Well, it appears that my back and forth with R. K. Sepetjian has come to an end. If you'll recall from a few previous entries(Leaving Comments on Other Sites - Birds as Dinosaurs and Fossil Evidence for Evolution, Follow Up, and Follow Up Part II), I caught a case of SIWOTI syndrome after reading a couple entries on the blog, Across the Fruited Plain - Are Dinosaurs Alive Today As Birds?: Refuting Archaeopteryx as "Evidence" for Evolution and Refuting Fossil "Evidence" for Evolution: The Data is NOT in the Strata. I left a comment to each of those articles, and after a few weeks with my comments held up in moderation, Sepetjian saw and approved them, and then responded to them. Well, the conversation didn't exactly go the way I would have preferred it to. I wanted to discuss the original topics, mainly evolution. But Sepetjian turned it into a discussion on epistemology, or the nature of knowledge. As I wrote in the last installment of this series, "It wasn't very productive - neither of us did any convincing of the other."

So, I left a comment saying I was no longer interested in going round and round in such an unproductive conversation, which I quoted in full in my last entry. What I found especially amusing is that I predicted what path the conversation would take if it were to continue. In particular, I said:

And you'll keep making arguments of the sort, 'Aha! You admit you don't have absolute certainty, therefore you can't know anything. Whereas I believe in God, and can therefore have absolute certainty.'

And look at what he wrote as a part of his final reply:

I have been doing my best to answer you and in so doing, believe I have demonstrated that my truth claims are unassailable, while yours are unjustifiable.

His final statement in his last response was as follows:

Therefore, if you'll permit one more question: By what objective standard of morality are you appealing to when you express that those things are wrong?

So, once again, the conversation wasn't getting back to evolution, and once again, I was drawn into responding. If you follow this blog at all (which I'm guessing is the only reason anybody would have read this far into this entry), you can probably guess at my response, which included, in part, "I don't think there is an objective morality. Morality is based on values, which are in the realm of the subjective." I went on to mention the Euthypro Dilemma in anticipation of Sepetjian claiming God as the source of objective morality, and gave a couple examples.

But Sepetjian hasn't responded in almost a week, whereas at the peak of our discussion, we were each posting something daily. So, I fear that Sepetjian has grown tired of arguing with me, or sees me as a lost cause, or feels he has better things to do with his time. At this point, I'm not expecting a response on his part, but if he does, I'll be sure to mention it here.

Posted by Jeff on Friday, Aug 23 | Permalink | Comments (24) | TrackBacks (0)

I was having a conversation with someone the other day, and the topic turned to the types of things I discuss on this blog. I made a comment along the lines of, 'It's not as if Christians are a persecuted minority in this country', and the other person responded that 'No, they're a persecuted majority'. From my interactions, it seems that this is a relatively common perception. As an example, here's an article from Townhall Magazine, Persecution of Christians ... in America. Granted, there are examples of Christians being mistreated, but these mainly seem to be isolated cases. For another set of examples, look to the ACLU's ACLU Defense of Religious Practice and Expression. Those are mostly local school boards, city governments, or bureaucrats misunderstanding the law.

For an example of a group being discriminated against by not just local government, but the United States House of Representatives, consider the recent case of the ban on atheist chaplains in the military.

Currently, there are around 2800 chaplains in the military. These chaplains are all specifically for Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Jews (and maybe a few more religions, I'm not sure). However, there are no specifically secular chaplains, even though around 20% of those in the military have no particular religious affiliation, and around 1% are specifically atheist/agnostic. So, some atheist organizations were pushing to get a few secular chaplains to support the non-religious in the military. One congressional member tried to create the post in an amendment to the defense appropriations bill, but it was voted down. Not content with merely voting it down, the opponents came back with a separate amendment requiring chaplains to be associated with a specific religious institution - an attempt to effectively ban atheist and secular chaplains. And that amendment had no trouble passing - 253 to 173 (with only 2 Republicans voting against the amendment).

