Prenatal Hormone Levels and Sexual Orientation - Another Blow to the "Ex-Gay" Myth

New Mexico has joined the small but growing number of states to ban ex-gay torture that has paraded under the disingenuous banner of "conversion therapy" and been a linchpin in the Christofascists' campaign to depict sexual orientation as a choice. I can personally attest after 37 years of trying to "pray away the gay" that it simply does not work and that anyone who claims otherwise is (i) a liar, (ii) possibly looking to line their pockets with money from the religiously brainwashed, and/or (iii) desperately trying to avoid admitting that their own religious tradition has fed them lies.  Science is increasingly exposing the lie of the "ex-gay" myth and even New Mexico's Republican governor (yes, it is shocking) seemly put science and truth ahead of the Christofascist agenda.  Joe Jervis reports in part as follows:

Gov. Susana Martinez has signed legislation that would ban the use on minors of conversion therapy that seeks to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The measure was among dozens signed by the Republican governor as the Friday deadline approached for her to act on legislation passed during the session that ended March 18.

Six other states have banned ex-gay torture: California, Illinois, Oregon, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont. Bans have also been adopted in dozens of local municipalities across the country, including in Cincinnati, Seattle, Miami, Pittsburgh, and Washington DC.

I can already hear the shrieks and howls coming from the usual suspects at "family values" organizations, including the mistress of hate, Victoria Cobb at The Family Foundation based in Richmond.  Science and medical knowledge moves onward even as the Christofascist seek to slink back in time.  A new study finds yet more evidence that prenatal hormone exposure plays a role in one's ultimate un-chosen sexual orientation.  Indeed, it suggests that common treatments to prevent miscarriage (such as what my own mother underwent) significantly increases the odds that a child will be same sex attracted later in life.  Here are some of the study findings:

Index cases were exposed to lutocyclin (bioidentical progesterone = C₂₁H₃₀O₂; M_W: 314.46) and no other hormonal preparation. Controls were matched on 14 physical, medical, and socioeconomic variables. A structured interview conducted by a psychologist and self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data on sexual orientation, self-identification, attraction to the same and other sex, and history of sexual behavior with each sex. Compared to the unexposed, fewer exposed males and females identified as heterosexual and more of them reported histories of same-sex sexual behavior, attraction to the same or both sexes, and scored higher on attraction to males.

. . . . regardless of sex, exposure appeared to be associated with higher rates of bisexuality. Prenatal progesterone may be an underappreciated epigenetic factor in human sexual and psychosexual development and, in light of the current prevalence of progesterone treatment during pregnancy for a variety of pregnancy complications, warrants further investigation. These data on the effects of prenatal exposure to exogenous progesterone also suggest a potential role for natural early perturbations in progesterone levels in the development of sexual orientation.

The February special with Katie Couric on the National Geographic Channel  that looked at the transgender Americans addressed the medical findings on what causes one to be transdgender.  The same, of course, applies to the rest of those under the LGBT umbrella.  Nature, not choice or nurture, is what is determinative.  Pretending otherwise only leads to pain, self-hate, and too often, suicide. On this issue, the Bible is simply flat out wrong. 

The GOP Base: The Beginning Of The End Of An Informed Democracy’

The Founding Fathers embraced knowledge and education and believed that for the democratic republic they founded it was essential that the nation's populace be informed and as willing to embrace knowledge with as much enthusiasm as they Founders did themselves.  For a long time that model worked for the most part subject to the technological and media limitations of the day.  Now, we see that concept dying, especially among the know nothings of the Republican Party base where ignorance is celebrated and objective fact and science are ignored.  GOP politicians willing to do anything to prostitute themselves to these ignoramuses make matters far worse.  And then there are worthless elements of the media that go along with the parade of ignorance and merely parrot the idiocy coming from the far right without ever challenging the lies and stupidity.  A piece in Think Progress looks at the phenomenon and what it portends from America.  Here are excerpts:

We should complain about what the electorate does. I’m an educator, so I see it as one of my duties, especially as a science educator, to alert people of what science is and how it works. About what it means for there to be an objective truth that we would then act upon. 

If you want to lean in a political way because that’s your politics, you should do that based on an objective truth rather than cherry-picking science before you even land at an objective truth. You can’t just cherry-pick data and choose what is true about the world and what isn’t. 

So I’m not blaming the electorate in that sense. I’m blaming an educational system that is not positioned to educate an electorate such that they can make informed decisions in this, the 21st century, where informed decisions based on objective scientific truths will play a fundamental role in what kind of society we create for ourselves.

