Rush Limbaugh (via Global Grind)

The best part about the news story is that Missouri House Speaker Steven Tilley selected Limbaugh himself for this honor and actually kept the time of the ceremony under wraps so that he could try to avoid public backlash.

Gee, it’s almost like he knew it was a bad idea in the first place, don’t you think? Putting someone like Rush Limbaugh, self-appointed slut designator and misognynist to the stars, in the same sphere as people such as Sacagawea, Edwin Hubble, and Mark Twain is just downright shameful.

I give it a week before his bronze bust is desecrated. At the very least, they should attach a clown nose to it.

Researchers Will M. Gervais and Ara Norenzayan of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver are back and they believe there is a way.

In the May, 2012 edition of the journal Psychological Science, they lay out one solution:

Remind people of secular authority. In other words, remind them that we place authority in cops and courts (and, implicitly, not god).

For believers, thinking of God, like thinking of social surveillance by peers, increases both public self-awareness… and socially desirable responding… By making people feel that their behavior is being monitored, belief in watchful gods may increase cooperative behavior… As a result, religious people may interpret other people’s belief in watchful gods as a cue that they can be trusted.

…

Secular and sacred authority may also serve interchangeable functions in encouraging prosocial behavior, albeit with different implications for distrust of atheists. The view that atheists are untrustworthy because they do not believe that their behavior is monitored by a divine power may erode to the extent that people are aware of effective monitoring by other “higher” (but not supernatural) powers. If so, then reminders of secular authorities that enforce prosocial behavior should reduce believers’ distrust of atheists. Furthermore, this effect should be specific to distrust of atheists, rather than extending to prejudice in general.

Here’s what they did.

In one experiment, participants watched a movie about either a tourist visiting Canada (control group) or the Vancouver police chief giving the year-end report (experimental group). Afterwards, the groups were asked questions that included items dealing with the trustworthiness of atheists (e.g. “In times of crisis, I am more inclined to trust people who are religious”).

What happened? The amount of atheist distrust was lower with the group who watched the video of the cop:

Maybe that was a fluke, though…

So they compared distrust toward atheists with disgust toward homosexuals (both are minorities, with concealable identities, who are seen as “threats” to religious groups). Basically, they wanted to know whether examples of secular authority reduced distrust among atheists or distrust among generally-unliked minority groups.

They gave a (different) group words to unscramble and rearrange. Some of the group members were given words like “civic,” “contract,” “jury,” “court,” and “police.” The others were given random, non-authority-related words.

Then they asked them questions measuring their anti-gay and anti-atheist prejudice.

This time, the anti-gay prejudice didn’t change… but anti-atheist distrust was reduced:

But even if people harbor anti-gay prejudice, do they distrust them like they do atheists?

Time for one last experiment. A different group was chosen and broken up into subgroups. Each was assigned the same unscrambling task as before. Then, in a seemingly unrelated task, they were asked questions specifically about distrust of atheists and gays.

Once again, the effect on distrust of gay people was negligible. But the level of distrust of atheists went down:

So what’s up with that?! Gervais and Norenzayan conclude:

Our three experiments demonstrated that subtle reminders of effective secular authority — secular institutions that help secure cooperation among individuals — reduce religious believers’ distrust of atheists. In addition, we tested and found no support for three theoretically plausible alternative explanations for these findings.

…

Although religious prosociality may have served as an initial mechanism for bootstrapping large-scale cooperation in some cultures, cooperative groups may create a variety of secular institutions that also promote cooperation. As reliance on these secular institutions waxes in many societies, the influence of religion wanes… As a result, places that tend to have more effective governments also have much less religious belief (e.g., Scandinavia…).

What can we do with this information? I don’t know about you, but this is my new business card:

(Thanks to Lauren for the link!)

However, with paying back student loans (eek!), paying for rent, your car, your gas money, your groceries, your cat, and all those other bills, how are you ever going to afford to support students?

Luckily, the Secular Student Alliance is full of people who have been exactly where you are now — poor, but wanting to support the movement in any way possible! To help out, they are now offering an alumni membership!

