and that is one reason why we have so many weird religious beliefs inconsistent with basic science.

Here V. J. Falcone has at least half a point. "Any first-year logic student" he writes, "would know that statement is a post hoc fallacy." The United States of course does in fact trail behind many other Western nations in science education and it does indeed have many weird religious beliefs incompatible with the most basic science, but which is cause, and which is effect--who knows? The American tradition of anti-intellectualism probably has a lot to do with both, actually, but the two certainly feed on one another. Anyone who's been involved with one of the brushfires of ignorance breaking out through the country when religious fanatics try to dictate what gets taught in science classes is aware of the negative effect that "weird religious beliefs" have on science education in this country. And most of us who have been through what pass for science courses in the United States know just how bad this alleged education can be and how much that contributes to the craziness of the American religious scene.

Unfortunately V. J. Falcone doesn't stop with that. He goes on to write "By the way, we are behind in math, engineering and a myriad of other disciplines which I think is the result of teaching for 'self esteem' rather than for understanding." That line was old in the fifties, and has virtually nothing to recommend it. Bromides are not a substitute for thought.

Ed Weilhoefer continues:

It is laughable but very sad that Americans believe that the age of our planet is somewhere around 10,000 years.

It is indeed. Recent polls show that Americans do indeed believe this, and in large numbers. This really sets V. J. Falcone off: "I have taught thousands of students," he claims, and "know hundreds of academics and have not met one human being that believes what Mr. Weilhoefer states as fact." I can only suppose that Adjunct Professor Falcone travels in very rarefied circles; perhaps he needs to mix more with ordinary Americans. I've never had any problem running into people who believe exactly that, more's the pity, and to be honest, I really don't believe V. J. Falcone's claim. Maybe he hasn't inquired all that deeply into the beliefs of those thousands of students. Or maybe he's been very lucky in his classes. Back to the original letter:

Creationism or intelligent design is a Christian fundamentalist doctrine.

It's difficult to see how anybody could take exception to this statement, but V. J. Falcone does:

Not so. Intelligent design has been debated from antiquity to the present day.

Plato and Aristotle thought that it was a valid doctrine. Plato calls that power, not God, but an artificer "which causes things to exist, not previously existing ..., not some spontaneous and unintelligent cause."

I, personally, don’t know how life began, and I don’t think anyone else knows to an absolute certainty either.

All this jibber-jabber is beneath contempt. If the adjunct professor has a point, he has concealed it to perfection. Plato and Aristotle were pre-scientific thinkers and have absolutely nothing to do with the modern Intelligent Design™ movement, which is a pseudo-scientific disguise for fundamentalist theology. Shifting definitions in mid-stream is an old rhetorical trick, as I'm sure he knows quite well. Oh, yeah, and by the way, the only people who claim to know to a certainty how life began are Creationists, or Intelligent Design Proponents, or whatever they want to call themselves today.

Why the Naples Daily News thought this sub-par composition was worth publishing is beyond me.

Special Rights for Christian Young pt 2

I've amused myself by staggering about the internets, butterfly net in hand, trying to get some sense out of this whole University of California lawsuit thing. A fascinating comment-thread from 2006 turned up here, in which some poor guy signing himself Larry Fafarman gets baited and repeatedly ripped apart by "Mary", "Albatrossity", "Flex", and "Josh", among others. Like a bull in a bullfight Larry gets up again and again and charges the cape, only to miss the mark altogether and go crashing once again into walls of the arena. He is sure that the University of California has discriminated against this Christian school somehow, but he hasn't read the court documents or anything like that. He is quite positive that most biologists have no need for evolutionary theory in their work, but he has no data to support his claim. He gets enraged when asked to provide evidence, and positively asserts that other people who have actually checked out the material must be wrong. Ex cathedra, I guess. I actually started feeling sorry for the guy after a bit, despite his, uh, bullheadedness, he was so badly outgunned in the discussion.

One of Fafarman's repeated points is that "The UC officials did not say that the science itself was bad. If UC wants to win this lawsuit, I think that UC needs to find more fault with the books than that. The main issue here is whether the books may add a religious viewpoint to the standard curriculum." Even though he was corrected several times on this point, he kept on asserting it, as though it were a fact. But it isn't. It's one of the points in contention. The University of Californian says it rejected the Bob Jones University biology textbook because it did not cover the standard course material. At no point did the university claim that it had any objection to an added religious viewpoint. That is what the lawyer for the Christian school is contending. The main issue here is not "whether the books may add a religious viewpoint to the standard curriculum"; if it were, then both sides would be in agreement on this point, since UC has never contested that concept. One of the material issues to be settled, it seems to me, is whether the books in question did in fact cover the standard curriculum, since UC says they didn't and the Christian school says they did. To me that appears to be a no-brainer, at least as far as the Bob Jones biology book is concerned. I don't know what exactly it was teaching, but whatever it was, it was anti-science, not science.

