Tag Archives: Fleck

John Fleck, Science writer and neighbor

One for the Cheap Bastards

Duke City Fix » The Election Day wait is on…

Chris wrote:
Bye

Bye living wage….
1 point for capitalism
0 points for communism

I bet if you got rid of the votes of the

California carpet bagger/Santa Fe crowd it wouldn’t have been close.

Communism“? Have you been

frozen for 50 years? Congratulations, asshole, idiot, cheap, misguided bastard

damn, it’s not easy to follow The Way of Fleck.

I still hope Vern Raburn leaves the state (without

taking all our money with him). mjh

Only in New Mexico: City’s Lost Soul by former Mayor Jim

Baca

I think our city has lost its collective soul with the defeat of the minimum wage ballot proposition in the election

yesterday. It appears the Chamber of Commerce has been successful in its effort at denying a ‘leg up’ to all of our most needy workers.

This is after their most affluent members got Bush tax decreases at the expense of those same minimum wage workers. And

so the chamber of commerce has wounded and divided our city and they will need to figure out a way to fix it. Soon. [mjh: Jim, a house

divided is more profitable to them.]

Yes, it was a close vote and nearly half the people voted for it. Nearly isn’t enough when

large amounts of money are used to fund development of lies to be thrown at a public too busy to do fact finding themselves.

I

will now attempt to boycott all Chamber of Commerce members when I make my purchases, whether it be a car or a taco. It won’t mean much

to them I am sure, but it will mean something to me. Maybe, I will do all my major purchases in Santa Fe since their voters passed a much

more generous minimum wage bill.

City of

Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA – Unofficial Election Results

The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney — and how the Media plays into the Radical Wrong’s hands

I know of Chris Mooney (and others) thanks to links from John Fleck. The title of Mooney’s new book seems apt (mjh to jfleck — a review?).

mjh

An interview

with Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science | By David Roberts | Grist Magazine | Books Unbound | 27 Sep 2005

My thesis is that this is a political phenomenon that is unique to Republican rule in the United States, and which is epitomized by the

Bush administration. This administration is constantly doing favors for its big-business and religious-right constituents. That prejudice

drives distortions of science on issues ranging from global warming to sex education. …

Poor science education doesn’t help

matters, but I wouldn’t link it directly to the kinds of abuses we’re seeing. The role of fundamentalist religiosity — and

particularly, politically conservative Christianity — is, I think, more significant.

On evolution, on embryonic stem cell

research, on alleged health risks from abortion, and much else, religious conservatives have their own spin on the science, and even

their own “experts.” For instance, they deny evolution and have come up with a scientific-sounding alternative, “intelligent design.”

Because of this phenomenon of science appropriation, Republican politicians sympathetic to the religious right can easily cite their own

favored experts, in the process distorting mainstream scientific understanding. This sets in motion a wide array of abuses. …

Through their instinctive tendency to create a “balance” between two sides, journalists repeatedly allow science abusers to

create phony “controversies,” even though the scientific merits of the issue may exclusively be with one side.

Here’s my

real fear when it comes to the press. Suppose there’s some mainstream scientific view that you want to set up a think tank to challenge

— to undermine, to controversialize. Suppose further that you have a lot of money, as well as an interested and politically influential

constituency on board with your agenda. In this situation, it seems to me that as long as you are clever enough, you should be able to

set your political machine in motion and then sit back and watch the national media do the rest of your work for you. The press will help

you create precisely the controversy that lies at the heart of your political and public relations strategy — and not only that.

It will do a far better job than the best PR firm, and its services will be entirely free of charge.

I think we

have actually seen this happen repeatedly. A good example is the issue of evolution. …

We have to drive a wedge between moderate

Republicans and conservative ones on matters of science, because only the moderates can rescue their party from its current, destructive

addiction to abusing and distorting scientific information.

The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney [mjh: numerous copies on order at the

Albuquerque Public Library but not yet received.]

