Last month, our boss Robyn Blumner was at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva where she spoke out about blasphemy laws and the oppression of atheists. “Any law that criminalizes apostasy or the defamation of religion is an unjust law,” she says. Check out the video.
Kavin Senapathy, in her Woo Watch column for Skeptical Inquirer online, shows once again why she one of the best skeptic writers working today: Discussing the controversy and fears surrounding glyphosate herbicide, she shows how anti-science scaremongers levy parental worries and sexist tropes about motherhood while also acknowledging that “hey everything is fine” doesn’t quite jibe with reality either:
As complex as tackling the challenges of the food system has proven, one thing’s clear—the [Environmental Working Groups] of the world have done as good of a job of keeping consumers complacent as the Monsantos have.
Dissident Egyptian atheist Sharif Gaber explains some of what’s happened with him since his reported arrest in August, including blasphemy charges. He prefaces it with this:
I can’t say much. Only that I’m not allowed to leave Egypt anymore. I’m trapped in this big prison. I fear every word I write. And I can’t ask for “help”.
Michelle Boorstein at The Washington Post looks into the abyss that is the Catholic Church’s sex abuse crisis to provide a better understanding of how dark and deep it is:
The story behind the complaints [against Cardinal McCarrick] … illustrates the great value placed on deference to hierarchy within the Catholic Church, the silence and secrecy around the topic of priest sexual activity and the extreme opaqueness of the Vatican bureaucracy — factors that contributed to the allegations against McCarrick remaining hidden for so long.
Apparently, Alex Trebek moderated a Pennsylvania gubernatorial debate and everyone hated it. That makes me feel bad for some reason. The Post reports:
Alex Trebek, the “Jeopardy!” host and the moderator of Monday night’s debate, let loose, joking that the only thing with a lower approval rating than the Pennsylvania legislature was the Catholic Church. Polite laughter from the audience quickly turned to boos.
Despite the secularization of many Western European nations, a new BBC survey shows that 62 percent of Britons believe in miracles, which jumps to three-in-four for younger adults (WTF?), and fully 37 percent of all adults believe Jesus performed the miracles of the Bible…word for word.
One of those why-do-we-even-bother moments: The World Health Organization officially recognizes Traditional Chinese Medicine and adopts a global compendium on the practice. Steven Salzberg (whose article prominently features a photo of a bloodied, hornless rhino) tells us what this is going to mean, and it’s really, really bad:
Here’s what TCM really looks like: the horrific slaughter of the last remaining rhinoceroses in Africa in order to hack off their tusks, which are sold to become part of elixirs that some people mistakenly think confer strength or virility. … [also] black bears kept in grotesquely cruel “farms” with a permanent tube inserted into their abdomens so that their bile can be harvested. … And TCM is behind the slaughter of the last remaining wild tigers, which are virtually extinct now in Asia, so that men can foolishly eat their bones, claws, and genitals in the mistaken belief that tiger parts will make them virile.
Meanwhile, the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine publishes an issue which I think was specifically designed to make David Gorski’s head explode: a special issue on “integrative oncology.”
Jane E. Brody at The New York Times warns that “alternative” cancer treatments are not as harmless as they are promoted:
When remedies that have been proved beneficial are replaced by those supported primarily by wishful thinking, anecdotes and sloppy science (if any science), the result can be a death sentence that could have been avoided. […]
Too often, when “alternative medicine” is used instead of standard medical treatments, it delays the use of remedies known to be effective and gives an early curable cancer time to grow, spread and ultimately become lethal.
A candidate for a Louisiana school board apologizes for a campaign sign that says, “A few of my ancestors may have swung by their necks but none swung by their tails…Vote Floyd. Creation Not Evolution.” Except he wasn’t apologizing for the creationist nonsense, but rather for the sign seeming racist. Hemant says, correctly:
This guy has no business on a school board. Hell, this guy has no business on your pub trivia team.
CBN, the Christian Broadcasting Network, has launched a 24-hour news network. Because Fox News isn’t sufficiently bananas.
Before you go get yourself all cracked and snapped by a chiropractor, consider how much you value your sense of sight and whether bleeding from the eye sounds like a bummer.
The headline for an article at RNS begins “Mormons tackle pornography” and that’s as far as I could read.
Quote of the Day
Kyrie Irving, who I understand to be a professional basketball player, apologizes for espousing flat-Earth hooey:
To all the science teachers, everybody coming up to me like, ‘You know I’ve got to reteach my whole curriculum?’ I’m sorry. I apologize. I apologize. [ … ] At the time, I was like huge into conspiracies. And everybody’s been there.
Well, I don’t know about that, but anyway that’s not the quote of the day. That comes from Shaquille “Kazaam” O’Neal. The AP reports that “O’Neal once echoed Irving’s stance, that the Earth is flat,” to which Shaq responds:
But I was playing.
* * *
Linking to a story or webpage does not imply endorsement by Paul or CFI. Not every use of quotation marks is ironic or sarcastic, but it often is.