More about a very talented new friend I'm glad to have met.

A couple of weeks ago I posted about the great fun I had at the Ancestor's Trail; you can read about that here.  I've said many times that one of my favourite things about such humanist and secular events is the feeling of community and a general air of (often slightly inebriated) bonhomie.  One of several new friends I made that weekend is Victoria Gugenheim, an immensely talented and rather gorgeous artist who travels all over the world turning people's bodies into beautiful and thought-provoking pieces of tantalisingly ephemeral art.  I didn't mention it in my previous post because - annoyingly - I'd failed to get any good pictures of the work she did at the trail, but I have a couple now including this one (model Helena Biggs, photo by Jo Balcombe):

Victoria herself has also very kindly sent me a couple of other examples of her work:

(The above photo by the very talented Mui Tsun, whose work can be seen here).

... but I wholeheartedly recommend you have a look at this page, where you can see many more examples of the extraordinary work Victoria does.

Ahead of the trail, I actually volunteered to be painted by Victoria as "Mitochondrial Eve". In the event that didn't happen, but Victoria has very kindly agreed to paint me on a different theme at some point when we can both find a free day in our schedules, hopefully within the next few weeks.  I don't want to give too much away, but the plan - in outline, at least - is to explore the way understanding affects our perception of beauty in the natural world. Victoria tells me she loves to work on biologically-themed pieces but doesn't get as many opportunities as she would wish for. Her work also explores the - often neglected or even rejected - relationship between science and the arts, the common misconception that artistic talent and rational thinking tend to be mutually exclusive.  I think this is well worth exploring, because even those of us who adore it can occasionally be guilty of thinking science a coldly logical, unromantic subject - and one of the reasons Professor Dawkins' work is so popular is that it shows us how quite the reverse can be true!

Victoria will be writing a piece on this subject for the November issue of the excellent Athience Magazine; I strongly recommend you look out for it, and I'll link it here when it's published of course.

I can't wait to see how Victoria decides to paint me; I know it'll be striking and unexpected, but beyond that I don't know what to anticipate! (I AM quite nervous about being painted and photographed in - essentially - my knickers, but it'll be totally worth it!)

I'll keep you posted, and of course I'll post the photos once I have them!

Big hugs to Victoria and all my lovely new friends. xxx

PS - Victoria's just sent me the photo below, which is of a piece entitled "DNAges of Man". It's - obviously - rather beautiful, and deals with a subject of which Victoria is fond; "man's struggle to understand the world through religion and finally science with the idea of molecules and chemistry at the shoulderblades and in the face", to use her own words.  Eeeeek, I'm so excited about being painted by this extraordinarily talented artist, I can't wait!

Urgh, bloody Atheism Plus...

If you've been following the whole Atheism Plus mess, you probably know that Jen McCreight, its creator (or one of them, anyway, she seems to be the most senior of the leaders they keep assuring us they don't have), has - for the time being - stepped back from blogging.  Her reasons can be found here; that link to her own words, by the way, is a courtesy she did not extend to me when she and someone called Veronica chose to assume I was five years old for having the temerity to say something an "old, white man" happened to agree with, seen here.

(This is a tweet posted some time ago by a woman now complaining bitterly that her attempt to make atheism more inclusive has been poorly received.  I wonder at what age she loses the right to an opinion - or does the age qualifier only apply to (white) men?)  I was amused to learn that apparently the way to deal with a woman who disagrees with you is to pat her on the head and explain to her very gently why she might be just a little bit silly to think she doesn't need defending from all the big nasty men out there.  But I digress.

The other day Rebecca Watson posted a Tweet saying... ah.  Oh.  Well, I was going to quote it exactly but I appear to have been blocked by the "fearless" leader of SkepChic (a fact I submit without comment).  If anyone can find the tweet itself please let me know and I'll edit, but essentially it was words to the effect of "Don't feel too smug, misogynists, you may have forced one woman blogger off the internet but I'm going to be twice as gobby now to make up for it!".  Anyway, last night after another tweet (which, of course, I also now can't quote directly) along the lines of "Idiots are having a go at me about A+ but it's nothing to do with me. Must have been a new feature in the Harass Rebecca Daily" I must confess I momentarily lost patience and replied telling her to get over herself.  Within a couple of hours - and again, I report events as they happened without speculation on causal links - I received a tweet from a follower telling me that I've now been screencapped on Watson's blog, too, which you can see here.  (If you haven't come here from Twitter, I'm @Whoozley so I'm the one who said "I'm a woman & an atheist blogger, & never experienced sexist abuse from fellow atheists. Maybe because I don't assume they're misogynists?".)