Of the three courses for which documents were given in the complaint the matter seems fairly open and shut for the government course and the English course. These two on their face appear to flunk the a-g standards UC has in place. This is not a matter of religious content; it is a matter of poorly designed courses. The Christian influence on American History course is another matter. UC rejected it as too narrow or too specialized, and that could be open to interpretation. It seems to me that it should have been placed in the (g) category (college prep elective) rather than the (a) category (history), both because of its somewhat specialized focus and because American History was a required prerequisite, and this course hardly qualifies as the required year of non-American history.

And while the UC judged the textbook inadequate for general American history, it's worth noting that here its intended use was for a Christian influence on America course. It's possible that a case could be made for it, though its attributing events to divine providence rather than investigating human causes seems problematical. That's not exactly history as we know it, but rather some kind of theology. It would be better to use a more orthodox treatment as the main textbook, and to use the Bob Jones book as a supplement, if it had to be used at all. But of course I'd have to see the book itself before I could pronounce on it; right now I'm taking the word of experts about what the book says.

Special Rights for Christian Young

In a previous piece I commented on the gall displayed by certain Christian parents who have demanded that the University of California relax its standards to admit children who did not qualify for admission due to their ignorance of elements of history and science that their parents had deemed inappropriate for them to learn. A federal court has now handed down its decision on the subject, and matters have gone entirely in favor of the University of California.

Background

The University of California has rather stringent entrance requirements, probably because they have considerably more applicants than positions available. Oversimplifying radically the University of California requires:

(a) Two years of History--one year of US history, and one year of non-US history (world history, Chinese history, or the like). "Courses should be empirically based and promote critical thinking and questioning regarding historical events and perspectives."

(b) Four years of English involving both reading and writing. "Reading assignments must include full-length works."

(c) Three years of mathematics, including Elementary Algebra, Geometry, and Advanced Algebra.

(d) Two years of laboratory science (three years are recommended). The required sciences are Biology, Chemistry, and Physics; however one of these may be omitted. Other courses like say Marine Biology or Earth Sciences may qualify, but "it is emphasized that courses in this second category must cover, with sufficient depth and rigor, the essential material in one of the foundational subjects in order to qualify for "d" certification."

(e) Two years of a language other than English (three years are recommended). Classical languages are acceptable.

(f) One year of Art, which may include dance, drama, music, or visual art.

(g) one year of a college prep elective--essentially advanced courses in one or more of the a-f requirements.

These are known as the a-g requirements, and "are intended to ensure that students coming to the University are conversant with accepted educational and scientific content and methods of inquiry at the level required for UC students and typically expected of educated citizens in the competitive workforce." (PDF source) Students may show that they have in fact completed the requirements in several ways. The easiest is by having taken approved courses in high school. If their high school lacks approved courses students may still be admitted by taking courses in the missing subjects at community college or by passing standardized tests.

The University of California certifies college prep classes in both public and private schools. "For a course to be approved as an a-g course, the school must submit a request with the course curriculum, textbook information, and other supplemental materials to the University for approval." The UC website gives examples of courses that were and were not approved along with the reasons. There was an English course (Publishing on the World Wide Web or something like that) that didn't concentrate enough on writing, for example. A virology class whose data was nothing more than a list of diseases. And so on.

Okay now, the Calvary Chapel Christian School submitted a number of courses for a-g approval, and forty-three of them were accepted. A tiny handful were rejected. One English course (Christianity and Morality in American Literature) used only excerpts rather than entire works (see b above). One biology course used an anti-scientific book from Bob Jones University as its primary text (the preface actually admits to giving science a subordinate place in its presentation). Others apparently used similarly defective volumes as their sole or primary textbooks. According to the University of California those same courses would probably have been approved if the substandard volumes had been used as supplementary texts instead.

Some of the Rejected Courses

Christianity's Influence on America would "evaluate the direct relationship between organized Christianity and the ideas about government, society, and culture that came from it," "investigate the movements and forces that developed in response to Christian beliefs," and "discover in depth the Judeo-Christian beliefs and traditions of America". The course outline runs from "Founding of a Nation: Roots in the Reformation" to "New Millennium: ... Post-modernism". Only two texts are used: United States History for Christian Schools and Pilgrims in Their Own Land: 500 Years of Religion in America, though there is a vague reference to "Various primary materials and topic specific handouts." The course was rejected because its focus was too narrow and "The content of the course outline submitted for approval is not consistent with the empirical historical knowledge generally accepted in the collegiate community." The primary text used in the course was assessed as inadequate in its coverage of major components of United States History (it preferred to attribute "historical events to divine providence rather than [to analyze] human action" for one thing) and didn't encourage "historical thinking skills and analytical thinking" (the quotations are from Professors James Given and Gary Nash respectively).

