Integrity

http://scienceblogs.com/highlyallochthonous/2010/07/unconformity.php

http://scienceblogs.com/neurotopia/2010/07/my_official_farewell.php

http://scienceblogs.com/classm/2010/07/beyond_the_pale.php

http://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2010/07/blog_suspended.php

http://scienceblogs.com/culturedish/2010/07/culture_dish_doesnt_live_here.php

http://scienceblogs.com/laelaps/2010/07/a_pepsi-induced_hiatus.php

http://scienceblogs.com/neuronculture/2010/07/a_food_blog_i_cant_digest.php

http://scienceblogs.com/sunclipse/2010/07/i_dont_make_nearly_enough_mone.php

http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2010/07/seed_conflicts_of_interest_and.php

http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2010/07/sucking_corporate_dick.php

Anatomy of an Epidemic?

Embedding is disallowed, but here's a link - hot off YouTube! - to Robert Whitaker on Book TV* talking about his book Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness.



I haven't yet had a chance to read the book or even review the studies he cites (he lists the major ones on his site), but found the talk provocative. (Also mentioned on the site: an interview with Mercola? Really? I understand that people want to spread the word about their books, but really you have to draw the line somewhere.)

*I just looked at the schedule for this weekend and next. Overall, Book TV seems to be remaining something of a right-wing testosterone fest. It’s a bit creepy. Who selects the books and authors featured, anyway?

HONDURAS: The Normalization of Terror and Resistance Events

Distressing about reports concerning Honduras the past few months is the extent to which they can work to normalize the situation there. There are, of course, explicit attempts at normalization – both by the current illegitimate regime and the Obama administration.



They seek not only the cultural but the institutional normalization of the coup and its results in the form of international and specifically OAS recognition of the Lobo government and the acceptance of the farcical “Truth Commission.” But much coverage, intentionally or more likely unconsciously, risks playing into these normalization efforts by treating events in Honduras as a stage for human rights violations divorced from historical context (or reframed from within a historical vision that is already biased and circumscribed) and marginalizing the people who continue to work for justice in Honduras.

It is of course valid and necessary to draw attention to human rights abuses, including murders, in Honduras (among many other violations, nine journalists have been killed already this year). What we should be careful of, though, is falling into a script that depoliticizes the people and organizations on the ground there, ignores the local and global economic forces at play, or presents events as falling within some generic image of “organic” Central American violence.

Given this, I’m going to try to continue focusing on the efforts being made by social justice movements in Honduras and their supporters elsewhere. As the anniversary of the coup on June 28th approaches, Adrienne Pine at Quotha has listed some of the events organized to help people learn more and get involved:

• En Las Sombras (documentary about Honduras) airing on TeleSUR
  Monday, June 28, 2010
  (on TV in Latin America; online at the TeleSUR link on the left side of the page)

• Los Angeles: Protest-Vigil at Honduran Consulate
  Monday, June 28, 2010
  5 PM
  General Consulate of Honduras in Los Angeles
  3550 Wilshire Boulevard
  (more here)

• Berlin: Walter Trochez Queer Alliance Protest and Film
  Monday, June 28, 2010
  (more here)

• New York City: Karla Lara and Rodolfo Pastor at the Brecht Forum
  Friday, July 2, 2010
  7/8 PM
  Brecht Forum
  51 West Street
  (more here)

• New York City: Premiere of We Are Not Afraid: Inside the Coup in Honduras
  Wednesday, July 7, 20107 PMTribeca Cinemas54 Varick Street
  (more here)

• Washington, DC: Premiere of We Are Not Afraid: Inside the Coup in Honduras
  Tuesday, July 8, 2010
  E Street Cinema? [This is listed but I can’t find it on the theater’s web site. Probably calling them would be best.]

(If you know of other events, please leave me a note in the comments and I’ll add them to the list.)

More developments: The democratic resistance movement has organized an alternative truth commission. The US government is giving more money to Honduran “security” forces. People should be watching sales of Honduran resources or deals made with corporations, in mining, power, etc. - contracts made with this government should be seen as invalid, in my view. There is also a dengue outbreak in Honduras.