Now, that tweet that Richard Dawkins RT'd the other week has got me a fair bit of shit, which is a little ridiculous when you bear in mind that all I actually did was effectively to say that I hadn't experienced the problem they were all talking about (still haven't, incidentally) and suggest a possible reason for this perceived disparity in experience.  I wouldn't call the tweets I've been getting "abusive" because that would be pretty demeaning to people who actually are being or have been abused - but some of it's been fairly hysterical and distinctly disproportionate to what I actually said. (N.B.: Please don't read any of this as an attack of the "poor me"s. I said what I said, I stand by it, and if people wish to disagree with it whether rationally or frothingly they have every right to do so. If you don't like taking shit for what you say in a public forum, don't fucking say it.)

On Watson's post, now, I find myself screencapped along with a number of individuals I would be inclined to describe as significantly nastier than I have been.  There's a bit of a contrast between me saying what I said - to the world at large, by the way, it wasn't addressed to anyone in particular - and a person who instructs Watson to kill herself, or expresses hope that she will be raped.

What conclusion can I draw from this?  Well, let's see; I haven't used language anyone might consider objectionable, I haven't called anyone names, I didn't even aim that comment at an individual. So how have I been elevated to the ranks of those who call Watson a cunt and suggest it would do her good to be raped?

As far as I can see, all I have done wrong in the eyes of the feminist bloggers behind Atheism Plus (and Watson's post is itself evidence that she is not uninvolved in it, by the way) has been to disagree with them. Does that truly warrant stacking me up with the genuinely nasty commentators?  I can't stop it happening and wouldn't have the right even if I could, but certainly I think her doing so belies the claim the A+ers have been making ever since Richard Carrier's hilariously jingoistic post (outlined and linked here) that they don't have a "with us or against us" mentality.

There are some points I would like to make to Atheism Plusers, should any happen to read this:

1: A person who objects to the solution you propose is not automatically part of the problem.

2: It is possible do be described as a whiny twat, a brainless cunt or whatever else without having been the victim of misogyny.  Possibly the person saying it is just a dick (oops - is that misandrist?), or possibly - just possibly - you should consider the possibility that you are actually speaking or acting like a whiny twat/brainless cunt. Ownership of a vagina doesn't confer immunity against being a wassock, and it doesn't mean  you can't be a twat any more than ownership of a penis means you can't be a dick.

3: All over the world, right now, millions of women are directly experiencing abuse, oppression, rape, mutilation, even murder. An email telling you to kill yourself is not cool, but it doesn't put you on the same level of victimhood as someone who's been raped or a woman who's had her clitoris hacked off with a stone, either. I'm sort of revolted to find I actually feel an impulse to apologise to you for pointing that out.

4: I don't need protecting, thank you. Nor do lots of other women. I don't feel even slightly threatened by the atheist community, and I'm not going to lie about that just to avoid upsetting you.

5: Our feminist ancestors didn't spend centuries fighting against the constraints of a male-dominated society so that we, their daughters and granddaughters, could be free to conform to the expectations of a group of feminists instead of to those of men. That is not how this works. Furthermore, if you expected me to join your club because I'm a woman too, that doesn't make me the sexist when I refuse.

6: You might be oversensitive. No, really. It is entirely possible for someone to think you're an idiot - or even a twat or a dick - without that opinion being in any way related to your sex.  It is entirely possibly for someone to think you're wrong without it automatically being the case that they think you're wrong because you're a woman. On the plus side, though, this also means it is possible to defend yourself when someone tells you you're wrong by means more sophisticated than calling them a misogynist.  You could actually, you know, explain how their reasoning is at fault instead of making an unfair assumption and making them feel wronged.  As you are now experiencing first-hand, causing someone to feel unjustly maligned does not make them inclined to value your opinion.

7: You can't market yourself as an inclusive movement if you're going to deliberately exclude people, whether that's by directly attacking "old, white men" or more duplicitously by holding yourselves apart from "humanists" (and importantly, if you're going to try to be sneaky about it in that way, don't be dumb enough to actually point out that the two groups have a significant overlap). You also can't claim to speak for gay people, black people, disabled people, transgendered people, Latino people or any other group you describe (rightly or wrongly) as "marginalised" if all the world's going to hear from you is endless bitching because you're a woman and you got called a nasty name.

