Comments for Quiche Moraine

Comment on Stage Kiss by anonymous

anonymous — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 05:44:29 +0000

I love your writing! Very entertaining. Its kind of helping me mentally prepare for the stage kiss I may have to do for Fame the musical, it also being my first ever stage kiss, and first kiss for that matter. The lesson I take away is to just relax and make it believable. Thanks!

Comment on Poppies by Mike Haubrich

Mike Haubrich — Mon, 30 May 2011 22:37:04 +0000

Thank you, Bright Dancing.

My dad grew to hate war, and I remember him today.

Comment on Poppies by Bright Dancing

Bright Dancing — Sun, 29 May 2011 18:07:23 +0000

I borrowed your poppy photo to use as my avatar on facebook for Memorial Day, and asked that others do the same when I posted a link to this blog. My intent is to cause people to think about Memorial Day. Your post said it better than I believe I could have, so I directed people here. Thank you for what you have written, and for the service of your family members.

Comment on Communication Is an Intersection by Josh Rosenau

Josh Rosenau — Sat, 07 May 2011 14:43:37 +0000

I have read Greg’s piece, and responded at TfK.

I think your penultimate paragraph is arguing that NAs are justified in attacking accommodationists to get people to stop saying they’re vituperative. I see an internal contradiction there. That said, I have no need to argue that NAs in general are vituperative (like all generalizations, sure to be false in some cases), but it’s surely the case that the gnu atheism espoused by Jerry Coyne and others (which may be a distinct subset of New Atheism) is certainly vituperative.

To sustain your charge of dishonesty, it would have to be the case that unfalsifiable claims are false, and that’s a stretch. Unfalsifiable claims have a scientifically unknowable truth status, so it’s not obviously dishonest to say one could be philosophically justified in holding such a view. In any event, I do not personally hold that view, and do not personally find it philosophically justified. I just think it’s philosophically unjustified to treat unfalsifiable claims as absolutely false.

In short, then, I’ve read and considered the anti-accommodationist arguments, and find them wanting in empirical and philosophical support.

Comment on Communication Is an Intersection by Mike Haubrich

Mike Haubrich — Sat, 07 May 2011 09:42:47 +0000

The reason that you don’t know why they are so opposed to accommodationists is that you aren’t reading, or possibly not comprehending what they are writing.

It is dishonest, for one, to tell people that it is a justifiable position philosophically to say that “maybe God had a hand in it all” when there is nothing show in evolution that there was a Creator.

The largest reason is that the accommodationists spend more of their time telling New Atheists that they are wrong, that they shouldn’t be talking about the materialistic implications of science (and creationism is just a symptom.) Finally, the accommodationists are perpetuating a false meme that the New Atheists are vituperative (to use William Lane Craig’s phrase.)

Have you read Greg’s piece on a multiplicity of strategies?

Comment on Communication Is an Intersection by Josh Rosenau

Josh Rosenau — Sat, 07 May 2011 02:56:11 +0000

As I’ve noted elsewhere, what studies have been done all indicate that the “accommodationist” strategy is effective, and the NA strategy isn’t likely to be. Absent any empirical support for NA strategy, and given the empirical support for accommodationism, I don’t see why other folks are so opposed to accommodationism, and so anxious to push NAism as an alternative.

I don’t think you’ll also find that my focus has not (at least not in the last couple years) been on the harm potentially done by others, as much as defending my own position and pressing those who oppose my position to make a robust, empirically sound case. I offered that experiment as a simple, cheap example of the sort of research that could help change my view.

Comment on Communication Is an Intersection by Mike Haubrich

Mike Haubrich — Fri, 06 May 2011 23:07:15 +0000

Then, in the meantime I don’t understand why you do so much handwaving about how much harm the New Atheists are doing. At this point it seems more like personal pique from you than it does seem like any sort of reasoned approach.

Comment on Communication Is an Intersection by Josh Rosenau

Josh Rosenau — Thu, 05 May 2011 21:14:21 +0000

You don’t need to factor out the pre-existing prejudices. You just need a sufficiently large, random sample such that you can average across different sorts of biases. If one wants to know how the (American) public responds to different styles of argument, you need a sample that includes the biases of typical Americans, after all, not an artificial sample in which certain groups are under-represented in search of this mythical unbiased person.

My point with that experiment would not be to say that there’s only one way to do science outreach: I don’t believe that to be true. But experiments like that one can do a lot to reveal whether certain approaches are more effective than others, and with which populations. And that’s more valuable than all the hand-waving in the world.

Comment on From the shores of Gitchie Gumee to the Pizza at Fat Lorenzo’s: Poetry in South Minneapolis by kris

kris — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 03:47:45 +0000

It’s named after the former owner…Larry…who also owned the 5-8 Club down the road (famous for its Jucy Lucys).

Also, it’s Minnehaha, not Minihaha

Comment on A Young River in an Old Valley by Clam

Clam — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 06:19:19 +0000

I love the idea that most Americans think that rivers flow south! You can see the logic … “Well, the top of the map is North, and the bottom is South and water goes downhill…”.
More seriously, we get people (often large construction companies) building houses on flood plains in the UK, ignoring a thousand years of buildings that are neatly on top of hills. Then you get complaints that “they” haven’t built adequate flood defences. Despite the general dumbing down of society, I think that it’s greed wot duz it, not ignorance.