CJR September/October 2005 – Undoing Darwin

The [evolution trial … in

Pennsylvania over intelligent design] is likely to be a media circus. And, unfortunately, there’s ample reason to expect that the

spectacle will lend an entirely undeserved p.r. boost to the carefully honed issue-framing techniques employed by today’s anti-

evolutionists. …

As evolution, driven by such events, shifts out of scientific realms and into political and legal

ones, it ceases to be covered by context-oriented science reporters and is instead bounced to political pages, opinion pages, and

television news. And all these venues, in their various ways, tend to deemphasize the strong scientific case in favor of evolution and

instead lend credence to the notion that a growing “controversy� exists over evolutionary science. This notion may be

politically convenient, but it is false. …

Without a doubt, then, political reporting, television news, and opinion pages are

all generally fanning the flames of a “controversy” over evolution. Not surprisingly, in light of this coverage, we simultaneously find

that the public is deeply confused about evolution.

In a November 2004 Gallup poll, respondents were asked: “Just your opinion, do

you think that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is: a scientific theory that has been well supported by evidence, or just one of many

theories and one that has not been well-supported by evidence, or don’t you know enough to say?” Only 35 percent of Americans answered a

scientific theory supported by evidence, whereas another 35 percent indicated that evolution was just one among many theories, and 29

percent answered that they didn’t know. Meanwhile a national survey this spring (conducted by Matthew Nisbet, one of the authors of this

article, in collaboration with the Survey Research Institute at Cornell University), found similar public confusion about the scientific

basis for intelligent design. A bare majority of adult Americans (56.3 percent) agreed that evolution is supported by an overwhelming

body of scientific evidence; a sizeable proportion (44.2 percent) thought precisely the same thing of intelligent design. …

One

thing, above all, is clear: a full-fledged national debate has been reawakened over an issue that once seemed settled. This new fight may

not simmer down again until the U.S. Supreme Court is forced (for the third time) to weigh in. In these circumstances, the media

have a profound responsibility — to the public, and to knowledge itself.

Chris C Mooney

May god damn these fools

Remember, you can’t spell Bibles without lies.

A nation where nearly

half the people believe the world is only 6000 years old and dinosaurs were in Eden and on the Ark probably doesn’t deserve to be saved.

Certainly, as more people willingly embrace ignorance every year, there isn’t much hope.

Religion is the lobotomy of the people.

mjh

In Evolution Debate, Creationists Are Breaking New Ground

Museum Dedicated to Biblical Interpretation Of the World Is Being Built Near Cincinnati
By Michael Powell, Washington Post Staff

Writer

PETERSBURG, Ky. — The guide, a soft-spoken fellow with a scholarly aspect, walks through the halls of this handsome,

half-finished museum and points to the sculpture of a young velociraptor.

“We’re placing this one in the hall that explains the

post-Flood world,” explains the guide. “When dinosaurs lived with man.”

Mark Looy [mjh: pronounced “Looney”]

— the guide and a vice president at the museum … [says], “We call him our ‘missionary lizard,’ ” Looy says. “When people

realize the T. rex lived in Eden, it will lead us to a discussion of the gospel. The T. rex once was a vegetarian, too.”

The nation’s largest museum devoted to the alternative reality that is biblical creation science is rising just outside

Cincinnati. Set amid a park and three-acre artificial lake, the 50,000-square-foot museum features animatronic dinosaurs, state-of-the-

art models and graphics, and a half-dozen staff scientists. It holds that the world and the universe are but 6,000 years old and

that baby dinosaurs rode in Noah’s ark.

The $25 million Creation Museum stands much of modern science on its head and

might cause a paleontologist or three to rend their garments. But officials expect to attract hundreds of thousands of visitors when the

museum opens in early 2007.

“Evolutionary Darwinists need to understand we are taking the dinosaurs back,” says

Kenneth Ham, president of Answers in Genesis-USA, which is building the museum. “This is a battle cry to recognize the

science in the revealed truth of God.”

[B]y any measure, Young Earth Creationism — which holds that the Bible is the

literal word of God and that He created the universe in seven days– has a more powerful hold on the beliefs of Americans than

evolutionary theory or intelligent design. That grip grows stronger by the year.

Polls taken last year showed that 45

percent of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago (or less) and that man shares no common

ancestor with the ape. Only 26 percent believe in the central tenet of evolution, that all life descended from a single ancestor.

