Has Scotland’s Loch Ness Monster, best known from a 1934 photo that has since been revealed as an April Fool’s prank, once again been recorded—this time on sonar?

The picture was reported by England’s Daily Mail (online) on April 20, 2012. Tourist boat skipper Marcus Atkinson recorded the grainy image on his vessel’s sonar-fish-finder device when it was in the Scottish lake’s Urquhart Bay. The serpentine “monster”—actually a long, horizontal blob nearly 5 feet wide—was recorded at a depth of 23 meters (about 75 feet). Nessie enthusiasts like Steve Feltham—the world’s only full-time Loch Ness Monster hunter—claim the image depicted none of the usual suspects: neither a seal (the River Ness connects the lake with the sea), nor driftwood, nor a fish. For example, “It can’t be a fish,” says Feltham, “because you just wouldn’t find them in water 75 ft. down.”

Now my interest in the image was piqued—not only because of my longtime work as a skeptical cryptozoologist and lake-monster hunter, but also because, a month before, I had been at the very site. Along with British skeptic and investigator Hayley Stevens and her father Andy (a photographer and professional driver), I surveyed the bay’s waters from near Urquhart Castle (see my drawing), monitored sonar scans onboard a boat (that crossed the loch from the opposite shore to the castle and back), and spent some pleasant time with Feltham at his small trailer on the lake, for years located at the village of Dores.

Feltham was himself the most interesting Ness creature I encountered. He has lived on the loch since 1991. He supports his endeavor by selling whimsical little Nessies (shaped of polymer clay that he then bakes in his oven), along with driftwood art and watercolor paintings. An intelligent, thoughtful man, he said that even if there were no monster legend, he would still have his beachcomber life—“only in a warmer place!” He brings a good deal of experience to the debate—something skeptics would do well to acquire. Noting that tourists’ reported sightings often occurred at a particular time of the afternoon, he explains how an earlier tour boat’s wake shows up then, sometimes looking like a multi-humped monster and with no boat in sight! He also conceded to us that “Nessie” might be nothing more than a Wales catfish of great proportion.

But then what about Marcus Atkinson’s sonar image? As it happens, a marine expert, Dr. Simon Boxall from Britain’s National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, offered his opinion: “The [sonar] picture is built up slowly as the boat moves. So it’s not a snapshot and thus the image is not an image of a single object unless it is very still. The image shows a bloom of algae and zooplankton that would exist on what would be a thermocline [a layer of water with an abrupt temperature gradient]. Zooplankton live off this algae and reflect sound signals from echo sounders and fish finders very well. They will appear as a linear ‘blob’ on the screen, just like this. This is a monster made of millions of tiny animals and plants and represents the bulk of life in the loch.”

In 2003, the BBC sponsored a sonar survey of the entire loch. One of the searchers reported, “We went from shoreline to shoreline, top to bottom on this one; we have covered everything in this loch and we saw no signs of any large living animal in the loch.” Later that year, a man in an old-fashioned diving suit completed a 12-day charity walk of 26 miles along the bottom of Loch Ness. But Nessie was a no-show, the experience “very cold and very lonely.” (For more, see my chapter on Loch Ness in Lake Monster Mysteries, co-author Ben Radford, 2006).

Now that was a conference!

This was no egg-headed snoozer, this was no reiteration of why we like Darwin so much (not that there’s anything wrong with those). The Women in Secularism conference was as fantastic, fulfilling, and enlightening an event as we could ever have hoped. Once a glimmer in Melody Hensley’s eye, it brought together an excellent mix of thinkers and personalities that had everyone opening their eyes to new perspectives. (Oh, and Jennifer Michael Hecht gave a poetry reading—how cool is that?) There’s a lot already, as you’ll see below, that’s being said about this past weekend, and I’m sure it’s only the beginning.  

Luckily for all those who could not attend, it was entirely possible to absorb a great deal of the conference 140 characters at a time. The hashtag #wiscfi will give you the full stream, which included summaries, updates, reactions, jokes, rants, pictures, and resources of all types. Other than the super-amazing official CFI twitter account (run by some guy), other great tweeps that covered the conference included @surlyamy, @abiodork, @kropotkin, CFI-NY’s own @_stephanieleroy, and @szvan, who I somehow managed not to meet. There were many, many others, too, but these were the folks that popped up most often from my vantage point.  

There was also some great live-blogging of the conference, which is awesome. Here’s Ophelia’s and Ashley Miller’s work (and did you know she did ukulele videos? I love this movement sometimes). Also, Kim Rippere has a wrap-up, gives us an A+ 

The Clergy Project’s Catherine Dunphy is bullish on the impact of the conference:

So now that the conference has wrapped and we have heard one another’s voices and been challenged by the scope of systemic sexism, both in the west and thanks to Wafa Sultan; in the Islamic world, what can we do? If being a member of the Clergy Project has taught me anything, it is that we must keep talking, working and deconstructing these ideologies, both religious and cultural, that limit the full expression of women and our lived experiences. 

