Arizona Senators kill international studies proposal

Arizona State Senators Russell Pearce (R-Mesa) and Karen Johnson (R-Mesa) have killed a proposal to create three K-12 schools with an international focus, including teaching a second language starting at the kindergarten level. The proposal, from Rep. Mark Anderson (R-Mesa), would have created one K-12 school in each of Phoenix, Tucson, and Flagstaff, and created international studies programs at seven high schools. Global businesses and universities promised to provide assistance, so the total cost was $2.3 million for the first year of the program.

Why'd they kill it? Not because of the cost, but because studying and understanding the rest of the world is evil and un-American. The opposition from some legislators was so strong that the bill was changed to refer to the schools as "American competitiveness project schools" instead of "international schools." Karen Johnson brought in former Minnesota legislator and Bethany Lutheran College professor Allen Quist to testify against the bill on the grounds that "International Baccalaureate's links to the United Nations are disturbing and that its sense of right and wrong is ambiguous" and "It teaches students to see the American system of government as one of many, not as the only one that protects universal and God-given rights to property, to bear arms and free speech" (to quote the Arizona Republic's paraphrase of his remarks).

This kind of blinkered provincialism and ignorance hurts U.S. competitiveness--if global businesses can't find people with the knowledge and experience needed to run their operations from the U.S., they'll find them elsewhere, like among foreign-born immigrants, or just run their operations from other countries. (Economics and demographics are more powerful than politics, so ultimately this problem will solve itself, and English-only and white-only areas of the U.S. will continue to shrink.)

My employer, Global Crossing, just acquired another company in South America, with the result that about a quarter of our employees are now Spanish and Portuguese speakers. This makes multilingual employees extremely valuable. I would have loved to have been taught Spanish as a second language starting in kindergarten.

Pearce and Johnson are politicians whose previous idiocy has been commented on at this blog. Both are Senators who have worked with the Church of Scientology on its anti-psychiatry efforts. Pearce is an anti-immigration activist who has shown poor judgment in what email he forwards to his constituents. Johnson is a senator who doesn't understand the U.S. Constitution, thinking that as a state legislator she has the power to prevent the federal courts from ruling on separation of church and state cases.

Answers in Genesis hires Andrew Snelling

Answers in Genesis has announced that it has hired creationist geologist Andrew Snelling, formerly an employee of the Creation Science Foundation, Answers in Genesis-Australia, and Creation Ministries International (the same organization under three names) as well as a contractor for the Institute for Creation Research (they paid him $85,000-$96,000/year to do research for them), to fill their open position.

This partially answers the question of how AiG-US will conduct future "scientific" work, a question which CMI had raised since the Australians were the main contributors to such AiG efforts in the past.

A question that hasn't been answered is why Snelling stopped working for Creation Ministries International and went to the ICR. The Briese report contains this tantalizing tidbit of information, which I haven't seen anyone publicly comment on to date:

I clearly remember him saying that Andrew Snelling [a former Australian staff member who was opposed to the notion that a Christian can ever remarry. He was later dismissed by the Australian Board, which at the time included Ken Ham, for matters unconnected to this issue.] had been right about it at the time and that he (Ken) and others had been wrong. But Ken didn't give me any convincing reason as to why he now saw things so differently and why it was now necessary to make an issue of it.

This description makes it sound like Snelling's departure from CMI was not voluntary, and that he had issues with Carl Wieland (a Christian who divorced and remarried).

Snelling is one of the very few young earth creationist geologists on the planet with a Ph.D. from a mainstream academic institution (Steve Austin of the Institute for Creation Research is another). Ronald Numbers' book, The Creationists, describes how Henry Morris of the ICR wanted to see a young creationist successfully obtain a Ph.D. in geology from a mainstream institution, only to be faced with failures by Clifford Burdick (who was kicked out of the program at the University of Arizona) and Nicolaas Rupke (who succeeded in obtaining his Ph.D., but rejected young-earth creationism as a result of what he learned in the process).