Another poll showed that 65 percent of Americans want creationism taught alongside evolution. …

Another creationist museum

launches expeditions to the Papua New Guinea highlands in search of living pterodactyls.

All of this — creationist zoology,

paleontology, archaeology — is framed in a distinctive academic language.

So one reads of post-Babel studies, and floodology and

post-diluvium studies, these being the study of the world after Noah and the Great Flood, which is regarded as purest fact. …

the creationist bottom line is a through-the-looking-glass version of science. The scientific method of theory, experiment and

assumptions upended does not apply. Ask Ham if he could accept evidence that conflicts with his reading of Genesis — proof, say, that a

fossil is more than 6,000 years old — and he shakes his head.

Creationists believe man became mortal when God cast Adam and Eve

out of Eden 6,000 years ago. Death did not exist before that.

“We admit we have an axiom: We have a book and it’s the Bible and

it’s revealed history,” says Ham. “Where the Bible teaches on science, we can trust it as the word of God.” …

Scientists place

the age of Earth at 4.5 billion years. Many tend to act resigned at the mention of creationists, seeing a worldview so different as to

defy debate.

“There are people who are prepared to accept that the universe is a pretty untidy place,” said Ian Tattersall, a

curator at the American Museum of Natural History. “And there are people, like the creationists, whose minds rebel at this notion.”

“Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.” Daniel

Patrick Moynihan

ABQjournal: Museum of Natural History Takes

T. Rex’s Story to Dramatic Proportions By John Fleck, Journal Staff Writer

The story of T. rex is dramatic for many reasons.

In addition to being Earth’s “most horrific predator,” it was the last of its family line, ripping and tearing its way into the

extinction of the dinosaurs.

“It’s the end of an evolutionary story,” said Lucas, a curator at the New

Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science.

But beyond the drama of T. rex is a tale as scientifically beguiling as it is

dramatic.

For a moment in Earth’s history that was brief in geologic terms, evolution gave the planet a family of killer

dinosaurs— the Tyrannosaurids— different from anything before or since.

The sharp-toothed dinosaurs wandered a world very

different from our own. Called the Cretaceous (kruh-TAY-shus) period, it was in geologic terms the dawn of our modern world, as the

ancient supercontinent of Pangea broke into the pieces that became the continents we see today.

Flowers and bees first

appeared on the planetary stage during the Cretaceous. Mammals played only bit parts, while dinosaurs, after 100 million years of

evolution, reached their apex.

Picking Over the Bones by

John Fleck

Here’s a little challenge to the Intelligence of the Design. mjh

Creationism Still Blows! at Jalenack

Octopi have their optic

nerves attached to the backs of their retina. They have no blind spot. Their eyes are the perfect ones. Ours still have flaws. [The

Intelligent Designer] decided that we weren’t good enough to have perfect eyes.

We didn’t evolve from Octopi, so we didn’t get

the non-blind eye that evolved after our common ancestor (probably a jellyfish, or something).

Happy Equinox, Everybody!

Once again, we humans pull out of the continuum a discrete moment as somehow more important than the infinite flow, this one

where night and day balance each other. Here’s wishing you more balance in your own life.

At the precise nanosecond of the

equinox — so powerful is science to measure — at that precise moment, MR and I will be wading the Alamosa Creek in the vicinity of the

Monticello Box, celebrating the temporary stopping of the relentless profiteers, wishing the wolves were there,

but glad they’re only an easy trek away. Science, bless it, could tell you our precise location in at least 4 dimensions; its child,

medicine, could tell you what it does to our state of being. But nothing can recreate it or preserve it forever. peace, mjh

The Monticello Box

PS: I’ll balance my happiness

by sending you to j f l e c k : : a t : : i n k s t a i n: Annual Heartbreak

It’s a nasty weapon

ABQjournal: Bunker-Buster Critics Make N.M. Visit By John Fleck, Journal Staff Writer

Weapons supporters say it could be an important military tool to destroy deep underground enemy bunkers. Critics say it would kick up dangerous clouds of radioactive fallout, while being of little military utility.

“It’s a nasty weapon,” said Robert Nelson, a Princeton University physicist who studies nuclear weapons for the Union of Concerned Scientists. …

“We’re just here to kill it,” Nelson said of the groups’ New Mexico trip.

