I would say something about the underlying cause of the 13 murders that took place at Fort Hood on November 5, but I can’t say it any better than Ibn Warraq, so I’ll just quote him:

It is time to abandon apologetics, and political correctness. Not all Muslims are terrorists. Not all Muslims are implicated in the horrendous events of September 11, 2001 — or of November 5, 2009. However, to pretend that Islam has nothing to do with 9/11 or the Fort Hood massacre is willfully to ignore the obvious. To leave Islam out of the equation means to forever misinterpret events. Without Islam, the long-term strategy and individual acts of violence by Osama bin Laden and his followers make little sense. Without Islam, the West will go on being incapable of understanding our terrorist enemies, and hence will be incapable to deal with them. Without Islam, neither is it possible to comprehend the barbarism of the Taliban, the position of women and non-Muslims in Islamic countries, or — now– the murders attributed to Major Hasan.

This is what I mean when I say that religious faith is always and everywhere exonerated of blame for these types of things. I’m not merely saying that religious faith is the cause of a great deal of evil in the world (though that would appear to be self-evidently true, given what is actually written in our ‘holy’ books). No, it is not merely that. The real issue is that, in deference to political correctness and ‘liberalism’, we always fail to point the finger at religion, even when it is really and truly to blame.

Warraq is right; the actions of the 9/11 hijackers make no sense, except when you allow for their religious beliefs. The actions of Christian abortion doctor murders make no sense, except when you allow for their religious faith.

That is not, as Warraq points out, to say that all Muslims or all Christians are evil; far from it. Clearly, many Muslims and Christians have learned to shelve the less palatable aspects of their religious dogmas (despite the fact that they are no less canonical than any other aspect by which they choose to live their lives). This is especially relevant for western Christians, who have gained an unprecedented level of financial and political success (and not quite as much for western Muslims, who have not). We are all far better off because of this. Nor is it to say that all tenets of religious faith are bad; the Golden Rule, much as it did not originate in Christianity, is a wonderful principle by which to live one’s life (slavery, on the other hand, not so much…shame about it being tacitly approved of in the New Testament).

It is to say, however, that these acts of terror cannot be reconciled with any rational motivation unless we first accept that the perpetrators believe – truly believe – that the creator of the universe approves of the killing of non-believers, heretics, and apostates. Moreover, it is to say that by failing to even mention the unmentionable (for instance, that Islam itself was necessary, if not sufficient, for 9/11 or that Christianity was necessary for the Inquisition and for abortion doctor murders), we are, as Warraq points out, doomed to forever misunderstand these things.

We cannot simply ascribe these events to bad men with bad ideas. No; it takes a special kind of bad idea to un-make oneself (and thousands of others) at 500 miles per hour, to slowly roast a suspected witch, or to gun down 13 soldiers in cold blood; generally, it takes a religious idea to do that.

We cannot simply say that these are were mis-interpretations of religious faith. First, who are we to say that, and on what basis? The theological know-how of the 9/11 hijackers or the Inquisitors was, very likely, beyond all criticism. But more importantly, these acts simply are not mis-interpretations of anything. They are the logical result of believing that books written in a pre-scientific age, an age in which human beings did not know enough about their world to know to keep their toilets away from their food supplies, are the actual or inspired word of the creator of the universe. Once you accept this, you must logically accept that what is written in these books is true; that god does approve of killing apostates and heretics, at least in certain circumstances.

Once again, we come to the realization that we cannot long endure the co-mingling of Bronze Age ideas about morality and the nature of the universe with 21st century technology. Sooner or later, we will recognize the enormous price we are paying to ignore the real causes of much of what ails us. Hopefully this will come through the rational realization that religious faith is, by-and-large, anathema to long-term human peaceful co-existence; we will learn to recognize that, what ever else we may call ourselves, we are human beings first. There is nothing, however, to suggest that this will be the case. The alternative is the continued descent into faith-inspired conflict at an ever-increasing, and ever deadlier, pace.

Yes, it’s true. I think I just threw up in my mouth a bit, but I really am defending the actions of our Prime Minister.