This article by Dawn Paley emphasizes the economic powers behind the coup and the continuing efforts to shape Honduras in the interests of the rich. For a longer view, of course, the classic work is Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America – a magnificent book.



Also opening this week: Oliver Stone’s South of the Border. Here are Stone and Tariq Ali being interviewed about the film on Democracy Now! (There’s a Wall Street 2 coming out? Really?):



(I'm not sure if the video will show up; if not, please click on the link.) I haven’t seen it, and will wait until I do before I comment. Preliminarily, though – it appears to focus excessively on a handful of political figures rather than on the social movements that drive the transformations of these countries. It also seems perhaps not to look critically enough at Chavez and others. I do look forward to seeing it, though. You can find where it’s playing here.

Gil Scott-Heron

Freedom in the Cloud

It was a decade ago, searching for the latest articles on anarchism, that I first came across Eben Moglen. It was this piece - "Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of Copyright" - and, while he didn't have anything particularly intelligent to say about anarchism as a political-economic movement, I found the article interesting and shared it with people at the time.

Over the years, others have linked to various talks Moglen has given. Recently someone in a comment thread at Narco News linked to this one from earlier this year. Here he is on "Freedom in the Cloud":



As usual, xkcd gets it.

The trouble for some of us is that while we share the concern of the character in this strip we lack the technical knowledge to contribute significantly to change in this way (or at least I believe I do). But I can do my small part connecting people to those working on it.

UPDATE:

Here's Part 2 - the Q&A:

HONDURAS UPDATE 4-24-10

Very solid, contextualized reports on the Bajo Aguán from the RNN:





Also,

* more journalists murdered

* "U.S. Advises Security Apprenticeships in Colombia"

* the "Honduran Queeringhouse"

* also from Adrienne Pine at Quotha: URGENT Communique from the Jesuits of Honduras

Questions for accomodationists

Following up on and drawing from recent conversations, I have a series of questions for accomodationists:

1) Do you, personally, believe in a deity of any sort? If so, on what basis? If not, why don't you?

2) Can you clearly define the supernatural entities (including that of the supernatural itself) that you believe to be untestable as to their facticity? Not name in a general way, but define them as entities, such that people can ascertain whether they're amenable to investigation.

3) Do you believe that science is the only reliable means for acquiring knowledge about the world? If not, please describe the others. What knowledge have they produced independently of science? More generally, what is knowledge that isn’t scientific knowledge?

4) If you answered negatively to the first three questions – therefore demonstrating that there is no rationale that you personally can accept for believing in a deity, that the supernatural concepts you’re defending can’t be defined coherently, and that there are no reliable means of acquiring knowledge about the world other than science – on what basis do you promote respect for the beliefs and epistemic “systems” you do?

It seems to me extremely hypocritical to encourage respect for beliefs that are not formed on the basis of science – a reasoned (logical, including parsimonious) and honest systematic engagement with the evidence – while claiming to promote science and personally rejecting those beliefs and approaches. It is dishonest to argue "Well, whatever is true in science, we’re not always scientific in every area of our lives," such that science is presented, in a silly ahistorical manner,* as limited to what professional scientists do in very specific contexts, having no claim on beliefs in general. This is because the questions that immediately follow are: Is this OK? Is an evidentiary basis for our beliefs not a moral requirement? Are we not all required by intellectual honesty and basic morality to base our beliefs, which form an essential foundation for our actions, on the most honest engagement with the best evidence we have?

If you argue that the moral requirement doesn’t hold because some beliefs can be maintained "benignly," without affecting people’s actions or decisions, you need to consider three things. First, even if it might be accurate in some specific cases, this is often not a true claim - people's beliefs are not generally quarantined from their actions in this way. Second, matters on which beliefs that might at one time or one place not be important to people’s actions can become so. Would you recommend agricultural, reproductive, or environmental policies based on beliefs that are not derived scientifically when these are matters of life and death to people? Further, does pondering nonscientific notions interfere with and draw time and resources away from important scientific investigations? Third, and most importantly, in defending nonscientific beliefs and epistemic systems of any sort, aren’t you encouraging nonscientific thinking in general, such that people influenced by you will have fewer intellectual and practical defenses against even those products of nonscientific thinking you find reprehensible?