Born OK the First Time

Watch very closely what is happening in the debate over evolution. Proponents of “Intelligent Design” (ID) insist they just want discussion; they want open-mindedness. Right. Anyone who believes Duhbya when he says it’s good to ask questions has never seen him at a press conference. His mind is made up — he wants YOU to question YOUR beliefs and realize his are the right ones.

ID is simply the latest facet of the culture war, the war being waged by Reactionaries against the rest of us. Don’t trust the media. Don’t trust the government. Don’t trust the courts. Don’t trust the teachers. Trust God and his chosen spokesmen. Believe completely what you are told by these few and no others.

Science is a path and a discipline. The term “pseudo-science” is sometimes applied to ID, but ID is, in fact, anti-science. ID says science CANNOT EVER explain the complexities of life. ID doesn’t just say evolution has so far failed to explain things — science can NEVER explain certain things. Accepting that means accepting that when you reach the limits of whatever you don’t yet understand, you cannot move beyond those limits. God starts at the edge of your ignorance. Under that view, the more ignorant you are, the closer you are to god.

I have a proposal to any proponent of ID. I will allow the possibility there was something divine involved at some point in the development of the Universe IF you will allow the possibility that there never, ever was a god and religion might be full of nonsense. We might both be correct. Fair enough? mjh

ABQjournal: From UNM, 2 Different Views; Biologist, Biochemist Share Their Thoughts By John Fleck, Journal Staff Writer

Intelligent design’s central claim is that living organisms have characteristics too complex to be explained by evolution, where random changes in DNA, survival of the fittest and lots of time are evoked to explain the diversity of life we see today. An unnamed “intelligent designer” must have been involved, the idea’s advocates claim. …

At its heart, the debate is a battle over the definition of science itself.

For more than 300 years, the fundamental goal of science has been to try to find naturalistic explanations for what we see in nature, according to University of New Mexico science historian Timothy Moy.

The resulting scientific method of observation, experiment, hypothesis testing and constant revision of ideas, scientists note, has been remarkably successfully at explaining the natural world and providing the technology that underpins modernity.

Invoking a supernatural being to explain the mysterious, as pre-scientific cultures had done, is not part of that process.

When, for example, physicists struggle with their inability to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity, it would never occur to them to invoke a supernatural being and call it solved. “That would not be a scientific argument,” Moy said. …

One of the problems driving the debate, according to Moy, is that science is so esteemed in modern society that everyone wants its stamp of approval for their body of knowledge.

I was stunned by that last assertion. If Moy really believes that, he is stunningly out of touch with America. We believe in God and the Devil and that both take a personal interest in our daily lives. We believe the Bible is literally true. We believe the Founders were Christian zealots. We believe Jesus rode dinosaurs. We believe Indiana Jones was a great archaeologist and Jurassic Park is coming soon. We believe Magic is more powerful than Science. mjh

ABQjournal: Intelligent Design Evidence Ignored By Paul Veers, Engineer

Intelligent design is neither bad science nor stealth creationism. It is a means of setting up mathematically verifiable tests for chance, necessity, or a third possibility, design.

If design is found, it could well raise the issue of its source. The ensuing discussion about the possibility of a creator is a separate issue to be dealt with outside the realm of science.

But it appears from the vehemence of the attacks against intelligent design that the scientific establishment intends to squelch even the possibility of following the evidence wherever it might lead.

Veers is so out-of-touch with the majority of ID supporters it is unreal. mjh

Penguins, People and a Grisly Bear Tale By George F. Will

“March of the Penguins” raises this question: If an Intelligent Designer designed nature, why did it decide to make breeding so tedious for those penguins? The movie documents the 70-mile march of thousands of Antarctic penguins from the sea to an icy breeding place barren of nutrition. These perhaps intelligently but certainly oddly designed birds march because they cannot fly. They cannot even march well, being most at home in the sea. …

But the penguins are made for that behavior in that place. What made them? Adaptive evolution. They have been “designed” for all that rigor — meaning they have been shaped by adapting to many millennia of nature’s harshness. …

Reality’s swirling complexity is sometimes lovely, sometime brutal; its laws propel the comings and goings of life forms in processes as impersonal as Antarctica is to the penguins ….. It is so grand that nothing is gained by dragging an Intelligent Designer into the picture for praise. Or blame.