It seems that while attending the funeral of former Governor-General Romeo LeBlanc, Stephen Harper was caught on video accepting a communion wafer and, gasp, putting it in his pocket instead of immediately consuming the body of Christ right then and there. Well, today must have been one heck of a slow news day because this made the front (web)page of most Canadian news outlets.

The argle-bargle (fooferaw?) results, of course, from the long-standing tradition of religious people getting all uppidy when other people don’t consider the same things sacred as they do. Roman Catholics are outraged because they believe the cracker, once “consecrated”, becomes the literal body of Christ (usually to be washed down with the blood of Christ, in the form of communion wine). By not consuming the cracker, Mr. Harper is offending the religious sensibilities of Catholics. The story goes something like this: Catholics think the cracker is sacred, and so, therefore, must everyone else. At the very least, those of us who are not afraid to call a cracker a cracker (ummm…) must treat the cracker with a certain amount of respect that would not ordinarily be afforded to other pieces of unleavened bread.

Nonsense.

Stephen Harper was under no obligation to do anything with that cracker. If he (or I) were actively preventing Catholics from eating their holy cracker, THAT would be grounds for anger. But he was not interfereing in anyone’s ability to practice their (ridiculous) religion as they deemed fit. If Mr. Harper had, say, taken the cracker home, driven a nail through it, and then tossed it in the garbage, that would be his right. Catholics might not like it, but I’m afraid that’s the price you pay to live in a liberal democracy.

Of course, in the end, Stephen Harper ate the cracker, which is a bit odd. He’s not Catholic, and as far as I know, Catholics have a very well-enforced “Catholics only!” policy on these things. Perhaps they shouldn’t have offered it to him in the first place, or perhaps he should have declined. I don’t really know. This is the most ridiculous non-news piece of news I’ve heard in a long time.

Bottom line of how this should all go: Catholics, go ahead and delude yourself into thinking cracker = Jesus, and we here in realityland wont get in your way, so long as you don’t get in our way of making merciless fun of your ridiculous superstitions.

K?

The Family Institute of Connecticut*** has posted the following ad in the Connecticut Post. Be prepared to feel the stupid:

I…just…whaaaaaaat??

Let’s go through this slowly:

“Same-Sex Marriage Bill 899 will deny citizens their religious rights.”

How, exactly? Religious groups are protected from all kinds of things that us bad atheists have to deal with; you know, things like taxes and hate laws. And I haven’t parsed the details of Connecticut’s Bill 899, but I would assume it doesn’t have a mandatory same-sex marriage clause. Does it really force people to marry within their own gender?

“Schools that wish not to teach gay marriage will have no choice in the matter.”

Ahhh, I have such fond memories of my high school man-on-woman marriage classes; those were the days. I sure am glad I learned how to opposite sex marry all those years ago!

“Church groups who won’t comply will be punished by the government.”

You mean, groups that pay absolutely no tax and distribute books that are filled with the most vile garbage (which would land the rest of us in jail for promoting hate) are upset that they might have to follow the law and marry people who are legally entitled to do so? Pshaw!

“Business will have to close their doors.”

Well, perhaps the wedding planners will have to close their doors for one day while they finally get to marry their long-term partners. But they’ll be back open the next day, ready to help grant others the same right.

I sure am glad that the FIC produced this ad. I finally “get” it; same-sex marriage isn’t about ending discrimination and providing everyone with the same rights. This Connecticut bill isn’t about bringing the state in line with a growing cohort of other western democracies that have seen fit to end this type of discrimination.

Nah! It’s about making sure that religious people don’t have to think about icky things like same-sex marriage, and get to keep on foisting their Bronze Age morality on the rest of us.

Thanks, FIC!

*** – Have you ever noticed that if a group has the word ‘family’ in its title, it is invariably evil? Just sayin’…

Thanks to Friendly Atheist for the original link

I have sent the following question to Gary Goodyear, Minister of State (Science and Technology), via email:

Hello,

Does the Honourable Minister of State (Science and Technology) accept the overwhelming scientific evidence that all life on Earth has evolved from a common ancestor?

This should be fairly simple for him to answer; it’s a ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

If you wish to ask a similar question, you may do so at GoodyG@parl.gc.ca. I figure that some Canadians may wish to know whether the Minister for science is anti-science or not.

