If you haven’t seen Ben Steins newest anti-evolution screed “Expelled” please don’t – it will make you a dumber person and we really don’t need any more of those around here. However, Stein recently gave an interview in which he states, and in the best tradition of Dave Barry I am NOT making this up, that science is murder. Derb over at NRO takes exception to this:

In an interview with the Trinity Broadcasting Network, Ben Stein said the following amazing thing in an interview with Paul Crouch, Jr.

Stein:   When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers [i.e. biologist P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you.

Crouch:   That’s right.

Stein:   …Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.

Crouch:   Good word, good word.

You can see the whole shameful thing here. It’s a pity Crouch didn’t invite the Rev. Jeremiah Wright into the studio for a three-way conversation. It would have elevated the tone.

What it brought to my mind, when I had calmed down a bit, was Voltaire’s letter to Rousseau, after the latter had sent the former a copy of The Social Contract in which Rousseau argues, to put it in the smallest possible nutshell, that civilization is a crock. Voltaire:

I have received your new book against the human race, and thank you for it. Never was such a cleverness used in the design of making us all stupid. One longs, in reading your book, to walk on all fours. But as I have lost that habit for more than sixty years, I feel unhappily the impossibility of resuming it. Nor can I embark in search of the savages of Canada, because the maladies to which I am condemned render a European surgeon necessary to me; because war is going on in those regions; and because the example of our actions has made the savages nearly as bad as ourselves.

Meanwhile, the Blood Libel character of what Stein is saying is beginning to dawn on thoughtful Jews. The Anti-Defamation League has issued a statement deploring Stein’s Darwin-inspired-the Holocaust thesis.

And there are NRO readers who are on board with this dreck? I need a drink.

Ugh and people wonder why I am ashamed to admit my conservative philosophy.  A drink indeed. Cheers, Derb.

Jamie posted this at 5:33 PM EDT on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 as Science & Evolution

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Quote of the day:

Your plate is fuller than a Melmac platter at a Methodist Potluck.

Hubbard posted this at 2:42 PM EDT on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 as Amer-I-Can!, Faith, Ourselves

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James Polous has an interesting take on the Obama press conference.

conor friedersdorf posted this at 10:57 AM EDT on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 as Uncategorized

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So Senator Obama finally breaks definitively from Rev. Wright. My thoughts are as follows:

1) He should have done this sooner.

2) Rev. Wright is a bigger kook than even I thought. Hillary Clinton couldn’t pay him to behave in a more damaging way.

3) This whole thing reflects poorly on Obama’s political judgment.

4) It’s worthy of some press coverage.

5) It isn’t so important as to warrant the amount of coverage it is getting, which is to say basically all the coverage of the campaign these days. It would be one thing if Obama said or believed that the government created AIDS or some such nonsense, but he obviously doesn’t.

It’s worth asking at this point what percentage of campaign coverage this should be getting. Lord knows that Senators Clinton and McCain have each done lots of things that reflect poorly on their judgment and character. But this being the most sensational among the candidates’ flaws it gets hugely disproportionate play.

Again, I don’t say that people shouldn’t consider whatever it is that this says about Obama when they vote. But since this story broke it has been the biggest one in the campaign by a wide margin, which upon reflection seems pretty ridiculous given the important of other character and policy questions and the fact that should Obama be elected there is zero chance that any of the abhorrent stances embraced by Rev. Wright will be supported or advanced by a President Obama. Indeed quite the opposite, which perhaps partly explains Wright’s behavior.

conor friedersdorf posted this at 12:22 AM EDT on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 as Uncategorized

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Obama today:

Q: Why the change of tone from yesterday? When you spoke to us on the tarmac yesterday, you didn’t have this sense of anger, outrage –

SEN. OBAMA: Yeah. I’ll be honest with you: because I hadn’t seen it yet.

Q: And that was the difference you –

SEN. OBAMA: Yes.

Q: Had you heard the reports about the AIDS comment?