More disappearing content from the Answers in Genesis website

More content has disappeared from the Answers in Genesis website as a result of its dispute with Creation Ministries International. Now that former magistrate Clarrie Briese has authored a report condemning Answers in Genesis, the existence of numerous web pages on the AiG website praising him for his honesty, integrity, and independence have become embarrassing, and have been replaced with blank pages. Google's cache still has the originals, however.

The web pages describe some previous work Briese had done in evaluating Australian geologist Ian Plimer's book, Telling Lies for God, a book which also contains a nice four-page hatchet job on yours truly, along with some unattributed borrowed content from articles in the Creation/Evolution journal (see my review).

Here are some of the favorable remarks about Briese that were still on the AiG website a week ago:

The Chairman was Clarrie Briese, former Chief Magistrate of the State of New South Wales, where he is still a household word for his dogged fight against public corruption which ended the career of a State Chief Magistrate, and an Australian High Court judge and former government minister.

(Internet Archive here)

These attacks had previously, to ISCAST’s own knowledge, been shown (by an independent committee of enquiry with impeccable Christian credentials led by Clarrie Briese) to be false.

(Google Cache here; this one was written by now-CMI staffer Jonathan Sarfati, but was endorsed by AiG-US at the time of its publication)

And the kicker:

Please remember: All six men listed who formed the committee have significant public reputations and/or positions, quite independently of CSF. We trust it is obvious that such a group would in no way endanger their own integrity and reputations by saying that they had carefully investigated CSF and found the charges against our ethics were false unless this were utterly true.

(Internet Archive here)

Apparently Ken Ham's opinion of Clarrie Briese has completely changed now that he's the target of criticism, to the extent that he wishes to repudiate these remarks by deleting them from the AiG website.

The contrast between the behavior of CMI and AiG-US continues to make it obvious who's being honest in this dispute. CMI is laying out all their cards on the table, including information that is to its own detriment, while AiG-US has circled the wagons and is editing its own history to hide damaging evidence.

UPDATE (July 2, 2008): Google cache has expired, I've replaced the links with links to the Internet Archive where available.

Thumbs up for Bat Boy: The Musical

Last night we attended "Bat Boy: The Musical"(reviewed here by the Arizona Republic). The play is based on a recurring character in fake (but sourced) news stories in the Weekly World News. While it didn't exactly describe the Bat Boy we were familiar with from the WWN (for instance, he didn't fight with U.S. troops in Afghanistan), it was a humorous and entertaining performance at the Phoenix Theater by the Nearly Naked Theatre troupe.

The "Bat Boy: The Musical" play was co-authored by Brian Flemming, the director of the atheist DVD "The God Who Wasn't There" and the silly "Blasphemy Challenge" that has prompted many YouTube videos.

Kentucky newspaper covers creationist lawsuit

The Lexington Herald-Leader has published a story in the Father's Day edition about the Creation Ministries International lawsuit against Answers in Genesis; I was interviewed and quoted in the article as an external, non-creationist viewpoint. I was quoted accurately, though the "unseemly" quote was followed by a statement that actually, the more salacious charges were relevant to the fact that Ham is now working cooperatively with John Mackay, the man who made those accusations, despite Mackay's failure to apologize and repent for them. The article used my position as a balance to AiG and CMI, but I don't think it conveyed the fact that I think CMI clearly has the moral high ground in the dispute.

For Herald-Leader readers who are visiting my blog for the first time, I've got a category of posts that specifically addresses the Creation Ministries International/Answers in Genesis split as well as other categories for Answers in Genesis in general and creationism. But if you'd like a well-summarized overview of the whole matter, I must point you to another blog, Duae Quartunciae, that has done a much better job than I have of putting everything into a nicely wrapped package--it links to my individual articles that go into more detail as appropriate, as well as to other information sources including both CMI and AiG.

Another good recent summary of the CMI/AiG dispute is the article "Lord of the Ring" which appeared in The Australian newspaper on June 5.

MADD-honored deputy falsified DUI arrest reports

Hillsborough County, Florida Sheriff's Deputy Daniel Brock was honored by Mothers Against Drunk Driving for his drunk driver arrest record, but now it turns out that many of the people he arrested and testified against were innocent and arrested on the basis of falsified reporting by Brock.