*(which is, moreover, the contrary of how science education should be encouraging young people to think about science)

You people wouldn't know scientific literacy if it...

Ay. So the recent flap concerns the NSF’s decision to remove questions on evolution and the Big Bang from its scientific literacy report. PZ has a good post about it, while some others at Scienceblogs, well, don’t.

What framing “experts” clearly fail, or in some cases refuse, to grasp is that we need to define scientific literacy in a meaningful and useful way, and if there exists more than one way of understanding scientific literacy, to focus on the one that is actually important. The concept of scientific literacy advocated by the NSF (in this decision) and some assorted dillweeds seems to be “knowledge of a collection of facts accumulated through scientific research” or “reverence for science.” But the important form of scientific literacy is understanding science as an epistemic system. Scientific knowledge is formed through the analysis of empirical evidence, and specific collective practices have been developed that have made the methods of science the means of acquiring knowledge about the natural world and given its findings a particular epistemic status. Awareness of specific facts in various disciplines is not unimportant, but anyone reasonably intelligent can memorize statements and even processes and any fool can “respect” scientific and technological achievements.

Is it important to contemporary society that a child can parrot facts about biology or cosmology if that child doesn’t understand why his or her superstitious beliefs don’t have the same status as established scientific theories, that the religious “way of knowing” about the world is no such thing, and that knowledge based on decades or centuries of research can’t be dismissed on the basis of ancient texts or the words of religious authorities, political hacks, or corporations? This is a central goal of the NSF? This is extremely dangerous to democracy.

I realize that this can be read as suggesting that even someone with a science degree can be called a scientific illiterate. That is in fact what I’m arguing. The value in scientific literacy is in understanding science epistemically and appreciating the roots of its power. Otherwise, children might as well be memorizing Bible verses or advertising jingles.

HONDURAS: the struggle for a democratic constitution continues, despite the best efforts of the opponents of democracy

I have been collecting reports on those struggling for justice in Honduras and the violence they've faced, but these two recent reports do a good job summarizing the situation:

First, "Disappearing the Truth in Honduras: 'National Reconciliation' & the 'Truth Commission' Provide Cover for Repression Aimed at Destroying the Demand for a New Constitution" from Anne Bird at Rights Action.

Second, "U.S. covering up reality in Honduras" from the Real News Network:



Not much more to say. These governments, by their actions, show contempt for truth and democracy. Continuing to support the movement for justice and a new constitution in Honduras in absolutely necessary.

More Chomsky

Here’s a recent interview from Guernica:

“Chomsky Half Full”

My favorite part:

Guernica: So what are you recommending?

Noam Chomsky: I think decisions should be made in an entirely different manner for entirely different ends. Should producing more goods and consuming more goods be the highest value in life? That’s not obvious, by any means.

Guernica: And what would be?

Noam Chomsky: Living decent lives, in an environment that provides for people’s essential needs, offers them opportunities to become creative, active, to work together in solidarity, [and lead] more happy, creative lives. That’s a more important goal, I think.

Simple and true. More generally, I enjoy how he conducts himself in an interview. He simply doesn’t allow it to be a one-way process in which the interviewer asks him questions and he responds. He asks for clarification. He requires context before he responds to quotations. He asks questions himself. Best of all, he turns the questions around on the interviewer – “but I think you might ask yourself why you are asking this question…” In short, he conducts interviews as a real political dialogue in a way that doesn’t allow the interviewer to stand apart. I like that.

Huh.

I don’t know much about Andrew Sullivan. I know enough to be sure that we’re not in agreement politically or in terms of religion. But when Peter Beattie linked* to this piece by Glenn Greenwald about recent accusations toward him, “TNR’s ugly and reckless anti-semitism games,” I had to read up. I highly recommend that people read it and the linked pieces (especially Sullivan’s longer reply) with an eye to recent events. (For the record, I'm not very familiar with most of the personalities involved here.) Peter Beattie singles out two short quotations from Greenwald, but this stood out to me:

(4) Writing about the TNR attack on Sullivan, Yglesias writes: "when I raised this issue on a liberal listserve some people said they had no sympathy for Sullivan because of one or another of the things he’d done to piss them off over the years”….

