Missouri’s Turn for Anti-Science Ridicule

A minor brouhaha erupted over a t-shirt in Sedalia Missouri. But this isn't about an uppity student. The band director designed an official band t-shirt to illustrate the evolution of brass music. What image did he choose to evoke the idea? Yep, a common ascent-of-man icon from the early 20th century. After some parents saw the shirt proudly worn at the Missouri State Fiar parade, they complained. From the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch:

"I was disappointed with the image on the shirt," said Sherry Melby, a band parent who teaches in the district. "I don't think evolution should be associated with our school."

What sort of science program do you think she had? What sort do you think she would vote for? The school quickly recalled the t-shirts, eating the cost of their production, and will be designing new shirts that don't offend by presenting an image that obliquely refers to actual science. Naturally, Pharyngula jumped on it. And in the Sedalia Democrat, they quote the assistant band director about pulling the shirts,

"If the shirts had said ‘Brass Resurrections' and had a picture of Jesus on the cross, we would have done the same thing," he said.

Apparently there is a strong belief that science is a religion that should not even be tangentially promoted over any other belief. And people wonder why I sometimes write that I live in the state of Misery.

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The Hierarchy of Disagreement

I found this illustration of how to order your arguments at the Starts With A Bang blog. This blog usually leads one to a first source. However, I had to do some digging to find the original creator of this image. This image is all over the web, but I think the first source is here, from the Create Debate blog in April 2008. This image (click on it to enlarge) was created to illustrate an earlier point by Paul Graham, whose text-only posts I've been (occasionally) reading for years. The premise is to always lead with your top level reasonable arguments, and never resort to the bottom layers. As Ethan Siegel (SWAB) put it,

It's sometimes tough to decipher what the central point of someone else's argument is, because most people don't argue clearly and logically. But if you can identify it, that's when you win. When someone else mucks around at the bottom of the pyramid, don't sink to their level; stay up high. Those top two levels are really the only way to ever change someone's mind, or to sway other intelligent, thinking people to your side.

This is an attitude that would serve us well on this site.

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Proposed Amendment

I've been mulling an idea for an amendment to the U.S. constitution that probably won't have as much a chance as the failed Equal Rights Amendment, in which persons of the female persuasion would have been defined explicitly as full fledged people with the same rights as the white male landholders for which the constitution was originally penned. How's this?

"Government shall pass no law abridging the right of any person to decide whether an organism living within his or her own body is a harmful parasite or a welcome guest, and to respond accordingly."

A lawyer could probably tighten up the wording, but I think the gist is there. This amendment might save oodles of money on government health care in ways such as:
  • It would limit the ways in which lawyers determine what medical procedures are prohibited or required, and the associated overhead in managing those decisions.
  • It would remove the bureaucracy necessary to separate funding for procedures that everyone accepts under government insurance from those protested by a vocal minority.
Discussion?

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“What if Your Child Becomes Religious?”

Dale McGowan of the Meming of Life and other literary outlets has a new video out. In his latest, he questions the title question in detail before addressing the answer. Mainly he takes on "become" and "religious", before addressing "What if". Very reasonable and persuasive. I met the man earlier this year, and identify with his position on dealing with an over-religious culture from an a-religious world view.

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Two Seater Synchronicity

This morning I found that I appeared in the lead paragraphs of a Suburban Journal article about someone else entirely. They even had a photo of us with our tandem behind the object of the subject (bike rack, artist). It was just an accident that we happened to ride to coffee at the time when the Journal photographer was looking to illustrate the art as bike rack. It's almost a pity that this journal is no longer delivered annoyingly and inevitably every Wednesday to form the bulk of our recycled paper. I should find a store that has the tree-based copy to show me mum. Anyway, yesterday I posted a video of my experience this weekend in another kind of un-motorized two seater. That's the synchronicity part.

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