SEN. OBAMA: I had not. I had not seen the transcript. What I had heard was that he had given a performance. And I thought at the time that it would be sufficient simply to reiterate what I had said in Philadelphia. Upon watching it, what became clear to me was that it was more than just a — it was more than just him defending himself. What became clear to me was that he was presenting a world view that — that — that contradicts who I am and what I stand for. And what I think particularly angered me was his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing. Anybody who knows me and anybody who knows what I’m about knows that — that I am about trying to bridge gaps and that I see the — the commonality in all people.

And so when I start hearing comments about conspiracy theories and AIDS and suggestions that somehow Minister Farrakhan has — has been a great voice in the 20th century, then that goes directly at who I am and what I believe this country needs.

Read his comments from yesterday. He didn’t let on then that he hadn’t heard or seen Wright’s remarks. So, among other things, he’s responding to remarks that he hasn’t heard. Of course, I shouldn’t complain about that too much, since I’ll probably vote for someone who calls people racists for making an ad that he didn’t see.

In these comments, does it seem that Obama is saying that he had no clue about Wright’s theories on AIDS until Wright’s speech yesterday? I can understand his saying that he had no clue about the AIDS conspiracy theories prior to this spring (though it’s hardly believable, since AIDS charity work is the first thing he always praises Wright for), but are we supposed to believe that at the time of his now, ahem, outdated speech in Philadelphia he didn’t know that Wright thought AIDS was a government invention?

SEN. OBAMA: Well, look, as I said before, the person I saw yesterday was not the person that I had come to know over 20 years. I understand that — I think he was pained and angered from what had happened previously, during the first stage of this controversy. I think he felt vilified and attacked, and I understand that he wanted to defend himself.

I’ll paraphrase: “If only Hannity had kept his damned mouth closed…”

Let’s see how long his defense that he never heard nothing lasts. Aside from questions of what Wright will say (and I am looking forward to his response, surely there’s a member of Trinity who is pissed off right now and will come forward to say that Obama was in church when Wright said things.

Apollo posted this at 6:29 PM EDT on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 as Audacity of Hype

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Neat!

(H/T)

Hubbard posted this at 5:10 PM EDT on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 as Random Bloggish Things

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I’ve been arguing for some time that Hillary Clinton, for all her flaws, is a stronger general election candidate than Barack Obama will be against McCain.  Now comes a poll [link in PDF (H/T)] that backs me.  Obama leads McCain 46 to 44; Clinton leads 50 to 41. 

First, Obama has now had to repudiate Wright—too little too late, I think. The campaign’s internal polling numbers must have been absolutely appalling given that in repudiating Wright, Obama more or less had to make hash of his big speech on race relations.  Second, key Democrats, most notably Mike Easley, Democratic Governor of North Carolina, are swinging Clinton’s way.  I think she might pull it out.  Despite Charlie Cook’s assertion that she’s losing the superdelegates, I think they’ll start moving towards Clinton again; the supers hate losing more than they hate her.  Should Clinton win North Carolina—with it’s large black population and many well-educated whites in the Research Triangle region, it would once have been natural Obama territory—I think we might start hearing calls for Obama to pull out. 

Joe Scarborough might have been right that we’ll face a Clinton-McCain match up.  And Clinton would be favored to win.  Well, if nothing else, we’ll get Bill Clinton jokes again.

Hubbard posted this at 4:33 PM EDT on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 as Audacity of Hype, I have seen the future. . .

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The Obama love fest is back on.

Still I’m left wondering: In light of the fact that Wrights statements yesterday were mild compared to those in his sermons, why did it take until now for Obama to repudiate those specific comments?

Got an answer for us, Andrew? Or are you just too infatuated with Obama to care?

Jamie posted this at 2:21 PM EDT on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 as Audacity of Hype, What Ever Happened to Andrew Sullivan?

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As I’ve previously written, one of the most overlooked flaws in Intelligent Design is that once you posit an intelligent designer who takes an active role in biology, you open yourself to questions about how that designer can be so danged sloppy sometimes. For every beautiful structure that makes you wonder how that could have arisen without a guiding hand, there are others that make you wonder how anyone could imagine biology is directed at all. Heck, our silly species* can’t even procreate without killing about 1% of its females.

I’ll put it this way: we are either the product of A) a talented, but lazy and/or incompetent designer, or B) a naturalistic, undirected system sometimes capable of creating order and beauty. I know where my money is.

