AP: Parents pick prayer over docs; girl dies
WESTON, Wis. - Police are investigating an 11-year-old girl's death from an undiagnosed, treatable form of diabetes after her parents chose to pray for her rather than take her to a doctor.
Prayer: the ultimate post hoc fallacy. If you pray, and you get what you prayed for, then God answered your prayers. If you pray, and you don't get what you prayed for, then, well, that's just God's will. No matter what happens, it's construed to prove that prayer works. Irrefutably beyond the grasp of logic, either way!
These frightfully daft parents chose to pray instead of getting their daughter to a doctor, and now their daughter is dead from a treatable illness. Is that God's will?
A more appropriate term might be manslaughter.
Anyone who refuses a safe and preventative medical treatment on religious grounds deserves the illness that consequentially befalls him. And anyone who refuses a child such a treatment on religious grounds deserves to be prosecuted for neglect to the fullest extent of the law.
This is well beyond the purview of religious freedom. Religious freedom protects one's personal views and actions only insofar as they do not harm others. If you choose to die of measles or diabetes because you hold the idiotic belief that an imaginary man in the sky is a better medical provider than your local hospital, then Requiescat In Pace, you moron. But if your foolish beliefs cause the death of a child, then you'll have a long time to come to terms with that by praying in your prison cell.
28 March 2008
26 March 2008
Is that really a preference you want to advertise?
Some people who especially hate tailgaters can be seen to have on their cars a bumper sticker that reads:
"Unless you're a hemorrhoid... GET OFF MY ASS!"
This is almost witty, until you consider the bumper sticker's implication that hemorrhoids are a perfectly acceptable thing to have on one's ass. Personally, I'd rather have the tailgater.
"Unless you're a hemorrhoid... GET OFF MY ASS!"
This is almost witty, until you consider the bumper sticker's implication that hemorrhoids are a perfectly acceptable thing to have on one's ass. Personally, I'd rather have the tailgater.
21 March 2008
"Good" Friday
What's so "good" about a Friday that commemorates someone being nailed to a piece of wood and left to die?
Christians, of course, would respond that the crucifixion of Jesus was good because it allowed for the salvation of mankind. But isn't that a fantastically morbid event upon which to found a system of religious and ethical beliefs?
Christianity may advertise itself as being about the "resurrection and the life", but in reality it is entirely obsessed with death. Not only does an ancient form of execution constitute its founding myth and central symbol, but the main message of Christianity is that this life does not matter: it is all a prelude to the hereafter, the life to come, heaven - which is essentially a child's fantasy land in the clouds taken seriously.
When you combine irrational religious fervour with an obsessive death wish, you get behavior that is indistinguishable from being retarded or insane:
BBC: Philippines Crucifixions
Millions of people in the mainly Roman Catholic country of the Philippines celebrate Easter every year, with some penitents following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ even up to the point of being nailed to a cross.
True, there are millions of Christians around the world who don't indulge in self-flagellation and mock crucifixion. But most of them do go to a building every week to wallow in their own spiritual unworthiness and hear sermon after sermon about a man who was tortured to death for their benefit. Isn't that a kind of spiritual self-flagellation and intellectual crucifixion? I fail to see the "good" in any of it.
Christians, of course, would respond that the crucifixion of Jesus was good because it allowed for the salvation of mankind. But isn't that a fantastically morbid event upon which to found a system of religious and ethical beliefs?
Christianity may advertise itself as being about the "resurrection and the life", but in reality it is entirely obsessed with death. Not only does an ancient form of execution constitute its founding myth and central symbol, but the main message of Christianity is that this life does not matter: it is all a prelude to the hereafter, the life to come, heaven - which is essentially a child's fantasy land in the clouds taken seriously.
When you combine irrational religious fervour with an obsessive death wish, you get behavior that is indistinguishable from being retarded or insane:
BBC: Philippines Crucifixions
Millions of people in the mainly Roman Catholic country of the Philippines celebrate Easter every year, with some penitents following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ even up to the point of being nailed to a cross.
True, there are millions of Christians around the world who don't indulge in self-flagellation and mock crucifixion. But most of them do go to a building every week to wallow in their own spiritual unworthiness and hear sermon after sermon about a man who was tortured to death for their benefit. Isn't that a kind of spiritual self-flagellation and intellectual crucifixion? I fail to see the "good" in any of it.
18 March 2008
That is the question
YouTube: Patrick Stewart on Sesame Street
Patrick Stewart is a phenomenal Shakespearean actor; I saw him in Macbeth this past weekend, and he suited "the action to the word, the word to the action" like none other. In this short clip from Sesame Street, he explores an ontological conundrum that has troubled humankind through the ages.