Before the conference, Minnesota Atheists’ Atheist Talk interviews our boss Ron Lindsay on secularism, the need for the WiS conference, ethics, and more

Stephanie Zvan, in the form of a dialogue, runs with Jen McCreight’s reminder that there is an insidious issue of poorly-behaving men at secularist events 

EmilyHasBooks rounds up a group of followable female tweeters in honor of the conference 

And just as we showed up for the big event, a UFO had just visited the District 

CFI-Indiana’s Susan Lantzer goes on WFIU radio to talk about our suit to allow seculars to solemnize marriages  

LA Times tallies up some of Dr. Oz’s woo 

Robert Blaskiewicz writes for CSI that he’s hearing conspiratorial voices 

CSI’s Kylie Sturgess and Ben Radford on Kylie’s podcast

Depressing look in the Guardian at Texas’s war on history 

Must-read: Via Letters of Note, Einstein in 1936 explains to a young girl whether scientists pray  

Fascinating piece by Jodi Kantor in NYT on the major influence Mormonism has over Mitt Romney, despite how quiet he is about it in the campaign:

. . . take Mr. Romney’s frequent tributes to American exceptionalism. “I refuse to believe that America is just another place on the map with a flag,” he said in announcing his bid for the presidency last June. Every presidential candidate highlights patriotism, but Mr. Romney’s is backed by the Mormon belief that the United States was chosen by God to play a special role in history, its Constitution divinely inspired. 

And if Romney succeeds in “mainstreaming” Mormonism, Noah Feldman sees some reason for caution:

If Mormons think of themselves as another Christian denomination, the risk of defection rises. The distinctive Mormon beliefs in a new scripture and in the possibility of joining the supernal realm for eternal life will come into jeopardy precisely because they mark differences with the Protestant mainstream. If you believe you are not that different from others, there will be a tendency to downplay those practices and beliefs that suggest otherwise. 

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at Georgetown says church-state separation is “a fundamental principle in our unique democracy.”  

In These Times interviews Chris Mooney 

Rose Schwartz notes that the president has come out for nontheist Rep. Pete Stark in his tough primary fight 

Catholic Review: Belief in nothing isn’t the challenge to religion, it’s the “new religion” of “new atheism” 

40,000 ultra-Orthodox Jewish men fill Citi Field to combat “the siren song of the Internet,” which was streamed, of course, on the Internet  

Something to keep in mind about Bigfoot when you’re tracking him, his howl is “a deep and undulating whoop that starts low and ends in a high, feral squeal or resolves completely, like a siren.” 

CSI’s Joe Nickell featured in Fox News piece on the Shroud of Turin

NCSE: Alabama creationism bill dies of neglect 

Hemant on the unfortunately still-relevant Draw Muhammad Day:

People will keep drawing images of the Islamic prophet until Muslims stop censoring other people from doing it. If they can’t handle freedom of expression, that’s their problem.  

Hemant also rounds up some Global Atheist Convention video highlights 

Jim Parker of the Freethinkers Association of Central Texas encourages nonbelievers to come out with unveiling of a new billboard

The NAACP comes out for same-sex marriage 

Quote of the Day     

Benedict Rogers in NYT looks at the crackdown on irreligion in Indonesia, citing specifically Alexander Aan:

I went to meet Alex Aan because as a Christian, I believe in the freedom of religion, which includes the right not to believe. 

Linking to a story or webpage does not imply endorsement by Paul or CFI . Not every use of quotation marks is ironic or sarcastic, but it often is. 

Follow CFI on Twitter: @center4inquiry 

Got a tip for the Heresy? Send it to press(at)centerforinquiry.net! 

The Morning Heresy: “I actually read it.” - Hemant Mehta 

Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo

Tonight marks the start of the much-talked-about Women in Secularism conference, and I have a feeling this is going to be an event that will really get the gears turning for folks in the movement. I suspect a lot of content generation will result.

I write to you now from the New England skies, on a plane from Portland, Maine headed for a connection in Philly, and then on to my former home of DC, trying out this whole blogging thing from an iPad (thus the late publication). As soon as I can snag a grip on one of the tendrils of the World Wide Interwebs, I’ll post this somewhat-rushed edition of the Heresy and then, I dunno, probably do a lot of ironing of my questionably-packed “formal” clothes.

Enough about me! Let’s get this weekend started!

We at CFI are doing a little more chest-thumping about Point of Inquiry‘s shout-out as a top-ten podcast

What do you do if you’re a priest and someone accuses you of sexual abuse? Have them killed, of course

Emir of Kuwait decides that 100% sharia is a wee bit much

It’s nice to have friends: staffer of Sen. James “Climate Change is a Hoax” Inhofe reaches out to “partners” in oil industry to “better coordinate” against Obama on tax subsidies

Hemant: Suit succeeds in getting prayers out of Greece, NY town board meetings, judge’s decision “wasn’t even subtle.”

Lisa Miller: Romney’s is the God of “I”, Obama’s is the God of “we.” So, like, Romney worships Data and Obama worships the Borg??

North Carolinian veteran claims harassment by police after he removes Christian flag from war memorial

Head-scratcher of the day: letter to the editor in Courier News:

. . . atheists seem to feel perfectly comfortable with anything of the Islamic religion. That seems to be an act of cowardice and discriminatory. OK, let us say these godless people want complete separation of church and state. So does it mean stealing, killing (murder), committing adultery and lying will all be acceptable in their eyes?

I believe I speak for the entire atheist community when I say, “Huh?”

David Sloan Wilson: New Atheism needs a better understanding of evolutionary religious studies:

Whenever New Atheists make claims about religion as a human phenomenon, their claims should respect the authority of empirical evidence. Insofar as the new discipline of ERS has added to empirical knowledge of religion, the New Atheists should be paying close attention to ERS. This is especially true for Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, whose names are so closely associated with evolution.