8: Yes, there are sexist twats out there, both male and female. We know that, they're everywhere, and any person who says they've never experienced sexism hasn't been paying attention.  But just as "nasty email" =/= "rape", so "inadvertently sexist statement" =/= "woman hater".  Intentions matter, and believe me - at this stage, Atheism Plus cannot afford to be disputing that point.

Edit: Snowrunner has very kindly provided me with a link to the Watson tweet I couldn't get for myself - I had the gist right but not the exact words, so if you want to see for yourself it's here. Thanks, Snowrunner!

A surreal but wonderful way to spend a weekend

Hi everyone,

As some of my twitter friends know, I've been whinging about being exhausted, bruised and blistered. While I can't boast an experience of quiiite the level of enjoyment the above apparently suggests to certain people who shall remain nameless (and whose idea of good sex I find slightly unnerving), I'm happy to report I've had a weekend very nearly that fun.

This weekend there's an event called the Ancestor's Trail that takes place in the Quantock Hills in Somerset.  It's based on the The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins, and as he commented himself; many writers have had their works turned into films, but how many can boast that they've been turned into a walk? The whole thing's actually carrying on this morning (it's a bank holiday in the UK), but sadly I couldn't make the entire weekend and came home last night.

The Saturday night in particular turned into one of the most bizarre but enjoyable evenings in my experience.  I went to the event not really knowing what I expected, but dancing to Russian folk music with Richard Dawkins definitely wasn't high on the list of possibilities I'd considered.  I wasn't able to get any photos, but if anyone who was there reads this and has any they'd be willing to share with me please let me know!

On Saturday evening, we were treated to a series of talks by a disparate but consistently charismatic group of speakers.  This started with Peter Exley of the RSPB, who delivered a talk on the conservationist work of his organisation in general (hint; despite what you might think, it's NOT just about birds!) and with reference to the Albatross in particular.  The link from Coleridge's walk in the Quantocks to his eerie and haunting work The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was irresistible and an excellent tool because it gave each of us, I believe, a sense of depth and an investment in the magnificent bird that we might not otherwise have felt.  The RSPB's campaign to save the albatross can be found here if anyone would like to make a donation: http://www.rspb.org.uk/supporting/campaigns/albatross/

Kevin Cox from the World Land Trust was next, and I have to say that some of the figures he delivered were utterly terrifying.  The WLT operates by buying up chunks of land in regions where it's in danger of being destroyed by logging or agriculture; in doing so, of course, they save literally thousands of species whose habitat would otherwise have disappeared altogether.  They're a small organisation and when one considers what they're up against it might be possible to conclude that they're fighting a losing battle. Cox's passion for his cause, though, was obvious and contagious, and the very smallness of the WLT when contrasted against what they've managed to achieve is a testament to what can be done by a small group of people with enough determination; their donations page can be found here: http://www.worldlandtrust.org/supporting/donate. David Attenborough is a patron of the charity - he would approve!

The next speaker was Dr. Alex Taylor from the MRC lab in Cambridge.  Here we made the switch from conservation to "harder" science; his talk about XNA (synthetic and modified DNA/RNA) was meaty and fascinating. I wouldn't be confident enough in my own understanding to try and replicate (ha!) what was said in any detail, but Dr. Taylor's blog can be found here and I promise it'll blow your mind: http://talesfromthenobelfactory.posterous.com/

We had a talk then from Alom Shaha, the author of The Young Atheist's Handbook. For me, speaking honestly, this was the only sour note of the evening. Nobody reacts well to being told they're too stupid/ignorant to be science advocates, atheists - typically somewhat contrary by nature - least of all. Shaha made some very valid points about the comparative difficulty in "coming out" as an atheist from starting points in different cultural backgrounds - which results in the admittedly rather homogenous white, middle-class nature of atheist and humanist groups - but again, the approach was such that my gut reaction was to think "I'm sorry, I'll work on being less middle-class, shall I?!". I should be honest and admit that I have not read Shaha's book.  Many people I spoke with at the event said they were very impressed by it, so it's entirely possible that Shaha comes across better in print than in person, or that I reacted badly to one thing he said and became hypercritical from then on.  If anyone reading this has read the book, do please let me know what you thought of it in the comments section below!