There’s this journalistic ethos saying if I get one opinion then I need to get another opinion that countervails that. So if I say the world is round, are you obligated to say the world is flat, lest someone think you are being biased in your reporting? Well, that’s absurd. You wouldn’t do that, you’re educated. You know that there are certain points of view that have no foundation at all in objective truth. 

So the question arises then at what point should a journalist give equal time to equal points of view that are opposite or in denial of emergent scientific truths. If you allocated column inches in proportion to the scientific consensus of experiments, there would be one sentence talking about people who deny climate change and the rest of the ten columns talking about research that supports it. But that’s not what we see in the public. 

[T]he moment the politicians start saying they are in denial of what the scientists are telling them, of what the consensus of scientific experiments demonstrates, that is the beginning of the end of an informed democracy. 

I think journalists are abandoning what would be their sensibility of following the emergent truths and in some cases painting a debate as though there’s a scientific debate when in fact there isn’t one

Religion Takes a Big Decline

Despite the claims of the Christofascists that America is a "Christian nation" and that they represent a majority of Americans, the reality is that religiosity has declined sharply and currently is at the lowest level ever measured. For those of us who long for the day when Christofascists are political and social outcast, the obvious hope is that religion's decline continue and/or accelerate.  Here are some highlights from Religion News Service:

Religiosity in the United States is in the midst of what might be called ‘The Great Decline.’ Previous declines in religion pale in comparison. Over the past fifteen years, the drop in religiosity has been twice as great as the decline of the 1960s and 1970s.

Last year brought a continuation of this decline. 2013 was a new low for the level of religiosity in the country.

How do we track this massive change in American religion? We start with information from rigorous, scientific surveys on worship service attendance, membership in congregations, prayer, and feelings toward religion. We then use a computer algorithm to track over 400 survey results over the past 60 years. The result is one measure that charts changes to religiosity through the years.

The graph of this index tells the story of the rise and fall of religious activity. During the post-war, baby-booming 1950s, there was a revival of religion. Indeed, some at the time considered it a third great awakening. Then came the societal changes of the 1960s, which included a questioning of religious institutions. The resulting decline in religion stopped by the end of the 1970s, when religiosity remained steady. Over the past fifteen years, however, religion has once again declined. 

But this decline is much sharper than the decline of 1960s and 1970s. Church attendance and prayer is less frequent. The number of people with no religion is growing. Fewer people say that religion is an important part of their lives.

In 2013, we saw continued declines in religiosity. The importance of religion in people’s lives? Down. Church attendance? Down. People who say they are “no religion”? Up. The result: 2013 had the lowest level of religiosity of any year we can measure.

Bob Felton at Civil Commotion suggest some of the causes for religion's decline which seem on target:

There are doubtless many things at work here; certainly, education has played a role. No less important though, I am sure, is the relentlessly vile behavior of His publicists [i.e., the "godly Christian crowd]. Stressed, marginalized, ridiculed — the Pious are showing their true colors, and it ain’t pretty.

Conservative Christians: Living in a World Where Facts Can’t Exist.

Click image to enlarge

A new Gallup poll has revealed that far too many Americans live in a world where religious belief trumps science and objective facts.  On the political right one hears much moaning and carrying on about America's decline yet no one in that political realm is willing to look at what may be a root source of the problem, especially with globalization and increased scientific and research competition: too many American's embrace ignorance while our competition does not. And where is the embrace of ignorance strongest?  You guessed it, among the Christofascists and their political whore in the Republican Party.  Be it global warming, gay conversion, or a host of other issues, these people cling to myths that they need to satisfy their disturbed psyches and reject knowledge and science.  Eventually, the consequences are going to seriously catch up with us - if they haven't already.  A column in the New York Times looks at the frightening level of religious based ignorance that continues to predominate in America.  Here are highlights:

I am both shocked and fascinated by Americans’ religious literalism.  One Gallup report issued last week found that 42 percent of Americans believe “God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago.”

It’s not only that Americans are more religious — Christian, in particular — but that for many, their beliefs in their religious text — the Bible, in particular — are literal.

As Gallup pointed out in a report issued last Wednesday, nearly a third of Americans continue to believe that the Bible “is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word.”

Furthermore, nearly half believe that it is “the inspired word of God but not everything in it should be taken literally.”

About a fifth of Americans said they believe the Bible is “an ancient book of fables, legends, history, and moral precepts recorded by man.”

Now, I don’t seek to deny anyone the right to believe as he or she chooses.

What worries me is that some Americans seem to live in a world where facts can’t exist.

Facts such as the idea that the world is ancient, and that all living things evolved and some — like dinosaurs — became extinct. Facts like the proven warming of the world. Facts like the very real possibility that such warming could cause a catastrophic sea-level rise.