Hessam Hashaballa at ChicagoNow: Blasphemy laws are actually blasphemous:

God may punish those who mock Him, or His messages, or His messengers on Judgment Day, but no where in these verses does it say “kill them now.” So, by what authority do these so-called “defenders of the faith” call for the murder of so-called “blasphemers.” They have none, and they distort the holy Word of God when they do thus.

MsJoyFG at BlogHer struggles with people pressuring her to get her kid into a church:

I understand why these children feel it is imperative to invite [my daughter] to church. It is a fun place where they sing songs, eat a snack and talk about the underlying fear of what happens after you die.

The Grumpy Anti-theist on magic bio-adjusting mattresses and gullibility

This is comforting as I prepare to board: Plane almost crashes when it spots a UFO

Quote of the Day:

Cord Jefferson at Gawker talks about being a black atheist, as a kid remembers confusion over the last line of MLK’s “Dream” speech:

“One day, if everyone does get free at last,” I asked my dad, “why would we thank God Almighty? Why not thank ourselves for working hard?”

Jefferson nominates Neil deGrasse Tyson as the “black leader America needs.” 

Linking to a story or webpage does not imply endorsement by Paul or CFI . Not every use of quotation marks is ironic or sarcastic, but it often is. 

Follow CFI on Twitter: @center4inquiry 

Got a tip for the Heresy? Send it to press(at)centerforinquiry.net! 

The Morning Heresy: “I actually read it.” - Hemant Mehta 

First things first. As our Facebook followers know, we uploaded a bunch of photos yesterday from the Castles along the Rhine cruise (“It went well, thanks,” reported our boss), and while this usually is a non-event where all the images happily snuggle together in one fell swoop in a photo album, something went terribly pear-shaped with our program, and every single photo went into folks’ news feeds individually, littering people’s Facebook homepages with pleasant-yet-relentless images of happy secularists and scenic European vistas.

Naturally, this cheesed a lot of folks off, and I don’t blame them. I posted a bevy of apologies for the mistake, and they are sincere. Again: sorry about that.

But it also looks like as a knee-jerk response to the perceived spamming, we lost a lot of “likes” on our Facebook page. I’m here to say, folks, come back. It was an unintentional screwup with a piece of software, not an example of our heartlessness or ineptitude, and we’ll find another way to put up photo albums in the future. We care a lot about our Facebook presence, it’s the center of so much activity for CFI, and we’d hate to think that one mistake was enough for folks to turn their noses up at us from here on out.

Come back. Re-like us, re-follow us. If you haven’t “liked” us on Facebook or Twitter yet, now’s the time to show you both support the freedom of inquiry AND forgive human fallibility.

That is all. On to the news.

Despite our efforts and those of others, the House GOP succeeded in passing its watered-down version of the Violence Against Women Act, one which removes protections for all manner of victims based on their nationality, religion, and sexual orientation. I find it mind-boggling even for this crop of conservative zealots, and then Right Wing Watch informs us that opposition to the real version of the bill was pushed by a guy who is himself a convicted domestic abuser. There really is no reasoning with these people.

Brianne Bilyeau at Biodork has ten reasons why the Women in Secularism conference this weekend will “rawk” 

Charles C.W. Cooke at National Review sees a double standard in Obama’s use of religious justifications for his policies. 

Coincidentally, this is exactly what I cover in my latest Friendly Atheist piece on whether Obama’s same-sex mariage position is an “imposition” of his religion 

Point of Inquiry’s Chris Mooney checks the fact-checkers in The Nation 

Weekly Standard cover story criticizes the “psychopundit,” folks like Chris Mooney (singled out in this piece) who use science to understand partisan leanings. Dylan Otto Krider rebuts. 

Rick Santorum, who can make anything sound dirty, tells Romney to wield the “potent weapon” of sex and gay marriage. Ed Brayton says:

Yes, you should do what Santorum did. Because it worked so well for him. In related news, the New England Patriots say the New York Giants would be better off playing like they did in the Super Bowl that they lost.

Also from Brayton: Obama just can’t win - now he’s pissed off his fellow Evil Kenyan Muslims 

Glenn Beck’s The Blaze seems to think it’s important that its readers know that Jessica “Evil Little Thing” Ahlquist supports removing the Woonsocket cross. It also reminds its readers, unrelatedly, that she’s received threats in the past. I’m sure they have nothing but good intentions. 

Christian Post notices that the Secular Coalition for America’s presidential candidate scorecard gives Romney a better grade than Obama in one area: Whether a candidate thinks God is speaking to him  

Conservative outlet CNSNews: Interior Department opposes adding FDR prayer to WWII memorial  

Zuhdi Jasser and Lantos Swett serve of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom write that the spike in anti-blasphemy activity threatens the Arab Spring

Sussex County Council in Delaware ordered by a judge to suspend opening meetings with prayers 

Taslima Nasreen posts a haunting video of Jeremy Irons on opposition to the death penalty 

Traditional marriage = 700 wives.  

SecDef Panetta is being lobbied to grant amnesty to servicemembers who report UFO sightings 

So what are you doing in August? That’s right, you’re going to Eugene, Oregon to fill your Skeptic’s Toolbox

Pakistani president Zardari: We won’t misuse the blasphemy law. Well, that’s a relief. 

