Madeleine Bunting, on how the militant atheism of Dawkins and Dennett may be backfiring:

…while Dembski, Dawkins and Dennett are sipping the champagne for their very different reasons, there is a party pooper. Michael Ruse, a prominent Darwinian philosopher (and an agnostic) based in the US, with a string of books on the subject, is exasperated: “Dawkins and Dennett are really dangerous, both at a moral and a legal level.” The nub of Ruse’s argument is that Darwinism does not lead ineluctably to atheism, and to claim that it does (as Dawkins does) provides the intelligent-design lobby with a legal loophole: “If Darwinism equals atheism then it can’t be taught in US schools because of the constitutional separation of church and state. It gives the creationists a legal case. Dawkins and Dennett are handing these people a major tool.”

There’s no room for complacency, urged Ruse over lunch in London last week. Last December’s court ruling against the teaching of intelligent design in some Pennsylvania schools may have been a blow, but now the strategy of the creationist/intelligent-design lobby is to “chisel away at school-board level” across the US. The National Centre for Science Education believes that as many as 20% of US schools are teaching creationism in some form. Evolution is losing the battle, says Ruse, and it’s the fault of Dawkins and Dennett with their aggressive atheism: they are the creationists’ best recruiting sergeants.

Yes. Too many people believe in God for this to be a successful debating tactic. People have to be made to understand that religion and science don’t have to be incompatible, and that we don’t have to abandon science (as the “science” of intelligent design does) when the going gets tough. As Galileo said, the one tells us how to get to heaven, the other describes of what the heavens are made. Of course, with modern science and rocketry, perhaps science will allow us to do both.

…and now it’s the geocentrists, who want to return to the days of Ptolemy:

Mention geocentrism and physicist Lawrence Krauss sighs. He is director of the Center for Education and Research in Cosmology and Astrophysics at Case Western Reserve University and author of several books including “Fear of Physics: A Guide for the Perplexed.”

“What works? Science works. Geocentrism doesn’t. End of story,” Krauss said from Cleveland. “I’ve learned over time that it’s hard to convince people who believe otherwise, independent of evidence.”

To Sungenis, of Greencastle, Pa., evidence is the rub.

For several years the Web site of his Catholic Apologetics International (www.catholicintl.com) offered a $1,000 reward to anyone who could disprove geocentrism and prove heliocentrism (a sun-centered solar system).

There were numerous attempts, Sungenis said, “some serious, some caustic,” but no one did it to his satisfaction. “Most admitted it can’t be proven.”

There’s also no proof that the Earth rotates, he said.

But what about Foucault’s famous pendulum? Its plane of oscillation revolves every 24 hours, showing the rotation of the planet. If the Earth didn’t rotate, it wouldn’t oscillate.

Nope, Sungenis said: There just may be some other force propelling it, such as the pull of stars.

These loons are like the “NASA faked the moon landings” type. They’re impervious to facts, evidence or logic. But everyone can look down on someone:

Sungenis wants to make sure “people don’t classify geocentrists with Flat Earthers. We don’t believe that at all.”

Oh, well, that’s all right then.

[Late afternoon update]

One of Jonah’s emailers had a (sort of, well not really) defense of geocentrism:

It is not my intent to defend geocentrism, but I do weary of the common rebuttal that “the earth goes around the sun.” Imagine, if you will, if the earth and sun were the only two bodies in the solar system. How would one make the case that the earth went around the sun and not vice versa? And is it not curious that no one argues that the moon goes around the sun, although technically, it does? The problem is not who revolves around whom, but what frame of reference yields the simplest description of motion. Copernicus did not overthrow geocentrism so much as he provided a different reference point that made it possible to describe planetary motions as ellipses rather than epicycles and other wierd paths.

Well, no, even that doesn’t help.

The problem with geocentrism isn’t that it merely claims that the sun goes around the earth. It’s true, as Jonah’s emailer writes, that both earth and sun revolve around each other (though the sun barely budges in its tiny orbit around their common center of gravity, which is contained entirely within itself, and superimposed with the motion resulting from its interactions with all of the other planets).

The geocentrists’ problem is that they believe that the sun going around the earth explains the daily cycle of light and dark. But the sun and earth revolve around each other once a year, not once a day. They are essentially denying the very fact of the earth’s rotation in inertial space. Note that their explanation also makes it much more complicated to explain seasons, since they’ve essentially denied the natural motion that causes things to go through an annual cycle (that is, the sun can’t go around the earth both once a day, and once a year).

It’s not caused by CO2–it’s caused by H2O.

That nasty dihydrogen monoxide. Is there any evil it’s not capable of, any problem of which it’s not, at root, the cause? It’s got to be the most deadly substance on the planet.

How many more must die before we get the message? We must wean ourselves off it as soon as possible.

Here’s an interesting piece on both the irreconciliability of theistic religion and science, and the non-need for it.

Asexuals.