How does America remain a world leader in an increasingly technological, science-based world, when so many of our citizens — and even our leaders, including Republicans who might run for president — deny basic science?

Americans, particularly political leaders, who choose religious piety must also create an intellectual framework in which things of faith that exist without proof can make space for truths for which there is proof.

Religious fundamentalism at the expense of basic scientific facts threatens to obscure America’s beacon of light with a bank of fog.

Fundamentalist religion - be it Christian or Muslim - is a blight on humanity.

New Study - Gays Are Born This Way

This past week the Texas Republican Party endorsed reparative therapy even though every legitimate (i.e., not funded by anti-gay organizations) medical and mental health association in America condemns such therapy and deems it dangerous.  Never let it be said that the Christofascists don't still call the shots in the GOP.  Meanwhile, a new study adds more evidence that gays are "born this way" to quote from Lady Gaga's song.  Will this new knowledge change any minds in the GOP?  Probably not.  The Christofascists cannot abide the fact that their mythical Bible may be wrong and few elected Republicans will cease prostituting themselves to those who embrace ignorance and bigotry.  An article in the Washington Post written by Jenny Graves, Distinguished Professor of Genetics at La Trobe University, looks at the new study and its implications.  Here are some highlights:

The claim that homosexual men share a “gay gene” created a furor in the 1990s. But new research two decades on supports this claim – and adds another candidate gene.

To an evolutionary geneticist, the idea that a person’s genetic makeup affects their mating preference is unsurprising. We see it in the animal world all the time. There are probably many genes that affect human sexual orientation.

But rather than thinking of them as “gay genes,” perhaps we should consider them “male-loving genes.” They may be common because these variant genes, in a female, predispose her to mate earlier and more often and to have more children.

Likewise, it would be surprising if there were not “female-loving genes” in lesbian women that, in a male, predispose him to mate earlier and have more children.

In 1993, American geneticist Dean Hamer found families with several gay males on the mother’s side, suggesting a gene on the X chromosome. He showed that pairs of brothers who were openly gay shared a small region at the tip of the X, and proposed that it contained a gene that predisposes a male to homosexuality.

Hamer’s conclusions were extremely controversial. He was challenged at every turn by people unwilling to accept that homosexuality is at least partly genetic, rather than a “lifestyle choice.”

This year, a larger study of gay brothers, using the many genetic markers now available through the Human Genome Project, confirmed the original finding and also detected another “gay gene” on chromosome 8. This has unleashed a new flurry of comment.

But why such a furor when we know of gay gene variants in species from flies to mammals? Homosexuality is quite common throughout the animal kingdom.
The puzzle is not whether “gay genes” exist in humans, but why they are so common (estimates from five percent to 15 percent). We know that gay men have fewer children on average, so shouldn’t these gene variants disappear?

There are several theories that account for the high frequency of homosexuality. A decade ago I wondered if gay gene variants have another effect that boosts the chances of leaving offspring (“evolutionary fitness”), and passing the gay allele on. This is a well-known situation (called “balanced polymorphism”) in which an allele is advantageous in one situation and not in another.

Perhaps “male-loving” alleles in a female predispose her to mate earlier and have more children. If their sisters, mother and aunts have more kids who share some of their genes, it would make up for the fewer children of gay males.

And they do. Lots more children. An Italian group showed that the female relatives of gay men have 1.3 times as many children as the female relatives of straight men. This is a huge selective advantage that a male-loving allele confers on women, and offsets the selective disadvantage that it confers on men.

Why the furor over such study findings?  It's very simple.  To the Christianists - and fundamentalist Muslims would be in the same category - if the Bible [or Koran] is wrong about homosexuality, then the question becomes what else is it wrong about.  Those who through ignorance or mental disorders cannot deal with a lack of absolute certainty in their lives simply cannot tolerate anything that might upset their simplistic, childish belief systems.  Since the very existence of gays suggests that the Bible/Koran is wrong, we are treated as enemies of the first magnitude.

As Rubio Denies Climate Change, the West Antarctica Ice Sheet Begins to Collapse

At times I wonder whether Republican politicians are as dumb as they act or are they simply so consumed by ego and a desire for power that they will deny reality in order to pander to the increasingly insane and objective reality denying members of the Republican Party base.  A party base where the embrace of ignorance, rejection of scientific knowledge and rank racism now seem to be worn as badges of honor and distinction.  As noted over the weekend, Marco Rubio has taken the plunge of denying climate change and rejecting scientific findings that mankind IS playing a role in its causation.  All, apparently, to better endear himself to the drooling, knuckle dragging GOP base.  Meanwhile, the New York Times reports further on the collapse of the West Antarctica ice sheet and the likely corresponding sea level rise which will threaten some of Rubio's home state's largest cities.  To say that Rubio is worse than a tawdry whore is an understatement.  Here are highlights from the New York Times piece:

A large section of the mighty West Antarctica ice sheet has begun falling apart and its continued melting now appears to be unstoppable, two groups of scientists reported on Monday. If the findings hold up, they suggest that the melting could destabilize neighboring parts of the ice sheet and a rise in sea level of 10 feet or more may be unavoidable in coming centuries.