Well, things are certainly clear as mud now.

You’ll recall that Gary Goodyear, Canada’s Minister of Science and Technology, refused to state whether he ‘believed’ in evolution, stating:

“I’m not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don’t think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate,”

Well, last night on TV, the Minister ‘clarified’* his position, stating:

“Of course I do, But it is an irrelevant question”

It is not an irrelevant question, Mr. Goodyear. It speaks to your abilities to comprehend scientific fact, and to be a good advocate for science in the Federal Cabinet room. Failure to accept the fundamental underpinnings of modern biology is, I think, a fatal flaw in a Minister of Science and Technology.

But it gets worse; much worse.

MP Marc Garneau, the Liberal Party’s Science and Technology critic, then came out with this festering pile of crap in response to the whole situation:

“It is a personal matter. It is a matter of faith.… I don’t think it prevents someone from being a good minister”

This frightens me, because Marc Garneau, a former astronaut, should know better. It is absolutely in no way a matter of faith; it is a matter of accepting the overwhelming evidence, or not. It is not a personal matter, any more than accepting that DNA is the genetic material is a ‘personal matter’; you may be entitled to your own opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own facts.

And if the Minister did not believe in gravity, or was an HIV/AIDS denialist, I would put it to you that it would prevent him from being a good Minister. The same holds true for denial of evolution.

What a sad episode.

* – Why is it that politicians always have to ‘clarify’ things? I can’t recall the last time I ‘misspoke’ or ‘misremembered’ something, yet politicians seem to do it all the time.

Canada’s science minister, Gary Goodyear, will not confirm whether he believes in evolution.

“I’m not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don’t think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate,”

Okay, let’s reboot for a second and approach this in as calm a manner as possible.

What the fuck!!???

First, the question is meaningless to begin with; one does not “believe” in evolution. One accepts the vast, overwhelming evidence for evolution, in the same way that one accepts the vast, overwhelming evidence for gravity.

Second, what does being a Christian have to do with this? “Do you believe in evolution?”, no matter how silly the question (see above), is not in any way a question about religious faith. No, it is a question, asked of our minister of science (who’s job it is to promote and defend science in Canada), about whether he accepts scientific evidence.

Mr. Goodyear also apparently believes in the god-of-the-gaps:

“I do believe that just because you can’t see it under a microscope doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It could mean we don’t have a powerful enough microscope yet. So I’m not fussy on this business that we already know everything. … I think we need to recognize that we don’t know.”

This is, of course, technically true; he’s merely stating the fact that one cannot prove a negative. No one is claiming we already know everything, Mr. Goodyear. In fact, science says precisely the opposite (that is why we need more money, sir); we need to know more about how the universe works, about how the human body works, and about myriad other things; that’s how we’ve grown as a society. The history of empiricism shows that science works.

On the contrary, you’ve had two-thousand years to provide some evidence for your god, and still you have nothing.

So Mr. Goodyear, let’s have it out; do you accept scientific fact or do you accept magic?

The Pope is visiting Africa this week, where he continues to spread his message of hate, ignorance, and stupidity.

First up, the HIV/AIDS epidemic that currently kills over 2 million people in sub-Saharan Africa each year (see http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/HIVData/GlobalReport/2008/ for more details).

There is absolutely no question that sexual abstinence is the best mechanism through which an individual can avoid getting infected with HIV. Abstain from sex and avoid I.V. drug use, and you’re virtually guaranteed not to get infected.

The smack-me-in-the-face-because-it’s-so-fucking-obvious problem with this is that people don’t abstain from sex. Human beings are human beings, and the human sex drive is strong. So how do we get around this little problem? Simple; we teach people how to have sex safely; to avoid risky behaviour, and to use condoms. Condoms are not as effective as abstinence, naturally; but they’re one hell of a lot more effective than nothing at all.

So if the Pope cares about ending human suffering, he should be championing the use of condoms, right?

Of course not. The Pope believes that the invisible creator of the universe disapproves of condoms; the Pope believes that the alleviation of suffering that would surely come from increased condom use is less important than ensuring that Yahweh is kept happy. Actually, the Pope believes that condom use wouldn’t alleviate suffering at all:

“You can’t resolve [the HIV/AIDS epidemic] with the distribution of condoms,” the pope told reporters aboard the Alitalia plane headed to Yaounde, Cameroon, where he will begin a seven-day pilgrimage on the continent. “On the contrary, it increases the problem.”

