MP ignorant, offensive

MP brands dyslexia a 'fiction'

I accept that Graham Stringer MP has the best interests of children at heart, and wants to improve standards of education by introducing a system of synthetic phonics, something that has show promise in trials in Scotland. I'm all for that.

But to do this by attacking dyslexia as nothing but a myth is misinformed, misguided, and wrong. There have been studies conducted using FMRI which apparently show clear evidence of differences in physiology (referenced here); the evidence is not yet incontrovertible, by any means, but it is far from being a myth.

Mr Stringer needs to shut the hell up and listen to the evidence before shooting his mouth off and dismissing a troubling condition which affects millions of people. There are better ways to promote more efficient teaching methods - the trials speak for themselves in this regard. If there are funding issues, you can't just call a costly condition a myth and divert its section of the budget. Yes it's a simple solution to a complex problem, but that's not always what we need. In fact, it's quite rare that that would suffice.

Dog bites man

The sexual-liberal community is apparently up in arms about the Pope's latest comments on gender theory. I, however, welcome this news because it contributes further to the exposition of the Pope as a right-wing, conservative religious crazy person. Yes, his remarks are offensive and ignorant; but they should not be surprising.

It is quite telling that the majority of negative comments in the article come from Christian sources. It is my fond hope that this trend continues, and the religious right does more to marginalise itself in the eyes of society. I look forward to the day when "Pope spews yet more hateful ignorant pigshit" is not news.

Rebel without an advertising campaign

There has been an advertising campaign over here recently, in the style of the classic American road movie - girl meets boy, girl gets pregnant, mother doesn't approve of boy, boy and girl shout "screw you!" and run away together. Oh, and in this particular case, the boy is made of cactus.

I was generally uninterested in this, as I am with most advertising campaigns. Until the advert was pulled, after a series of complaints about its content and message:

BBC News: Cactus kid advert ordered off air.

Apparently this is because it depicts teenage pregnancy in a less than demonising light, and its hookline, "for people who don't like water", discourages a healthy diet. Let's take the latter first, because it's easier to deal with.

Discourages a healthy diet. Unlike, for instance, adverts for McDonalds, Galaxy chocolate, Haribo, and every other advert on television? I'm sorry, but that just doesn't wash. At all. If anyone can see sense in that proposition, please tell me, because it entirely escapes my grasp.

The pregnancy is the more interesting part; as far as I can see, it's there as part of the spoof/homage referring to the classic genre of American road movies. I don't think there is any danger that anyone watching it would take away from the advert the message that "teenage pregnancy is desirable" - it doesn't play a significant enough role in the advert for it to be anything more than a plot device.

Did it "condone teenage pregnancy and underage sex"? Not that I could see. The girl didn't seem to be underage, though she may have been in her late teens. Underage sex (in this country at least) would imply under 16 - and she certainly didn't look that young. As for the pregnancy, all it did was acknowledge that these things happen; if that's enough for some people to claim that it condones the action, then they should be complaining until they're blue in the face about soap operas.

Poor Cactus Kid. They'll never stop persecuting rebels.

Dear YouTube...

Please stop censoring freedom of expression.

Either: reinstate fsmdude's account and his videos which offend only those who have some wacky beliefs in regard to a biscuit...

Or: define yourselves officially as a Catholic website for only Catholic-friendly videos, and I can begin looking for alternative video-hosting websites to frequent.

Thank you.

[Via here and here. (PZ, naturally)]

UPDATE: fsmdude is now back online. Thank you, YouTube. Now don't do it again.

On a personal note, the dissertation is handed in and the Masters degree is officially over and done with. Posting to this blog should slowly start getting back to normal now. Thanks for your patience.

Respect and Guilt

I will attempt to get through this post without intentional innuendo.

There has been an uproar in Australia recently over a book accused of encouraging girls to take up the didgeridoo. It seems that there are those among the aboriginal leaders who argue that the instrument is a male one and forbid women from even touching it, let alone playing it. [original story via BBC News Online]

The publisher has apologised for this "extreme faux pas", but I've heard nothing regarding what - if anything - they plan to do about it. I'm hoping it will stop at an apology, but would not be surprised if the book were retracted, edited and reissued to remove the offending section.

