Douglas Adams died seven years ago today. I thought it would be fitting to direct you to Richard Dawkin’s eulogy of Adams.

There’s a comedy group calling themselves National Banana. Here are two of their videos.

Priest Off

(YouTube page is here)

The Politics of Stem Cell Research

(YouTube page is here)

As we discussed in part 2, fundies like to deny that there is a problem with overpopulation, because traveling down that route leads to things they don’t like, such as birth control and abortion. And if stabilizing the population is bad in their eyes, imagine how bad any efforts to reduce the population must be!

Well, as if they didn’t have enough stuff to worry about, the fundies are actually looking decades out, and they think they see a depopulation boom. Here’s an email I received from Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council:

You are Cordially Invited to Family Research Council for the documentary Demographic WINTER: the decline of the human family.

If you’re in Washington on May 12, you should RSVP. Penetrate the belly of the beast! Anyway, they go on to describe this film:

Demographic Winter: the decline of the human family explores the severe economic and social consequences of family decline and plummeting birthrates worldwide. In Demographic Winter scholars from many backgrounds give economic, social scientific, demographic and historic context to population decline and the impact families have on the strength and stability of society.

As you can see, the film is about the population issue, which already has the fundies concerned. But look at that other element: family. Somehow they managed to drag families into this. That gives them a one-two punch on this issue. Because, after all, only fundies care about the family.

OK. Let’s find out more about this movie that Tony Perkins is so excited about. The trailer is on YouTube. Please take a few minutes to watch the trailer now, and then we’ll discuss it on the other side.

(YouTube page is here)

There were a lot of claims jammed into that trailer. Obviously we need to see the movie to be able to discuss these issues thoroughly. But I do want to discuss what we can now, based on what they said in the trailer. Let’s start with some of the overblown fears.

Overblown Fear #1:
Economic Prosperity Requires Population Growth

Yes, our current economic model requires population growth, but our current economic model is wrong. The current economy requires consumption. It depends on the conversion of non-renewable natural resources into consumer goods. It is actually an illusion of prosperity, because we’re living off of a savings account, in this case the accumulated resources of the Earth: Forests, fishstocks, water, minerals, etc. All of these things are extracted from the Earth, consumed, and thrown away. As long as we keep extracting resources, we can continue our current lifestyle. More people means more consumers, which accelerates the depletion of resources, but generates even more money in the process. If population reverses, consumption declines, and the amount of money being created declines.

The problem, of course, is that resources are finite. Whether the population is growing or shrinking, once a resource runs out, the money stops.

What is needed is a different approach to economics. We need to create a sustainable economy based on sustainable levels of resource consumption. In fact, having a lower global population makes this goal much easier to achieve.

Overblown Fear #2:
Nobody to Run the Trains

Because of automation, robotics, computers, and other advanced technologies, today’s worker is way more efficient than the worker of days past. Every indication is that this trend will continue. This is a non-issue.

[Semi-] Overblown Fear #3:
Too Many Old People Sucking Services;
Not Enough Young to Pay for It

This one is a legitimate concern, but it is partially the fault of weak politicians. People are living way longer than they used to, and they will probably live even longer in the future. There is absolutely no reason for the retirement age to be where it is currently. If the government would raise the retirement age now, there would be enough money in the Social Security Trust Fund to carry that program through the end of the century.

(Or maybe not. The dirty little secret is that the government has already spent that money. The Social Security surplus has been financing deficit spending for years. When that money is due to be paid back, there won’t be enough taxpayers to foot the bill. That’s the other problem with weak politicians. They’ve destroyed the system from two different directions.)

There’s more to this issue than just Social Security. Health care is probably a bigger issue than that. We’re extending the sick end of people’s lives. We’re letting people get older, but they’re doing it while consuming medical services, usually the really expensive services.

I don’t have an answer for this problem, but you can’t solve it by increasing the birth rate. What happens when these new people get old? Now you’ve got an even bigger group of people who need expensive care. This is a pyramid that will collapse.

Somebody needs to come up with a clever solution to this problem.