Then, of course, we had the keynote speech from Richard Dawkins. In writing that, I just caught myself about to call him "the global rock star of atheism", and stopped myself because - having talked with him briefly later in the evening - I understand that he thinks of himself far more as a scientist than as an atheist. A reasonable assertion, in fairness; having read most of Professor Dawkins' books, it does seem unfair on reflection that he's so widely known for a single unbelief among a near infinite number of unbeliefs.  Moving on from that, then, Professor Dawkins talked us through the principles of the journey laid out in The Ancestor's Tale, and from there went on to describe some of the ways to think about what would happen if we "replayed the tape" of evolution, and what we could expect by doing so. When I first read the book this concept, this thought experiment, was one of the most fascinating ideas for me. The notion that evolution can be in a sense predictive by looking at how many times certain developments have independently evolved is wonderful; no matter how many times I hear about the diving bell spider it seems too astonishing to be real. The Ancestor's Tale is probably my favourite of Professor Dawkins' books; I recommend it to everyone, and it can be found here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Ancestors-Tale-Pilgrimage-Dawn/dp/0753819961/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1346057984&sr=8-1

After the talks, we had the rare and lovely opportunity to drink and chat with the speakers; I was able to ask a slightly moronic question about prion disease of Dr. Taylor (the reason it was moronic was that I hadn't accounted for the energy gradient, but he was very nice about it), and had a good natter with Andrew Copson, the unfailingly charming CEO of the BHA, too.

One of the most wonderful aspects of the gathering, I think, was that virtually everyone had come on their own.  This meant that there were few preexisting cliques, so by the end of my two days there I'd had entertaining, informative and often wickedly funny conversations with just about everybody there, and made many new friends. I've commented before that the sense of community and good will at humanist events is remarkable and wonderful; this was possibly the best example I've had yet of that feeling.  In fact, if I had to choose a way of making humanism more appealing to theists, then - contradictory as it sounds - I would encourage them to attend science-led humanist events so they can see we're NOT the joyless, humourless, rigidly empirical people we're often portrayed to be.

The big walk took place on the Sunday, and although my feet were ready to fall off by the end of the thirteen-mile human trail it was worth every step.  The countryside in the area is achingly beautiful, and the talks of the night before had been the perfect set-up because we all spent the entire hike distracted and entranced by every bird, butterfly and spider we saw. (I also got chased - honestly round in circles for a good five minutes - by an amorous bee to the raucous amusement of the c.120 people who'd just sat down facing in my direction to listen to a poem about the great extinctions, though that was only enjoyable in retrospect.)


Things I have learned this weekend:

If you need new inner soles for your walking boots, get them before the thirteen-mile hike. Ouch.

Scientists can be very nice even when you're asking really dumb questions. Just ask, they're not scary.

When people who live in the country tell you something's ten minutes' walk away, pack your camping gear.

Evolution is really, really cool (I knew that already, but we all need reminding at times).

Humanists and geeks are great fun.

Richard Dawkins can throw shapes with the best of them.

Coffee + alcohol + extreme tiredness can lead to the best of evenings.

Other geeks can recommend a near-endless list of fascinating reading material, and I don't know where to start!

So my friends and acquaintances AREN'T a bunch of freaks for not being religious!

For ages now, I've struggled to reconcile the amount of religious crap that seems to come out of the UK with the fact that - of all my friends, family, colleagues and even just what I'd call "mates" - I can count the number of people I know who're properly religious on one hand. OK, maybe two hands, depending on how you want to define "properly religious". But still, we're talking hundreds of people and I can think of only three people I know who regularly attend religious ceremonies, maybe a couple of dozen more who take part in special holidays, and I know a few who if pressed will say they're believers but give no outward indication of this at any other time.

I don't think my social circles are particularly unusual, although I suppose the average level of education is a bit higher than that of the general population. And yet over and over we hear politicians claiming we live in a Christian country, bishops claiming to speak for masses that do not seem to exist, and the 2001 census amazed everyone by showing that 72% of us identified as "Christian" (back then my mum would have filled in the census and I'd've been down as a kid. I'm ashamed to say it and I hope I'm wrong, but I have a horrible feeling that we may have contributed to that "Christian" statistic even though not one of us has set foot in a church except for weddings and funerals in nearly two decades).

