hell’s handmaiden

The following was written for an environmental ethics class I completed in fall. The class was led by Holmes Rolston III, hence the frequent reference. I’ll get a proper citation up later today.

Rolston’s epistemological problems stem, according to Christopher Preston, from a failure to recognize any of a series of post-modern theses. In his words these are “the theory dependence of observation thesis, the mix of analytic and synthetic components in every belief, the critique of what has been called the ‘Myth of the Given’ in empiricism, the web-like nature of our systems of belief, the value biases present in epistemic claims, the fallibility of perception, understanding scientific empiricism as interventionist rather that representationalist, and the operation of language as a system” (Preston, p. 33). Recognizing these theses, in turn, should force an abandonment of his staunch realist position.

I’ve spent a tremendous amount of energy picking Christians, mostly creationists, for their mutilation of science. Now it is time to spread the love. Here is wee interview with Dr. Abd Al-Baset Sayyid of the Egyptian National Research Center.

I have to say up front that I do not speak Arabic so I am basing this post on the included translation. I would appreciate some verification by someone who does speak the language.

Apparently, (00:11) “The centrality of Mecca has been proven scientifically”.

DeSmogBlog has an interesting string of ‘awards’ right now. Obama headlines with “Obama named SmogMaker of 2007″. The charge is that Obama “has presented himself as someone who can overcome the Bush legacy of inaction on climate change”, but is nonetheless “campaigning on a greenhouse gas reduction ‘target’ that the U.S. won’t have to meet for 42 years and he has continued to promote the current administration’s plan to circumvent the Kyoto Protocol, the only international climate agreement currently in place.”

There is an interesting set of videos on YouTube. They seem to center around the following.

YouTube is not quite censoring but certainly limiting atheist content? Well, that is the question.

There is quite a string of videos related to the topic. I took a look at YouTube Censors Atheists: Here’s the Proof, Youtube: Promoting Bullshit & Censoring Brilliance, and More Censoring of Atheists.

As this guy says, it is dangerous to jump too quickly to conclusions about occurrences on a site as large as YouTube. Glitches happen. Software is a cruel mistress, and all that. One YouTube-er, though, offered what strikes me as a plausible answer.