Consider the following exchanges:

1. Gerda:  So you believe that all belief is the product of custom and circumstance (or: childhood buffets, class struggle...). Isn't that position self-limiting? Mustn't you see yourself as reflecting only a single complex of circumstances?

Grobian:  Your objection is inapplicable, for it is merely the product of blind forces. Moreover, your childhood buffets were pernicious and regrettable, for they have set you against this truth.

2. Gerda:  So you believe that all knowledge comes from God in proportion to our virtue or worth, and that all ignorance, error, and uncertainty come from the Devil in proportion to our vices. May I ask what evidence you have for this remarkable thesis?

Grobian:  I pity you infinitely for your sins.

3. Gerda:  Doctor Grobian, I am not crazy! I stole the bread because my children were hungry. Why do you assume that every crime is caused by illness?

Grobian:  Why do you deny it?

Gerda:  I am not playing a game. I really want an answer to my question.

Grobian:  Obviously your ego cannot cope with the truth and you display this inadequacy in hostility to your doctor. I will not recommend your release.

4. Gerda:  So you believe x, y, and z. But you are mistaken. Consider evidence a, b, and c. What do you say?

Grobian:  It's a mystery. If I could understand it, I wouldn't believe it. I can't help it if it's the truth. One day perhaps you'll see the light too.

In each of these cases something has gone wrong with the process of debate.

In motivated reasoning, memory searches, interpretations of incoming information, evaluations of arguments, and even perception, are biased in such a way that we will be more likely to arrive at a desired conclusion [...]

• Ebonmuse, On Cryonics
• Ebonmuse, Who Wants to Live Forever?
• Why we'll never be downloaded
• Why Minds Are Not Like Computers - actually there's quite a lot of scholarly writing arguing that the idea of simulating a brain on a computer is not merely impractical but impossible in principle.
• Michael Shermer on cryonics
• Skeptic's Dictionary on cryonics
• Cryonics–A futile desire for everlasting life
• Quackwatch - Is Cryonics Feasable?
• Ben Best - Debates about Cryonics with Skeptics (Best is President/CEO of the Cryonics Institute, but this is a snapshot of a debate on the James Randi forums, with a link to the original forum debate)
• Frozen Stiffs, Ruth Holland, BMJ 1981

Back in 2008, the smart liberal spin on "post-partisanship" is that it was in part an effort to put a popular, centrist sheen on a relatively liberal agenda. Instead what Obama has wound up with is an unpopular, liberal sheen on a relatively centrist agenda.

Salem suffered brain damage and fractures, including a skull fracture, during the attack.

[...]

Judge John Reddihough said it was “ironic” that the attack had left their victim unfit to plead for his knife attack, sparing him a “very long” period in jail. Salem was given a two-year supervision order.

[...]

A neighbour urged them to stop and said Salem would be killed, he said. But they continued “like a pack of animals” and it was “fortuitous” he did not die, Judge Reddihough said.

He said: “You involved yourselves in a terribly violent and unnecessary assault on Waled Salem which amounted to a revenge attack.”

autopope

• mercurial-server home page
• Blog post about release 0.8
• Intent to Package
• mercurial-server on mentors.debian.net
• Request for Sponsor

Where does this idea come from that persuasion is a mean and bad thing to do?

[...] Of all the pieces of armor in religion's armory, this one is uniquely effective. [...] How do you make a case with someone who thinks that the very act of making a case makes you a bad person?

[...] I think that within this circle of ecumenical, "all religions are getting at the truth in their own way," "we're fine with people of different faiths as long as they're fine with our faith" believers, the main context they have for people outside that circle is intolerant fundamentalism and theocracy. The main context they have for people who criticize other people's religions and argue that they're mistaken is the religious right in America, and Islamic extremists in the Muslim world, and so on. They just don't have a context for people who think that other people's religions are mistaken... and are nevertheless passionate about the right to religious freedom. They just don't have a context for people who spend a significant amount of time and energy trying to convince others to change their religious beliefs... and are trying to do it, not by law, not by force, not by bribery or intimidation, but by reason and evidence and persuasion, in public forums devoted to debate, and in private conversations with people who have expressed an interest.