What Yglesias' fellow listserv members are saying, in essence, is that they determine their political commentary not based on the merits of an issue, but rather based on whom they like and who their friends are. Even if I find Wieseltier's anti-semitism accusation to be pernicious and ugly, I won't say so because Andrew Sullivan isn't my friend and I don't like him. The converse of this juvenile mentality is: even if I find that critique to be true and compelling, I'm going to object to it and attack the critic because it's aimed at my friend. The accompanying worldview is: I'm not going to criticize that politician, even when he's wrong, because he's a Good Democrat and is on my team. I find it amazing that this small-minded, clique-based "thinking" persists beyond the sixth grade, but it obviously does, and it particularly thrives among Beltway denizens.

What one thinks of Andrew Sullivan, or how angry he's made one over the years, ought to be about the most irrelevant factor imaginable in determining one's reaction to this TNR attack. Sometimes, even people you don't like are the targets of odious and harmful accusations, and sometimes, even your Bestest Friends, fellow party members and listserv pals might do wrong things that merit criticism. Wieseltier's polemic is a classic example of anti-semitism accusations tossed around with no conceivable basis and for purely ignoble ends. It's the very tactic that has caused significant damage in the past. So obviously unhinged is this particular assault that it actually presents a good opportunity to discredit behavior like this once and for all. That's all that should matter; how many grudges one nurses towards Andrew Sullivan is nice fodder for gossipy listserv chats, but no responsible or even adult commentator would allow it to influence one's views on this matter.

This reminded me of how grateful I am to people whom I have come to know (and who have come to know me), to the extent that this is possible online, who have come forward to object to the baseless insinuations and allegations against me. This has included several people I have had strong disagreements and less-than-cordial dealings with in the past, such as heddle and Russell Blackford. Given what I’ve seen in the atheist/science/skeptical blogosphere, I’m happy to say that I’m not surprised by this. My most heartfelt thanks.

*I am not asking anyone to go there and contend with Laden, Wormtongue, and the Dingbat Sycophants. Their intellectual dishonesty renders any discussion impossible, and Greg Laden’s ethical breaches of the past few days – in addition to the spurious charges and their repetition without basis, intimidation, altering comments without noting it, and revealing the personal email of a commenter – should lead everyone to be wary of interactions there and to question why Scienceblogs would tolerate such behavior.**

**I just saw that Laden has closed the thread (with a stunningly obnoxious and self-serving characterization of the situation and a ludicrous demand for an apology from Paul W.) due to a death in the family. My condolences.

Linkage Love, Awesome Female Atheists, Sabina Guzzanti

It’s in the air. Already mine is the Quote of the Day! Thanks, Rational Rant. I’ve looked through some of your earlier posts, but I don’t really know you well at all, so please don’t be anything bad. I’d hate to link to anything bad.

In that warm spirit, I’ll belatedly draw more attention to Blag Hag’s Large List of Awesome Female Atheists.*

(By the way, how’s that database coming along, Dr. Dawkins?)

Well done, Jen. I thought at the time that Sabina Guzzanti should be added, but couldn’t find clear evidence that she’s an atheist (though she certainly appears to be). Regardless, this should be watched:

Here it is in English, but it appears to be only her narration that is translated, so it misses a lot.

*This has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that I’m on it.

Shut up.

50 Smart Atheists, Chomsky and Nonbelief in the Incoherent, and the US as Mafia Don

Someone recently linked to this list over at Pharyngula: “The 50 Most Brilliant Atheists of All Time.” For some reason, I can’t get the page to display at the moment, but PZ made it, right on top of Jodie Foster (to his apparent delight). Not enough women and not enough anarchists. No Emma Goldman? No Voltairine de Cleyre? No Peter Kropotkin? To that I say Harumph. But Chomsky made the list, and I liked the quotation from him. I think I’ve found the longer version:

Do I believe in God? Can't answer, I'm afraid. I'm not being flippant, but I don't understand the question. What is it that I am supposed to believe or not believe in? Are you asking whether I believe there is something not in the universe (or the universes, if there are (maybe infinitely) many of them), and that somehow stands above them? I've never heard of any reason for believing that. Something else? What. There are many concepts of spirituality, among them, various notions of divinity developed in the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic religions. Within these the concepts vary greatly. St. Augustine and others, for example, argued that one should not take seriously the Biblical account of God as an exaggerated human, and other Biblical accounts, because they were crafted so as to make the intended message intelligible to humans -- and on such grounds, he argued, organized religion ought to accept persuasive conclusions of science, a conception that Galileo appealed to (in vain) when he faced Papal censure.