Pliosaurs may have suffered from arthritis in their jaws (I bet they also ground their teeth in their sleep like I do) 

Daily Mail: UK MPs uniting to stop legislation that would ban insults 

CSI’s Joe Nickell reviews Cusack’s Poe, finds the production wanting 

Nigerian “natural health expert” touts his “herbal vaccine” against malaria  

Don Swaim looks at the impact of Ingersoll on Ambrose Bierce 

Most depressing lede of the day: 

A 23 year-old female cancer patient died in Yemen after checking into an alternative health clinic run by a prominent cleric and wanted terrorist.

Quote of the Day    

Op-ed by high school science teacher A.J. Fields in the Charleston Gazette:

Scientific theories are not “just theories.” They are the end product of years of research, experimentation, hard work and much debate. Literally thousands of scientists working around the world agree that the world is getting warmer and humans are the cause. This idea does not become controversial because some commentator on Fox News or some conservative think tank disagrees. That is not a debate among equals. If 10 doctors tell you that you have cancer and need chemotherapy, but the guy at the health food store tells you to take vitamins instead, what would you do?

Linking to a story or webpage does not imply endorsement by Paul or CFI . Not every use of quotation marks is ironic or sarcastic, but it often is. 

Follow CFI on Twitter: @center4inquiry 

Got a tip for the Heresy? Send it to press(at)centerforinquiry.net! 

The Morning Heresy: “I actually read it.” - Hemant Mehta 

We learn that Griswold had had a feud with a local besotted literary figure, Edgar Poe. Moreover, the crimes are obvious imitations of Edgar’s macabre stories, respectively “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (a locked-room mystery with which Poe became the creator of the detective story) and “The Pit and the Pendulum” (one of his quintessential tales of horror).

Although Edgar is at first a suspect, a publisher assures the police that “The only thing he’s ever killed is a bottle of brandy.” The lead detective comes to agree and soon enlists Edgar—for his “expertise”—in the search for what a newspaper calls a “serial killer” (even though that term is of modern vintage). The killer is of course a madman such as Poe himself might have imagined, and the murders continue with reference to the genius’ works—for example, invoking “The Masque of the Red Death” and “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.” Thus plagiarism is taken to grotesque new heights!

The killer comes even closer to Edgar, kidnapping his girlfriend and keeping her—well, let us just say, in the manner described in “The Cask of Amontillado.” With this, the movie’s suspense is heightened, punctuated by the occasional appearance of a raven (a bird of ill omen) that evokes the movie’s title. (It is taken from Poe’s famous poem, wherein a raven repeatedly croaks—in response to the poet’s tormented musings over his dead love—“nevermore.”)

Despite the references to Poe’s real life (he really did feud with the Rev. Rufus W. Griswold, a literary scavenger who vindictively blackened Poe’s name after his death), and despite the numerous allusions to Poe’s tales (including also “A Descent into the Maelström,” “The facts in the case of M. Valdemar,” “The Premature Burial,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart”) as well as his poems (notably “Annabel Lee”), The Raven can scarcely be called an homage. It is rather another Hollywood caricature (this time played by John Cusack) in a long tradition of Poe ripoffs, absurdities, and perversions of history (although it stops well short of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer).

Will such abuse of Poe and his genius reach an end? “Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore.’”

Rating: two wooden nickels (out of four)

Tomorrow (May 17) is the 112th anniversary of the publication of that subversive freethought children’s book, The Wizard of Oz. You didn’t know it was a freethought book? Have I got a tale for you!

As everyone knows, The Oz books (and many other successful children’s titles) were penned by L. (for Lyman) Frank Baum (1856-1919). It’s less well known that Baum was a freethinker with deep ties to the nineteenth-century woman’s rights movement. But the evidence is not hard to find. Force yourself to think of The Wizard of Oz afresh. The pivotal characters—Dorothy and the Witches of the East and West—are women. The principal male characters include a fraudulent bumbler (the Wizard) and three sidekicks (Scarecrow, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion). And the book’s climax concerns a mere farm girl who uses common sense and Toto’s animal intuition to unmask a false god. Heady stuff for a Victorian children’s book, much less for a studio movie of 1939.

I’ll share Baum’s story in the words of his biographical entry on the Freethought Trail Web site.

First, it’s worth knowing that Baum married a daughter of Fayetteville‘s anti-Christian feminist firebrand, Matilda Joslyn Gage. Baum was fascinated by his brilliant mother-in-law and spent many hours in her company, absorbing her conviction that Christianity was a false religion that oppressed women; her radically advanced ideas of gender equality; and her sophisticated theories about nonauthoritarian governance, inspired by her studies of the Iroquois Indians. All of these notions color the Oz books. Think of the preponderance of strong female characters (Dorothy, Glinda, the Wicked Witch of the West), quite extraordinary by the standards of Victorian literature. Think of the utter and pointed omission of religion and central government in the land of Oz: in the words of Baum scholar Katharine M. Rogers, “Oz is a utopia where people are naturally inclined to help and respect each other because they are happy.” And consider the climax of the movie, where Toto goes behind the curtain and exposes “the great and powerful Oz” as a false god.

Baum would lampoon religion even more explicitly in two non-Oz children’s books: Policeman Bluejay (1907) and The Sea Fairies (1911).