Patrick Stewart is a phenomenal Shakespearean actor; I saw him in Macbeth this past weekend, and he suited "the action to the word, the word to the action" like none other. In this short clip from Sesame Street, he explores an ontological conundrum that has troubled humankind through the ages.
04 March 2008
Men are from Mars, Women are from... Stupid?
The Washington Post: We Scream, We Swoon, How Dumb Can We Get?
I can't help it, but reading about such episodes of screaming, gushing and swooning makes me wonder whether women -- I should say, "we women," of course -- aren't the weaker sex after all. Or even the stupid sex, our brains permanently occluded by random emotions, psychosomatic flailings and distraction by the superficial. Women "are only children of a larger growth," wrote the 18th-century Earl of Chesterfield. Could he have been right?
What is it about us women? Why do we always fall for the hysterical, the superficial and the gooily sentimental?
I swear no man watches "Grey's Anatomy" unless his girlfriend forces him to. No man bakes cookies for his dog. No man feels blue and takes off work to spend the day in bed with a copy of "The Friday Night Knitting Club." No man contracts nebulous diseases whose existence is disputed by many if not all doctors, such as Morgellons (where you feel bugs crawling around under your skin). At least no man I know. Of course, not all women do these things, either -- although enough do to make one wonder whether there isn't some genetic aspect of the female brain, something evolutionarily connected to the fact that we live longer than men or go through childbirth, that turns the pre-frontal cortex into Cream of Wheat.
Charlotte Allen wonders - apparently, in all seriousness - whether women have some kind of a predisposition to be the stupider and weaker sex. At first glance it appears this is nothing more than a simple logical fallacy: she assumes that the glaring mental deficiency so manifestly displayed in herself must be present also in the rest of her sex. But she doesn't stop there - in one short article, she takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of hasty generalizations, half-baked arguments drawn from arbitrary examples, and conclusions that are laughably and patently wrong.
Her argument is so imbecilic that it's self-satirizing, largely because she backs it up with such absurdly trite and meaningless examples. Oprah? Sappy romance novels and soap operas? Swooning over cute polticians and rock stars? Bad driving? Yes, this really is the hard evidence she brings to prove women's intellecutal inferiority. Her argument is based on nothing more substantial than tired old jokes from a bad stand-up routine about differences between men and women.
In an attempt to be more convincing, though, she appeals to the authority of experts:
Depressing as it is, several of the supposed misogynist myths about female inferiority have been proven true. Women really are worse drivers than men, for example. A study published in 1998 by the Johns Hopkins schools of medicine and public health revealed that women clocked 5.7 auto accidents per million miles driven, in contrast to men's 5.1, even though men drive about 74 percent more miles a year than women. The only good news was that women tended to take fewer driving risks than men, so their crashes were only a third as likely to be fatal.
So, women get into 11% more accidents, but their accidents are 66% less fatal? Sounds to me like women are better drivers.
It gets worse:
The theory that women are the dumber sex -- or at least the sex that gets into more car accidents -- is amply supported by neurological and standardized-testing evidence. Men's and women's brains not only look different, but men's brains are bigger than women's (even adjusting for men's generally bigger body size). The important difference is in the parietal cortex, which is associated with space perception. Visuospatial skills, the capacity to rotate three-dimensional objects in the mind, at which men tend to excel over women, are in turn related to a capacity for abstract thinking and reasoning, the grounding for mathematics, science and philosophy.
Apparently Ms Allen thinks that brain size determines intelligence. Male brains are bigger; therefore men are smarter. That argument appears sound - until you consider that the brains of Neanderthals were about 10% larger than those of homo sapiens. A bigger brain does not mean a better brain.
Ultimately, with regards to this and all of her examples, it's a simple case of selective evidence. It would be just as easy to write an article parading the apparent mental shortcomings of the male sex. Women are worse at navigation? Ok, but there are more women enrolled in higher education than men, and they tend to get better grades. Women watch sappy TV shows and cry about superficial nonsense? Ok, but men act functionally retarded when they attend sporting events, and they exhibit constant paranoia about the relative size of their genitals. Women swoon over sexy politicians and stars? Well, men are the reason that pornography makes up so much of the internet.
Self-oppressing idiots like Charlotte Allen take subversive glee in expressing a viewpoint that is against the grain of conventional wisdom and political correctness. In the end, though, her argument is nothing but a series of outrageously misogynistic opinions strung together by scattered and unconvincing examples. She's clearly not the brightest crayon in the box.
Fortunately, her breathtaking fatuity is the exception, and not the rule.
I can't help it, but reading about such episodes of screaming, gushing and swooning makes me wonder whether women -- I should say, "we women," of course -- aren't the weaker sex after all. Or even the stupid sex, our brains permanently occluded by random emotions, psychosomatic flailings and distraction by the superficial. Women "are only children of a larger growth," wrote the 18th-century Earl of Chesterfield. Could he have been right?