Via Bad Astronomy, there’s a new exhibit that highlights this:

An exhibit five years in the making, it uses fossils and interactive multimedia displays to tell the story about how the human race adapted, thrived and continues to evolve. It leaves Penn in May 2009 for a multi-city tour including stops at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and The Health Museum in Houston.

The exhibit’s message, right down to the title, is that finding evidence of the evolutionary process is as simple as looking at ourselves.

“You are a living artifact of evolution,” said Janet Monge, co-curator of the exhibit. “We didn’t want it to be something remote. It’s about you — you’re the artifact and this will tell you why.”

…

The exhibit also highlights what might be considered evolution’s hiccups: the imperfect results of the evolutionary process common to people around the world, such as stiff backs and pelvic bones that haven’t adapted to the larger brain size of newborns, making childbirth difficult for many women.

“The important aspect we tried to capture … is evolution isn’t just an interesting scientific idea,” said Alan Mann, exhibit co-curator. “We wanted to let everybody know what it means to be a product of evolution.”

* Note to pandas: At least we do procreate.

Tom posted this at 12:19 PM EDT on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 as Uncategorized

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Andrew Sullivan has finally acknowledged that Jeremiah Wright is a problem for Obama. Patterico has an amusing timeline about the Sullivan’s slog towards reality, but Tom Maguire notes that Sullivan still hasn’t quite caught up yet:

And Sully delivers a brilliant punchline:

We need a speech or statement from Obama in which he utterly repudiates this poison, however personally difficult that may be, however damaging the impact will be. The statement today will not do it. This is no longer about cynics trying to associate one man’s politics with another. It is now about Wright attempting to associate himself and some of his noxious, stupid, rancid views with the likely Democratic nominee. Wright has given Obama no choice — and he has also given him another opportunity. He needs to seize it.

Here’s your newsflash — Obama has already given a speech on Wright. Now he’s supposed to give another one? Saying what — “Gee, when I didn’t disown Wright in March for saying “God DAMN America”, it was because I didn’t realize then that he meant it”? What has changed? Andrew seems to think that this is a different Jeremiah Wright from the man made famous by his soundbites in March, the man about whom Obama said “I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother“.

Or is Obama going to try and pretend that, unlike everyone in the world except Andrew Sullivan, he had no idea until late April that Wright was hateful?

Sullivan has on his blog a quote from George Orwell: “To see what is in front of one’s nose is a constant struggle.” He might want to contemplate another quote from Eric Hoffer: “To most of us nothing is so invisible as an unpleasant truth. Though it is held before our eyes, pushed under our noses, rammed down our throats—we know it not.”

Hubbard posted this at 11:46 AM EDT on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 as Audacity of Hype, What Ever Happened to Andrew Sullivan?

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The most amazing part of this story is that the only way he was caught is that he was nice enough to let one of the children go to the hospital when she was ill. It seems weird to say that a man who did this was done in by his own kindness, but it’s just part of the bizarre truth of this story.

Had he decided to not let her go to the hospital, they might have stayed locked down there until he died and left them stranded in the dungeon without access to supplies, only to be found decades later when the building would be demolished.

As a minor aside, note the stars of David in the pictures. If you would have told me this story and asked what country it happened in, I would have guessed Germany or Austria. I would not, however, guess that they were Jews.

Apollo posted this at 2:21 AM EDT on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 as Uncategorized

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More from Jeremiah Wright today:

MODERATOR: Some critics have said that your sermons are unpatriotic. How do you feel about America and about being an American?

WRIGHT: I feel that those citizens who say that have never heard my sermons, nor do they know me. They are unfair accusations taken from sound bites and that which is looped over and over again on certain channels.

I served six years in the military. Does that make me patriotic? How many years did Cheney serve?

Long-time reader[s?] will know that I’ve a great deal of respect for those serving in the armed forces, but that I refuse to let people hide nefarious deeds behind their past services.

Both Jefferson Davis and Benedict Arnold served with honor in the Army, and both were wounded fighting for the United States of America. Adams, Jefferson, and Madison never bore arms to defend their country.

If patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, past military service is the last refuge of an anti-patriot. Thanks for your military service, Jerry; now go to hell.

Apollo posted this at 9:11 PM EDT on Monday, April 28th, 2008 as Audacity of Hype

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Reading through the transcript of Jeremiah Wright’s speech today, I kept thinking back to Obama, in his 21st Century Gettysburg Address, calling Wright a “Biblical scholar.”

The exchange that really gets me comes when someone asks him about the “America’s chickens have come home to roost” routine.

WRIGHT: Have you heard the whole sermon? Have you heard the whole sermon?

MODERATOR: I heard most of it.

WRIGHT: No, no, the whole sermon, yes or no? No, you haven’t heard the whole sermon? That nullifies that question.

Well, let me try to respond in a non-bombastic way. If you heard the whole sermon, first of all, you heard that I was quoting the ambassador from Iraq. That’s number one.

But, number two, to quote the Bible, “Be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatsoever you sow, that you also shall reap.” Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you. Those are biblical principles, not Jeremiah Wright bombastic, divisive principles.

It’s hard to think of a more cut and dry perversion of the Golden Rule than this. To take Christ’s command and twist it into a justification for a terrorist attack (or any attack) shows so little understanding of Christian principles, and so little respect for the meaning of words, that I can’t think of an appropriate way to describe it. These aren’t the words of a scholar, they’re the words of a sycophant willing to twist the words of Christ to his own purpose. This is “gays caused 9/11″ stuff.

And his excerpt from Galatians (”Be not decieved…” Gal 6:7) is nothing more than a thoughtless twisting of Biblical words to suit his own needs. For a man who goes ape poo if people only listen to “snippets” of his sermons rather than the whole thing, it’s notable that he just cuts and pastes small Biblical sayings, completely out of context, to support his point.

Look, I can do it too, from the very same chapter no less: Galatians 6:15-16- “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation. Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule, even to the Israel of God.”

See, America and Europe follow that rule while the Muslims don’t, thus we’re entitled to peace and mercy and they’re entitled to the root end of a mushroom cloud. Mohammed’s circumcised chickenssssss ………. have come home to roost! Maybe now our secular messiah will call me a Biblical scholar too.

Jeremiah Wright is disgusting not simply because he’s a racist and hates America, but because he is a perverter of Christianity. I’m reminded here of nothing so much as mid-19th century southerners using scripture to say that there’s a divine imperative to enslave blacks. The Bible is a dangerous weapon; a heart bereft of love and charity can do terrible things with its words.

Apollo posted this at 8:01 PM EDT on Monday, April 28th, 2008 as Audacity of Hype, Faith

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I’m starting to research a piece on the future of right-of-center journalism — do any of my co-bloggers or our readers have any thoughts about the state of the genre, the direction it should take, or any related thoughts?

conor friedersdorf posted this at 2:46 PM EDT on Monday, April 28th, 2008 as Uncategorized

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McCain is now hitting Obama for his connections to Wright — perfectly good thing to do, in my mind, but s quoting a really odd Wright quote that Hugh Hewitt’s producer found last week (read them here).

On Friday, a conservative radio show host, Hugh Hewitt, broadcast a 2003 sermon in which Rev. Wright said: “Remember, it was soldiers of the 3rd Marine Regiment of Rome who had fun with Jesus, who was mistreated as a prisoner of war, an enemy of the occupying army stationed in Jerusalem, to ensure the mopping up action of Operation Israeli Freedom. … What we are doing is the same thing Al Qaeda is doing under a different-colored flag, calling on the name of a different God to sanction and approve our murder and our mayhem.”

McCain said:

“I saw yesterday some additional comments that have been revealed by Pastor Wright, one of them comparing the United States Marine Corps with Roman legionnaires who were responsible for the death of our savior — I mean being involved in that,” Mr. McCain said, referring to the death of Jesus Christ. “Then, of course, saying that Al Qaeda and the American flag were the same flags. … I can understand why people are upset about this.”

No mention of the AIDs thing?  This is just weird.

Tom posted this at 12:08 PM EDT on Monday, April 28th, 2008 as Audacity of Hype, Race

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