The guy who sponsored the amendment called atheist chaplains an oxymoron, insisting that chaplains are there to perform religious duties. But, in practice, the religious aspects of their post only constitute a small portion of it. As one of the commenters in the link below put it:

Military Chaplains do a lot more than hold church services and prayer meetings. They counsel guys that are going through a lot of hard stuff. Anyone who has served in the military knows this. If a soldier isn't a Christian, he may not feel comfortable talking to a Christian Chaplain about his issues, and there are a lot of guys out there committing suicide without having seen a Chaplain. Whatever we can do to prevent these needless deaths, even if you guys think it's "stupid" or an "oxymoron" is fine by me.

And I know some people might say those soldiers have the options of counselors and psychologists, but there's still a big stigma with those. More importantly, it goes down in the soldier's record if they see a psychologist, whereas a visit to a chaplain is off the record, making it more likely for a soldier to talk with them.

Don't get me wrong. Atheists don't have it terribly bad in the U.S. For one, it's not outwardly apparent, so even living in one of the reddest areas in a very red state, I've never felt the type of personal harassment that a victim of 'stop and frisk' would experience. But I'm also careful not to be very vocal about my atheism in the wrong crowds. Years ago when my daughter was younger, she made the mistake of simply telling another kid at daycamp that she didn't think you needed to believe in God to be a good person, and she ended up being teased by a bunch of other kids for the rest of the day. My main point is that I'm tired of the false narrative of Christians being the ones persecuted in this country.

More Info:

Other than the headline and opening paragraph, this is a pretty even handed article:

• AL.com - Lawmaker pushing amendment to prevent 'nonsense' of military including atheist chaplains

This issue has been covered extensively in verse by the Digital Cuttlefish, going back to before the above mentioned law was even proposed. Go check out some of his posts for more info:

• GOP Congressmen Debate Atheist Chaplaincy, Display Incredible Ignorance
• GOP Congressman Attempts To Prohibit Atheist Chaplains
• Concrete Thinking About Atheist Chaplains
• The Best Argument For Atheist Chaplains Is... Christian Chaplains
• What We Have Here, Is A Failure Of Imagination

Posted by Jeff on Tuesday, Aug 20 | Permalink | Comments (27) | TrackBacks (0)

As I wrote in my last entry, Follow Up: Leaving Comments on Other Sites - Birds as Dinosaurs and Fossil Evidence for Evolution, a little less than two months ago, I left a couple comments on the blog, Across the Fruited Plain, in the entries, Are Dinosaurs Alive Today As Birds?: Refuting Archaeopteryx as "Evidence" for Evolution and Refuting Fossil "Evidence" for Evolution: The Data is NOT in the Strata. It took a little while for the owner of the blog to approve my comments, but he finally did, and we got into a little back and forth. As I wrote in my previous entry, I was worried that the conversation would degrade into one on the nature of knowledge, not his original topic of evolution. And while I even wrote, "If he goes back into all the post-modern mumbo jumbo, I don't think I'll have the stomach to keep the conversation going," he managed to suck me into the conversation. It wasn't very productive - neither of us did any convincing of the other. However, it is rather enlightening into the mindset of a creationist. So, rather than waste more time in a pointless discussion, I left one final comment with the following conclusion.

Anyway, I'm done discussing epistemology. If you want to leave one more response to get in the last word, you're welcome to it. But I don't see this as a fruitful discussion. I'll keep on making arguments of the sort, 'In nearly all cases, absolute certainty is not possible, but we can still still have a very high degree of confidence in various claims, and the pragmatic approach to life is to not worry about the most outlandish, unlikely claims. We can always be mistaken, and your claim to absolute knowledge through Yahweh is just one example of people being mistaken in their beliefs.' And you'll keep making arguments of the sort, 'Aha! You admit you don't have absolute certainty, therefore you can't know anything. Whereas I believe in God, and can therefore have absolute certainty.' It'll just be longer, use more examples, longer words, and maybe even a bit more Latin, but the conversation won't go anywhere. It's fruitless.

