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5. oktober 2002
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Another Dirty Sect
Mike's Dances with Cactus blog directed me to one of the most shocking stories about abusive sects I have seen so far, and I have seen a lot. The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (yes, seriously!), a nasty little sect on the border between Arizona and Utah, has been investigated for sexual abuse, and an alleged memo leaked from the Attorney General's office to Phoenix New Times says:
"Rape is punishment for women and reward for men. Molestation is rampant, as is incest."
The newspaper says that that the Attorney General's Office is covering up the case and is trying to avoid investigating the sect closer. Read the story.
8:50:54 AM 
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A Backdoor for God
Creationists, people who believe that Darwin got it wrong and that God created the whole universe from fiat 6000 years ago, has suffered a number of serious defeats in American courts. No matter what attempts have been made to masquerade old superstition as science, the ruse is just too easy to see through.
Creationists, generally of the more mdoerate kind, are now busy with Plan B. Evolution is now generally accepted, but here and there they claim that some Designer (guess who?) had to dot some i's and dash some t's to make it all work out.
Creationism has been born again as the "intelligent design" movement, and a surprising number of otherwise intelligent people have accepted their arguments. While they have no objection to schoolbooks about history, chemistry or math omitting to praise God for these wonders, they believe that biology textbooks without God will somehow cause the morality of the world to collapse into chaos.
In reality, as John Bice demonstrates, "intelligent design" is an insult to both theology and science.
8:38:04 AM
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Research we COULD live without
Every year, the Ig Nobel award is given to people, generally scientists, who have done work that "cannot or should not be reproduced." Not that it is necessarily worthless, but it's always funny, and, as we know, it ought to be a good tale that is twice told.
Yesterday was the great gala at Harvard for the 2002 IgNobel prize winners, who at least put up a good show of being proud of the award.
There was one special prize this year, in economics, shared between "executives, corporate directors, and auditors" of 28 corporations, including Enron and Arthur Andersen, "for adapting the mathematical concept of imaginary numbers for use in the business world."
The economics prize this year will be a long vacation, again at the cost of the taxpayers.
2:19:40 AM
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© Copyright 2002 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.11.02; 00:16:25.
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