Like Will, whom I seldom agree with, I thought a great deal about Intelligent Design during March of the Penguins, which is hardly scientific in its approach. If there was a designer of penguins, he was cruel and sadistic. mjh

ABQjournal: Theologians In Conflict Over Controversy By Paul Logan, Journal Staff Writer

“I would certainly have to say we don’t take the Book of Genesis literally — that God made the world in six days,” Sheehan said. “It’s a religious teaching and not a scientific teaching that Genesis gives.” …

There is a concern that the cardinal’s article could move the church away from evolution theory and toward intelligent design, he said.

Pope John Paul II spoke on evolution several times. In a 1996 message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, he said:

“New knowledge leads us to recognize in the theory of evolution more than a hypothesis … The convergence, neither sought nor induced, of results of work done independently one from the other, constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory.”

“To tell the truth, more than the theory of evolution, one must speak of the theories of evolution … ”

Some scientists consider intelligent design a thinly disguised version of creationism. Thomas called it “creationism in a lab coat.” …

“The Roman Catholic Church does not accept Scripture literally,” Rev. Andy Pavlak, a Dominican priest, said.

I can’t wait to see evangelicals attack Catholics as lacking faith. I wonder if Catholics will ever regret joining forces with the Bible Literalists like our President. mjh

PS: the title of this entry (“Born OK the First Time”) was reported to me by friends who saw it on a bumper sticker.

Religion – RELIGION TODAY: Among influential American evangelicals, a sense of persecution persists – sacbee.comBy RACHEL ZOLL, AP Religion Writer

To outsiders, conservative Christians seem at the peak of their influence.

Books by evangelical pastors Rick Warren and Joel Osteen are multimillion best sellers, megachurches are building satellite congregations to meet demand, conservatives control Congress and, most importantly, religious activists helped put a Bible-believer in the White House.

Yet, many evangelicals still consider themselves a persecuted majority, hounded by “secular fundamentalists” intent on driving religion from public life.

Opponents find this view baffling. Bill Leonard, dean of Wake Forest University Divinity School in North Carolina and a critic of the religious right, says evangelicals consider themselves oppressed only because some Americans disagree with them.

“They want to be culture dominant,” Leonard said. …

The sense of being outsiders has historical roots as well. For much of the 20th century, liberal-leaning Protestants were considered the mainstream of American Christianity, while biblical traditionalists were generally marginalized and often mocked.

Starting around the 1960s, as mainline Protestant denominations started losing members, conservative churches were growing, yet evangelicals still felt shut out. A new emphasis on personal freedoms was pushing organized religion to the sidelines of public life.

U.S. Supreme Court decisions supporting abortion-rights and prohibiting public school officials from organizing or leading prayers and devotional Bible reading were also part of this troubling shift for evangelicals….

Behind the conflict about religion in public life is a debate within Christianity itself over how the Bible should be interpreted and which view should be considered the norm. Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, warned recently that Christianity is experiencing a “global identity crisis.”

Gibbs said conservative Christians need to accept that they live in a nation that is becoming ever more diverse, and that no single Christian group will have a “privileged voice” in society.

“You’ve got to find ways of being heard within that context,” Gibbs said. “But we shouldn’t get angry or try to reclaim the past.”

N.M.’s Emissions Heavy

ABQjournal: Study: N.M.’s Emissions Heavy; State Is Double National Average By John Fleck, Journal Staff Writer

New Mexicans emit twice as much greenhouse gases per capita as the national average, according to a new study commissioned by state government.

The gases — from power plants, oil and gas production, cars and farms — are implicated in global climate change, and the new data will form the basis for a statewide initiative to curb the emissions, state Environment Secretary Ron Curry said Tuesday. …

According to the inventory, 37 percent of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions come from electric generation plants; 22 percent comes from oil and gas production, and 16 percent comes out of the tailpipes of cars and trucks. Agriculture accounts for 6 percent of the emissions, with methane belched or exhaled by cows among the largest agricultural sources.

[mjh: and the other 19%?]