From October 2005-October 2006, Brock arrested 313 people for driving under the influence. In one year (not clear from the report if it's during that same period), he arrested 58 people whose blood-alcohol content was below .08. 43 of those 58, according to an internal affairs investigation, displayed no discernable impairment. In 41 cases, urine samples did not show alcohol over the legal limit. In many cases, videos of sobriety tests showed that Brock made false accusations of losing balance, being unable to correctly recite the alphabet, and slurred speech. Brock also failed to turn on his car's audio and video recorder 40% of the time, instead choosing to fill out his reports on the basis of memory, sometimes days and even weeks after the arrest.

Brock was fired on May 24.

(Via The Agitator.)

How to reduce crime in large cities

The June 9, 2007 issue of The Economist has an interesting article on how crime rates have been dropping in three of America's largest cities--New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago--even though those cities have fewer police officers than they did in the late 1990's. In Chicago, at least, the drop in crime has not been the result of putting more people in jail--Chicago's incarceration rate has dropped since 1999. The secret? Focusing attention on high-crime areas, with local commanders responsible for their particular regions. So why don't all metropolitan police departments do that?

The article goes on to mention a demographic cause for crime reduction--each of these cities has seen property prices skyrocket, with a corresponding decline in the number of residents aged 15-24. Those three cities have lost over 200,000 residents in that age range between 2000 and 2005, as well as a displacement of poor native-born citizens by poor immigrants, the latter of whom tend to be better behaved. (The article suggests a racial factor as well, noting that "This trend is symbolised by the disappearance of blacks. Roughly half of America's murder vitims and about the same proportion of suspected murderers are black. In five years America's three biggest cities lost almost a tenth of their black residents, while elsewhere in America their numbers held steady.")

The criminologist cited in the article, Wesley Skogan, is the author of a number of books about dealing with crime, including a book on community policing in Chicago (link is to a review of the book by Sawyer Sylvester) and books and articles about race and crime. While searching online for some of his work to see what he has to say about race and crime, I came across an article by John J. Donohue III and Steven D. Levitt (of Freakonomics) titled "The Impact of Race on Policing and Arrests," the abstract of which says:

Race has long been recognized as playing a critical role in policing. In spite of this awareness, there has been little previous research that attempts to quantitatively analyze the impact of officer race on tangible outcomes. In this paper, we examine the relationship between the racial composition of a city's police force and the racial patterns of arrests. Increases in the number of minority police are associated with significant increases in arrests of whites but have little impact on arrests of nonwhites. Similarly, more white police increase the number of arrests of nonwhites but do not systematically affect the number of white arrests. These patterns are particularly striking for minor offenses. Understanding the reasons for this empirical regularity and the consequent impact on crime is an important subject for future research.

I also came across an article by Matthew Robinson titled "The Construction and Reinforcement of Myths of Race and Crime," which has this abstract:

Much of what we know about crime is myth. Myths are falsehoods that have become accepted as truth because they have been told and retold over time. Many myths of crime revolve around race. This article documents how myths of crime associated with race are created and reinforced through the criminal justice process and the media. The examination begins with the process of lawmaking, demonstrating how American criminal law creates biases against particular groups and benefits others by creating myths about race and crime. The article then analyzes how portrayal of crime in the mass media and activities of law enforcement, courts, and corrections reinforce myths of race and crime. A model of myth creation and reinforcement is presented, and implications of the model for the American criminal justice system and larger society are discussed.

I suspect that race is a factor in crime in the same way that technical analysis patterns are a factor in stock price movement--it's the social concepts doing the work rather than underlying objective facts, but the consequences are still real.

CaseyPedia Wiki

I just came across a wiki devoted to Casey Serin, the failed housing flipper turned blogger whose "I am Facing Foreclosure" blog documented the details of how he used liar loans to drive himself into $2 million in debt. It's got quite an extensive collection of details about Serin, his deals, his blog, and the people he's burned along the way, as well as appropriately critical articles about various real estate investment "gurus" like Robert Kiyosaki and descriptions of new natural phenomena and genetic mutants. Some very funny stuff.