A Methodist by upbringing, Baum was apparently a freethinker by his mid-thirties, when as editor of an Aberdeen, South Dakota, newspaper he gleefully proclaimed the age of “unfaith” and predicted the collapse of organized religion. Still, Baum was more a heretic than an atheist; he believed in the spirit realm and proposed to replace Christianity with the then-popular quasi-spiritualist doctrine of Theosophy, also a fascination of his mother-in-law.

Baum was born in Chittenango, New York, which is rich in memorials to Baum. He passed much of his youth in Syracuse. There he probably witnessed a hot-air balloon launch in the city’s Clinton Square. To see a historic photo of this event, go to http://www.freethought-trail.org/site.php?By=Location&Page=9&Site=58 and click through to the fourth photograph. Some Baum scholars think this experience may have inspired the climactic scene in The Wizard of Oz involving the Wizard’s own fickle balloon. There also he dabbled in various business pursuits, wrote and produced a successful melodrama that played in the city’s Wieting Opera House—and even on Broadway—and married into the remarkable Gage family.

By the time the Oz books attained great success, Baum had moved with his family to Chicago. But his roots lie firmly in west-central New York State—and on the Freethought Trail. On May 17, let’s raise a metaphorical glass to Baum and his most subversive—and successful—feminist and freethought tale.

The Freethought Trail (http://www.freethought-trail.org) is the Council for Secular Humanism’s celebration of the rich radical reform history of the region bisected by the Erie Canal and centered on Robert G. Ingersoll’s birthplace in Dresden, New York. It includes some eighty marked and unmarked sites relevant to the history of abolitionism, woman suffrage, feminism, abolitionism, and anarchism. Among them is the newly-restored home of (yes, really) the original Auntie Em, Matilda Joslyn Gage. The newly-restored Matilda Joslyn Gage Center in Fayetteville, New York, now welcomes the public to visit the home where Gage carried out her work. Call 315-637-9511 or email: foundation@matildajoslyngage.org for tour times.

The Freethought Trail site is now fully accessible on smartphones. In addition, informative brochures are available at the principal New York Thruway rest areas near exits serving the Finger Lakes.

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Urgent new action alert: The House version of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act strips away crucial protections based on sexual orientation, religion, and nationality. We need you to take action right now to oppose this version of the bill, and to tell the House to take up the Senate version, which CFI supported.

There’s a new issue of Free Inquiry out, and it’s a big deal for two reasons.

1. It features a new study showing just how much the U.S. loses in revenue thanks to taxpayer subsidization of religion. A mind-boggling sum.
2. It has contributions from heavy-hitting scholars and writers to once-and-for-all answer the question, “No really, is America a Christian nation?” (I bet you’ll never guess where our writers come down on this one!)

Press release on the new issue here 

Guys and gals take note: The Women in Secularism conference is this weekend! It’s not too late to register! 

This is cool: Tom Flynn reveals, on the 112th anniversary of the publication of The Wizard of Oz, that the book is just busting with freethought:

Force yourself to think of The Wizard of Oz afresh. The pivotal characters—Dorothy and the Witches of the East and West—are women. The principal male characters include a fraudulent bumbler (the Wizard) and three sidekicks (Scarecrow, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion). And the book’s climax concerns a mere farm girl who uses common sense and Toto’s animal intuition to unmask a false god. Heady stuff for a Victorian children’s book, much less for a studio movie of 1939. 

Speaking of Tom, the Freethought Trail is bringing its history to your high-tech gadget. He posted to Facebook:

Attention, history buffs: the Freethought Trail is now smartphone friendly. The Council for Secular Humanism’s celebration of the radical-reform history of west-central New York state (within about 100 miles of the Robert Ingersoll Birthplace Museum) now serves the complete web site to smartphones and is easily navigable on any iPhone or Android device. 

Steven Novella takes on the Ghost Box, kind of a low-rent PKE meter 

While, as I have noted, Jessica Ahlquist and family have nothing to do with the Woonsocket cross flap, WPRO radio reports that she does support its removal, which, I know, comes as a total surprise 

Friendly Atheist’s Mark Turner: Pentagon suspends Joint Forces Staff College anti-Islamic course that is really, really scary if you, say, live in Mecca or Medina 

Blogger at Bad Catholic says Hemant Mehta has “beautiful and educated eyes.” Um. 

BuzzFlash looks at Obama’s handling of the faith-based initiatives program: 

While the new guidelines may help to clarify some key concerns, there is another elephant in the room for faith-based projects: are they actually achieving positive results? This question has haunted the faith-based initiative from its very inception. There is little, if any, evidence to suggest that faith-based organizations deliver services more effectively than government or secular agencies. 

Explicit Atheist opines on how atheists and secularists can best frame their arguments in the face of prejudice:

So I think it is a mistake to only focus on the “important” policy issues and to avoid addressing the underlying thinking that constitute the prejudices against the non-religious. Furthermore, there is no way to do this effectively without confronting those prejudices and thus arousing them. But instead of being counter-productive, this is actually a necessary step to making progress over the longer term. It would be nice if we could dissolve, or even just attenuate, the prejudices while avoiding confronting the prejudices without the risk of arousing the prejudices. But tip-toeing around the tulips isn’t a good approach here, it has little chance of being effective. 

I love this. New owners of a psychic shop say the previous shop owners were fake psychics. But we’re real psychics. 