…some experts question if asexuality even exists. There’s been virtually no research on the subject. Psychologists disagree on how to define it. And there’s no certainty on what might influence it. Do hormones, genetics, personal experiences play a part? With no clinical or scientific conclusions on the subject, asexuals create their own definition.

And that definition is a far cry from celibacy, Jay pointed out. “It’s not a choice. Celibacy is a choice, whereas asexuality is just the way that you are. Much like being gay is not a choice, or being straight or being right-handed,” he said.

Some studies show that asexual behavior does exist in the animal world. Dr. Anthony Bogaert of Brock University in Ontario, who has conducted one of the few studies of human asexuality said he found as much as 1 percent of the population may be asexual.

But, as with other abnormal sexual orientations, there are some people determined to “fix” them.

And before anyone gets upset with my use of the word “abnormal,” there’s nothing wrong with that.

Joe Bastardi says that the Northeast is due for a major hurricane, perhaps this year (note, probably not a permalink):

The current cycle and above-normal water temperatures are reminiscent of the pattern that eventually produced the 1938 hurricane that struck Providence, R.I. That storm killed 600 people in New England and Long Island. The 1938 hurricane was the strongest tropical system to strike the northeastern U.S. in recorded history, with maximum gusts of 186 mph, a 15- to 20-foot storm surge and 25- to 50-foot waves that left much of Providence under 10-15 feet of water. Forecasters at AccuWeather.com say that patterns are similar to those of the 1930s, 40s and 50s when storms such as the 1938 hurricane, the 1944 Great Atlantic Hurricanes and the Trio of 1954–Carol, Edna and Hazel–battered the coast from the Carolinas to New England. The worry is that it will be sooner, rather than later, for this region to be blasted again.

New York can’t be complacent–there is potential for twenty-foot surges coming up the East and Hudson rivers, which could make New Orleans look like a kiddie pool.

It also says that this season will be another busy one, but not as bad as last year, when we ran out of names. A pretty easy prediction–just regression to the mean coming off a record.

For people who continue to believe that sexual orientation is a choice:

Deciding to “come out” to your family is still quite an ordeal for gay youngsters in the west, but in the Middle East it can be catastrophic. Having a gay member of the family brings shame on the entire household; it can cause fathers to lose their jobs and make brothers and sisters unmarriageable.

Some families respond to a son or daughter’s coming out with physical violence or by throwing them out of the house. Others send them off to be “cured” by psychiatrists who offer ludicrous remedies and charge a fortune.

Not surprisingly, some gay and lesbian Arabs try to escape these problems by taking refuge abroad. In theory at least, the US, Britain, Australia, Canada and several other countries now provide asylum for those who are persecuted because of their sexuality – but the chances of actually getting it are slim.

Who would “choose” to be this way, given the often horrific consequences?

I don’t really have anything new to say on the subject of the heritability of sexual orientation, but it seems that occasionally I have to restate my position on it, because it’s one that I very rarely see in public discussion of this issue, and it’s one that I find immensely clarifying. My latest urge to do so is catalyzed by a post from Jonah Goldberg, on a CBS story.

One of Jonah’s correspondents writes:

Where they come from is irrelevant. Consider the question: Where Do Adulterers Come From?”

By nature, I am an adulterer. Simply put, one woman is not enough and serial monogamy is no solution. My guess is that most men are in the same boat. History supports my hypothesis. Througout history, most cultures have supported polygamy (one man, many women). An incredible number of people continue to support polygamy, including the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims.

However, I have been married for twenty years and have successfully overcome the temptation of adultery. And the temptation has been very real, including outright invitations from very attractive people. So what?

I give myself credit for withstanding the temptation. Yes, I give myself credit for overcoming my natural impulses. Am I wrong? Am I actually a psychological monster who takes great pleasure in torturing myself? I do not believe so. In fact, I believe that my adjustment to a monogamous society has been less difficult than my adjustment to the everyday society of work with all of its Puritannical poses.

So, the question “Where Do Homosexuals Come From?” is irrelevant to the question “Should I behave in accordance with my homosexual impulses?”

While I think that, strictly speaking, the writer has a legitimate point, it’s a matter of degree, and sometimes quantity has a quality all its own. Maintaining his marital vows obviously goes against his nature, but that doesn’t make it miserable. He at least is able to have sexual relations with someone who he finds sexually attractive, which is worth, I think, a lot. I don’t think that you can compare his “sacrifice” with what (I infer) he expects gay people to do–either remain celibate or engage in sexual activity with a gender that they find repulsive (sexually speaking).

Turn society on its head. Suppose that Jonah’s correspondent (assuming that he is a heterosexual) were somehow thrust into a society in which it was heterosexuality, rather than homosexuality, that was disapproved of, or even illegal. How willing would he be to have to engage in sexual relations with men?

I know that the answer for me would be Rosy Palms (assuming that I weren’t physically forced into a homosexual relationship), but I wouldn’t be happy about it. That’s the situation that he asks gay people to accept.