Casey Luskin misrepresents the law

Tim Sandefur at the Panda's Thumb explains how Casey Luskin, attorney at the Discovery Institute, misrepresents the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court case of Board of Education v. Pico.

Luskin's misrepresentations of biology can be blamed on incompetency, but as a lawyer, shouldn't he at least know the law? I don't see how his continued misrepresentations--and failure to correct them--can be blamed on anything but dishonesty.

Atheists weak on charitable giving

A Christian blog reports on a Barna poll of believers and atheists:

Most atheists and agnostics (56 percent) agree with the idea that radical Christianity is just as threatening in America as is radical Islam. Two-thirds of active-faith Americans (63 percent) perceive that the nation is becoming more hostile and negative toward Christianity.

Atheists and agnostics were found to be largely more disengaged in many areas of life than believers. They are less likely to be registered to vote (78 percent) than active-faith Americans (89 percent); to volunteer to help a non-church-related non-profit (20 percent vs. 30 percent); to describe themselves as "active in the community" (41 percent vs. 68 percent); and to personally help or serve a homeless or poor person (41 percent vs. 61 percent).

Additionally, when the no-faith group does donate to charitable causes, their donation amount pales in comparison to those active in faith. In 2006, atheists and agnostics donated just $200 while believers contributed $1,500. The amount is still two times higher among believers when subtracting church-based giving.

The no-faith group is also more likely to be focused on living a comfortable, balanced lifestyle (12 percent) while only 4 percent of Christians say the same. And no-faith adults are also more focused on acquiring wealth (10 percent) than believers (2 percent). One-quarter of Christians identified their faith as the primary focus of their life.

Still, one-quarter of atheists and agnostics said "deeply spiritual" accurately describes them and three-quarters of them said they are clear about the meaning and purpose of their life.

When it came to being "at peace," however, researchers saw a significant gap with 67 percent of no-faith adults saying they felt "at peace" compared to 90 percent of believers. Atheists and agnostics are also less likely to say they are convinced they are right about things in life (38 percent vs. 55 percent) and more likely to feel stressed out (37 percent vs. 26 percent).

The results about "convinced they are right about things in life" is not surprising--that strikes me as the difference between arrogant dogmatism and open-mindedness and humility, and brings to mind studies which have shown that the highly competent believe themselves to be less competent than the incompetent believe themselves to be.

The lack of voter registration could also be a sign that atheists and agnostics don't think their vote makes a difference.

What I find contrary to my own personal experience are the results regarding charitable giving and assistance to the homeless. From my perspective, all of the charitable donation dollar amounts ($200/year for atheists/agnostics, $400/year for believers not counting church giving, $1500/year for believers including church giving) seem quite low.

I'd like to see more of the data, and see how income level and political affiliations are correlated with charitable contributions. (I previously commented on another study that found that conservatives were more generous than liberals, which also said that the religious were more generous than the secular.) I've found significant differences within secular groups when raising funds for RESCUE's Bowl-a-Rama two years ago (which Kat was a bowler for last year)--my requests for donations to groups of skeptics yielded absolutely nothing from people who have known me (at least online) for years, while my request to the Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix yielded well over $1,000 in donations, many from people who didn't know me at all. (My target was to raise $3,500 for the event, which I surpassed.) I've heard, similarly, that more donations to the Center for Inquiry come from humanists than from skeptics, even though there are more skeptics subscribing to Skeptical Inquirer than there are humanists subscribing to Free Inquiry. HSGP, by the way, is a regular contributor to HomeBase Youth Services, a group that helps homeless youth in Arizona.

Another comparison from my own experience that is inconsistent with these results is that Kat and I know a couple of homeless people by name who we periodically help out in various ways (typically not by just giving them money), yet we're unaware of any similar activities by our extended families (who are all born-again Christians on my side). But perhaps the survey answerers were counting giving cash to panhandlers at freeway ramps or on the street, which is something I make a point of not doing, and don't consider to be an effective way of helping the truly needy (though I have, in the past, fallen for the occasional well-told sob story from a con artist about a lost wallet, dead battery, need for bus fare to a job, etc.).