Global warming caused by the human-driven release of greenhouse gases has helped to destabilize the ice sheet, though other factors may also be involved, the scientists said.

The rise of the sea is likely to continue to be relatively slow for the rest of the 21st century, the scientists added, but in the more distant future it may accelerate markedly, potentially throwing society into crisis.

The only thing more frightening than what science has learned about climate change is the unanticipated consequences that we have yet to learn.

“This is really happening,” Thomas P. Wagner, who runs NASA’s programs on polar ice and helped oversee some of the research, said in an interview. “There’s nothing to stop it now. But you are still limited by the physics of how fast the ice can flow.”

The West Antarctic ice sheet sits in a bowl-shaped depression in the earth, with the base of the ice below sea level. Warm ocean water is causing the ice sitting along the rim of the bowl to thin and retreat. As the front edge of the ice pulls away from the rim and enters deeper water, it can retreat much faster than before.

“Today we present observational evidence that a large sector of the West Antarctic ice sheet has gone into irreversible retreat,” Dr. Rignot said in the NASA news conference. “It has passed the point of no return.”

The global sea level has been rising since the 19th century, but Antarctica so far has been only a small factor. The biggest factor to date is that seawater expands as it warms.

The effects will depend in part on how much money future governments spend to protect shorelines from a rising sea. Research published in 2012 found that a rise of less than four feet would inundate land on which some 3.7 million Americans live today. Miami, New Orleans, New York and Boston are all highly vulnerable.

He added that while a large rise of the sea may now be inevitable from West Antarctica, continued release of greenhouse gases will almost certainly make the situation worse. The heat-trapping gases could destabilize other parts of Antarctica as well as the Greenland ice sheet, potentially causing enough sea-level rise that many of the world’s coastal cities would eventually have to be abandoned.

As Rome figuratively burns, the GOP continues to fiddle on.

The G.O.P. Can’t Ignore Climate Change

To my mind, the man who could have defeated Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential contest was Jon M. Huntsman, former governor of Utah and former ambassador to China.  The only problem was that Huntsman is not sufficiently insane or willing enough to be a lying demagogue to win the votes  of the toxic mix of racists, religious extremists and ignorance embracing know nothings that has become the Republican Party base.   A party base that seeks only to have politicians tell it what it wants to hear and who speak in dog whistle code words which fan prejudices against all but white, heterosexual, conservative Christians - those deemed "other" by the self-styled "real Americans."   Despite his rejection by the GOP, Huntsman continues to say what needs to be said rather than what the knuckle draggers and Koch brother cretinous audience want to hear.   In a column in the New York Times, Huntsman takes the GOP to task for its steadfast refusal to accept the reality of climate change.  Here are column highlights:

“TO waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.”

These words were spoken by one of the nation’s most passionate conservationists: Republican President Teddy Roosevelt. I admire him for his pragmatism and individualism — foundational traits of the Republican Party. We must summon these qualities and apply them immediately and stoutly to the issue of climate change.

Leading up to the elections of 2008, Republican leaders at all levels were working innovatively across party and ideological divides to address environmental issues, including climate change. They included names like Huckabee, Pawlenty, Schwarzenegger and McCain. I was re-elected with almost 80 percent of the vote in bright red Utah as an environmentally forward-leaning Republican.

But there has been a shift among Republicans on climate change.   Last fall, 50 percent said there was solid evidence of rising temperatures on earth . . . . down from 2006, when 59 percent of Republicans held that view.Perhaps some of this shift has to do with the economic collapse and a resulting change in concerns and priorities. At the same time, many party leaders may have felt the need to run for cover because of growing pressure from the Tea Party. 

What’s been lost is any Republican creative thinking on the issue.

So obtuse has become the party’s dialogue on climate change that it’s now been reduced to believing or not believing, as if it were a religious mantra. 

This approach reached a new low last month during a North Carolina congressional debate at which all the Republican candidates chuckled at a question on climate change — as if they had been asked about their belief in the Tooth Fairy.

The implications were underscored once again on Tuesday, when a team of more than 300 scientists warned in a report to the White House of “mounting evidence that harm to the nation will increase substantially in the future unless global emissions of heat-trapping gases are greatly reduced.”