Christianity and Morality in American Literature is a real mess. The description claims it "is an intensive study in textual criticism aimed at elevating the ability of students to engage literary works at the level of the author's beliefs and to examine and effectively communicate the impact of those beliefs on the work and the writing process." I don't believe the author of this passage has a clue about what textual criticism is; it is certainly the wrong approach to examining either an author's beliefs or the impact of those beliefs on his work. "Students will first survey the various prominent forms of American literature...." "The final project will consist of the examination of a significant piece of fiction from an approved list, and an intensive writing (term paper) identifying those processes and themes which inform it." (The approved list contains only two works by American authors--"Something Wicked This Way comes" by Ray Bradbury, and "A Canticle for Leibowitz" by Walter M. Miller. The rest are by British authors--Jane Austen, Chaucer, Tolkein, Bunyan, C. S. Lewis, Bram Stoker, and one French author, Victor Hugo.) The only text used is American Literature: Classics for Christians, which consists entirely of excerpts, "fails to provide substantial readings and ... insists on specific interpretations." (The quotation is from Professor Samuel Otter.) "Such a combination contradicts the emphasis on analytical and critical thinking required..."

The Special Providence: Christianity & the American Republic description starts out unpropitiously with a bogus James Madison quotation about the ten commandments and goes on to outline the familiar Christian America fantasy. The text for the course is a Bob Jones University Press publication, American Government for Christian Schools, about which Professor Mark Petracca said it contains "many factual and empirical assertions that are not generally accepted among political scientists [or] historians and that are nevertheless not substantiated within the text by evidence." The course was rejected as "not consistent with ... empirical historical knowledge" and for having an inadequate textbook.

The Lawsuit

Rather than make any effort towards actually improving their courses, the Calvary Chapel Christian School, along with the Association of Christian Schools International and a handful of students, sued the University of California, claiming religious discrimination. Specifically they deny that the courses are in any way inadequate, but rather insist that they teach the standard material plus a Christian perspective. The only possible reason for the courses' rejection, they claim, is that very Christian perspective. The facts obviously suggest otherwise.

Let me quote Mike Dunford of The Questionable Authority here:

When it comes to the biology courses, their claim that they are teaching the "standard material" with a religious viewpoint added had better be disputed - because they're not. I've got a copy of the Bob Jones University textbook that's used by some of the Christian schools. Biology for Christian Schools does not, in any way, shape, or form teach "standard" biology with religion added. It teaches religion instead of standard biology, and the University of California is absolutely right to refuse to accept courses taught from this book as biology classes.

From the course description I'd have to say that the same is true of the government course, Special Providence: Christianity and the American Republic; this is not standard material, but rather religion disguised as a history of American government. God knows what they're teaching in the English course, Christianity and Morality in American Literature; the course description is so poorly written as to defy interpretation, and on that ground alone the University of California would have been within its rights in not certifying it.

Christianity's Influence on America is harder to evaluate, but I personally find it hard to disagree with the assessment that it is too narrowly conceived to qualify for UC's a-g standards. The lawsuit contends that much more narrowly conceived classes have made it, but they don't given any example that obviously qualifies. Instead they cite courses in Russian History, or the History of India, as being more narrow and specialized than Christianity's influence on America. There I can't help but wonder what world they're living in. Histories of entire nations--nations I may add that are older and more diverse than the United States--are obviously more general than a history of one religion's influence on a single nation. I can't imagine where they left their brains on that one. They don't give a single parallel example, such as (say) Masonry's Influence on America, or (say) Islam's influence on Indonesia. Instead we get Mexican History. Gack.

The basic point they're pushing is that the University of California is engaging in something they call "content discrimination". I would certainly hope so. That's precisely the point of examining courses and textbooks and so on. The University ought to discriminate between reliable, accurate content that reflects the actual state of knowledge, and unreliable, inaccurate content that doesn't. If they fail in this basic task, then they're not doing their job.

Summary Judgment

Both sides in the case demanded at least partial summary judgment. The Christian school claimed that there are no material facts to be decided, that the UC policy is unconstitutional on its face, and therefore the case should be decided in its favor without going to trial. UC on the other hand insisted that as there were material facts to be decided the case should go to trial, but wanted summary judgment on the issue of the constitutionality of their policy. The result was a clean sweep for UC. The judge ruled that UC's policy was constitutional (summary judgment in favor of UC) but that there were material facts to be decided about the application of the policy in the particular classes (no summary judgment in favor of either side, as UC requested). And there the matter stands.

