Anti-science hysteria is bipartisan

As they say in France,

Les extrêmes se touchent

Far-right evangelicals are anti-science because of their religious beliefs, and as it turns out, the same is true of far-left new agers.

From Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy:

I used to write for the Huffington Post, an online news and blog collective. It was started by Arianna Huffington during the Bush Era as a response to all the far-right online media. I didn’t agree with a lot of what was on there — I am more centrist — but at the time I thought it was necessary.

Then they started to promote far-left New Age nonsense, and when it came to vaccinations, HuffPo started posting all kinds of opinions that amounted to nothing more than out-and-out health threats. While they do sometimes post a counter-argument, it’s still almost all alt-med, all the time.

Here’s the latest: a doctor named Frank Lipman is telling people not to get vaccinated against Swine Flu. Instead he says you should wash your hands a lot, eat well, and take homeopathic medicine.

Why these charlatans are not stripped of their medical licenses, boggles the mind. And, to those of the left who might claim that this is an isolated case, and your side of the political spectrum is “obviously” more reality-minded than the other, I’d suggest reading Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science
to read more about prevalent new-age nonsense in popular culture. Being non-orthodox in belief, for many people, sadly does not mean embracing rationalism — often it just means being post-modernist.

Happy International Day of Peace — unless you live in the US

On a day dedicated to peace [wikipedia], which I interpret broadly to include lack of violent death, it is shocking to find yet another example of the Second Amendment running amok.

From the NYT (linked by Caminante):

In a shocking genuflection to the gun lobby, the Senate has voted to deny Amtrak its indispensable $1.6 billion federal subsidy unless it allows passengers to transport handguns in their checked luggage. The budget support would be stripped in six months unless Amtrak scraps the gun ban that it wisely adopted five years ago after the terrorist railroad atrocities in Madrid.

The gun ban was adopted under Bush, at roughly the same time the ban on assault weapons was allowed to sunset into oblivion. Yet under a president with a reasonable policy on gun ownership (though tell that to the NRA!), and on public transport, the Senate decided, with the crucial help of 27 Democrats (I did not know the Blue Dogs are *that* influential) and, shame of shame, Bernie Sanders, to force them to make expensive changes for the benefit of some people who somehow believe they are insecure without their sidearms. And the much larger number of people who use gun issues as totemic symbols of individualistic freedom. Seriously, the only moderately dangerous place to which Amtrak goes is the Union Station in Chicago. Why would you need a gun in most places Amtrak go to?

So: Amtrak either coughs up money it does not have to retrofit its baggage cars, or risk losing even more subsidies. Did Senate even consider giving them enough money to make the transition? That would make it bad enough (that a totemic issue gets so much airing), but the funding aspect makes it even worse — this is done by people who, mostly (Sanders excepted), want to see Amtrak die, after which it’s totally irrelevant whether you can bring a bazooka or a Tomahawk on it or not.

When the rest of the Western world has much more sane gun controls (no handguns in the UK unless you have a special license), and China and Spain are spending more money on high-speed rail than the US, and this would most likely get overturned in the House or get vetoed by the President anyway, it is highly nauseating that, of all topics right-wing politicians (dragging the uncourageous with them) choose to make a stand on, they have to stoop so low. In recessionary times, I guess the NRA ka-ching speaks volumes. But given our experience of the totally non-issue-based so-called “debate”, is this any surprise?

More on disturbing cultural biases

As it turns out, my earlier conversation is degenerating into a case of full-blown conspiracy theory. One fears for the future of humanity when some people appear to be doing their damndest to prove Samuel Huntington correct.