Our approach as a party should be one of neither denial nor extremism.  . . . . . While there is room for some skepticism given the uncertainty about the magnitude of climate change, the fact is that the planet is warming, and failing to deal with this reality will leave us vulnerable — and possibly worse. Hedging against risk is an enduring theme of conservative thought. It is also a concept diverse groups can embrace.

If Republicans can get to a place where science drives our thinking and actions, then we will be able to make progress. We need to plan for the impacts of climate change at all levels of government.

Republicans need to get back to our foundational roots as catalysts for innovation and problem solving.  . . . . As Teddy Roosevelt teaches us, it would be foolhardy to undermine the environmental richness that will serve to empower our future generations.

Sadly, I suspect Huntsman's wise words will fall on deaf ears within the swamp fever ridden GOP base.

Papyrus Referring to Jesus’s Wife Likely Authentic

A fragment of papyrus, known as the “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife”

New history discoveries and science continue to show themselves to be worst enemies of the supposedly "inerrant" Bible.  The human genome project has shown that Adam and Eve never existed as historical individuals, archeology work has raised questions about the true nature of King David's kingdom, the Flood myth predates the Old Testament and comes from ancient Sumer, and an ancient piece of papyrus is again raising questions about Jesus' marital status.  All of this leads to the conclusion that the authors of the Bible - and we have no idea who they really were - massaged and manipulated the story line to fit their own purposes and agenda.  The New York Times has a follow up piece on the papyrus first unveiled in 2012 that would indicate that Jesus was married - so much for the claim that his bride was "the Church."  Here are highlights:

A faded fragment of papyrus known as the “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife,” which caused an uproar when unveiled by a Harvard Divinity School historian in 2012, has been tested by scientists who conclude in a journal published on Thursday that the ink and papyrus are very likely ancient, and not a modern forgery.

Skepticism about the tiny scrap of papyrus has been fierce because it contained a phrase never before seen in any piece of Scripture: “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife...’ ” Too convenient for some, it also contained the words “she will be able to be my disciple,” a clause that inflamed the debate in some churches over whether women should be allowed to be priests.

The papyrus fragment has now been analyzed by professors of electrical engineering, chemistry and biology at Columbia University, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who reported that it resembles other ancient papyri from the fourth to the eighth centuries. (Scientists at the University of Arizona, who dated the fragment to centuries before the birth of Jesus, concluded that their results were unreliable.)

The test results do not prove that Jesus had a wife or disciples who were women, only that the fragment is more likely a snippet from an ancient manuscript than a fake, the scholars agree. Karen L. King, the historian at Harvard Divinity School who gave the papyrus its name and fame, has said all along that it should not be regarded as evidence that Jesus married, only that early Christians were actively discussing celibacy, sex, marriage and discipleship.

Dr. King presented the fragment with fanfare at a conference in Rome in September 2012, but was besieged by criticism because the content was controversial, the lettering was suspiciously splotchy, the grammar was poor, its provenance was uncertain, its owner insisted on anonymity and its ink had not been tested.

An editorial in the Vatican’s newspaper also declared it a fake.

The “Jesus’s Wife” papyrus was analyzed at Columbia University using micro-Raman spectroscopy to determine the chemical composition of the ink. James T. Yardley, a professor of electrical engineering, said in an interview that the carbon black ink on this fragment was “perfectly consistent with another 35 or 40 manuscripts that we’ve looked at,” that date from 400 B.C. to A.D. 700 or 800.

[T]he scientists say that modern carbon black ink looks very different under their instruments. And Dr. King said that her “big disappointment” is that so far, the story of the fragment has focused on forgery, not on history.

I continue to believe that the fundamentalists will be the death of Christianity.  Already they are driving some one-third of the Millennial generation from religion.  Clinging to a literally interpretation of Old Testament writings of ignorant, unknown authors is nothing but suicidal in the long run.  The same holds true to the New Testament which was cobbled together by early church leaders who had their own agenda and who systematically sought to eliminate anything that contradicted their agenda. 

Mormon Church Claims DNA Studies Do Not Disprove Book of Mormon

Just as many of the supposed scholars of the Southern Baptist Convention are struggling to get around the inconvenient truth that the human genome project has proven that Adam and Eve never existed as historical individuals (and that, there fore the Fall as described in the Bible did not occur), so to is the Mormon Church struggling with the truth revealed by DNA studies which indicate that the indigenous people of the Americas are the descendants of Hebrews who left Jerusalem around 600 BCE.  Once again we are seeing that knowledge and science are religion's biggest enemies because they destroy the myths on which religious dogma is based.  A piece in Religion Dispatches looks at the Mormon Church's dilema.  Here are excerpts:

Last week The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints posted yet another undated, unsigned document on its official website, this one on the topic of “Book of Mormon and DNA Studies.” The essay addresses issues raised by the fact that there is little to no DNA evidence supporting the Mormon claim that the indigenous people of the Americas are the descendants of Hebrews who left Jerusalem around 600 BCE. This belief was so ingrained that for a very long time, Mormons referred to Native Americans as “Lamanites,” a name that also refers to a people in the Book of Mormon.