Reactions

The story at Inside Higher Ed called forth some amusing reactions, one of them mine. "denise" wrote that she had had "an opportunity to look through a Bob Jones middle school level biology textbook several years ago; and ... one would have a hard time convincing me that the content is not more than adequate. I found it very rigorous and I have no doubt it supercedes what is offered in most public schools." (I think she meant to say that she had no doubt it surpasses what is offered in most public schools.) Despite having no examples of this to offer us, she is quite sure that UC is guilty of religious discrimination. She also is under the impression that UC denied admission to the complaining students; this is far from the case.

"Ben Thare" is "familiar with ACSI and [knows] that the schools that are accredited by ACSI are usually pretty rigorous." He attributes UC's refusal to recognize substandard courses to "hateful narrow-mindedness and intolerance".

"Albatrossity" steers readers to his review of the BJU biology "textbook" (link). It's definitely worth reading. "Here’s just a taste of the 'adequate' contents of this putative science textbook — 'If the conclusions contradict the Word of God, the conclusions are wrong, no matter how many scientific facts may appear to back them.'” "denise" insisted that the textbook was too adequate; "Albatrossity" responded: "When students are taught that observations and evidence and data can be IGNORED if they contradict the word of God, they are not being taught science."

And then "Ben" chimed in with the usual accusation that science involves just as much faith that there is no creator as religion does that there is. " All evidence pointing to the existence of a creator must be ignored by science, he says, though without suggesting what possible evidence pointing to a creator might be being ignored.

A little further on "denise" again displays her ignorance of the situation by writing "Would UC find it necessary to evaluate lesson plans and classroom objectives to make sure the instructors of these religious schools aren’t supplementing said textbook with creation supplementals and speakers that purposfully contradict the scientific philosophy of the approved book" The answer of course is no since the UC has no problem with such anti-scientific "supplements" so long as the course material is actually mastered.

And I guess I'll conclude this with a comment from "Beth" that really sums up the situation:

I applaud the judge. If a textbook that tells students “If conclusions contradict the Word of God, the conclusions are wrong, no matter how many scientific facts may appear to back them” doesn’t bother you, I hope for the sake of innocent people that you are not allowed on any jury. Using a textbook that tells students to reject evidence, even when there is lots of it, is anti-educational period, but particularly in a science class. The whole idea of science is that your conclusions must be based on evidence, on scientific facts.

Can a Creationist Teach History?

James Hanley at Uncommon Liberty writes:

And it's not that I would ban creationists from the public universities--I don't care if someone who believes in special creation teaches political philosophy, French literature, theater, art, exercise science, history, economics, etc. But not biology, because creationism isn't scientific.

Okay, maybe theater or economics--but history? Me, I wouldn't go there, since the philosophy of special creation is inherently anti-history in its formulation. History is based on hard evidence, not speculation made up out of whole cloth. Creationism, on the other hand, dismisses evidence that doesn't fit its bizarre world-view. Creationists, for example, don't buy into the (to their minds absurd) notion that human beings invented or discovered agriculture. Mankind was specially created to garden, and had agriculture forced upon him as a result of the Fall of Man. (I've had this argument before. More than once.) Hunting and gathering peoples aren't cultures that haven't taken up agriculture yet--they are cultures that have fallen from the natural state imposed by the creator. One of the historical consequences of this belief was the underestimate of the time it would take to transform hunters and gatherers to agriculturalists. Nineteenth century American policy dictated that native Americans convert instantly from a hunter-gatherer way of life--perceived as laziness--to one based on agriculture--perceived as godly industriousness. A utopian idealist named Meeker tried this notion out on the Utes in Colorado in the 1870s, and ended up dead as a result.

And this is one of the most basic facts of history. Creationists have strange notions about many other aspects of history--the development of language, the accomplishments of the Sumerians, the role of Babylon, the role of Egypt--in fact, they seem to have a distorted view of the entire history of the Near East. But what can you expect from a group that denies the validity of radio-carbon dating, of dendrochronology, and yet believes in a recent global flood? These guys aren't playing the game of History any more than they are playing the game of Science, and have no business getting into the ring, or even suiting up for it.

Given this, it's not surprising that Creationists tend to jump onto other popular historical bandwagons for which evidence is lacking--the Christian America myth for example, currently being enshrined in HR888, the Inflate Religious Pretensions Act. I've already mentioned Flood Geology, of course, but there are also Eurocentricism, the denigration of Islam, the conspiracy notions behind modern Asian history, and so on and so forth--none of which may be inherent in Creationism--but once you've agreed to voluntarily blind yourself in one area, it's easy to extend it to others. If your eye offends you, pluck it out and all that, I suppose. Of course you won't be able to see where you're going, and if you lead others you're both going to end up in a pit, but that's a small price to pay for being doctrinally correct.