The data's only informal of course, but from conversations on the topics with many of my friends I know that the vast majority of my contemporaries consider gay marriage to be a complete non-issue, support the right to abortion even if they wouldn't do it themselves, and are quite happy to rely on science in such matters as medicine and the origins of the universe. Where are all these people who believe in prayer and the Jewish zombie that so many politicians and bishops keep banging on about?!

Today the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Science and Reason has released the findings of an Ipsos Mori poll commissioned after the 2011 census, the links to which can be found here:

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/644941-rdfrs-uk-ipsos-mori-poll-1-how-religious-are-uk-christians
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/644942-rdfrs-uk-ipsos-mori-poll-2-uk-christians-oppose-special-influence-for-religion-in-public-policy

Well, this answers a lot of questions. Not only has the number of people self-identifying as "Christian" on the censuses dropped from 72% in 2001 to 54% in 2011, but even of those who do identify as Christian most don't seem to mean it very much. Only 30% claim to have "strong" religious beliefs, and apparently as many as half do not think of themselves as religious. What?!  Further - as can be seen in the second of the above links - only 12% of those identifying as "Christian" in the 2011 census (a total of only 54% of the population, remember) thought that religion should influence public policy - 74% actively disagreed with that statement. The majority of people identifying as Christians oppose the existence of a state religion, and the overwhelming majority (92%) agreed with the statement that the law should apply to all equally, regardless of religious convictions. Less than a quarter think that religious education in schools should be used to indoctrinate children into a particular belief, and more than half think that children should be taught without bias about all major religions.

So what does all this mean for the politicians and clerics who want to keep telling us that the UK is a Christiant nation?  Well, as of the last census only 54% of the population are even superficially with them on that. Of that 54%, only 12% (roughly 5% of the population) support their notion that religion should play a significant part in determining public policy - and most oppose it. Only slightly more than a third of their 54% are in favour of prayers in state schools, and almost 80% say religion does not significantly affect how they vote.

Of that crucial 54%, only 29% (roughly 13-14% of the population) have any problem with gay relationships, and 61% believe that gay people should have exactly the same rights as straight people. Only 20% are opposed to legal abortion, and roughly the same number are opposed to assisted suicide.

So I'm not too sure who it is that all these politicians and bishops pandering to the "Christian majority" are actually representing.  All these appeals to bring Christian values back into the political sphere, and it turns out that only about 5% of the population agree with them. This only confirms what I and many other secularists have long suspected - that Christianity in the UK is for many more a matter of social conformity and group identity than of belief or morality.

I'm disappointed that the RDFSR poll did not survey census respondents identifying with other religions, because those figures would have been fascinating and - I suspect - might well have shown that in meaningful terms Christianity was actually no more important to the people of the UK than other religions.  However, the figures are invaluable in demonstrating that actually Christianity is not that important to Brits, and far from being underrepresented in the public sphere as has been claimed so often of late it might actually be considered to have rather inflated representation based more on tradition and habit than on values or relevance. I also have hopes that - now we have hard data to show that even among those of us in the UK who still identify as Christian not many really mean it or allow it to influence their values - more people will be willing to stop pretending or hiding and just be open about their lack of belief.

Misogyny is alive and well, but is there an evolutionary reason for the double standard?

I exercised great restraint today in not getting involved when reading a long discussion thread about the manner in which women can expect to be perceived and treated if they leave the house wearing anything more revealing than a muslim ninja suit. Predictably, words like "slut" and "whore" were peppered liberally throughout many of the posts, and I was surprised - and more than a little dismayed - to see that there were even a few women joining in the chorus of "if you wear a short skirt you're asking to be treated like an object" and "women who sleep around are sluts".