I’ve seen discussions arguing that it’s a tacit endorsement of evolution, and also, because it discusses events believed to have happened 10,000 years ago, a tacit repudiation of the Fall and the Flood and other events that supposedly occurred less than 10,000 years ago.

But let’s leave all that aside and instead talk about the nature and ramifications of evidence.

The Church begins by stating that “the primary purpose of the Book of Mormon is more spiritual than historical,” which is true of many religious texts. However, Joseph Smith and the church he founded have also always claimed that the Book of Mormon is a historical record of events that really, truly happened. One wonders why they would’ve insisted so strenuously on this point were it not somehow integral to the book’s importance and usefulness to its readers and authors.

[T]he problem isn’t one field of study, it’s a steady accumulation of evidence that undermines or contradicts the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon—particularly given that Joseph Smith claimed, in a statement the church has made much use of, that “the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.”

[T]he mere absence of distress while one reads the Book of Mormon is supposed to be an incontrovertible sign from God that what one is reading is “true.” In fact, it’s supposed to be so reliable that one is encouraged to extrapolate from it: if the words one reads in the Book of Mormon are true, then the entire volume must be true; and Joseph Smith must have been a genuine prophet of God in order to produce it; and the church Joseph Smith created must be, as it claims, “the one and only true and living church on the face of the earth;” and its current leaders must all be, as they claim, appointed by God to lead his church.

[I]t’s not merely DNA studies that “cannot be used decisively to either affirm or reject the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon.” It’s also a feeling as one reads the Book of Mormon of peace, or warmth and arousal in one’s chest. These things are certainly evidence of something—that the text you’re reading resonates with you on some deep level, for instance—but they’re certainly not proof that it’s logically or spiritually sound to accept all the truth claims of the organization that told you said text might make you feel either peaceful or emotionally aroused.

It then asserts that “DNA studies cannot be used decisively to either affirm or reject the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon.”

The Christianists' Continuing Problem of Adam and Eve's Non-Existence

The biblical inerrancy crowd continues to grapple with a serious (actually fatal) problem: science tells us that Adam and Eve did not exist.  As noted before on this blog, this poses a huge problem for Christianity - especially the conservative variety which claims that the Bible is literally true in all aspects.  Without Adam and Eve, the Fall as described in the Bible goes away as does the need for Christ's redemption of mankind.  Some Christofascists are simply doing what they do best: ignoring reality and believing only what they want to believe.  Others seem to realize their entire storyline is on the verge of collapsing and, thus, are trying to find a work around to stay in business, if you will.  I for one have little sympathy for the crowd that chants about Bible being the inerrant word of God.  The set the stage for their own debacle.  Andrew Sullivan looks at some of the feverish efforts to salvage the storyline. Here are highlights:

Noting that “genetic diversity in the human population is not consistent with what we would expect if all humans had descended from a single pair of individuals,” Loren Haarsma grapples with what that means for the Christian understanding of original sin:

A variety of scenarios are being proposed by Christian scholars today for how we might understand the Adam and Eve of Genesis 2, and their disobedience in Genesis 3, in light of modern science. Some scenarios propose Adam and Eve as two individuals living in Mesopotamia just a few thousand years ago, acting not as ancestors but as recent representatives of all humanity. As our representatives, their disobedience caused all of humanity to fall into sin. Other scenarios propose Adam and Eve as two individuals, or as literary representations of a small group of ancient representative-ancestors, selected out of a larger population, living in Africa over 100,000 years ago at the dawn of humanity; they were ancestors—but not the sole ancestors—of all humans today; they fell into disobedience against God over a relatively short period of time with a fairly distinct “before” and “after.” Other scenarios propose that Adam and Eve’s disobedience in Genesis 3 is a symbolic retelling of the story of every human who, over our long history, became aware of God’s claims on how they ought to live, and then disobeyed.

Jerry Coyne snarks:

Adam and Eve couldn’t have been the literal ancestors of all humanity. Normally, such a scientific trashing of scripture could be absorbed, at least by liberal theologians. They’d just reinterpret Adam and Eve as metaphors. But that causes big trouble on two counts.