Now I'm speaking here of YECs, of course--Young Earth Creationists, for those who aren't hip to the current lingo. It really ought to be YUCs--Young Universe Creationists--but for some reason that hasn't caught on. Old Universe Creationists are another matter. Some of them, anyway. I used to watch a cable-access show by an Old Universe Creationist--from his comments I believe he was an astronomer by trade--and on the whole I'd have confidence in his ability to teach astronomy at any rate. I don't know about French Literature or exercise science, but I'd have more confidence in his ability to teach them than in the average YUC's ability to teach anything whatsoever that depended upon his ability to evaluate evidence accurately. Sloppy thinking in one field carries over to another--or at least I'd have trouble believing that it doesn't. Intellectual laziness in evaluating the evidence of astronomy, biology, geology, and history--all of which are key to being a card-carrying YUC--do not suggest a likelihood for intellectual rigor in political philosophy or economics. And willful blindness in one field easily carries over to another.

As for the Gonzales issue, well, anybody who thinks that denial of tenure is persecution is living in a fantasy world. Sorry, but denial of tenure is a fact of life in academia. Most of the time the reasons boil down to cold hard cash. An institution has to think long and hard before making the long-term commitment that tenure implies. My sympathies tend to be with the instructors in these cases, not surprisingly since my mother and step-father were both professors in institutions of higher learning. In Gonzalez's case my sympathy is somewhat muted by the fact that he appears to have been spending too much time on outside interests instead of keeping his eye on the ball. The guy was working in a highly competitive field, and if he wasn't bringing in the bacon, so to speak, then I'm not surprised his employer chose to let him go. Them are the breaks. As Superchicken used to observe, "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred." If denial of tenure is persecution, then I've known a lot of victims, and many of them much more obviously qualified in their fields than Gonzalez appeared to be in his.

[By the way, James Hanley's original post on the Gonzalez nonsense seems to me to put things in the right perspective. Denial of tenure is never fun; it would be lovely if every instructor in the world could find a permanent teaching position. But the dishonest campaign being run on his behalf is beneath contempt.]

Quotation of the Day

H[uckabee] doesn’t believe in evolution, which is like not believing in electricity. You have a constitutional right not to believe in it, but grab a live wire and you will still be eliminated from the gene pool.

KAMuston

Does a Theory Somehow Become a Law?

In a recent post I expressed a certain befuddlement over a notion that there is some sort of progression from hypothesis to theory to law. Not being a scientist myself I could only fall back on what I learned back in my school days. While stumbling about the internets looking for something or other I fell upon a Scientific American piece by John Rennie that observed:

Many people learned in elementary school that a theory falls in the middle of a hierarchy of certainty--above a mere hypothesis but below a law.

Somehow I missed that bit; I remember that stuff about forming hypotheses, testing them, and developing theories from hypotheses that panned out--whether that came up in elementary or junior high school I no longer recall--but nothing about theories being between hypotheses and laws. If it ever came up in school I must have spaced it out completely, because that whole idea was absolutely new to me when I read it in a critique of a biology textbook, complaining that the author should have written of Newton's "Law" of gravitation rather than "Theory" of gravitation. John Rennie goes on to confirm what I thought I understood:

Scientists do not use the terms that way, however. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a scientific theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." No amount of validation changes a theory into a law, which is a descriptive generalization about nature. So when scientists talk about the theory of evolution--or the atomic theory or the theory of relativity, for that matter--they are not expressing reservations about its truth.

The rest of the commentary on this point was also interesting:

In addition to the theory of evolution, meaning the idea of descent with modification, one may also speak of the fact of evolution. The NAS defines a fact as "an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as 'true.'" The fossil record and abundant other evidence testify that organisms have evolved through time. Although no one observed those transformations, the indirect evidence is clear, unambiguous and compelling.

All sciences frequently rely on indirect evidence. Physicists cannot see subatomic particles directly, for instance, so they verify their existence by watching for telltale tracks that the particles leave in cloud chambers. The absence of direct observation does not make physicists' conclusions less certain.

Nice to have a little common sense for a change. I've probably been reading too much of this creationist/ID stuff for too long.

Quotation of the Day

Science, as an intellectual project is profoundly un-conservative. Science does not value tradition. Science requires authority to continually reprove itself. Science must follow the truth wherever it goes, regardless of the political and economic implications. Science is apolitical. However, while science may not be any friendlier to liberalism than it is to conservatism, liberalism, by virtue of that tolerance thing, is friendlier to science than conservatism is.

