Neil deGrasse Tyson did a couple of alarming and disheartening tweets just now -

Neil deGrasse Tyson‏@neiltyson

Done with Jury Duty. I said I could not convict a person solely on eyewitness testimony. They sent me home. I’m now 0 for 4.

After hearing my skepticism of eyewitness testimony, six other jury candidates promptly agreed. And they got sent home too.

Oyyyyyyyyyy.

Eyewitness testimony is so crappy – so very unreliable and yet so trusted.

TV trains everyone to think it’s infallible, as if there were a video camera in our brains and all we have to do is roll the tape. We’re bad at noticing stuff even when it’s right in front of us, and then we’re bad all over again at remembering. Put the two together and you get a big “Huh? I dunno. I wasn’t watching.” But noooooo, cop shows always present it as Hidden Photography Inside The Head. The cops ask for detailed descriptions of the suspect, they get impatient when people don’t know, they take the lineup very seriously – as if all this were totally reliable.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Jesus and Mo and Moses are on the story.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Hank Fox took a bunch of nice photos at Eschaton. There’s Genie Scott, PZ, Larry Moran – and there’s Eric.

Eric and I had the opportunity for several long talks. He’s a compadre.

There is Dorothy Grasett. Dorothy gave me a beautiful wooden box her brother made, as a present. It’s here on the desk beside me.

That’s Saturday evening, before or after PZ’s talk.

And there’s one of me squirming.

Hank calls it relaxing, but it’s squirming. I always squirm. That’s Heina up in the right corner.

Thanks to Hank for letting me re-post a few. Go over there to see them all.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

It’s a literary trope, the father who disowns or betrays a daughter. I don’t say that to make light of it, but on the contrary, to point out the way it has haunted the human imagination, which underlines how horrible it is. (This applies to all combinations of parents and children, but fathers and daughters gets noticed less than fathers and sons.)

Agamemnon, you know. He sacrificed Iphigenia – which is to say, he killed her on an “altar” – to get a wind when the attack on Troy was becalmed. Not very fatherly, as one of the Mitfords might have put it. Lucretius used it as the occasion for his famous comment, tantum religio potuit suadere malorum – religion can persuade [people to perform] such evils.

And then there’s Shakespeare, who repeatedly portrayed fathers disowning daughters. In other Elizabethan plays, fathers who do that are defending “honor” (does it sound familiar? Of course it does, because it’s the same) and the daughters either deserve it or are betrayed by fate or bad luck or some such thing, not by their fathers. In Shakespeare’s many plays on the subject, the father is always dead wrong.

Juliet’s father tried to force her into a marriage and when she refused he disowned her. Hero’s father believed lying tricksters who said she’d been letting men in her bedroom window so they could fuck like weasels. Desdemona’s father disowned her because she married a Moor – a man of Another Race. Cordelia’s father not only disowned her, but cursed her – meaning not he swore at her but he called down curses on her, curses that were meant to be efficacious – for declining to flatter him in the way he expected. Imogen’s father was another who accepted a trickster’s claim that she was a Secret Slut. Perdita’s father disowned his wife because he got it in his head (for no reason) that she was humping his best friend, and he tried to have the infant Perdita killed.

Juliet dies disowned, as does Desdemona. Cordelia and Lear, and Perdita and Leontes, however, get the chance for reconciliation at the end. It’s interesting how thoroughly Shakespeare puts the fathers in the wrong.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

And speaking of horribly unenlightened views, there is also Ashley Miller’s father, who has decided to stop talking to her, to disown her, to cut her off, to make her an undaughter, because her boyfriend is unwhite.

I can’t get my head around it. Imagine caring more about your racism than you care about your daughter! Imagine giving up a daughter for the sake of racism. What an incredibly bad bargain. What a pathetic, wrong-way-around exchange.

I suppose I am thankful that he waited until the day after Thanksgiving to do it.  Not that he told me, he made my stepmother his proxy as he was too angry to speak to me directly.  I have been disowned for loving someone my father does not approve of.