First, if there really were 2,000 or more ancestors, then all of them must have transgressed to bring original sin into the world. That is hard to fathom: did everyone do something bad at the same time? Second, if Adam and Eve were metaphors, and the source of original sin is mysterious, then we have no idea why Jesus died. After all, his death and Resurrection occurred precisely to save us sinful humans from the transgressions of Adam and Eve. If you have to turn that story into a metaphor, then Jesus died for that metaphor. That’s not too palatable to Christians.

An easy and sensible way to solve this conundrum is to assume that the whole scenario is concocted: humans don’t have original sin; there was no Adam and Eve; and the Resurrection and divinity of Jesus were fictions. But Christians won’t have that, for the meaning of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection is the final, non-negotiable “truth” of Christianity.

In short, there really is no way around the problem.  Hence, we can expect the Christofascists to merely pretend that the problem doesn't exist.  Otherwise, their entire house of cards reality comes crashing down and they are - God forbid - required to think and make moral judgments not based on a book that is in the last analysis largely fictional. 

Why Climate Change Deniers and Creationists Have Joined Forces

The creationist crowd continues to fight a rear guard action against science and modernity because both threaten their belief system that is based on the anything but inerrant Bible.  Anything that threatens this house of cards construct must be opposed and strenuous efforts continue to sabotage science based school curriculum which might make it clear to little Johnny and Susie that their parents have been teaching them a pile of horse shit based on the ignorant myths composed by Bronze Age herders.  Now these Neanderthals have joined forces with the climate change denier crowd.  While their agendas are not the same, both groups are motivated by their desire to resist scientific knowledge.  Mother Jones looks at the unholy alliance.  Here are excerpts:

All across the country—most recently, in the state of Texas—local battles over the teaching of evolution are taking on a new complexion. More and more, it isn't just evolution under attack, it's also the teaching of climate science. The National Center for Science Education, the leading group defending the teaching of evolution across the country, has even broadened its portfolio: Now, it protects climate education too.

How did these issues get wrapped up together? On its face, there isn't a clear reason—other than a marriage of convenience—why attacks on evolution and attacks on climate change ought to travel side by side.
And yet clearly there's a relationship between the two issue stances. . . . . Indeed, recent research suggests that Christian "end times" believers are less likely to see a need for action on global warming.

And now new research by Yale's Dan Kahan further reaffirms that there's something going on here. More specifically, Kahan showed that there is a correlation (.25, which is weak to modest, but significant) between a person's religiosity and his or her tendency to think that global warming isn't much of a risk.
The researcher went on to say that he isn't sure why greater religiosity predicts greater denial of climate change. But in his data—with a representative sample of over 2,000 Americans—it clearly does.

There are two major possibilities. And there is probably some truth to both of them.  There is the "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" theory. In other words, anti-evolutionists and climate deniers were both getting dumped on so much by the scientific community that they sort of naturally joined forces.

But there's also the "declining trust in science" theory, according to which political conservatives have, in general, become distrustful of the scientific community (we have data showing this is the case), and this has infected how they think about several different politicized scientific issues. And who knows: Perhaps the distrust started with the evolution issue. It is easy to imagine how a Christian conservative who thinks liberal scientists are full of it on evolution would naturally distrust said scientists on other issues as well.

Whatever the cause for this alliance, it does not bode well for science based solutions on a national level.  Meanwhile, cities like Norfolk will be forced to go it largely alone as they contend with rising sea levels and idiocy from Republicans in legislatures across America.

Climate Scientist Versus Ken Cuccinelli

One of Ken Cuccinelli's most high profile misuse of taxpayer funds was his effort to persecute University of Virginia climate scientist Michael Mann.  Mann's offense?  Researching global warming and proving the lie of Cuccinelli's Christofascist backed crusade against science - and, I would argue, modernity as a whole.  Anything that challenges the Bible thumpers' belief system needs to be crushed in Cuccinelli's view.   A piece in Mother Jones looks at the saga of Cuccinelli's efforts against Mann which played a role in Cuccinelli's defeat on November 5, 2013.  Here are some article excerpts:

Mann's situation traces back to the world famous "hockey stick" graph, originally published by Mann and his colleagues in a 1998 scientific paper, and then prominently displayed by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its 2001 Third Assessment Report. Because of its stark depiction of just how dramatically humans have altered the climate in a relatively short time period, the figure may well be the most controversial chart in history. Not scientifically controversial, mind you: politically controversial.

"This curve became an icon in the climate change debate because it told a simple story," says Mann of the hockey stick. "You didn't need to understand a lot of physics and math to see what that curve was telling you: That there were unprecedented changes taking place in our climate today, and by inference, they probably have something to do with us."