John J. McKay

Unbelievable

This one comes from South Carolinians for Science Education, courtesy of Pharyngula. Apparently, for some unfathomable reason, the people responsible for approving textbooks for South Carolina got a pair of ignorant fools to review two reputable biology textbooks and actually held them up for approval based on their uninformed ramblings. The characterization of them as ignorant fools is mine, but is justified by their own words. Examples follow:

Authors incorrectly refer to the Theory of Gravity when it is the Law of Gravity. Just as there is a big jump from hypothesis to theory, there is another big jump from theory to law and proper citation should be noted. [p.3, RJL and S critique]

Now I'm not a scientist, nor do I play one on the internet. I'm perfectly willing to concede that things may have changed a great deal since I learned the basics. I was taught Newton's Theory of Gravitation along with Einstein's Theory of Relativity and so on. But I've never heard of this progression from hypothesis to theory to law. Theories contain laws, and put them into a larger context that presumably explains them, but I've never heard of a theory becoming a law. If Newton's theory of gravitation has become a law of some kind, I apparently missed it. And if I'm confused on this point, so are the authors of the Wikipedia articles on gravitation, since they still refer to Newton's theory. To me, this criticism sounds just plain ignorant. If in other respects these reviewers showed they knew what they were talking about, I'd be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. That, however, is far from the case.

Statement that earth was formed about 4.5 BYA is speculation. [p. 2 RJL and S critique]

It’s speculation in the same sense that the claim the Washington Monument is 555 feet high is speculation. The age of the earth is a matter of measurement, not speculation.

Reference to 3 billions years old is not on solid grounds since dating methods are unreliable. [p. 4, M&L critique]

For this, I'll let Kenneth Miller, one of the authors under attack, take it:

The reviewer claims that there are scientific data that do not support evolution. However, he does not say what that data might be. Instead, he claims (without any supporting data or reference) that information showing that living organisms appeared on the planet nearly 3 billion years ago is unreliable. Why is that information unreliable? Has the reviewer discovered patterns of radioactive decay that violate the laws of physics? He does not say, and therefore it is impossible to evaluate these critical comments.

I admire the author's politeness, considering the boorishness of the critique. But since I don't have any horse in this race, I'll say outright anybody this foolish, ignorant, or mendacious has no business reviewing a serious textbook. Period.

Eruption Mt. St. Helen in 1980 proved long ages are not needed for geological formations. Canyons in GA and WA states were formed in days or months, respectively, and not millions or billions of year. [p. 1, M&L critique]

Again, it's hard to say whether the reviewers are being deliberately obtuse, or are genuinely stupid. Volcanic eruptions don't form multiple layers of different kinds of rocks containing distinctive fossils, just to point out one of the most obvious flaws with this "argument". As Kenneth Miller pointed out with commendable restraint in his reply:

The fact that some geological features can be formed rapidly does not mean that all are formed that way. There is abundant evidence, taught as a required part of the earth science curriculum in South Carolina, that the well-defined geological ages of the earth extend over hundreds of millions of years. [p. 1, reply]

Again, I don't know where to begin with what appears to me to be rank idiocy, either real or assumed. Do these guys have a point, or think they do? Or is this just some kind of snow-job? Oh, and by the way, speaking as one of the many who shoveled ash from my yard in 1980, it's Mount St. Helens, not Mt. St. Helen. I'm just saying.

Now this next "point" is interesting, in that it occurs in critiques of both volumes:

Statements on vestigal organs are grossly misleading. In recent reports, it was shown that the appendix, often cited as a vestigal organ, provides beneficial bacteria to intestines. This whole section should be deleted or updated to accurately reflect the state of knowledge. [p. 3, RJL and S critique]

Statements on vestigal organs are grossly misleading. In recent reports, it was shown that the appendix, often cited as a vestigal organ, provides beneficial bacteria to intestines. This whole section should be deleted or updated to accurately reflect the state of knowledge. [p. 2-3, M&L critique]

This is extremely odd. It almost looks as though the authors pulled out a piece of boilerplate and stuffed it into their critiques without any regard for whether it had anything to do with the books they were supposedly reviewing. Of course a reputable reviewer would never do anything like that, and we can be certain that this comment was somehow relevant to both textbooks. Or can we? Miller wrote:

Curiously, the reviewer complains that the appendix has been mistakenly cited as a vestigial organ when it actually performs a useful, if non-essential function. This comment suggests that the review does not understand the meaning of the word “vestigial,” which does not imply that an organ is without function. Rather, it means that the organ is reduced in size and importance, a “vestige” of its appearance in other organisms, as our text correctly notes. The comment also suggests that the reviewer has not read our book carefully, since we do not cite the appendix as such an organ.