Normally, non-student memberships for the Secular Student Alliance are $35 a year, but the introductory alumni memberships are $15 and include an optional free year-long membership to American Atheists as well! That’s like two memberships for the price of one.

I’m still a student for another year, but I know next year I’m going to have to graduate and become an adult. Being involved with my SSA affiliate has absolutely made my college years better, though, and life wouldn’t be the same without a community like that after I graduate. We often talk about the need to make the transition from on-campus to off-campus groups go more smoothly and it thrills me that the SSA is trying to do just that!

Atheists in Hats:

Author Douglas Adams in a hat.

Cats Questioning the Bible:

See? Isn’t your life better already? Obviously.

(Click to enlarge)

Also, I don’t know how to make those images.

First there was the Islamophobic Lt. General William Boykin getting hotly protested (and eventually replaced) after he was invited to speak at the National Prayer breakfast.

Then, this month, the Academy was sued for covering up sexual assault.

Bearing all this in mind, I present to you this third year Philosophy of Religion class description from the Red Book (course catalog):

“What are the arguments for and against the existence of God? How can a good God allow the presence of evil? Are miracles possible? Is there life after death? Is it rational to believe in God, or does faith demand the suspension of reason? Is there a necessary relationship between ethics and religion? Is there a single true religion? If these questions have ever intrigued you, you already know that you need this course…

This struck me as a little ambiguous and, given the Academy’s less-than-secular track record, I was inclined to expect a class on apologetics. Would the Army, an organization that is predominantly Christian — 68 percent of the military personnel and 98 percent of chaplains are Christian — and required “Spiritual Fitness” testing offer a class like this without promoting faith? I was all fired up to rant about separation of church and state and the unconstitutionality of promoting a single religion.

However, after speaking with a third-year cadet (who wishes to remain anonymous), I found myself wanting to enroll in the class. You could have bowled me over with a feather.

Philosophy of Religion is conducted as a series of examinations of arguments — and counterarguments — for the existence of a God. The professor does not speak about his or her own religious beliefs in any capacity, and equal time is given to both sides.

From the cadet:

One day we would discuss something like Anselm’s ontological argument. The very next day we would look at the rebuttal. We would not discuss a single idea without discussing the opposing immediately following.

An opportunity to work through common religious arguments? It sounds like everyone can benefit from making better, more informed, and less fallacious claims. Three cheers for critical thinking!

The suspension came about as a result of a complaint by a student. The course itself is offered five times a year, with each course having around twenty students. Since 2010, it has been taught by Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Dooley. The story broke after a copy of the presentation was obtained and posted online by Wired.com and, while the college has refused to respond to requests for copies, a spokesperson for the Pentagon confirmed the authenticity of the documents.

(via Wired.com)

The presentation doesn’t so much offer a tantalising glimpse of extreme right wing views and evangelical Christianity in the military — it’s more of a “caught-red-handed-with-his-pants-down” moment. The course material is crammed full of anti-Islamic ideology, suggesting that the entirety of Islam is America’s enemy and that the U.S. might have to destroy the holy cities of Mecca and Medina if it is to ultimately triumph.

One of the most disturbing arguments made by Dooley is the idea that the Geneva Convention no longer applies in the war against Islam.

This model presumes Geneva Convention IV 1949 standards of armed conflict… are now, due to the current common practices of Islamic terrorists, no longer relevant or respected globally. This would leave open the option once again of taking a war to a civilian population wherever necessary (the historical precedents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki being applicable to the Mecca and Medina destruction DP in Phrase III).

Amongst Dooley’s many suggestions of how to combat the spread of Islam are statements such as:

Go to the local mosques and ask them if you can speak at Friday prayers and share the Gospel with the attendees.

Remember — we are at war. Act like it. You are part of a resistance movement, not a social club.

General Martin Dempsey (via Wired.com)

The course material has been strongly condemned by the Pentagon. General Martin Dempsey said that “It was just totally objectionable, against our values, and it wasn’t academically sound. This wasn’t about pushing back on liberal thought; this was objectionable, academically irresponsible.”

The Pentagon has since launched a full investigation and ordered all service branches to review their training materials.