Multiple investigations have cleared Mann and the other scientists involved in Climate Gate. In 2010, however, Cuccinelli issued a "Civil Investigative Demand" to the University of Virginia, where Mann used to work, seeking Mann's emails and other documents related to a number of his research grants. The demand cited the "hide the decline" email as well as other leaked emails from Climate Gate. The University resisted and, in a case that drew dramatic media attention and widespread denunciations of Cuccinelli's "witch hunt," was ultimately victorious at the Virginia Supreme Court.

Emerging from this broad story, in retrospect, are at least two large ironies:

1) There are lots of hockey stick studies, not just Mann's. So even as the issue was personalized and made all about Mann's research and its validity, other scientists just kept on producing hockey sticks. Mann likes to joke that there is now a veritable "hockey team." For other hockey stick studies see here and here.

2) By attacking Mann in such a prominent way, climate skeptics have made him vastly more influential, politically and otherwise, than he might otherwise have been. For instance, Mann was just named one of the "50 Most Influential" people by Bloomberg Markets. Cuccinelli's demands of the University of Virginia gave Mann a new stature that, in turn, empowered Mann to directly campaign against him.

Granted, the climate issue, and the issue of Cuccinelli's pursuit of Mann's files, did not tip the Virginia gubernatorial race all on their own. Overall, the most powerful electoral strike against Cuccinelli seems to have been his association with the government shutdown brought on by House Republicans. Still, Mann says, "the issue of ideologically driven anti-science, which was symbolized by Ken Cuccinelli, I think that did fit into a larger narrative of a dangerous candidate who was driven by ideology over logic and science, and substance. And I think in the end, that was the difference."

Mann counters, though, that he's no political operative: It's just that this particular race, and this particular candidate, affected him so directly that he got involved.

"I felt like I had to fight back not just for myself, but to make it clear to other scientists that we do need to defend our science, not just because it's the right thing to do scientifically, but because the implications are so profound in this case," he says. How profound? "We are engaged in an unprecedented and uncontrolled experiment with the one planet that we have," says Mann. Politicians who seek to undermine this reality now have something new to worry about: That scientists, inspired by Mann, may not simply sit by and watch it happen any longer.

The Frightening Number of Americans Who Believe the Earth is only 6,000 Years Old

If one wants a good place to start in determining why America is so beleaguered with problems it might be the idiocy of much of the American populace who believe the Bible and say that the Earth is only 6,000 years old.  As the rest of the world modernizes and moves to embrace the 21st century,  Gallop reports that "forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.”  Why not just get in line for a lobotomy?!  It's frightening and suggests that part of America's decline stems for the ignorance of much of the populace.  True, historically other nations once held similar beliefs, but outside of backward regions, most of the world has moved on to embrace science and knowledge.  Even if the number of creationists is significantly lower than the 46% figure, it underscores the toxic influence that conservative Christians continue to exert on the nation. Not so for millions of Americans.  Here are excerpts from a piece in The Raw Story:

For thirty years, Gallup has been asking Americans their views about evolution and human beings, and the results have been remarkably consistent and stable. Last year, Gallup once again reported that nearly half of the country believe the Biblical version of events: “Forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.”

The Bible doesn’t actually say how long ago the account of creation in the book of Genesis was supposed to have taken place. But in 1650, Church of Ireland Archbishop James Ussher used the stories of the Old Testament to calculate that the world had been created on Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC. His wasn’t the only calculus based on the Bible, but it became the most popular and is still influential with creationists today.

And according to Gallup, that calculation is still so popular, nearly half of America believes it describes the age of the earth.

But Josh Rosenau, with the National Center for Science Education, wrote this week that very different results emerge when slight changes are made to the questions that Gallup asks, and the actual number of “young-earth creationists” in the U.S. is probably much lower than Gallup claims.

[I]f Americans are asked if they believe whether plants and animals have evolved over millions of years (regardless of the reason why), a substantially higher number say yes — 60 percent did in a 2009 Pew poll, for example.

Removing religious context and human origins, people are much less likely to say that we’re living on a young earth. In another 2009 survey, only 18 percent agreed with the statement that “the earth is less than 10,000 years old,” for example.

But Rosenau thinks the number of truly committed young-earth creationists is even smaller than that.

. . . .   “In short, then, the hard core of young-earth creationists represents at most one in ten Americans — maybe about 31 million people — with another quarter favoring creationism but not necessarily committed to a young earth,” Rosenau concludes. “One or two in ten seem firmly committed to evolution, and another third leans heavily toward evolution. About a third of the public in the middle are open to evolution, but feel strongly that a god or gods must have been involved somehow, and wind up in different camps depending how a given poll is worded.”

True, these certins have the right to believe whatever they want, but the larger questions is why do the media and politicians give undeserved deference to such idiocy?