Well I am talking about crypto-jews such as Sarkozy, Merkel, a lot of the Bush administration’s politicians and some nationalist leaders in Turkey. I know some cases from latin-america too. I’m seeing a pattern here and I think that’s so obvious.
…
Another strange point for Turkey is that some of the extremist “muslim” (!) terror groups have relations with masons and “Dönme”s. Hizbullah in Turkey had (now dead) a Dönme (secret Jewish) leader.
…
Another point is that in Islam, it is forbidden to kill people (if they are not trying to kill you at that moment). An Islamic leader says “A Muslim can’t be a terrorist and a terrorist can’t be Muslim”. So there can’t be a jihadism (in western means) at all. It is theoretically impossible. You can’t make war with noone if they are not attacking you. Jihad is about making war with your flesh and about spreading the word. So jihadism can’t stem from inside the muslim tradition..

I am trying to stay objective in response, but it is getting near to the point where I’d have to give up on any pretense of carrying out a dialogue, because it’s getting rather clear that what I’m saying is not getting through:

I’m sorry, but that’s being in denial. Most religions’ mainstream followers are moderate, but it is the case that the stray extremists of all creed (be it ultra-Orthodox Jews, fundamentalist Christians, or Islamists) claim to be strict adherents of their respective faith.

Disavowing them is convenient, but does not really help matter. You can call these people apostates, sure, but denying that they come from the same root as the rest of you is really a sophistic argument, it sounds really glib and disingenuous to outsiders.

The fact of the matter is, to a non-Muslim it does look like both Christians and Jews are actually more vocal in their criticism of their own fundamentalist branches, than moderate Muslims are of the jihadists. Your case in point — you deny that they are even Muslims (strictly speaking, they are not, but they come from the Muslim tradition, and Muslims have to try and understand how that happens, because outsiders certainly can’t help there).

When even countries like Egypt air “documentaries” about the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” pretending it is historical fact, something is really wrong here. Spreading rumours about others is certainly easier than engaging in self-criticism.

Differing latent biases prevalent in different cultures

I recently received the following message from a StumbleUpon contact, and felt that my reply warrants wider dissemination, given that the misperception in the original message is sadly quite widespread:

Hi,

nearly all the racist and right-wing parties;
leaders from all over the world have Jewish
origins. does this mean anything to you?

“Wilders Of Indonesian Descent” – News – The Hague Online

My reply:

Thanks for the link. I don’t consider Wilders to be racist at all — he’s a bit provocative in his anti-Islamist stance, but unfortunately it is the case that Western European countries often adopted a laissez-faire approach to integrating their immigrants, to the point that the younger generation in the UK is more anti-British than their parents! A lot of Islamic preachers in the West are blatantly jihadists, and their followers very radicalized — see the Channel 4 documentary “Undercover Mosque” for example.

He’s a bit excessive in denigrating an entire religion, but being a non-Muslim who have lived for an extended period in a Muslim-majority country myself, I must say the reverse is also true: there is this perverse fascination with Israel and Jewish people, and to a lesser extent, Christians, seeing them as a monolithic bloc. FYI, most far-right parties in the West are /anti/-Jewish, not led by Jewish people — if Jews dominated a certain type of politics at all, it would be communist parties of the early 20th century, because of their egalitarian nature that appealed to a people trying to escape from anti-Semitic prosecutions.

On the other hand, if Wilders is indeed of Indonesian descent, I welcome Wilders to the club of Indos, joining the rank of Multatuli, Ernest Douwes Dekker, Eddie Van Halen and Keren Ann!

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

It’s Thanksgiving today in this part of North America (the Canadians had theirs last month [rfmcdpei]). Our Thanksgiving dinner has been postponed to tomorrow evening, which makes today more a day of reflection than of gluttony, not a bad thing at all.

I saw the YouTube video of the Helsinki Complaints Choir yesterday, as linked from insanecats.com, and it set the mood for today. Most of us in the developed world, and the middle classes of emerging market economies, really live in abundance, relative to our ancestors or to most of the rest of the world. The video made me smile – the seriousness of the facial expression of the choir members really made a point: of what importance is our personal complaints, when compared to the important things in life?

Here’s the video for those who have not seen it: