Some interesting stories

Too much to do, too little time to blog, so here’s some stuff I enjoyed to keep you going.

From some science: on the weird, hugely interesting and currently unexplained early spring peak in suicides in the Western world:

…people usually commit suicide because personal, social-system and environmental factors combine to push them to a new place of energized despair.

In this view, spring somehow adds weight to an already unbearable load. But how?

One traditional candidate, favored by both Dr. Jamison and Dr. Kaslow, is the “broken promise effect” — the sometimes crushing disappointment that spring fails to bring the relief the sufferer has hoped for.

To science meeting religion: and the push to erricate polio in Pakistan, which is up against strong – and deadly – opposition from local religious leaders:

On Sunday 16 June, gunmen on motorbikes shot dead two polio workers carrying out a vaccination drive in Peshawar, a crowded city in Pakistan’s north-west. One of the men who died was a schoolteacher, the other a paramedic. Both left behind grieving families. Their deaths bring the total tally of polio workers assassinated in Pakistan up to nearly 20 since last December.

To religion: as a paralysed child gets an answer to his prayers.

Said Angela Schlosser, a day nurse who witnessed the Divine Manifestation: “An incredible, booming voice said to Timmy, ‘I am the Lord thy God, who created the rivers and the mountains, the heavens and the earth, the sun and the moon and the stars. Before Me sits My beloved child, whose faith is that of the mustard seed from which grows mighty and powerful things. My child, Timmy Yu, I say unto you thus: I have heard your prayers, and now I shall answer them. No, you cannot get out of your wheelchair. Not ever.'”

That last link via @grant_mcdermott in response to my tweet about the lack of any response to the tens of millions of prayers being said for Nelson Mandela at the moment.

Brian on the joy of religion needing to acknowledge science

Brian Micklethwait has been prolific of late, for reasons detailed at the bottom of this post. That’s great for people like me, who enjoy his narrative style of blogging: I really like hearing about why he took the photo he took, what he likes about the photo he took, and why he was where he was to take the photo he took. It makes you feel involved, like a part of the story.

Last Thursday, he was on the new upper concourse at Waterloo Station in London (because he needed to use an ATM) when he noted (and photoed) these two billboards:

QuranAdverts2s    QuranAdverts3s

Bigger here and here

And he has responded to them. Rather nicely too, I think.

I was reminded of Dara O’Briain’s “Science knows it doesn’t know everything; otherwise, it’d stop” quote in Brian’s answer to the first question:

Science… has changed over and over again.  And this is a sign of science’s intellectual seriousness and intellectual vitality.  Lack of change, century after century, signifies the opposite.

There’s more, so go there and read, but I particularly liked this bit from his thoughts on the second ad:

The good news here is that the claim that the Qur’an is as scientific as real science is a huge concession to the acknowledged intellectual superiority of science.  “We have been right all along, and science proves it!” But if they really thought that the Qur’an was the last word on everything, they wouldn’t be dragging science in to back the claim up.  Science would be ignored.

Yes, good point. What exactly is the quranproject’s gold standard then? Are they really claiming that the fact that “we were here first” negates scientific theory? Or are they suggesting that scientific theory proves them right?

Either way, as Brian points out, comparing verses in the Qur’an to science’s version of the origins of the universe surely tacitly grants the latter a huge degree of legitimacy in their eyes, which is either a big step forward or a bit of an own goal.

Leopards are safe

Some excellent conservation news from South Africa, the country that is allegedly going all out to kill as many rhinos as possible, that there is absolutely no chance of the endangered leopard (Panthera pardus) becoming extinct. Now this may come as a surprise to many, given that current conservation measures seem to be struggling somewhat, but The Nazareth Baptist Church, known locally as the Shembe, who use leopard skins as part of traditional ceremonies, have inside information that leopards will be around in perpetuity.

This comes after the Shembe threw conservationist Tristan Dickerson out of their church over the weekend after he suggested that they might consider using fake leopard skins rather than the real thing. Their reaction:

“This guy is undermining Zulu customs. We cannot be dictated to by a white man about what to wear during our ceremonies,” said Siphiwe Shoba, a church member.

Mzandile Gasa said: “God would not have sent a white person to tell us how to worship him”.

So there we go. They know best.

But what would happen if the leopard was to disappear from our landscapes forever? What would the Shembe use as traditional dress for their ceremonies then?