There is an automatic respect accorded to these ancient tribal customs which is comparable to (and indeed is in places literally) that accorded religion. I don't think I need to necessarily go into why this is unwarranted, especially where oppression based on gender is concerned. Why is sexual discrimination alright when it's done for reasons based on tradition alone?

But further to this, there is often a degree of racial guilt when dealing with the indigenous peoples of Australia, North America, and other such places where they have been less than generously treated in the past. There is a terrible fear of offending these aboriginal societies in the West, lest they bring up that touchy subject of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Now I'm not saying we need to stop respecting them - quite the opposite; I'm saying we need to respect them enough to tell them when they're doing something unjust. Irrational beliefs should not be accorded respect simply by virtue of their antiquity. This even applies to those cultures whose ancestors our ancestors greatly wronged.

Basically, if an aboriginal girl wants to give that big stick a damn good blow, she should be perfectly free to do so.

Damnit. So close.

Quaint beliefs...

Periodically in the news, you'll hear about a backwards society somewhere in the world who have stoned, burned or otherwise persecuted someone on some charge of sorcery, wizardry or witchcraft. There's not a lot you can do except shake your head in dismay and consider yourself lucky you don't live there. Oh, those poor deluded [blank]ians, you say. Maybe one day they'll live in a modern civilised society where we habitually scoff at such things.

One such story surfaced today, about a teacher who performed a magic trick and lost his job as a result - on a charge of wizardry. I felt the usual dismay, shook my head, and counted myself lucky I don't live there.

"Oh, those poor deluded Floridians", I said. Maybe one day they'll live in a modern civilised society where we habitually scoff at such things.

This is why PZ Myers can't believe in Florida any more.

Chickens and Eggs

For one reason or another, there's a theme recurring in my thoughts today. It began on the bus ride to university, when I was contemplating the philosophy of language (as I am wont to do of a morning); one of the most interesting questions I've come across is where it meets the philosophy of mind. The question in its basic form is this:

Did our language evolve to reflect our concept of mind, or did our concept of mind grow out of the inaccuracies in our language?

The idea here is the possibility that phrases like "I have a body" mislead people into separating their identity from their physical presence - seeing one's body as a possession rather than as the root of the "self". The question here is asking whether this subtle nuance of the language grew out of our natural perception that we inhabit (rather than are) our bodies, or whether this perception itself came out of our habit of speaking this way. I'm inclined to say the former, but it's still a very interesting and thought-provoking question.

The second part of this continuing "Chicken and Egg" theme came when overhearing a conversation in the library about religion and morality. Someone was reporting someone else as saying that most contemporary morality originally comes from religion. They weren't drawing conclusions from this - just stating a fairly widely-held and generally uncontroversial view.

But it got me thinking: why would we assume this to be true, just because many of the laws of today's society (against murder, as a classic example) are also present in religion, which predates modern law? Do we not even think to consider what predates religion? This relates to Euthyphro's Dilemma, which asks:

Is something right because the God(s) approve of it, or do the God(s) approve of it because it is right?

I love Socrates. I think it's fairly clear to anyone who thinks objectively about these things that religious morality grew out of social morality - rules for living together harmoniously. Modern law then grew out of the influence of religious morality. It's generally a harmless mistake to fail to look beyond the initial cause to the root which gave rise to it, but in some insane rare cases, people are actually arguing that (for instance) atheists should be exempt from human rights, because morality comes from God. I'm not going to go into it here, but it may well come up in the future.

And on a final, frivolous note - the egg came first. Dinosaur eggs, anyone? Fish eggs? If you were to ask which came first, the chicken or the chicken egg, then the question might be a bit more interesting. But I'm just a pedant like that.

UPDATE: As regards the first question of language and the perception of the mind, there's been some research on it done recently. It would appear that there is evidence to support the idea that our language does in fact influence our understanding of things such as what it is to be alive. Via ScienceDaily.

TheirSpace

No longer are atheists permitted to communicate with each other in great numbers on "social networking" site MySpace. After repeated lobbying from Christian groups, it seems MySpace has deleted the Atheist and Agnostic Group - because the poor believers find it offensive.

I'm having a hard time not simply swearing my fingers off at this point, so to save you from such an embarrassing display, I'll shoot some links at you instead:

The discussion on Richard Dawkins' website.

The account of Brian Pesta, group founder.