So atheists -- or at least atheist activists, atheists who make arguments against religion and try to persuade people that it's mistaken -- automatically get slotted into the "intolerant fundamentalists who want to force everyone to be just like them" camp. That's the only context the ecumenical New Agers have for people who strongly disagree with other people's religions. So that's the context we get stuck in.

• 10 egregious errors found by William M. Connolley
• 10 more egregious errors found by Tim Lambert

What they say he says:

Yet his research tells him that carbon dioxide is not the right villain in this fight.

"Carbon dioxide is the right villain," says Caldeira, "insofar as inanimate objects can be villains."

If you talk all day, and somebody picks a half dozen quotes without providing context because they want to make a provocative and controversial chapter, there is not much you can do.

Global warming denialism is nothing more than an industry-funded front to slow acceptance of well-established science. Please don't let any of the nonsense that gets peddled about it lead you to think there is any real doubt about the danger we face.

Update: Levitt and Dubner have blogged in response to the criticism they've received.

“The only significant error,” [Calderia] wrote to Romm, “is the line: ‘carbon dioxide is not the right villain in this fight.’ That is just wrong and I never would have said it. On the other hand, I f&@?ed up. They sent me the draft and I approved it without reading it carefully and I just missed it. … I think everyone operated in good faith, and this was just a mistake that got by my inadequate editing.” [...]

“I believe all of the ideas attributed to me are based on fact, with the exception of the ‘carbon dioxide is not the right villain’ line,” he wrote. “That said, when I am speaking, I place these facts in a very different context and draw different policy conclusions.

They also say that the "global cooling" thing Connolley opens with is a drastic misrepresentation of the chapter. So that's two down, eighteen to go...

Update: Also interesting: Gavin Schmidt of RealClimate on Why Levitt and Dubner like geo-engineering and why they are wrong.

• I'm 300km from the moon! #lcross 7 minutes ago from web
• Wow, 150km from the moon! #lcross 7 minutes ago from web
• “And what's this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, 6 minutes ago from web
• it needs a big wide sounding name like 'Ow', 'Ownge', 'Round', 'Ground'!” 6 minutes ago from web
• “That's it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it'll be friends with me?” 6 minutes ago from web

"I was frankly shocked at how callous most of the fat-positive advocates were about my bad knee. I was shocked at how quick they were to ignore or dismiss it. They were passionately concerned about the quality of life I might lose if I counted calories or stopped eating chocolate bars every day. But when it came to the quality of life I might lose if I could no longer dance, climb hills, climb stairs, take long walks, walk at all? Eh. Whatever. I should try exercise or physical therapy or something. Oh, I'd tried those things already? Well, whatever."

• The Fat-Positive Diet
• The Fat-Positive Skeptic
• An Open Letter to the Fat-Positive Movement

• her devastating takedown of this extract from Karen Armstrong's "The Case for God"
• this column about initiating sex: "You don’t have to start out in the mood; you just have to be in the mood to be in the mood"
• Sexual Optimism And A Changing World
• My Vision for a Sexual World is the definitive article to refer someone to on why sex should be treated like music
• Her open letter to the fat-positive movement
• In praise of routine
• Pride, Stonewall, and the importance of confrontation
• Why do atheists talk about atheism? which I must resist the temptation to quote entirely
• Reactionaries on today's Republican Party

greta_christina

Daringly, erringly,
Children in Panama
Saw a strange being, and
All held their breath:

Certain the creature was
Extraterrestrial,
Showed they were human, and
Beat it to death.

The first virtue is curiosity. A burning itch to know is higher than a solemn vow to pursue truth. To feel the burning itch of curiosity requires both that you be ignorant, and that you desire to relinquish your ignorance. If in your heart you believe you already know, or if in your heart you do not wish to know, then your questioning will be purposeless and your skills without direction. Curiosity seeks to annihilate itself; there is no curiosity that does not want an answer. The glory of glorious mystery is to be solved, after which it ceases to be mystery. Be wary of those who speak of being open-minded and modestly confess their ignorance. There is a time to confess your ignorance and a time to relinquish your ignorance.

Read on...