Perhaps the Pope would like to expand on exactly how condoms “increase the problem”? If the problem is pissing off the god of Abraham, then I imagine he’s right. If the problem is the >2 million Africans dying needlessly each year, then the Pope is hopelessly, murderously wrong.

The accumulating evidence tells us that abstinence-only sex education does not lower incidence rates of HIV and STD infection or rates of sexual activity.

This whole episode once again demonstrates the fundamental problem with religion; religion places concern for the sensibilities of imaginary gods above those of real flesh-and-blood human beings. I should point out that I have no doubt that there are deeply religious people who support the distribution of condoms in sub-Saharan Africa; these people, while doing great work, did not arrive at this state by way of their faith, but by way of their secular concern for human suffering (I’ll take what I can get, while noting that religion gives bad reasons to do good things, when good reasons are available).

This episode also highlights the impossibility of practicing religion in a vacuum. The Pope is free to believe whatever nonsense he wants to. Other rank-and-file Catholics are free to believe whatever they want; they’re free to go to church on Sunday and eat and drink Jesus and listen to a bunch of hateful crap. They’re also free to donate money to the Catholic church, the official position of which (and the one that is acted upon by its high-ranking officers in the Vatican) is that the slaughter of millions of Africans is preferential to a solution with known efficacy. Have you given money to the Catholic church lately? If so, you are participating in this, no matter what your personal beliefs about condom use are.

When are we going to grow up? When are we going to start demanding evidence for our beliefs before we sacrifice millions of lives? When are we going to see these allegedly “moderate” Catholics rise up and stop supporting a murderous organization like the Vatican? If moderate religion is the answer (which I strongly believe it is not), then lets see it. If I’m painting religion with too broad a brush, let someone come forward and explain to me how they, as a believer, are fighting against not just the killing in Africa, but against the organizations that are committing the slaughter. Religious moderates: the world can no longer endure your silence.

President Obama has announced that US federal funding will resume for embryonic stem cell research. Burn victims, suffers of Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, cancer, heart disease, type I diabetes, multiple sclerosis, lupus, and any number of other horrific conditions have moved one small step closer to having their daily pain ameliorated.

Meanwhile, Kansas Senator and general all-around real-good-Christian-type Sam Brownback, says:

“If an embryo is a life, and I believe strongly that it is life, then no government has the right to sanction their destruction for research purposes.”

Nothing like moral equivocation between the demonstrable, quantifiable pain experienced by millions of sentient people around the world each and every day for the rest of their lives and the “destruction” of an otherwise-non-viable mass of cells. Nothing like comparing the agony that families have to go through watching their loved ones die a slow, excruciating death to the termination of a pregnancy.

A fine example of just how religion replaces real moral values (like trying to lift the suffering of your fellow humans) with imaginary ones (like trying to do the will of your particular version of the invisible creator of the universe).

The Globe and Mail’s Andre Picard, who’s science journalism is almost always right on the mark, has a column out today that is, without a word of hyperbole, the best thing I’ve read in the Globe, or anywhere else for that matter, in a very long time.

Picard notes that the general tone of letters he receives in response to articles about a new drug or therapy, or a new finding regarding disease prevention, has deteriorated in recent years, and has gone from being a representation of an opposing view point with respect to the evidence, to a more ad hominem, ‘attack-the-messenger’ approach, where anyone who supports ‘traditional’ evidence-based knowledge is either too blind to see the truth, or is ‘in the pocket’ of some evil cabal (usually a drug company). Picard writes,

What is truly troubling is that the most common “debating” technique in cyberspace has become the dismissal of anyone with respect for scientific fact and reasoned opinion as part of some vast conspiracy.

If you read scientific literature and health research with an open mind and still conclude that vaccines are not poisons, that chelation therapy will not cure heart disease, that realigning someone’s chakra is not going to clear up a bladder infection, or that strange concoctions of vitamins and minerals cannot cure bipolar disorder – all theories that have pretty broad followings on the Web – then you are dismissed as an agent of an evil empire.