If you do want to continue a conversation, I'd be happy to discuss the original topic of this blog post - birds, dinosaurs, and evolution. Even if you think I lack the epistemological basis to 'know' things, you believe that you don't have that handicap. So, unless you're going to imply that I really am living in the Matrix and this world isn't real, you at least should accept that the real world exists, and that the fossil and other evidence I'm trying to show you exists. So, you should be able to comment on your interpretations of that evidence. Otherwise, it seems like you're trying to evade the conversation.

And, just as a reminder, the questions I posted on your other entry, Refuting Fossil "Evidence" for Evolution: The Data is NOT in the Strata, still stand. You made several claims about evolutionary biology, geology, paleontology, etc. So, ignoring my supposed inability to 'know' things, what is your interpretation of the objections I posted? Do you have any evidence-based arguments against what I wrote, or are you just going to go back to arguing the nature of evidence and imply that my worldview doesn't allow me to know anything, thereby avoiding my questions?

If the conversation does progress to something productive, I'll probably make note of it here.

As an aside, I'm going to miss my Friday Bible Blogging entry this week. I've been a bit sick all week, and I just lacked the energy and conviction to read through another ten chapters of the Bible. It's already a bit of a chore even when I've feeling completely healthy. This conversation on the other blog, while a bit exasperating, was easy enough to keep up with without much thought or spending too much time on it.

Posted by Jeff on Friday, Aug 16 | Permalink | Comments (25) | TrackBacks (0)

A little less than two months ago, I left a couple comments on the blog, Across the Fruited Plain, in the entries, Are Dinosaurs Alive Today As Birds?: Refuting Archaeopteryx as "Evidence" for Evolution and Refuting Fossil "Evidence" for Evolution: The Data is NOT in the Strata. After about a week with my comments being held up in moderation, I decided to post them on this site in the entry, Leaving Comments on Other Sites - Birds as Dinosaurs and Fossil Evidence for Evolution. As I wrote in that entry, "Despite it not being a particularly active blog, I caught a case of SIWOTI syndrome and couldn't resist commenting."

Well, the writer of the blog has finally approved my comments and left a couple responses of his own. Unfortunately, so far, the discussion hasn't been particularly productive. In my first comment to his entry on fossil evidence for evolution, I was trying to correct his misrepresentations and misunderstandings of the science. Here's his initial response, in full.

Hello Jeff!

Thank you for your message.
You have made many knowledge claims, but since we do not know each other and I don't know what your epistemological groundings are, my question is, can you be wrong about everything you claim to know?

If you follow this blog at all, you can probably guess at my answer. I started off by saying that "Of course I could be wrong," and then gave a brief explanation of the sort I've made numerous times on this blog - that absolute certainty is impossible, but we can have varying levels of confidence in different ideas (for an example, see my essay, Confidence in Scientific Knowledge, or the related, but not quite as relevant, Confidence in Historical Knowledge)

His followup began in a very unpromising manner, "Therefore, if you could be wrong about everything you claim to know, then it follows that you do not know anything." It then went on from there with different variations on the theme that I've somehow admitted that knowledge is impossible because certainty is impossible.

My next reply wasn't as polite as perhaps it could have been (I lead off by asking, "Are you being obtuse on purpose?"), but it was mostly constructive and civil. I basically said that I wasn't going to get drawn into a discussion on epistemology when his own post was originally about evidence for evolution, and then reiterated my original points.

He also responded briefly to my comment on the bird entry, with a portion of his response wondering "how two creatures, who could not be more biologically different, are directly linked spontaneously through Macro Evolution". I responded with a comment listing the common features of dinosaurs and birds, but I now notice that that comment of mine is held up in moderation. Hopefully he'll approve it relatively soon.

I'll see how the conversation goes. I'm hoping he'll stay on topic with his original posts and discuss evidence for evolution. If he goes back into all the post-modern mumbo jumbo, I don't think I'll have the stomach to keep the conversation going.