Rob Boston: Reno County Commission in Kansas will no longer open meetings with sectarian prayers 

Mikel Hensley says the Women in Secularism conference (did I mention it’s this weekend?) is an example of the movement heading in the right direction as far as making it more possible for women with child care responsibilities to take part 

Fox News: New study on acupuncture suggests more and more people getting themselves poked for all sorts of reasons 

More Than Men blog: Skeptics need to aspire to be more compassionate:

Smart people are good at rationalizing stupid things, and that’s why Skeptics have to be doubly sure that they’re living up to the standard they’ve set for themselves while still being good people. 

NatGeo: Something’s tugging on the Kuiper Belt, and it might be a new 9th planet 

No, silly Canadians, that’s not a UFO, it’s a helicopter (Really, though? People thought that was a spaceship? Really?) 

Okay smart guy, you say, if that’s not a UFO, then what is THIS??? 

Wingnut E. Ray Moore: Public school turns kids atheist, and there should be more God in math class

And since today is kind of a light news day, enjoy this video of my two-year-old son Toby singing three versions of “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” in the bathtub. YOU’RE WELCOME. 

Quote of the Day    

Not much quotable in the news today, so I’m reaching back to a review I did of Richard Holmes’ book The Age of Wonder, where I highlighted this bit about the power of science:

[Samuel Taylor] Coleridge was defending the intellectual discipline of science as a force for clarity and good. He then added one of his most inspired perceptions. He thought that science, as a human activity, ‘being necessarily performed with the passion of Hope, it was poetical’. Science, like poetry, was not merely ‘progressive’. It directed a particular kind of moral energy and imaginative longing into the future. It enshrined the implicit belief that mankind could achieve a better, happier world.

Linking to a story or webpage does not imply endorsement by Paul or CFI . Not every use of quotation marks is ironic or sarcastic, but it often is. 

Follow CFI on Twitter: @center4inquiry 

Got a tip for the Heresy? Send it to press(at)centerforinquiry.net! 

The Morning Heresy: “I actually read it.” - Hemant Mehta 

Everyone at CFI is feeling like a proud parent today, because our plucky podcast is getting some well-overdue accolades from the mainstream press. Hyperactive news website Business Insider named our own Point of Inquiry one of the 10 best podcasts, grouping it with such shows as Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me! and Anderson Cooper 360. We are beaming! Our sincere congratulations to hosts Chris Mooney and Indre Viskontas, and producer Adam Isaak! (And yeah, we’ll be making more noise about this, because that’s what proud parents do.)

And just in time, the latest episode of POI is up with their guest, the never-shy Greta Christina!

I make my debut as a contributor to Friendly Atheist (awesome, right?) with a look at the contempt for science shown by Rep. Jeff Flake: 

[Flake] is inserting himself into a debate about what areas of inquiry are and are not worth pursuing, based on his own politics and notions of governance, all of which are irrelevant. This actually gives him too much credit — he’s not inserting himself into a debate in order to engage in said debate. He’s entered the debate hall, knocked over the podiums, and declared himself the winner. 

Panda’s Thumb highlights CFI’s suit against the Wyndgate for religious discrimination:

From our “if I did that, then you would …” department, imagine the outrage if someone had canceled a speech on finding out that the speaker was a religious fundamentalist. What is the difference? 

CFI’s Dren Asselmeier highlights the impact of CFI on Campus’s Student Leadership Conference with a testimonial from Buffalo State Freethinkers’ Nathan Grammer:

You become inspired by (and maybe a little envious of) the great work other groups are doing. You talk about what has worked in the field and what doesn’t. There are countless differences of opinions, but most of the people there know how to argue, so every disagreement is productive. So you become energized, full of new ideas, eager to put them into practice. 

Ben Radford takes a skeptical look at the “human Barbie”

Republicans, who hate everything FDR stood for, are eager to enshrine one of his prayers into the World War II Memorial 

Jason Rosenhouse at Evolutionblog rebuts a silly proposition from Robin Hanson that atheists should reject the reading of fiction, since we like reality so much, or something. Rosenhouse writes:

Well, I’m certainly opposed to reading fiction and pretending that the stories are true. And I’m double-mega opposed to organizing my life around stories that I wrongly believe to be true. 

One study suggests there are actually no agnostics in foxholes, another shows that atheists get a little wobbly when presented with thoughts of death  

My favorite line from Todd Stiefel’s Reason Rally speech, video of which was just posted: “They can’t burn our Internet!” (h/t Hemant)

Obama campaign promotes the guy who helped arrange the 2008 Rick Warren event to lead religious outreach effort  

George Dvorksy to fellow atheists: Let’s stop being jerks

Letter to the editor in the Free Lance-Star in Fredricksburg, VA clarifies what the hell an atheist actually is, makes bold assumption that his cat is also an atheist 

Leah Libresco is now taking signups for the Ideological Turing Test 

Oh please. This “angel” caught on a security cam “might” be a hoax. You think? 

Obvious headline of the day: Alternative medicines are potentially unsafe, warn experts 

Clerics in Iran declare fatwa on a rapper who references the 10th Imam and has a somewhat risque album cover 

Andrew Sullivan’s cover story in Newsweek on Obama, “the first gay president”  

SciAm looks at the neuroscience of magicians’ tricks. Says Stephen Macknik of the Barrow Neurological Institute:

Magic is . . . the primary force to debunk pseudoscience. 

Kuwaiti man accused of blasphemy to plead not guilty, saying his account was hacked  

Ack! Jellyfish UFO!!! 