Science is not a collection of facts about the universe; it is an approach to understanding the universe, or at least a small part of it. Science is a set of guidelines that we follow that allow us to have ever-increasing confidence in the validity of our conclusions; to allow us to let our beliefs about the universe scale with the evidence. Science is empiricism.

The remarkable success of empiricism suggests that it is a valid way of knowing how the universe works. We can argue about the problem of induction all we want, but the fact remains that evidence-based knowledge has, in the last hundred and fifty years alone, brought us an understanding of how life has evolved and diversified on Earth, and how the universe began and continues, to this day, to expand. And as I’ve written before, to those who disbelieve in the validity of the scientific method and empiricism, I invite you to do so while jumping from an airplane at 35,000 feet, sans parachute. I assure you that whether you accept Newtonian, Einsteinian, or Aristotelian theories of gravity, your fate will remain the same. No one ever asks for the homeopathy ambulance when they’re having a heart attack. Science when it suits; woo when it doesn’t.

Evidence-based knowledge has given us cures and treatments for the most horrific diseases imaginable, and the body of knowledge that will provide the next generation of cures and treatments continues to grow with each passing day.

In short, empiricism should be beyond all criticism. We can have legitimate discussions about the interpretation of evidence, or the processes through which evidence was gathered. But to question the concept that the degree to which we accept certain propositions as ‘true’ should scale with evidence is to denigrate the entire body of man’s collective progress.

Asking for evidence has become, it would appear, of secondary or tertiary concern. Answers that simply placate our desire to have an answer; any answer, have usurped our desire to know the truth. To the best of our knowledge, vaccines do not cause autism. How can I say this with such matter-of-factness? Because there is no evidence to suggest otherwise. A good scientist says “show me the evidence”, and so we, on the side of empiricism, await evidence that will sway what we know is true.

Again, if what we desire is to settle our mind; if we want to truly feel that breast cancer is caused by having an abortion, in order to provide some sense of assuredness about what would otherwise remain a complete unknown, then that is one thing. But if what we desire is to honestly know if abortion and breast cancer are linked, then we must follow what the evidence suggests. And in this case, the evidence suggests that there is absolutely no link.

So who do you trust?

In the world of cyberspace science, the best evidence is anecdote and the more fantastical the claims, the larger the following they seem to garner.

Absolutely spot on analysis here. Anecdote is never, ever evidence; it is the absolute lowest rung on the ladder of evidence.

What one needs to wonder, however, is why there is such an appetite for quackery.

In an era in which we are constantly bombarded with information, our education system is not equipping people with the tools to reason critically, to analyze and to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Precisely. Even undergraduate science programs do not provide a good foundation in simple logic or in the evaluation of evidence.

Sure, science isn’t that exciting. It tends to offer up steady, incremental bits of knowledge rather than miraculous cures, and there remain a lot of unknowns. But these voids need not be filled with fantasy and snake oil.

And, yes, Big Pharma and big business have had their scandals and excesses, but these have been exposed and denounced by the so-called establishment, and they do not negate the good.

It’s true; science is pretty boring. You don’t get many instances where a single finding radically changes the world. What you do get, however, is a slow, steady march toward a more complete understanding. And this march has, as I noted above, resulted in findings that have radically changed the world, or at least our knowledge of it.

And as Picard notes, science has had its bad days. Data have been misinterpreted; scientists have lied and falsified data; and some seriously bad technology has come out of our understanding of some of the most fundamental processes in nature.

But in each and every case, it was science that righted its own ship. Professional science operates in such a way that mistakes or outright lies are generally caught quickly, mainly because data cannot be reproduced. While quackery like intelligent design creationism or the anti-vaccination movement point out perceived ‘flaws’ in the science, they do nothing to add to the legitimate body of evidence; it is, and has always been, science that fills the gaps and corrects its mistakes.

I don’t know what the cure for this is. The sheer volume of information that is easily accessible today means that rationalists will have their work cut out to ensure that popular but completely false notions do not come to dominate public perceptions. What I do know is that while it doesn’t directly harm me as a person when someone wears a Q-Ray bracelet and thinks it helps their arthritis, it does become a bit troubling when one considers that the only reason this person has lived long enough to get arthritis and to seek out a quack, placebo-based cure for it, is the development of modern, evidence-based medicine. The web of empiricism is vast.