Overblown Fear #4:
Depopulation

This documentary pretends that there actually will be a declining global population this century. There’s not much reason to believe that’s the case. Current projections show that the population is still rising and will continue to do so until the middle of this century. The projections suggest that a gradual decline will begin after that.

The problem is that we really don’t know what’s going to happen in the latter half of this century. You can only make projections so far out. We don’t know what economic, social, and scientific changes will occur in the future. The population could rise as easily as it might fall. Even if it does fall, as I pointed out above, that is not a problem.

How Does the Family Fit Into This?

One subject they focussed on was the family. Their experts said that the traditional family structure is the strongest, and it’s the best environment for children to grow up in.

I have seen data that suggests there is at least a little truth in these statements. The problem is, that one structure of the father, mother, and children is not realistic. Humans are more complex than that, and it’s naive to think you can force that structure onto every member of society.

This part of the documentary really appeals to the fundies, though. They can use this as a new way to attack all of those things they don’t like: women’s liberation; gay rights; divorce; pre-, post-, and extra-marital sex; etc.

It’s Not That There Won’t Be Enough People,
It’s That There Won’t Be Enough of the Right Type of People!

Much of the fear of declining birthrates is that it is the wrong people whose fertility is declining. They said in the trailer that it is only the developed nations whose rates were dropping.

That one guy said that there would be no native-born French who come from the traditional French population. He didn’t say there would be no native-born French. The country isn’t going to disappear. The demographic makeup of France will be very different. That’s what they don’t like.

The Nation magazine has a video, which discusses this aspect further. Check it out:

(YouTube page is here)

Then you’ll want to read the Nation article.

In part 1, we looked at how fundies don’t seem at all concerned about the environmental problems we face, apparently believing that their magical sky daddy will somehow fix things or prevent things from getting too bad. Not only are they not concerned, but many fundie leaders actually parrot (sorry, PL!) Bush administration talking points on issues such as global warming.

The issue I wanted to focus on today is overpopulation. Like global warming, fundies seem to be in complete denial. Let’s look at the reasons.

A recent article at LifeSiteNews is titled “[Ted] Turner’s Depopulation Plan”.

First of all, you should know that fundies hate Ted Turner. Ted Turner is a big supporter of the United Nations. Fundies hate the U.N., because they view it as the world government foretold in the book of Revelation. The end result of this is that fundies will hate anything that Ted Turner likes. If Ted likes environmentalism, then the fundies will hate it. If Ted likes nuclear disarmament, then the fundies will hate it. If Ted likes puppies, then the fundies will hate it. If Ted likes Jane Fonda, then the—oh wait. They already hate Jane Fonda.

The article begins:

In a wide-ranging hour-long interview on PBS, CNN Founder and billionaire environmental extremist Ted Turner…

Everybody on Ted’s end of the political spectrum is an “extremist” to these people.

…let the cat out of the bag on the real goal of climate change extremists—depopulation.

See? Anybody who believes in global warming is an extremist. I guess the majority of the population are extremists too, then.

Now here we begin to see the link between overpopulation denialism and global warming denialism. As we’re about to see, the overpopulation issue treads on fundie turf. So in fact it may be that the fundies’ anti-global warming stance is actually the result of their anti-overpopulation stance. (Since anti-abortion activists like to call themselves “pro-life”, I guess we should call the anti-anti-global warming people the “pro-warmers”. We can call the anti-anti-overpopulation people the “Duggars”!)

Before looking at the entirety of the next sentence, I want to examine one piece of it first:

…global warming, retooled to ‘climate change’,…

What’s wrong, fundies? Don’t like “climate change”? Tough, because it’s your word, or more accurately, the product of your beloved Republican White House!

Let’s take a side trip down mammary memory lane (Sorry. I shouldn’t daydream when I write these.). The substitution of “climate change” for “global warming” is the handiwork of Republican political strategist Frank Luntz. He found “climate change” to have more positive connotations among viewers, vs. “global warming”, which was more negative. I guess that’s one talking-points memo that the fundies never got.

Now let’s get back to the entire sentence:

Pro-life activists who have attended UN environment meetings where such issues were discussed have often been the subject of ridicule and derision for pointing out that the massive movement behind global warming, retooled to ‘climate change’, works hand in hand with the culture of death with the aim of depopulation.

So you see them admitting right there that the reason they refuse to acknowledge global warming as real is because they think it’s a clever plot by the Liberal Agenda to promote abortion!

And abortion, as well as other forms of the “culture of death”, is the reason they refuse to acknowledge the problems caused by overpopulation.

Although you mostly hear about abortion, the other half of this so-called “culture of death” is the pro-euthanasia, or death with dignity, movement. If somebody is terminally ill with a painful disease—or worse yet, brain-dead—the fundies absolutely refuse to allow that person to end the misery and die with dignity. Instead, they have to hang on and suffer in misery for many more months.

Fundies love suffering. The more you suffer, the closer to God you are. And it’s probably true that you are closer to God at that point. If you read the Old Testament, you’ll see that God inflicts more suffering than any other character in the book.

BTW, to a fundie, death with dignity is more than just allowing somebody who is suffering to end his life. Fundies apparently think that death with dignity is just step one on the Liberal Agenda to kill all sick people. And that is part of the “evolutionists” plan to remake society in the image of God Darwin’s survival of the fittest Nazi master race plan. As near as I can tell anyway. Fundies have such muddled logic, it’s hard to follow.

Turner stated plainly that next to nuclear disarmament the most pressing world concern is “global climate change”…. “We’re too many people. That’s why we have global warming,” explained Turner….

“Too many people” goes into the fundie brain, where it is translated into “Babies and sick people must die!”

Last year China boasted that its one-child policy, which has been criticized by many nations for including forced abortion and sterilization, had reduced greenhouse gases.

Nobody is in favor of forced abortion and sterilization, but here the article is implying that if the rest of the world tries to control population, they will all adopt such policies. China has a brutal totalitarian government. How they implement population control is in no way indicative of how it would be implemented elsewhere.

There are actually two parts to the population problem. The first is arresting our insane population growth, before we outstrip the carrying capacity of the Earth. The second part is bringing the population down to a sustainable level.

As I’ve shown in this article, the fundies are opposed to any population control measures, because they assume that means more abortions and Terry Schiavos. The fundies are already thinking ahead to the matter of depopulation. They don’t like that one bit. We’ll look at that in part 3 of this series.

I’ve noticed a lot of global warming denialism among the fundies. I guess when you’re used to denying reality, you sort of get into a rut that you can’t get out of.

It actually goes beyond global warming. I’ve noticed that the fundies have a general tendency to avoid believing in any sort of environmental peril, whether it’s deforestation, air and water pollution, over-fishing, large-scale extinctions, etc.

The catastrophes they do believe in (Katrina, the 2004 tsunami, 9/11) they merely blame on God’s wrath.

I have heard some fundies say that they don’t think that we’re capable of destroying something as magnificent as God’s creation. I guess the assumption is that if we could seriously damage the Earth, that means we’re as powerful as God, which of course we can’t be.

I think many other fundies believe that the End Times are about three hours and 26 minutes away, so we don’t have to worry about the damage. God is going to turn out the lights before we’ve ruined much more.

Both of these attitudes are selfish and short-sighted. The rest of us plan on living here a lot longer than the fundies do, so we’d like the place to still be presentable.

I think one of the reasons for the fundies’ global warming denialism comes out of their distrust of science. Science has absolutely no need for God. The more that people listen to science, the less they are listening to God. The more people see how everything can be explained without the need for invoking supernatural intervention, the more people will turn away from God.

They’re being overly simplistic. The human craving for religion seems to be part of our DNA. Although some of us can slough it off, the vast majority of the population (~90%) can’t. Sure, many people don’t go to church, or only go rarely, but they haven’t given up on God.

To a fundie, the world is a scary place full of Satan’s temptations at every corner. They really believe that God and the Devil are actively intervening in all of our lives. With that perspective, then yes, their distrust of science makes sense. They believe that everything that isn’t Godly, everything that doesn’t directly lead you to God, must be one of Satan’s tricks to lure you away. Remember in the old days there were entire towns that banned dancing? Ye Gods, these people are repressed!