“Too angry” – as if there were an important principle involved.

I don’t know how one goes about coping with these things.  I have a very supportive family, friends, and boyfriend.  And Dad and I were never super close.  And, perhaps there were things I could have done better, but none of them change the fact that my dad is the kind of person who would disown their only child for dating “out of race”.

Just what I’m trying to get my head around. That kind of person. What kind of person would do that?

It’s heartbreaking.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

I’m back. I didn’t get sucked into the engines even once.

Yesterday morning CFI demonstrated in front of the Ugandan High Commission in Ottawa to protest the Kill the Gays bill. Vyckie and I went too. Kevin Smith, the director of CFI Canada, used Twitter to summon media attention, and took pictures. He gave me permission to post them.

That’s Seanna in the purple coat. She’s the Director of CFI Ottawa, which is an unpaid position – a volunteer position, but that word suggests to me a not quite real job, and that certainly doesn’t fit. The guy tweeting on her right is Michael Payton, and I’m hiding behind him.

Kill the bill, kill the bill, kill the bill.

Kevin told me that one of the cops at the demo is on the LGBT panel of the RCMP. Yesss!

Support CFI Canada. They’re doing good work.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Ahh that was fun. Went out for a nice refreshing walk – to Parliament Hill then east on Laurier and along the canal and then back here. Pitch dark but all the nicer for that.

Last night we went to the Museum of Nature for nibbles and PZ’s talk on chance in evolution and then we got to wander around in the bird and dinosaur galleries. After hours! Cool or what?

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Eschaton is over. I just had a long conversation with Eric in the doorway of the larger of the two rooms where it was held, until he had to leave for the airport. It’s been wonderful to meet him and talk to him.

Udo Schuklenk gave a great talk on secular ethics this morning. I kept wishing some of the sciencey types who think philosophy is useless could have been present. He based it on three of the myths in his forthcoming book with Russell Blackford on 50 myths about atheism. He used three Jesus and Mo toons to illustrate his analysis of three of the myths – no morality without god; no-god robs life of purpose and meaning; denial of the sanctity of human life.

One of the observations I liked – the validity of laws ultimately depends on their acceptability to a given population. The same applies to god. Goddy types think you have to choose between nihilism or goddy absolutes, but really god too depends on acceptability.

Ian Cromwell also gave a great talk. Zombies. Racism. Then we had a panel discussion on godless ethics. Eric and Udo and I had lunch together last thing before Udo left.

Heina Dadabhoy told me she tweeted the last line of my talk yesterday, that along with separation of church and state we need separation of church and health care, and it got 42 (or was it 46?) RTs. All right! We can do this, people. And we need to.

CFI is protesting at the Ugandan embassy (or consulate?) tomorrow, and I get to go.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

So I’ve met Eric MacDonald at last. Also Mark Fournier. Conversation about Job, and Steiner schools and anthroposophy, and people who think they know things, and the quiet revolution in Quebec.

My talk is this afternoon; Vyckie is after me; Eric is after Vyckie.

Note to hotels: don’t have tv on in the breakfast room. Ugh.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

All riiiiight – I got to see inside the Parliament library. That makes up a little for the crushing fact that I didn’t get to see the second floor of Manchester Town Hall (with the murals by Ford Madox Ford) because it was off-limits that afternoon.

I had to take the tour, because you can’t go as many places if you just wander around on your own, such as the library for one. The tour it is then, I exclaimed, and accepted my orange pass with 2:50 stamped on it. It was 2:30, so I nipped up to the Peace Tower to look at the view. It was very like the time I nipped up to the Old Post Office tower in DC – same line to wait for the small elevator, same easier time getting down, same general kind of architecture – and both in national capitals. How about that.

The library is gorgeous.