What is it about us women? Why do we always fall for the hysterical, the superficial and the gooily sentimental?
I swear no man watches "Grey's Anatomy" unless his girlfriend forces him to. No man bakes cookies for his dog. No man feels blue and takes off work to spend the day in bed with a copy of "The Friday Night Knitting Club." No man contracts nebulous diseases whose existence is disputed by many if not all doctors, such as Morgellons (where you feel bugs crawling around under your skin). At least no man I know. Of course, not all women do these things, either -- although enough do to make one wonder whether there isn't some genetic aspect of the female brain, something evolutionarily connected to the fact that we live longer than men or go through childbirth, that turns the pre-frontal cortex into Cream of Wheat.
Charlotte Allen wonders - apparently, in all seriousness - whether women have some kind of a predisposition to be the stupider and weaker sex. At first glance it appears this is nothing more than a simple logical fallacy: she assumes that the glaring mental deficiency so manifestly displayed in herself must be present also in the rest of her sex. But she doesn't stop there - in one short article, she takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of hasty generalizations, half-baked arguments drawn from arbitrary examples, and conclusions that are laughably and patently wrong.
Her argument is so imbecilic that it's self-satirizing, largely because she backs it up with such absurdly trite and meaningless examples. Oprah? Sappy romance novels and soap operas? Swooning over cute polticians and rock stars? Bad driving? Yes, this really is the hard evidence she brings to prove women's intellecutal inferiority. Her argument is based on nothing more substantial than tired old jokes from a bad stand-up routine about differences between men and women.
In an attempt to be more convincing, though, she appeals to the authority of experts:
Depressing as it is, several of the supposed misogynist myths about female inferiority have been proven true. Women really are worse drivers than men, for example. A study published in 1998 by the Johns Hopkins schools of medicine and public health revealed that women clocked 5.7 auto accidents per million miles driven, in contrast to men's 5.1, even though men drive about 74 percent more miles a year than women. The only good news was that women tended to take fewer driving risks than men, so their crashes were only a third as likely to be fatal.
So, women get into 11% more accidents, but their accidents are 66% less fatal? Sounds to me like women are better drivers.
It gets worse:
The theory that women are the dumber sex -- or at least the sex that gets into more car accidents -- is amply supported by neurological and standardized-testing evidence. Men's and women's brains not only look different, but men's brains are bigger than women's (even adjusting for men's generally bigger body size). The important difference is in the parietal cortex, which is associated with space perception. Visuospatial skills, the capacity to rotate three-dimensional objects in the mind, at which men tend to excel over women, are in turn related to a capacity for abstract thinking and reasoning, the grounding for mathematics, science and philosophy.
Apparently Ms Allen thinks that brain size determines intelligence. Male brains are bigger; therefore men are smarter. That argument appears sound - until you consider that the brains of Neanderthals were about 10% larger than those of homo sapiens. A bigger brain does not mean a better brain.
Ultimately, with regards to this and all of her examples, it's a simple case of selective evidence. It would be just as easy to write an article parading the apparent mental shortcomings of the male sex. Women are worse at navigation? Ok, but there are more women enrolled in higher education than men, and they tend to get better grades. Women watch sappy TV shows and cry about superficial nonsense? Ok, but men act functionally retarded when they attend sporting events, and they exhibit constant paranoia about the relative size of their genitals. Women swoon over sexy politicians and stars? Well, men are the reason that pornography makes up so much of the internet.
Self-oppressing idiots like Charlotte Allen take subversive glee in expressing a viewpoint that is against the grain of conventional wisdom and political correctness. In the end, though, her argument is nothing but a series of outrageously misogynistic opinions strung together by scattered and unconvincing examples. She's clearly not the brightest crayon in the box.
Fortunately, her breathtaking fatuity is the exception, and not the rule.
02 March 2008
Jared
Some Subway commercials have been airing recently to congratulate Jared, the company's ex-XXXL spokesman, for celebrating his tenth year at a respectable weight.
Only in America can someone be lauded as a hero for the simple reason that he's no longer a fatass. Jared is an icon to the millions of overweight and obese who dream that one day they, too, can shed their supersized waistlines.
Why does Jared deserve congratulations? What about the millions of the rest of us who never become whales in the first place? Where's our million-dollar endorsement deal and laudatory commercial?
Only in America can someone be lauded as a hero for the simple reason that he's no longer a fatass. Jared is an icon to the millions of overweight and obese who dream that one day they, too, can shed their supersized waistlines.
Why does Jared deserve congratulations? What about the millions of the rest of us who never become whales in the first place? Where's our million-dollar endorsement deal and laudatory commercial?
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