Dr. Miller's Lecture

Well, Kenneth Miller's lecture at UT last night was awesome. Even better was that I got there very early and got to talk to him. He was generous enough to talk to me for about 20 minutes. I didn't think it was possible to like him more than I already did, but he was very cool. I asked him what he thought about PZ getting thrown out of the Expelled movie, and he just laughed. We talked a little bit about the "framing" issue (see here, or just go to ScienceBlogs and search). I also asked him how he got along with Dawkins, and he told me a great story about Dawkins correcting part of Finding Darwin's God (something very minor about physics), and how much Dawkins liked the book in general. Of course, Dawkins disagreed with almost the entire thing. But it's positively great that rational people can disagree about such things (I exclude fundamentalists from the "rational" categorization). The world would be boring otherwise.

The lecture itself was very entertaining. Dr. Miller is very funny, and his presentation was very slick and well-done. I can easily believe that his biology classes would be excellent. You can watch online here. I highly recommend it -- if you aren't familiar with the creation/evolution debate, this is a good primer. I couldn't stay for the Q&A period though, which seemed like it got off to a good start.

The John Adams Project

The ACLU is working hard to provide good legal counsel to the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay: The John Adams Project. At the very least, read the overview, the goals, and the background. If you can, please consider joining or donating to the ACLU. This is an important project.

No doubt many of the anti-ACLU crowd considers this an anti-American project. This position only reveals their ignorance of history and the principles this country was founded on. If you doubt this, read the title again. John Adams made a stand for 8 British soldiers accused of killing civilians. He took the job on the principle that all defendants have the right to a fair trial and to face their accusers. That right has subsequently been denied to hundreds of prisoners under the Bush administration. As a country, we have betrayed what John Adams risked his career, livelihood, and his personal safety to establish in this country's infancy.

Please, support this project. Pass the word.

“One of the best pieces of service I ever rendered my country.” -- John Adams on his defense of the British soldiers

Stupid CNN Editors

The CNN frontpage had this headline on the right: "1 in 3 kids abused first week of life, study finds". My first reaction was "What the hell???" So, of course, I clicked the link.

What the study (and the article) really says is this: "About 1 in 50 U.S. infants are victims of nonfatal child abuse or neglect in a year... and found nearly a third were one week old or younger when the abuse or neglect occurred." So, one-third of 1 in 50 were abused in their first week. Stupid editor, or intentional panic mongering to get you to click the link?

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Update: They fixed it.

Dobson and McCain

James Dobson, founder of "Focus on the Family", apparently doesn't like John McCain, saying he has "not reached out to 'pro-family leaders' or changed his views on positions that 'trouble' social conservatives, pointing to the candidate's support for embryonic stem cell research and stance to allow states to set their own definitions of marriage". Dobson also said he disagreed with McCain on calling for "more collaboration with allies, closure of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and a new global warming treaty."

Wait, what? I thought those were the good things about John McCain. Dobson's point is that McCain has "failed to unite the GOP", and thus we can again see why the two-party system is just broken. There are more than two possible points of view, and when so many people have to be pigeon-holed into only two parties, the mentality becomes 'if you aren't with us, you're against us'. It's ridiculous. On that note, I'm reading Chuck Hagel's new book, America: Our Next Chapter, and I hope to have a review up this weekend.

Vaccines and Autism

Ah, I love people who don't understand science or statistics. This CNN article is about how some parents believe that vaccines have caused their children's autism. For example:

Dr. Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, says the connection between vaccines and autism is nothing more than a sad coincidence... "The studies compared autism rates among populations of children who did and did not receive the MMR vaccines, and among those who did and did not receive vaccines containing thimerosal. It's been asked and answered: Vaccines don't cause autism," Offit says. Michelle Cedillo's parents disagree. "I think there is a link," says Theresa Cedillo, Michelle's mother.

Wow. She disagrees. Personally, I go through the day disagreeing with facts all the time. No, wait, that would be the definition of insanity.

Kenneth Miller at UT

Dr. Miller will be at UT this Friday, April 4th at 7:00pm in Welch Hall. Full details here.

While I don't agree with Dr. Miller on religion, I respect his work and his writing a lot, so I'm looking forward to hearing him talk. And getting my book signed.

Let's Protect Marriage

An article on CNN details how heterosexual marriages are being protected. Ha, ha, just kidding. The article's really about how some people in this country are still deprived of rights and benefits so many of us take for granted. The background is this: Ralph Martinelli works for Konica Minolta and is married to Robert Ryan. They previously lived in New Jersey, which does acknowledge gay marriage, and the company extended health benefits to Ryan. Now they've moved to Idaho, which doesn't acknowledge gay marriage. The company has since seen fit to retract Ryan's benefits because they can.

Now, there are several things wrong with this story. First, these two should have done their research and figured out what might happen when they moved. I hope that they moved to serve as a testcase, though. If so, kudos -- not enough people in this country are willing to do things like that to challenge unjust laws. But I find their surprise at this situation very odd.

Second, Konica Minolta didn't need to retract Ryan's benefits -- it's up to them, but since the state (Idaho) doesn't require them to like New Jersey did, they've retracted this. The company is well within its rights to offer whatever benefits they want to employees, but this is still surprising that a company could be so oblivious to an employee relations trap. I'll reiterate: Konica is within their rights as a private entity to do whatever they want in terms of employee benefits, but why is Martinelli still loyal to a company that hasn't shown him any loyalty?

As the spokeswoman for the Idaho Dept. of Insurance said: "[Domestic partner benefits are] legal in the state, but we don't keep track of which companies offer [them]." I would think that maintaining equivalent benefit level would be a part of any company moving package.

Then we get to protecting "normal" marriages. Idaho has a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The Idaho Values Alliance, who helped draft this amendment said: "The amendment was meant to protect the institution of marriage". I've always been trying to figure out how laws such as these protect marriage. Are heterosexual people going to get a divorce if they see a gay couple on the street? Seems like these laws are really just designed to punish gays. Which they probably are.