Overpopulation

Aside from global warming, I think the biggest fundie denialism is overpopulation. It probably stems from several factors.

Our inability to harm God’s creation and the impending End Times are obviously part of it, but there’s an even bigger motivation for their denial of this issue: SEX!

Fundies hate it. They like nothing better than to keep people from having it. When they can’t prevent the act, they do what they can to make sure that people don’t enjoy it. When they can’t prevent that, then they do everything they can to make sure that it results in a pregnancy that is carried to term. AND if they can control sex and fertility and pregnancy, they can control women.

So, no. Don’t ever talk to a fundie about overpopulation.

(In part 2: Talking to a fundie about overpopulation)

This is too funny not to repost here. (via Pharyngula)

(YouTube page is here.)

Jack Klugman has made two TV commercials for First Freedom First.

Video 1 is on Sound Science:

Video 2 is on End of Life Care:

The Sun and the Moon are among the signs of Allah. They are there so that we can contemplate His wondrous and incredible creation. The eclipse is one of the greatest signs of Allah. Do you not see how the moon perfectly covers the sun? The moon is the perfect size to block out the light of the sun. Allah made the universe in perfect proportions. Will you then not believe?

I found this quote from a Muslim creationist on a BBC discussion board about an eclipse back in 1999. It’s a claim I often hear from creationists whenever the topic of the solar eclipse comes up. To a creationist, everything marvelous (or even curious) is proof of design.

It’s an interesting coincidence, though, isn’t it? The moon does perfectly cover the sun! Except when it doesn’t.

This diagram (from The Dome of the Sky) shows how things line up during a total eclipse:

And this photograph (from Astropix) shows what it looks like from Earth:

That’s Godly perfection! I’m going to have to burn my copy of Origin of Species. Oh wait! What’s this? Jerry Lodriguss of Astropix wants to throw cold water onto my bonfire. Here’s what he says about this “perfect” size match:

However, for those who see more than mere coincidences in things, it isn’t always like this. Because the moon’s orbit is not perfectly circular, sometimes it is a bit farther away from the earth and it does not completely cover the sun’s surface even when the orbits exactly coincide. This is called an annular solar eclipse.

Bummer. Maybe that means God only exists during a total eclipse.

Here’s a diagram (from The Dome of the Sky) that shows how things line up during an annular eclipse:

And this photograph (from Mr. Eclipse) shows what it looks like from Earth:

To further rub salt in God’s wound, Jerry Lodriguss adds:

And, it hasn’t always been like this in the past, and it won’t always be like this in the future. Millions of years ago, the moon was much closer to the Earth, and due to the transfer of angular momentum from the Earth to the moon, the Earth slows down in its rotation while the moon moves farther away. Millions of years from now, the moon will be farther away and will never completely cover the sun’s surface.

Oh, no, God! You almost got things perfect.

And the Year Isn’t Perfect Either

Then there’s the problem of the length of the year. If our solar system is so perfectly designed that the moon exactly covers the sun, then you’d expect that other measurements would also be perfect.

Why, then, is the year such an awkward length? Why do we need leap years? Why are the rules for calculating the leap years so convoluted? Phil Plait explains in torturous detail here all about leap years. The bottom line is that the year is 365.242190419 days long. What sort of crappy design is that?

Another question to ask is why the moon’s cycle isn’t perfect. Why is it 29.53 days? Why isn’t it 29 or 30? In fact, shouldn’t the cycle be 28 days or some other multiple of 7? Shouldn’t it reflect the perfect week, which is how long it took Magic Man to create the universe?

That would make our months exactly four weeks. That would give us 13 months of 28 days each. Uh-oh! That doesn’t work out either! The year should have been exactly 364 days long. I guess God screwed up again.

There’s nothing especially Biblical about four weeks. It would be better if the moon took 49 days to go through its cycle. That’s 7 times 7. Then the year could be 7 months long, or 343 days. God’s blowing it right and left.

Instead of a perfectly-designed solar system where everything lines up in perfect harmony, all I see is a random collection of numbers. There is no design apparent in these facts.