Posted by Jeff on Monday, Aug 12 | Permalink | Comments (27) | TrackBacks (0)

Someone recently asked me to fact check an e-mail for them, so I've decided to post that response here. The e-mail was supposedly quoting Ian Plimer, a geologist and professor at the University of Melbourne, and a noted climate change denialist. For anyone interested, I've posted that e-mail in its entirety below the fold.

The lead-in to the body of the article was, "Where Does the Carbon Dioxide Really Come From?" After a bit of ranting about Priuses, CFL bulbs, and the like, it got to its main point - that volcanoes supposedly spew out far more carbon dioxide than any human contributions. It even made the claim:

...when the volcano Mt Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, it spewed out more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire human race had emitted in all its years on earth.

Just a bit later, the e-mail claimed that the Earth has been cooling for the last century:

It's because the planet has COOLED by 0.7 degrees in the past century and these global warming bull artists got caught with their pants down.

So, in response to the person who asked me to fact check this e-mail, I responded in three parts, as detailed below.

Correct Attribution/Credentials?

On the first level of fact-checking, I didn't find the actual source of this quote from Plimer. All I could find were reprints of this e-mail. So, I'm not sure if he actually wrote it (and given the tone, I would hope not), but it does appear consistent with claims of his I've found elsewhere. As far as his background, that's simply copied-and-pasted from Wikipedia, so it's probably correct.

Volcanic Emissions vs. Human Emissions:

Plimer is way off base here. I found many, many different sites dealing with this. Here are two of the better ones:

• USGS - Volcanic Gases and Climate Change Overview
  http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/climate.php
   
• Discovery News - Humans Dwarf Volcanoes for CO2 Emissions
  http://news.discovery.com/earth/weather-extreme-events/volcanoes-co2-people-emissions-climate-110627.htm

That first link contains these two tables, so that you can compare annual volcanic CO2 emissions to human emissions. It also contained the emissions for a couple notable eruptions, Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Pinatubo. Annual human caused CO2 emissions are on the order of 134 times higher than total annual volcanic emissions (which includes submarine volcanos), and about 700 times higher than what was released by the one-time event of Mt. Pinatubo erupting.

Global Cooling?

I've seen similar claims of global cooling a few times before, but usually on shorter time scales. It almost always comes down to cherry-picking data. Here's an article dealing with a similar claim made by David Rose last year, and another article dealing with longer term trends.

• Skeptical Science - Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
  http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=1668
   
• Bad Astronomy - The Earth Is Warming Faster Now Than It Has in 11,000 Years
  http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/03/13/global_warming_new_study_shows_warming_is_faster_than_it_has_been_in_11.html

Below is a good graph from the first article. It clearly shows a long term warming trend over the past several decades. But it's not a perfectly smooth line, and there are outliers both above and below the general trend. So, if you cherry-pick, as they show in the animation, and choose an appropriate (or rather, inappropriate) time period, you can say there's been cooling over that short term period, and then naively extrapolate that short term cooling to saying that it's a long term cooling trend. But when you look at the larger data set over several decades, it's clear which way the trend is going.

The second article dealt with longer term trends, addressing the e-mail's specific claim of cooling over the last century. Below is a graph from that article, showing the temperature anomaly for the past 11,000 years. I clearly shows that the rate of change right now is much higher than it's been than at any other point in that period, and a clear warming trend for the past century.

So, this e-mail contained nothing but the bogus claims I've come to expect from the climate change denialists. I really don't understand this mindset. Problems don't disappear just because you ignore them. Burying your head in the sand won't make global warming go away. We've already had to face some consequences of a changing climate, and rather quickly, we're going to have to start dealing with the more profound effects. Why not own up to it and start working on solutions now?

Continue reading "Response to Global Warming Denialist E-mail - Volcanoes and Global Cooling" »

Posted by Jeff on Monday, Jul 29 | Permalink | Comments (35) | TrackBacks (0)