Oh how sweet – theists (or am I supposed to call them people of faith?) are so caring and concerned and helpful. There is this terrible atheist bus ad campaign in Fort Worth, Texas, saying that lots of Murkans are good without god – no I don’t know how such a thing could be allowed, but it was, and as much as 4 buses are carrying this horrible malicious insulting ad, and the concerned helpful Christians of FW have pitched right in and paid for a van to follow that bus around and counterdickt it. That’s good because of course as the nice woman with the giant torture device around her neck says, the bus ad is an insult … Read the rest

Phil Plait is disappointing some very long-term fans. They’re telling him so in comments.

He did a post yesterday saying congratulations to Chris Mooney on being appointed to the Board of the American Geophysical Union

to advise the AGU on how to better and more effectively communicate with the public and lawmakers in Washington.

Comments came in saying skeptical things about Mooney and effective communication. Phil asked for evidence that Mooney “isn’t above banning reasonable dissent from his own blog.” Evidence came in from commenter after commenter. That was more than 24 hours ago, and as recent comments have pointed out, Phil has yet to acknowledge it. What kind of science communication is that?

What sort of science

An observation by Sam Harris in The Moral Landscape:

“while it is a standard rhetorical move in such debates to accuse scientists of being ‘arrogant,’ the level of humility in scientific discourse is, in fact, one of its most striking characteristics. In my experience, arrogance is about as common at a scientific conference as nudity. At any scientific meeting you will find presenter after presenter couching his or her remarks with caveats and apologies. When asked to comment on something that lies to either side of the very knife edge of their special expertise, even Nobel laureates will say things like, “Well, this isn’t really my area, but I would suspect that X is…” or “I’m sure there are several … Read the rest

Oh gee surprise surprise what do you know – 

Germany’s Catholic Church systematically covered up cases of sexual abuse within its own ranks for several decades, according to an expert study commissioned by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising.

Total cognitive dissonance. Religion makes people good, and it especially makes them compassionate. Any fule kno this, so it must be true. But if people are compassionate…they don’t conceal cases of sexual violence against children, do they. Compassionate people are motivated to do other things, such as making sure no more children will be the objects of sexual violence. Compassionate people are concerned with the suffering of other people as opposed to themselves – their first impulse is to protect victims … Read the rest