Anyway, without clarification of a kind I have never seen, I don't know whether I believe or don't believe in whatever a questioner has in mind.

Exactly. This has long been a source of annoyance to me. I’m bothered by these “God is beyond science” and “God is an untestable hypothesis” claims. No. If you can’t describe clearly the nature of something, it isn’t beyond science. It’s beneath it. It isn’t a hypothesis. It’s incoherent rubbish. The clarification Chomsky notes as lacking concerning “God” is the responsibility of the person speaking or asking about belief. If it can’t be provided, the question isn’t worth answering (and indeed cannot be answered due to its unintelligibility).

Since I’m talking about Chomsky, I’ll put up the recent video here that I linked to at Pharyngula a while back, in which he situates the current situation in Honduras within the longer history of US policy in the Americas, characterizing the US as a mafia don:



I’ll have more to say about Honduras when I’m up to it. Lobo sworn in, more people killed, more repression, World Bank funds,... It’s depressing. But it’s far from over.

Indefensible

I’m writing a longer post about argumentation, but I’m going to leave this one first.
The following (not entirely consistent) insinuations and allegations have been made by Greg Laden in recent days:

Much of your commentary together with this statement could lead some people to assume that you have some serious antisemitic issues to deal with. I'm not saying that, but I just want you to know that it could look this way. (I don't happen to think it is the case.)

This is not about appeasement. It is about not being a racist slob.

I honestly believe that SC's commentary and other commentary on other blogs (on SB and NN) looked dangerously like antisemitism, telling the loud jew to shut up, a bit of victim blaming.

I also honestly believed that this was nothing like the intent of those who were making the comments.

Greg has been asked numerous times, in a variety of manners and tones, by a number of people to point to the specific “commentary” he’s talking about and how it can reasonably be seen this way in context, and to explain his bizarre reading of the one sentence he did single out. (Of course some people could read my comments any way at all, but they could be deluded, willfully misinterpreting, or stupid; only reasonable interpretations are material here.) He has explicitly declined to do so, as has his sidekick.

So far, the people who have preferred to quietly abide or defend these accusations, often disingenuously and callously suggesting that they’re irrelevant to some broader point he was supposedly making or of no particular significance, have also failed to cite anything specific or attempt to make any substantive case on his behalf. If anyone wants to do so, this thread is open to your comments. If you cannot produce anything in support of these insinuations/allegations but continue to ignore them and defend Greg’s “argument,” then be aware that you’re condoning Greg’s making the worst sort of charge about another person* – and one whom he called a friend – casually and baselessly, and refusing to retract it and apologize when he couldn’t defend it. You should think about how you would feel in my place.

*And let's be very clear here: the insinuation is obvious to anyone reading honestly. But even assuming he was "merely" talking about how my comments could be read by objective others, no evidence has been presented in support of that, either.

No Justice, No Healing - More on Obama's Betrayal of Honduras and Democracy

In the same week that Obama accepts the Nobel Prize, his administration has told the people of Honduras that they have no rights. No right to live without terror, to participate in public life, to decide on the society they want to live in. People they elect can be thrown out at the will of oligarchs who will not accept democracy; they themselves can be threatened, arrested, beaten, raped, and killed with impunity; their organizations can be harassed and their media shuttered. All is well - even under a brutal coup regime - if the usurpers enact the ritual of elections.

Here are two recent analyses:

Brendan Cooney, "The Man Who Wasn't There: What Leaving Honduras Says about Obama"

William Finnegan, "Gone South"

And here's a recent report on the "elections":



I fear for Zelaya's safety.

People in Honduras, Latin America, and the world will not stop fighting. I have a question for anyone reading who might know: What are the various possible means by which a referendum on a constitutional assembly, or the constituyente itself, can come about in Honduras?