Well, it’s not a dilemma they have to consider, thanks to the big man upstairs:

On Sunday, church members laughed off Dickerson’s attempts to educate them about leopards, saying: “God will never allow the wild cats to vanish.”

Which, as with their reaction to Dickerson’s advances, is just great.

It does, however, raise some questions as to what exactly the dodo did to displease god, or what rhinos are currently doing to upset him. Why take it out on those species while going out of your way to protect leopards? Does he like spotty cats or something? I’m not a big reader, but I don’t recall seeing anything about that in the Bible. I may have skipped a few pages though.

Either way, the decision has been made and you can do what you like to try and prevent rhino poaching – and I’m sure that Facebook petition you just signed will make the world of difference – its a foregone conclusion that rhinos will shortly be no more. They have no divine protection.

Leopards, on the other hand, have apparently got it made. And presumably, that means that Tristan being chucked out of church on Sunday shouldn’t concern anyone too much.
He was wasting his time with his unnecessary and tautological campaigning anyway.

Another feather in the cap of Christianity

Some bloke paints a painting which some other people don’t like, how should you respond?

Let’s ask Nazareth Baptist (Shembe) Church spokesman Enoch Mthembu, shall we?

A person who committed such a serious sin deserves to be stoned to death.

And why?

That is according to the church constitution, the Bible, which guides us.

Right.

Cue outraged comments that Enoch doesn’t speak for every Christian.

Oh. OK. Just the ones that are guided by the Bible then, yes?

ARGH!

In today’s news:

Religion forces science teacher to quit

A science teacher at an upmarket Cape Town school has found herself at odds with senior staff over her desire to teach evolution in science lessons. She said that the teachers in the school’s science department were mainly Christian and that she was reprimanded over teaching the scientific concept.

“We’re talking about the head of biology, we’re talking about the longest standing member [of staff] who’s been there for more than 25 years and we’re talking about the most recent member who was trained in a Biology area.”
“What he actively does in class is he poo poos the idea [of evolution], he makes kids laugh at the idea of the age of the Earth as proposed by scientists currently. He poo poos the fossil record, he gives what he believes is counter evidence to carbon dating,” she said.

For starters, I’ve noted that there’s an awful lot of poo pooing going on at this school. And that should immediately raise some red flags.
But, that aside, I have no issue with people choosing to send their kids to a school which teaches along the lines of certain beliefs. That, as the expression goes, is their indaba. You want your kids to learn nonsense, send them to a school that teaches nonsense. Give them what you consider to be a good start in life and then let’s all sit back and see how they get on with their tertiary education and future career in the real world.
But this situation is slightly different, as this school has a Science Department. And if you have a Science Department in your school, surely it should really follow that they teach… er… “scientific concepts” like evolution and carbon dating.

No?

Religion is all well and good (well, actually not in my opinion, but there are apparently some people who like it), but then this ex-teacher continues to tell us about the Muslim Biology teacher who refused to teach evolution. And the most laughable of all:

I met a Christian Geography teacher who refused to teach plate tectonics.

If you choose to believe that plate tectonics is not real or if you choose to believe that Creationism is where we all came from, then – simply – don’t take a job like a Geography teacher or Science teacher, that involves you having to fight those concepts each and every day. Want to tell the kids about Adam and Eve or how God creates earthquakes and tsunamis? Well then, rather express your views by teaching Religious Education and leave the Science and the Geography to those who understand Science and Geography.

Equally, it seems to me that the teacher who quit should maybe choose her place of employment more carefully, as she seems to have crashed and indeed burned, again:

“I’m constantly on the defensive. In fact, my life has got even more interesting now because I’ve joined a school that’s a cult. They believe that their leader has insight and he believes that the entire solar system was created for human beings, and that animals and plants are the rejected parts of what would’ve been the human body that don’t belong, and the last thing to be rejected was bacteria.
And don’t bother that the fossil record goes the other way round because he had these insights through his spiritual and meditative journeys. So now I find myself out of the frying pan into the fire.”

Good plan. Well done.

Anyway, this should also serve as a wake up call to those of us who have kids at schools with a religious foundation. Do you know what your child is being taught in their “Science” lessons?

UPDATE: As per Jacques’ comment below, it looks like Emperor of the Western Cape, Helen Zille is onto this after being alerted by a very rude man on twitter.