The New Humanist breaks the story.

I'm considering how to respond to this; I am sorely tempted to delete my account (I never use it anyway) - but this would have to be done in such a way as to send a message about why I was doing so. If MySpace is attempting to become a home to intolerant religious nutjobs, I say let them have their site.

Just another reason to hate Rupert the Bloody and boycott everything he owns.

Damn heathens...

So there are apparently some Christian Scots who are all up in arms about a gathering of the enemy on their home turf: "Scottish pagan gathering spells worry for some Christians".

Without getting into petty squabblings which in my opinion would end quite nicely with the phrase "we were here first" from the pagan camp, what could be wrong with this communal gathering? I may be biased (being sympathetic to the pagan cause as those who know me well will attest), but in my experience those of a pagan faith are more friendly and open-minded than those of a more "mainstream" religion. Too open-minded, sometimes - to the point that their reason deserts them and they end up believing that a stick waved in a particular way at a particular time can cure their ills; but open-minded nonetheless. Even where they are more dogmatic, in their core beliefs regarding the unity and harmony of the world, there are more beneficial ideas than you might find in the largely anthropocentric religions widespread today.

The Rev Graham Swanson of Elgin Baptist Church, told the newspaper: "I have grave concerns and reservations about this event taking place. As a Christian I believe the Bible warns us about dabbling in such things as witchcraft."

But has he ever stopped to wonder why the Bible says that? It's not because God said "witchcraft" was bad - it's because that's what Christianity's rivals were doing when it was written. It's quite astounding that we are today still exposed to anti-pagan propaganda that has been put forward by Christianity for thousands of years - possibly the most effective campaign of misinformation in the history of humanity.

As a personal note, I'll admit that paganism is my sacred calf - although I'm a practicing and fervent sceptic, I happily immerse myself in the mythology of paganism (Nordic by preference). This is not to say that I head off to Stonehenge and dance naked when it's Solstice time - or even believe in the gods; it's rather a way of defining myself. I may post about this in more detail some other time - it requires some serious thought to get my ideas in order on this.

So, briefly back to the topic at hand, why might one be tempted to support a pagan gathering rather than a Christian one as such? I think that there is a communal spirit to paganism that is not as commonly found in Christianity, and the best thing about it (to my mind) is that, despite being misguided on a great many things, paganism is a far more friendly way to spend your free time. For one thing, they are far less judgmental - and in my experience are far more likely to forgive than the Christians. Perhaps we should follow the Reverend's example and start protesting about Church picnics and such, claiming them to be gatherings of a sinister cult.

Tip of the laurel wreath to The New Humanist

Blood of the innocent

The National Blood Service in the UK is an organisation whose purpose is really self-explanatory - they are in charge of donations and provisions of blood for medical use. Aside from some rather annoying nag-adverts, they seem to do a pretty good job against the odds; blood not being known for its shelf-life, they rely on a constant stream of donations. Recently this stream has been running a little lower than they would like, hence the nagverts.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that a 1977 law (still in force) prohibits homosexual and bisexual men from donating. This article from the Guardian's Comment is Free section gives you the low-down: "Bloody Prejudice". Naturally the comments string is far longer than the article itself, and contains just about all you need to know about both sides of the debate itself. There are a couple of journal articles (I think they give the other side of the argument) on the topic also, one of which is here. The page contains a list of related articles. [found via the FaceBook group]

Without taking the time to read the literature on the subject (I have a lot of work to do at the moment), my impression of this is that it is an entirely unjust law, based on anachronistic notion of men who have sex with men. If it is true that reliable scientific study has concluded that they are no more at risk of STDs than heterosexual persons, then there is no basis for upholding the law. The fact that many countries (e.g. Italy, Spain, France, Portugal, Russia and South Africa) have repealed their laws banning donations from bi- and homosexual men suggests that the research is compelling enough.

If anyone who has done the research has alternate views on this, I'm willing to be corrected. But from what I can see, there is no basis on which one can exclude this group from donating blood if one at the same time accepts blood from people whose sexual practice is identical (in terms of activity and protection) except for their choice of partner gender. Isn't this the same as prohibiting women from driving taxis because they are worse drivers, despite evidence that they are no worse than men? Or is that a misleading metaphor?

Sadly, I don't have time to think about it too much at the moment - essays to write.