Gee, I wonder what we're supposed to make of that, then. An incompetent criticism that doesn't apply to the book supposedly being reviewed. Again, this appears to be rank idiocy--even I know that a vestigial organ may perform a function. This next example of blithering incompetence is beneath contempt:

Since Archaeopteryx was a bird, it should not be used to show “evolution of a dinosaur to bird”. [p.3, RJL and S critique]

A bird with reptilian teeth and a bony tail? Oh, come off it. This is just creationist-gibber, the same as I've been hearing since I was a kid. You know, people, it doesn't matter how many times or how loudly you proclaim the archaeopteryx was only a bird, it remains as much a transitional form as ever. Though of course in a sense, given a long-enough perspective, we're all transitional forms. Except for those of us who turned out to be dead ends. More silliness accompanies an illustration of a scorpion in amber:

Since scorpions are still scorpions after 25 millions of years (if date is accurate), what does this prove? [p. 4, M&L critique]

Miller replies:

This ancient scorpion, trapped in amber, is used to indicate that fossils provide reliable and detailed records of past life. The text makes no other claim about the scorpion shown within the amber, and therefore there is no reason for the reviewer to object to it.

Any questions?

Robins were and are still robins. No evidence is presented of one kind of animal changing to another kind of animal! Charles Darwin shifted his thinking on origins after he became anti-God. [p. 1, M&L critique]

Now it's getting creepy. What do the reviewers mean by "kind"? This sounds like more creationist-gibber to me--you know, how every animal is supposed to reproduce after its "kind" in Genesis. If they have some scientific definition in mind, they should use the appropriate word--say, "species" or "genus" or whatever. Otherwise it just seems like some sort of weasel word-trick--you know, if I show you one species of elephant changing to another in the fossil record, you come back with, yes, but they're still elephants! That's not what I meant by "kind"! (Yes, I've had this argument before.) If I show a larger series of fossils documenting a transition from say a shrew-like animal to an early primate, then you come back with, oh sure, but they're all still monkeys. That's not what I meant by "kind" at all! And if I ask you flat out what you do mean by "kind", it turns out that you don't have a definition at all. "It's up to you to define 'kind'," you reply virtuously. "All I'm doing is pointing out flaws in your argument." As a fellow named Burns once observed in our high-school English class, he would never believe in evolution until I could show him an example of a cow giving birth to a goat. My reply at the time was that I'd believe in creationism (or whatever they were calling it back in the Palaeolithic) when I saw a cow giving birth to a bicycle.

The comment about Darwin is inexplicable. Miller's observation that "The claim that Darwin “shifted” his views for theological reasons are not supported by any Darwin scholar I know of" doesn't go far enough. It is a matter of indifference how or when or on what occasion that Darwin came to his beliefs as far as the subject of biology is concerned. Further, this looks to me like creationist projection, an all-too-common failing among the biblical-literalist crowd. Creationists reach their conclusions for theological reasons; it makes them feel better to suppose that others do likewise. It puts them on the same footing, so to speak.

But these guys sink even lower than this in the next bit:

The Nebraska man used previously to show descent of man was fabricated from one tooth in 1922. And this tooth was proven to be an extinct pig’s tooth and in 1972 the extinct pig was found to demonstrate a fraud used to promote the evolutionary worldview point in textbooks for 50 years. [Pp.1-2 RJL and S critique]

This one is really unbelievable and shows a most profound ignorance of the simplest facts of the history of science. Only an uneducated boob would claim that the so-called Nebraska Man was “a fraud used to promote the evolutionary worldview point in textbooks for 50 years.” In the first place “Nebraska Man” was a mistaken identification, not a fraud, and in the second, the tooth (mis-)identified as a hominid tooth was correctly identified in 1927 as the tooth from a peccary. “Nebraska Man” had no influence whatsoever on evolutionary theory and as far as I can tell has never been used in textbooks of any kind, unless you count creationist “textbooks”. Finding a hominid specimen in North America would have been extremely surprising under any circumstances, which is one reason this identification was always under suspicion for the brief time that “Nebraska Man” was considered a possibility.