Michael Medved has had it with atheists and their lack of love for crosses:

. . . secular activists and self-styled defenders of “civil liberties” seek to transform American society in a way that our founders and most subsequent generations would never recognize. They seem eager to defend flag-burning, obscenity and every other form of radical expression, while seeking to suppress emblems of the Christian faith that helped shape the nation since the arrival of earliest colonists.

Well… 

Quote of the Day    

Indian skeptic Sanal Edamaruku, accused of blasphemy for debunking miracle-healing Christ statue, will challenge the blasphemy law:

I see this as an opportunity to make sure this law isn’t misused any more against anybody. . . . I’m determined, I have a duty to develop scientific temper and promote inquiry so on these two grounds we will challenge the very veracity of this law in the Supreme Court. 

Linking to a story or webpage does not imply endorsement by Paul or CFI . Not every use of quotation marks is ironic or sarcastic, but it often is. 

Follow CFI on Twitter: @center4inquiry 

Got a tip for the Heresy? Send it to press(at)centerforinquiry.net! 

The Morning Heresy: “I actually read it.” - Hemant Mehta 

Over the past few weeks, photos of a supposed real-life Barbie have shocked many around the world. The controversy surrounds a young Russian model named Valerie Lukyanova (or Valeriya Lukianova, also known by her YouTube handle Amatue), who according to some sources spent over half a million dollars and endured dozens of surgeries in order to become a real-life Barbie doll. There are hundreds of photos of Lukyanova, some showing her porcelain face with flawless skin, glassy blue eyes, a blank stare, and small waist.

Beautiful? Ugly? Scary? Photoshopped? The story sparked outrage, with many using Lukyanova as a horrific example of the pursuit of beauty gone awry, the sad consequence of a society in which girls are encouraged to view thin fashion models and Barbie dolls as ideals. Jezebel.com, for example, headlined a piece “Ukrainian Model Has Supposedly Barbified Herself Through Plastic Surgery,” and offered an animated video depicting “the many supposed surgeries that 21-year-old Ukrainian model, musician, and astroplanner Valeria Lukyanova has undergone to turn herself into a living, breathing Barbie.” Fox News ran a piece titled “Why the ‘Living Barbie’ is Dangerous” by a psychiatrist named Keith Ablow, in which he stated that Lukyanova’s quest to become Barbie doll-like was “an iconic symbol of things to come,” when “self-expression requires mimicry of others, even of inanimate objects or fictional characters.” People like Lukyanova (are there other people like her?), this outraged psychiatrist warns, “cannot empathize with the suffering of others” and “are, therefore, capable of causing enormous pain in the world, possibly even enjoying it.” Ablow even compares this “real-life Barbie” to despots like Hitler and warns that Holocaust is a logical consequence of this mentality. Indeed, Ablow claims, “We are losing ourselves. We must reclaim ourselves. Everything depends on it.”

Weird—but is it true? There’s very little sourced information about Lukyanova, and even less in English, so it’s hard to know exactly what to make of her motives or actions, but a few things suggest that there’s much less to this whole story than meets the eye. In my book Media Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us (Prometheus, 2003) I investigated many news stories very similar to this one—sensational headlines about seemingly outrageous behavior, often with more than a hint of moral outrage and indignance. Sometimes the stories were true, but more often they were mostly or entirely wrong. They were widely spread and repeated not because they were true but because they supported well-defined cultural scripts and narratives about how journalists and the public view the world. In this case, with the ongoing culture wars bashing Barbies and thin fashion models as threatening to the psychological wellbeing of girls and women, this story of a woman who had undergone multiple, radical operations to become like Barbie was a perfect example of the dangers of Barbie the the quest for beauty. But was the story too good to be true? 

Contrary to countless headlines, there’s no evidence that Lukyanova is actually trying to emulate the world’s most popular doll. The word “Barbie” does not appear anywhere on Lukyanova’s Web site nor in any of the available material attributed to her. Furthermore a Google search of images of Lukyanova reveals plenty of airbrushed, cheesecakey glamour shots (some more staged than others), but conspicuously absent are any photos of her with her supposed idol, Barbie. Surely if this aspiring model’s claim to fame was centered around trying to achieve Barbie’s supposedly idealized proportions, she would have taken at least one photo of her with the doll she’s trying to look like.

So if Lukyanova didn’t introduce the Barbie aspect to the story, who did? The answer is news outlets like ABC News, Jezebel.com and the Huffington Post-HuffPo asserting that a “newsreel” (actually an animated satire from Next Media Animation) suggested that Lukyanova got her look through surgery (and may have paid around $800,000 for the work). Some news outlets expressed skepticism about parts of the story (for example noting that some of Lukyanova’s images appeared fake), but it seems that no journalists challenged the basic premise of the overall story.

In fact, not only is there no evidence that Lukyanova is actually trying to achieve Barbie’s look or form, there’s also no evidence that she has undergone any plastic surgery, either to look like Barbie or for any other reason. It’s certainly possible, though there are no before-and-after photos or videos that you would expect to see for such a publicized, planned radical transformation. Surely any plastic surgeon would be eager to claim credit for such remarkable work. While some photos and videos do show Lukyanova to have an unusually small waist, others do not, and in any event unlike Barbie it is well within normal human range.