What concerns me is that the course runs five times a year and has been taught by Dooley for the last two years. Why hasn’t this been picked up on before? Potentially, a couple hundred students have completed the course — why has no one complained until now?

I do think this illustrates just how insidiously embedded extreme right wing views are in the U.S. military, and how the culture of fear prevents people from speaking out more readily. Granted, Dooley is probably (one would hope) on the fringes, but hundreds of people must have tolerated his opinions until now.

None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to carry out the functions of the Political Science Program in the Division of Social and Economic Sciences of the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences of the National Science Foundation.

I’m sorry, what? (I should say, this is about the most readable thing you’re likely to find in the Congressional Record; it’s like trying to read appendices from the Lord of the Rings while on Ambien.) The gist here is that Rep. Flake has a problem with public funding of political science research — and that’s not to mean “science with a political edge” (like climate change), but good old, liberal arts PoliSci. He personally considers it a waste of money and so proposed an amendment that would end its pursuit at the National Science Foundation.

You may already be sensing why this is bad. He’s not simply saying, “I will punish the NSF by reducing its funding,” but rather, “I deem this area of research to be pointless, and I forbid you to engage in it.”

The invaluable Ezra Klein sends up flares about the implications of legislation like this (emphasis mine):

… the NSF runs a widely respected peer-review program that decides what science to fund. If Flake wanted to reduce the funding available to the NSF in total, that would be one thing (and, to be fair to Flake, he has proposed that in the past). But what he’s doing here is telling the NSF what is and isn’t acceptable science to fund. That’s not how scientific decisions are supposed to work. And the effect could be chilling.

Jeff Flake, thinkin' 'bout science.

As they often do, Flake dressed up his opposition with paeans to fiscal responsibility and disdain for Ivy League universities. But the heart of the matter is that Flake — a person with no scientific expertise whatsoever — is inserting himself into a debate about what areas of inquiry are and are not worth pursuing, based on his own politics and notions of governance, all of which are irrelevant.

This actually gives him too much credit — he’s not inserting himself into a debate in order to engage in said debate. He’s entered the debate hall, knocked over the podiums, and declared himself the winner.

This is not an argument over the merits of a particular study’s findings, it’s a declaration that the entire field is worthless. And based on his own words on the floor of the House, it doesn’t sound like his understanding of political science is terribly sophisticated, as he trots out the old anti-spending canard, mining the NSF’s budget for things that can be phrased derisively:

So what kind of research is NSF charging to our credit card? $700,000 to develop a new model for international climate change analysis; $600,000 to try to figure out if policymakers actually do what citizens want them to do… I think we can answer that question in about 5 minutes when we vote on this amendment because I can tell you, people out there want us to quit funding projects like this.

$301,000 to study gender and political ambition among high school and college students; $200,000 to study to determine why political candidates make vague statements. $200,000 to study why political candidates make vague statements. That’s what we’re paying for here.

These studies might satisfy the curiosities of a few academics, but I seriously doubt society will benefit from them. How can we justify this outcome?

Doesn’t this sound remarkably similar to what a certain former vice-presidential candidate once lamented about the study of fruit flies? I mean, how does he know society won’t benefit from this work? If anything, though, it’s worse, because it’s not about cutting off some silly-sounding earmark. It’s about upending a peer-review process in order to squelch an entire field of study. Imagine, if you will, that Rep. Flake decided that he felt that geology was a silly waste of time, since we know pretty much everything we need to know about rocks and stuff. This is what we’re talking about.

Flake’s amendment passed on Thursday.

Science needs to be done for its own sake. Areas of inquiry need to be pursued vigorously and utterly free of short-term, uninformed political interference. If we’re going to have a National Science Foundation, we need to let it do science. If Flake is setting a precedent, we’ll have only a small handful of preferred subjects that can be investigated. And when even those few subjects have a Sword of Damocles dangling over them in the shape of a GOP House Member, its hard to see how answers conveniently follow the dictates of the politicians, right along with the questions.

Oh, and Flake is running for Senate this year. Just so you know.

If you like the film, considering making a small donation so the creators can continue to create work like this.

(via religiousantagonist)