In a world where what is popular is confused with what is true (thank you, Oprah), empiricism has quite a battle to fight. But if we don’t continue to fight woo and quackery, we run the very real risk of undergoing a gradual, but ever advancing, dumbing-down of society.

Have you seen those ads for the Weekend to End Breast Cancer; the ones with the tagline “Breast cancer is hard; walking is easy”?

As a prostate cancer researcher and advocate for increased funding for prostate cancer research, I really have to hand it to the breast cancer fundraising community; they have done an absolutely outstanding job at raising awareness and especially in raising money for breast cancer research. We in the prostate cancer community (which has about the same incidence and mortality as breast cancer) could learn a thing or two about how to take a disease that was not discussed and elevate awareness and funding for it to unimaginable heights. In 2005, breast cancer received about 15% of all cancer research funding in Canada and accounted for approximately 12% of all new cancers and 7% of all cancer deaths in 2003. By contrast, colorectal, lung, and prostate cancer, which each accounted for approximately the same number of new cases of cancer (and in the case of colorectal and lung cancers, far more deaths than breast cancer), each received 3-6 times less funding than breast cancer. There is no doubt that the massive public awareness campaign for breast cancer and breast cancer research fundraising have played an enormous role in this. Once again, I say this not to disparage the breast cancer advocacy community, but rather to sound the alarm that a similar initiative is needed in prostate and colorectal cancers, both of which have a slight public image problem due primarily to the anatomical location of the affected site.

So kudos to the breast cancer community for getting it right. And shame on the breast cancer community for getting one thing completely and utterly wrong.

If you’ve heard the commercial, you may remember one line in particular:

“One in nine women will get breast cancer.”

This is a shocking statement; one clearly designed to elicit a response. Look around you in the room you’re in; this ad suggests that if there are nine women in the room, at least one of you will develop breast cancer.

The problem, of course, is that this is completely misleading.

In 2007-2008, there were 364,085 births in Canada. If we assume 50% of these births were of females, that makes 182,040 new Canadian girls. There were an estimated 22,600 new cases of breast cancer diagnosed in Canada in 2008, which means about 12.4 cases per 100 girls born, or about 1 case for every 8 female births. Everything seems right so far (even slightly scarier at 1/8 instead of 1/9). There’s a problem, though.

The incidence of breast cancer, as with most cancer, is not evenly distributed. For instance, about 42% of all new cancer cases and about 60% of all cancer deaths will occur in people over 70 (Canadian Cancer Society, 2008 Statistics).

The most telling way of assessing one’s actual risk of developing cancer is to determine the probability of getting cancer in the next ten years, given one’s current age. Luckily, we have a very committed group of people at the Canadian Cancer Society (some of whom are former colleagues of mine) who dedicate their time to do these types of calculations.

On page 52 of the 2008 Canadian Cancer Society Statistics book (found here), you can see just these sorts of calculations.

A woman’s lifetime risk of developing breast cancer is, indeed, one in 9.1 (11%). But the risk of a 31 year-old woman developing breast cancer in the next 10 years is only 0.4% (or less than 1 in 100). As the woman ages, this risk obviously rises (though at a slower rate than has been the case in previous years, thanks in part to the reduction in Hormone Replacement Therapy use), until she hits age 70. At age 70, she has a 3.1% chance of developing breast cancer, or about one in 32. Yes, all you breast cancer-free 70 year-olds out there; your risk of developing breast cancer in the next ten years is only one in 32. And the 80 year-olds? Their risk is even lower; one in 40. How can this be? Simple; most 80 year-old women are developing other diseases and dying of other causes.

The general public cannot be expected to perform this type of exercise every time a commercial comes on TV. However, The Campbell Family Foundation for Breast Cancer Research, who hold the Weekend to End Breast Cancer and are the recipient of the funds, should know better.

So what is the correct statement?

“One in nine women, who live to their full life expectancy, will develop breast cancer.”

Not quite as snappy, but far more accurate, and not nearly as misleading.