My theory (well, I’m not the first to come up with it–I think that Kinsey did a lot of work in this area) is that peoples’ innate (that is, the degree that is a result of genetics or womb environment) sexual orientation is not a binary state. Most are heterosexual, many are bisexual, and a few are purely homosexual, with gradations in between.

Again, as I’ve said many times in the past, people debating this issue tend to assume that everyone is like them. Even I’m guilty of this to a degree, except that as an extreme heterosexual (and not one formed by my environment–no one ever told me growing up that there was anything wrong with being gay, at least at home), I can understand that a homosexual man is just as turned off at the thought of doing it with a woman as I am at the thought of doing it with a guy (which is to say, a lot). I can’t imagine being a woman and wanting to do it with a man–if I were a woman, I’d be a lesbian.

It’s the people in between, many of whom are capable of and tempted to do it with either sex, who get morally righteous about it, because they assume that everyone is like them, everyone can do it with anyone they want, but that they are morally superior because they choose to only engage in moral, heterosexual activity. I don’t feel morally superior to gays in my decision to stick with the ladies, because I have no choice. I assume that they don’t either.

This point is key to the discussion about gays being “converted” to heterosexuality, via Jesus, or other means. If there are success stories, it’s because they were never really “gay” to begin with, but were bisexual, with potential for heterosexuality. The failures are the ones who are purely homosexual. I know that there is no therapy (short of major brain surgery) that could make me gay. I’m straight, and have been since birth, as far as I can tell. I was never “confused” about my sexual orientation. The instant I became truly aware of the concept of sex (as in desire to engage in it), I was also acutely and instantly aware of the kind of equipment that I wanted my sex partners to have. But I accept that others are not like me (as is obvious by their behavior, both in their choice of bed partners, and in their debating arguments). I don’t know if my theory is correct or not, but it seems to me to fit all the facts, and to have tremendous explanatory power.

[Update a few minutes later]

Derbyshire has a useful comment:

Jonah: That second correspondent of yours illustrates the old legal approach, i.e. that homosexuality is a thing you **do**. The current sensibility in western societies is that homosexuality is something you **are**. This is, as I pointed out in the pages of NR a year or so ago, quite a profound metaphysical shift.

Exactly, and I think that it’s an enlightened sensibility, because it almost certainly corresponds to human reality. I think that adultery is something that someone chooses to do. I don’t think that simply having (non-adulterous) sex with a person with whom you’re oriented to having sex is in the same ethical category.

Some interesting research results:

Hollenberg’s follow-up work, reported in the PNAS paper, confirms that the islanders also have far larger exposures to cocoa flavanols. Tests showed that flavanol-residue concentrations in urine were six times as high in the islanders as in the mainlanders.

At the Cocoa Symposium, Hollenberg reported that dramatic long-term benefits may be attributable to the islanders’ cocoa habit: Their death rate from heart disease is less than 8 percent of that in Kuna mainlanders, and cancer kills only 16 percent as many islanders. The two populations were matched for age, weight, and a number of other factors that might affect heart and cancer risks.

Hollenberg concludes that the Kuna epidemiological data, although preliminary, “indicate that a flavanol-rich diet may provide an extraordinary benefit in the reduction of the two deadliest diseases in today’s world.”

Pretty impressive. Unfortunately, it turns out that, while dark chocolate is in theory good for your heart and helps fight cancer, the manufacturing process tends to destroy the particular flavonoids that confer the benefits. Hopefully, now that they know this, Hersheys et al can figure out how to make a healthier chocolate that still tastes good.

[Via Geek Press]

Some sobering thoughts, and a warning to Daniel Dennett, from John Derbyshire:

Science is…a fragile thing, and might easily be lost. (The same applies to math. Readers of, ahem, my forthcoming book will learn about a key development in mathematical thinking that was discovered in ancient Alexandria, then lost, then rediscovered 1300 years later.) It is my belief in this fact that makes me so defensive of science, and so hostile to obscurantist thinking, under which heading I include both Left Creationists like Wieseltier and Right Creationists like the “intelligent design” crowd. They are playing with fire. So, by their absurd provocations, are the village atheists like Dennett. If we lose science (again?), we shall be plunged back into a world far less comfortable, far darker and crueller, than this one. If the LCs and the RCs join forces, they might just possibly bring on that world… if the Islamofascists don’t beat them to it.

The natural tendency of human beings is to think religiously. Science and math are deeply unnatural activities, favored by only a scant few, who could easily be rounded up and dispatched by a mob of more normal human beings. Scientistic triumphalism of the Dennett variety is therefore foolish. An attitude of respectful humility by the more-scientifically inclined towards the more-religiously inclined is not only intellectually proper (at any rate to those of us non-Dennettians who think that religious belief is intellectually respectable, and that the reality of human nature should be faced honestly), it is prudent.