It got me thinking about the word "slut", which has always struck me as particularly vile as it's a term applied by the historically powerful gender to devalue the historically oppressed gender; these days, when it comes from a man, you can more or less take it to mean "this woman is bad for my ego because I find her attractive but although I have (or think I have) reason to believe she has sex she has not chosen to do so with me". Basically it's sour grapes; an attempt to devalue an object of desire because you can't have it. (Obviously I'm ignoring examples of rape and sexual assault/abuse here. In those cases, I would guess that "slut" and words like it would be an attempt to blame the woman for ones own actions to avoid feeling guilty about it - but I am aware that there's a world of difference between calling someone a slag and raping her.) Words like "slut" and - more commonly - "whore" are particularly characteristic of discussions with muslim men.  Very, very rarely will I discuss religion with a male muslim and not have to put up with such names, or in many cases some very graphic references to what they guess about my sex life, intended to be as shocking as possible; of course, these attacks say far more about the messed up attitude these men have learned to have towards women than they do about me.  I can't quite imagine what it must be like to simultaneously desire women through normal biological urges (heightened by a lifetime of being told you can't respectably have them) and yet loathe them as dirty, degraded sub-human creatures not worthy of your notice. In any case, a lifetime of conditioning to perceive a woman as intrinsically and by their very nature worth less than you is a handy tool when dealing with one who's inconveniently turned out to be a lot more educated and intelligent than you; obviously whatever she says is wrong because - whatever the appearances to the contrary - she is stupid, so you can call her some names to remind her that she's worthless and disregard it. (A word of advice for any women who ever come up against this attitude; don't deny anything they throw at you. All you'll be doing is feeding the myth that what you choose to do with your sexual partner/s is something shameful. Instead, show them how unaffected you are by their primitive notions of what your behaviour should be, and let them know that their opinion of you doesn't matter just because they think it does. Watch them dissolve into incoherent and baffled rage. Debate over.)

Anyway, all this got me wondering about the difference in attitudes we - even in the modern world, leaving aside the islamic throwbacks for a moment (heck, even the christians have mostly got around to letting their womenfolk wear trousers and go to the shops on their own!) - have towards the two genders. I will argue for a woman's right to sleep with as many people as she chooses (as long as it's safe and not hurting anyone), but even I, when I encounter a woman who openly has multiple partners or who has numerous one-night-stands, will raise my eyebrows before I can stop myself; it seems to be to on some level a built-in response, which says something about the extent to which unconsidered social conventions can influence our thoughts, however irrational and nasty they might be. I won't hold it against her, but I freely admit I will be curious about her and probably wonder what the thoughts and feelings behind her choice might be. Would I wonder that about a male who shagged around? Rarely - in most cases I'll just conclude he's either a flake or just out for fun (depending on how he goes about it) and leave it at that.

Obviously there is a huge cultural influence in evidence here, but I wonder if there might be a more instinctive, evolutionary drive at play too? (I need to make two qualifications here; one, it may well be that someone somewhere's done research and published books and all that either for or against my hypothesis; I haven't encountered it if so, but it's not like I spend my life reading academic papers. If you've come across anything on this topic, please let me know in the comments! Two, you can't get an ought from an is; even if you find my hypothesis credible, this does not mean I am in favour of gender discrimination or that I think I am providing an excuse for it. There are also sound evolutionary reasons for racism; the more thoughtful and informed among us are able to override this instinct with but a little consideration.)

My reasoning on this point is pretty simple.  Evolution, as we know, is all about gene survival; a gene that promotes the survival of its host organism will survive and be passed to the next generation, while a gene that is detrimental to the organism's survival will not be passed on because that organism will not survive to breed. For this reason, a gene that inclines an organism to want to be sure that the offspring it's raising are its own will be likely to become dominant over a gene that causes the host not to care; there are all sorts of mechanisms for precisely this in nature, as anyone who's ever watched an Attenborough documentary will know.

For a woman, there is no issue here; she knows a baby is hers because she gave birth to it - for this reason, it doesn't matter to her genes how many other women the father has sex with.  But to the man, who cannot have this certainty, the number of other men the mother has had sex with does matter; it matters because every additional sexual partner the woman has had reduces the odds of the child the woman has born being his - and therefore, the more partners the mother has had the more likely it becomes that a man is wasting his time and energy raising offspring that do not bear his genes.  If this is the case - and I should point out that I am a complete novice and this is just a guess - it seems reasonable to suppose that a gene or genes causing a man to prefer monogamous women to promiscuous ones might arise and become successful; and the obvious way for this gene to work would be to supply an opposing drive to the simple reproductive one, an opposition to attraction.  Of course with modern options on contraception and modern thought about the actual importance of gene transmission (many of us share Stephen Pinker's sentiment that "[our] selfish genes can go jump in the lake" and remain childless; others even adopt the genes of rival humans!) there's no excuse for this kind of instinct - if it exists - to take precedent over rational thought and basic equality.  I also don't think this alone would be enough to account for the complex emotions and cultural associations encompassed in words like "slut", but it might have provided the backdrop... and it might make it difficult to dispose of, although as I said earlier I don't think that's a reason not to try.