If you remove the main claim from this sensational story (one woman’s desire and surgical quest to become a human Barbie), you’re left with a story of a young model whose portfolio includes hundreds of photos, some of which have her looking almost inhumanly perfect. In today’s world of routine commercial airbrushing this story wouldn’t go far even on a slow news day. 

So what happened? How did otherwise ordinary photos and handful of short videos of a young blonde turn into a story of a model who spent a fortune trying to become a human Barbie doll? How did the news media get hoaxed by this story? Part of it is surely that the story taps into credible, pre-existing journalistic narratives, with elements of a great story: sex, beauty, obsession, and mystery. The myth of the real-life Barbie has a ready-made audience and a convenient news hook for those who want to blast America’s obsession with beauty. 

Amid the outrage and concern expressed over Lukyanova’s alleged body and Barbie obsession, many people found the story tragic, posting comments like “Makes me want to cry… That is just so sad on so many levels.” Indeed it is-but only if it’s true. 

CFI’s suit to allow secular celebrants to solemnize marriages in Indiana is sparking more attention.

Indy Star columnist Erika Smith looks at the state of marriage equality in Indiana, and says:

What Obama said was inspiring and what the Center for Inquiry is doing is amazing.

CFI-Indiana’s chief Reba Boyd Wooden interviews on WHFB radio, around the 14:30 mark, for a “feature exclusive”  

Reporter Carrie Ritchie at the Star clarifies the point of the suit, coming on the heals of Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage:

Coincidentally, the suit was filed Wednesday, the same day President Barack Obama said he supports gay marriage. But the suit focuses on those who officiate marriage ceremonies, not on the people getting married. 

Noting the coincidence, WSJ ledes with: “This must be the week to challenge traditional perceptions of marriage.”

Constitutional Law Prof Blog seems to get why just doing a normal civil ceremony doesn’t cut the mustard:

. . . ceremonies by state officials may not be desirable for some secular humanists: it would have “political overtones” and the official may not know the couple personally or share their values. 

A blog on rituals wonders why CFI doesn’t fight a bigger battle:

Why not argue that current practices vis-a-vis allowing clergy to act as representative of the state while performing their religious duties are themselves unconstitutional? In other words, why not challenge religious exceptionalism head on?  

Predictably, Obama’s support of gay marriage has black preachers angry and befuddled 

Posner on Obama’s new situation:

Here’s the corner Obama painted himself into: in a 2008 effort to appeal to evangelicals, he reached out to and surrounded himself with anti-gay, anti-abortion ministers who nonetheless touted their concerns with other issues such as poverty, the economy, and the environment. . . . Now Obama apparently risks alienating those figures with whom he worked so hard to cultivate relationships.  

Hey look! Someone posted video of Ron Lindsay and Richard Dawkins from CFI’s pre-Reason Rally reception in DC 

This could get seriously ugly. Ezra Klein: GOP’s Rep. Jeff Flake wants to decide for the National Science Foundation what is and is not science (and he can do it) 

New badge of honor: Ken Ham’s Answers in Genesis calls me out for my quote in the Washington Post about how the National Day of Reason is about doing good works. Why? Because doing good works that help those who are “weaker” fights against evolution. Got it? 

Greta makes up her mind on Edwina Rogers at SCA: “I have come to the conclusion that this is a disaster.” 

USC publication looks at African Americans who leave religion behind, notes CFI’s African Americans for Humanism 

Hemant, on the giant-ass cross planned for Branson, MO:

It’s a good thing this is going up. I was beginning to think Missouri was going to suffer from a complete lack of crosses.  

The Legion of Doom is not satisfied simply with attacking nuns. Now it’s going after Girl Scouts. 

BaltSun: Commissioner for Carroll Country, MD invites 850 government employees to weekly prayer sessions in government building 

A new hypothesis on the origins of the conscience centers around the unwillingness of hyper-aggressive alpha males to share meat 

NYT editorializes against the religious privilege protecting ultra-Orthodox Jewish authorities for child sexual abuse cover-ups  

Martin S. Pribble claims “E Pluribus Unum” for atheists 

AFP: Burundi woman accused of witchcraft and family hacked to death  

WebMD columnist on alt-med cancer treatments: “It seems to be part of human condition: When we’re scared, we’ll believe all kinds of crazy stuff.” 

Boorstein: Once wary of Romney the Mormon, Evangelicals predictably fall in line

WashTimes op-ed says Obama’s is “the most anti-religion presidency of our time,” evidenced by his “gutting” of the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. Umm…  

Kate Donovan at Friendly Atheist talks to the Secular Coalition for Arizona’s Seráh Blain about more anti-woman legislation just passed in her state

Egyptian presidential election seems to be centering around the role of Islam

Mustafa Akyol says that it is in Islamists’ interests to maintain a semblance of religious freedom: “Those who hope to nurture genuine religiosity should first establish liberty.” 

Get yourself counted, and chime in on the Atheist Census (it’s really quick) 

Quote of the Day    

Roberto Blancarte, professor at Colegio de México, on the Vatican’s investigation of child sexual abuse by the Legionaries of Christ:

As with everything in the Vatican, it comes many years too late. 

Linking to a story or webpage does not imply endorsement by Paul or CFI . Not every use of quotation marks is ironic or sarcastic, but it often is. 

Follow CFI on Twitter: @center4inquiry 

Got a tip for the Heresy? Send it to press(at)centerforinquiry.net! 

The Morning Heresy: “I actually read it.” - Hemant Mehta