I like gorgeous. I don’t like coldly minimal. I know someone who spent two million dollars on a reno – yes really – and it’s coldly minimal, just the same very boring tan wood everywhere. The hell with that. I want gorgeous.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Second trip, to walk by the canal.

First I went around the corner from the hotel to get a look at that park I can see from my window, where I saw dogs being walked in the frozen sunrise. I found that it’s not a park at all, it’s the grounds of the Science Museum (where PZ is doing a talk tomorrow evening) – so now I see that I can see the museum from here! It’s right over my left shoulder as I speak. It’s one of those massive castle type museums – the bit I can see looks like Caernarvon Castle or something. There’s also a new glass part, which I can also see from here.

Also, Ottawa (at least this downtown part of it) is packed with very appealing 19th century brick houses, that are like the brick semis you see all over London and yet also not like them, and not like anything else I know either. They’re familiar yet oddly distinctive.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Hey if you’re a magician, be careful about what tv talk shows you grace with your presence. Go on the wrong one and you might be set on fire.

Wayne Houchin, a Las Vegas-based magician, was.

Shocking footage has emerged on YouTube of a magician being attacked and badly injured by the host of a TV show on which he was a guest.  In an apparently spontaneous gesture, the man (who has been named as Franklin Barazarte) who is both host and producer of a talk-show in the Dominican Republic, doused 29-year old Wayne Houchin with a flammable liquid and set it on fire.

Well at least Bill O’Reilly doesn’t do that.

We shouldn’t jump to any conclusions about this one incident, although it if *was* an attempted exorcism, it would not be unique in involving violent and dangerous practices.  To take two examples from different parts of the world, in 2007 a Romanian priest was jailed for 14 years for conducting an exorcism that led to the death of a nun,  while in Japan last year a 13-year-old girl suffocated after being strapped down and doused with water by her father and a Buddhist monk who were trying to expel an “evil spirit”.

And there are all the children in places like Akwa Ibom state in Nigeria, and London, and all the women in places like India and Kenya, who get tortured to death for being “witches.”

Bullshit is not always harmless.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Yow – it really is cold. I got out there though. Walked around Parliament Hill and admired the stunning views of the river and Gatineau and the Gatineau hills and the distance. Saw three of the Cats of Parliament Hill sunning themselves on their front porches. I also admired the ugly-beautiful crazily grandiose architecture, just as I admired that of Manchester Town Hall. Saw the mouth of the Rideau canal. Also the Women are Persons! monument. Yes, Virginia, it really had to be argued that women are persons, and there really were people (men, that is) who said no they aren’t.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

I am here. Seanna and Eamon picked me up at the airport and took me out for a lovely hamburger at Hamburgers on Main (which is not on Main but Somerset).

Whoo, it’s cold here. I’m used to Seattle winters.

What’s new with you?

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

I am in Toronto. Ok not really in, except literally – I’m at the airport. Anyway I’m where I’m supposed to be for the purpose of taking a short flight to Ottawa and showing up at Eschaton. I did not forget everything, I did not lose everything, I did not miss the bus or the plane, I did not leave everything on the plane, I did not get sucked into the engine. Success! Am I competent or what.

Did you see Dave Silverman on O’Reilly last night?I never watch O’Reilly except when Dave is on. You know what BillO’s new thing is? It’s to say that Christianity is not a religion, it’s a philosophy – and not just say it, but say it in that impatient, contemptuous, everybody-knows-that way that is so irritating even when it’s true, let alone when it’s complete bullshit.

Dave is the perfect guy to go on O’Reilly because he can be just as shouty and inyerface as O’Reilly is, if need be. It’s a treat to watch, because usually BillO just shouts people down.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

At the early morning airport.

It’s surprising how many people take the first #2 bus in the morning, which sets off at 5:03.

I will see some of you quite soon.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Travel anxiety. I always. I always think I’ll forget everything, and miss the bus, and miss the plane, and miss the other plane, and leave all my stuff on the plane, and get sucked into the engines.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)