There's no need to detail the link between religion and misogyny because it's well known; but if there is an actual, hardwired evolutionary basis for this particular form of gender inequality, it makes it only more imperative to dispose of this additional, artificial construct that adds the best excuse ever found to treat women as sub-human.

Fuck me, a believer more dishonest than Peter Hitchens!

OK, so rather unexpectedly a genuine Cambridge academic has just been elevated to the list - until now mostly composed of pseudoscientists and hand-wringing moral relativists - of people I'd like to punch quite hard in the face if I met them (top is still Alister McGrath. He's no more deluded and dishonest than most of them, but for sheer creepy, smug unloveliness he wins hands down). Roger Scruton holds a PhD from Cambridge in philosophy, and is a prolific author on various related subjects. Ordinarily philosophers don't figure much in my thinking except as the occasional mildly annoying pedant making a living out of complicating beyond all reason what usually turns out to be quite simple... but this evening I finally sat down to watch the 2007 Intelligence Squared debate in its entirety (I know, how behind the times am I? If you haven't seen it either, the link to the first segment is below and you can follow the series through from there) and the guy's just pulled the DIRTIEST bloody trick!

All the speakers take turns to make their arguments for or against the motion "the world would be better off without religion". I won't go into the details except to say that the pro-religious side - predictably - found admirably imaginative ways to miss the point, traded entirely in non sequiturs and outraged sensibilities, redefined "religion" every thirty seconds to suit whatever pithy defense they were trying to make, and sidestepped every attempt to ask them a question; they lost, anyway. Presumably by chance, Scruton was the last of all the speakers, and after a rather lacklustre and pithy performance throughout the debate he seized this advantage in the most shameless manner to try and play on the ignorance of his audience in an attempt to claw a few extra last minutes votes. Hitch - who'd been interrupting, contradicting and generally irritating his opposition throughout - was not on camera at the time, but I can just imagine his outraged indignation at the cowardly and dishonest move!

Basically, as you'll be able to see in part seventeen of the series as linked below, Scruton has the final closing statement, the last word.  After saying nothing much of any note through the entire debate (except for a couple of bizarrely venomous and apparently unprovoked attacks on Dawkins) , he waits until he knows his opponents cannot correct him and says:

"I don't think anybody here has wished to deny the atrocities committed in the name of faith, though if we are to reduce this argument to that kind of - er, headcounting, we ought at least to acknowledge the atrocities committed in the name of atheism, in the last century especially. Er, Mao Tse-Tung, er, Stalin, Lenin, Hitler and a few others are pretty impressive on this - in this regard. But these are very vulgar and - er, unimportant arguments for us, we know that nobody in this room is remotely tempted in that direction."

Now, I'm not even going to address the phenomenal stupidity with which one must condescendingly credit one's audience in order to try the old "say an argument's beneath you twelve seconds after you've used it" trick, but this guy, with his fantastic education, must know - must know - that the crimes of the Nazis were inspired in part by religious hatred. For everything else that's wrong with the whole "atheists atrocities" argument (and reason suggests he's probably well aware of these too), see my recent post here:

http://musingsbysoggymog.blogspot.com/2011/09/atheist-atrocities.html

For someone of this man's academic calibre to debase himself in this petty, cowardly, dishonest manner is only indicative of the fact that religion has no better crutch upon which to rest. If this man, of all people, is reduced to simple lies to defend religion... well, doesn't that tell you all you need to know about its validity and value?

Bloody GOOD

There's an article in the Guardian today about a petition by several distinguished scientists who want to stop creatards and IDiots from presenting their ludicrously unscientific fairy-tales as "fact" in British schools.  Possibly this is a new one, but I'm almost certain I've heard about this petition before and it's not terribly new - that's not the point though, it's still a good thing that it's happening, and I think the more real scientists are willing to stand up and tell the world that "creation science" and "intelligent design" are complete fabrications with no grounding whatsoever in fact, the better and the more people will come to realise that creationism really ISN'T a legitimate belief.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/sep/19/scientists-demand-guidelines-creationism-schools

I only learned quite recently that evolution is not a mandatory part of the national curriculum, and the fact's terrifying because it means that state-funded "faith" schools are free to promote creationism alone, with no obligation to tell the kids that it's utter bollocks and that there's a legitimate scientifically verified alternative.  The BHA have launched an e-petition to the government to correct this; I've signed already, but I'd like to encourage anyone reading this who doesn't want creationism to continue to rise as it is now to sign it too - it only takes about ninety seconds.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/1617