Can they go lower yet? Just how many sub-basements are there beneath contempt, anyway? Turns out the answer is, yes, they can. Although this next one looks like a parody, I am not making it up. They reviewers actually wrote:

Hitler, Stalin, Planned Parenthood, racists, and others have cited Charles Darwin in their genocide programs that have killed an estimated 300 million people. Social Darwinism is a dark side of Charles Darwin’s publications that is often overlooked or excused. High school students should be aware that thoughts and thought process and actions have serious consequences. [p. 2, M&L critique]

I particularly like the inclusion of Planned Parenthood among those with "genocide programs"; I guess they threw that one in just in case somebody started thinking they were actually sane people. That's a dead giveaway that the reviewers have a couple of chips missing in their motherboards. Social Darwinism, by the way, owes a great deal more to Calvin than to Darwin, and has no connection to biology at all. I would also note that the reviewers provide no evidence whatsoever linking Hitler or Stalin with Darwin, and I personally doubt that they can. Hitler came by his anti-Semitism strictly through Christian notions, leading back through Martin Luther to the Gospel of Matthew. Inane (and downright ignorant) remarks like this go far to discredit anything these reviewers have to say, if they hadn't already revealed themselves to be uneducated boobs with their remarks about archaeopteryx and Nebraska Man.

With advisers like these, it is no wonder that the US is falling behind in science education.

And the Bleat Goes On

From Florida we hear some strange remarks from those picked to supervise its educational standards. Nancy Bostock, under the bizarre impression that "the entire theory of evolution is not scientific fact," think that "intelligent design balances it out." Her solution to getting intelligent design into the classroom: "We can call it a different name if that makes a difference to critics." (It doesn't, Ms. Bostock; crazy talk by any other name is still crazy talk.) Another member, Carol Cook, babbles incoherently, "We should expose them [schoolchildren] to it [creationism]. I wouldn’t necessarily say teach them. They need to know both things are out there–both trains of thought, both theories [sic]. To teach one as if nothing else existed, I think we’re doing our students a disservice." Still another, Jane Gallucci thinks "that students should be given the opportunity to view all theories on how man evolved," a not unreasonable position. But then it turns out that she actually thinks that "god made us" is a scientific theory, and that "both theories should be presented to children. I think especially in a scientific world both theories should be presented to children," she notes. Why childish superstition should be presented to children alongside scientific fact, especially in a scientific world, she doesn't explain. But a certain Peggy O'Shea takes the cake on this one. In a world in which biology is increasingly important, where biotech is the wave of the future and in which biological advances have applications in everything from police investigations to the safety of our food supply, she can write about the central idea of biology, "I’d probably ideally like to keep it ALL out of the classroom. If it’s going to create this much controversy, how important is it?" She seems to think that the best approach is to allow parents to "opt out" and to let their kids skip being tested on it. Ah, yes, more special privileges for the "christian" children. Just what we need. And I suppose when they want to enter college they'll demand to be allowed in under some kind of special dispensation for the willfully ignorant, as is happening now in California. Affirmative action for those too lazy to learn. Give me a break.

News Bazaar

Sparks from the Telegraph

Paris--A French periodical has revealed an odd moment in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. When George Bush was attempting to persuade Jacques Chirac to support his planned attack on the oil-rich nation, he seems to have argued that Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East, and that the ancient prophecies of Ezekiel were on the verge of being fulfilled. The French President had no idea what the crazed Texan was talking about, and promptly called a theologian at the University of Lausanne for an explanation. Thomas Römer filled him in on these obscure figures from ancient near-Eastern mythology. As we all know, Jacques Chirac was unimpressed. Neither Weapons of Mass Destruction, nor the terrible Gog and Magog, were enough to convince him to join the Coalition of the Willing. And French fries would become freedom fries in the Washington cafeteria. (Rue 89; English translation at Truthout)

Logan, West Virginia--Raging Red reports: "Megan Williams, a 20-year-old mentally challenged black woman from Charleston, was held captive in a shed for a week in Big Creek, WV (about an hour southwest of Charleston) and was raped, beaten, stabbed, choked, forced to eat animal feces, and tortured in various other ways, until police received an anonymous tip and found her. Six people, all white, were arrested and charged with sexual assault, kidnapping, malicious wounding, battery, and lying to the police, among other charges. The group of six includes a mother and her son and another mother and her daughter, plus two other men." Although her captors are said to have repeatedly used racial epithets in addressing her, local pundits are reluctant to call it a hate crime. "Racists? Possibly," editorializes the Charleston Daily Mail, "But emblematic of Logan County's people, of West Virginia 'culture' or 'American race relations,' as some inevitably claimed? No. ... Distortions of that nature are a disservice to Megan Williams, whose suffering deserves the full attention of the justice system." And from Create West Virginia we learn "On WCHS-AM Charleston 580 radio's afternoon call-in show on Wednesday, an African-American man called in to share his frustration. He described himself as a well-educated professional who often runs into intolerance and racism in our state. The hosts had little patience for his attempt to connect the dots between other acts of intolerance in WV with the current Logan County situation. 'Right now, it's about Megan and helping her, not politicizing the situation. We can talk about that other stuff later.'" So it seems talking about racism or the nature of this hate crime is apparently "politicizing" matters. Somehow. Go figure. (From Raging Red