VATICAN CITY (AP) – Pope Benedict XVI says Roman Catholics in the U.S. need to understand the “grave threats” to their faith posed by what he calls radical secularism in the political and cultural arenas.
He addressed visiting U.S. bishops Thursday and used the same language in warning that attempts are being made to erode their religious freedom.
Benedict did not explicitly mention it, but the bishops have complained their religious freedom is eroding in the face of growing acceptance of gay marriage and attempts to marginalize faith. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has recently formed a committee on protecting religious liberty and hired attorneys and a lobbyist to work on the issue.
The pope said many of the bishops have complained about attempts to deny conscientious objection with regard to cooperation in “intrinsically evil practices.” U.S. church leaders have been pressing for a broader religious exception to part of President Obama ’s health care overhaul that mandates private insurers pay for contraception. The Obama administration has not yet made a decision on the policy and the timing is uncertain.
Bishops also are pressing for broader religious exemptions in U.S. states that have legalized same-gender civil unions or marriage. The vast network of Catholic social services in the United States includes adoption and foster-care placement. Bishops in some states have either shut down adoption programs or have lost their government contracts after refusing to place children with same-gender couples.
Benedict also expressed appreciation that bishops have been more outspoken about American Catholic politicians who don’t follow church teaching on abortion and other issues.
The pope said Catholics in political life have a “personal responsibility to offer public witness to their faith, especially with regard to the great moral issues of our time.”
American Catholics have bitterly debated the obligations of Catholic lawmakers to oppose government policies that go against core Catholic teaching. In recent years, a small but growing number of local bishops have publicly told Catholic lawmakers who support abortion rights not to present themselves for Holy Communion because of their stance on the issue.
The White House had no response to the pope’s remarks.
Officials of Catholic-affiliated institutions that have asked for a broader conscience exception to the birth control coverage requirement are frustrated that the administration has yet to make its ruling.
Filed by Confictura in Humor
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Authorities have charged a South Carolina woman with felony animal cruelty, saying she hanged her nephew’s pit bull from a tree with an electrical cord and burned its body because the dog chewed on her Bible.
Animal control officers said Monday that 65-year-old Miriam Smith told them she killed a female dog named Diamond because it was a “devil dog” and she worried it could harm neighborhood children. Authorities said bond wasn’t immediately set for Smith, who remains jailed in Spartanburg County after her weekend arrest.
Officials said she didn’t have an attorney yet.
She faces 180 days to five years in prison if convicted.
Authorities say the remains of the dog were found under a pile of grass with part of an electrical cord around its neck.
Leading scientists and naturalists, including Professor Richard Dawkinsand Sir David Attenborough, are claiming a victory over the creationist movement after the government ratified measures that will bar anti-evolution groups from teaching creationism in science classes.
The Department for Education has revised its model funding agreement, allowing the education secretary to withdraw cash from schools that fail to meet strict criteria relating to what they teach. Under the new agreement, funding will be withdrawn for any free school that teaches what it claims are “evidence-based views or theories” that run “contrary to established scientific and/or historical evidence and explanations”.
The British Humanist Association (BHA), which has led a campaign against creationism – the movement that denies Darwinian evolution and claims that the Earth and all its life was created by God – described the move as “highly significant” and predicted that it would have implications for other faith groups looking to run schools.
Dawkins, who was one of the leading lights in the campaign, welcomed confirmation that creationists would not receive funding to run free schools if they sought to portray their views as science. “I welcome all moves to ensure that creationism is not taught as fact in schools,” he said. “Government rules on this are extremely welcome, but they need to be properly enforced.”
Free schools, which are state-funded and run by local people or organisations, do not need to follow the national curriculum. Scientific groups have expressed concerns that their spread will see a reduction in the teaching of evolution in the classroom.
Several creationist groups have expressed an interest in opening schools in towns and cities across England, including Bedford, Barnsley, Sheffield and Nottingham. Critics say they seek to promote creationism, or the doctrine of “intelligent design”, as a scientific theory rather than as a myth or metaphor.
One creationist organisation, Truth in Science, which encourages teachers to incorporate intelligent design into their science teaching, has sent free resources to all secondary schools and sixth-form colleges.
A BHA campaign, called “Teach evolution, not creationism”, saw 30 leading scientists and educators call on the government to introduce statutory guidance against the teaching of creationism. The group said if the government would not support the call, an explicit amendment to the wording of the funding agreement could have the same effect. Last week the Department for Education confirmed it had amended the agreement, although a spokesman denied it was the result of pressure from scientists. He said the revision made good on a pledge regarding the teaching of creationism given when the education secretary, Michael Gove, was in opposition. “We will not accept any academy or free school proposal which plans to teach creationism in the science curriculum or as an alternative to accepted scientific theories,” the spokesman said, adding that “all free school proposals will be subject to due diligence checks by the department’s specialist team”.
The revised funding agreement has been seized upon by anti-creationists who are pressing for wider concessions from the government.
“It is clear that some faith schools are ignoring the regulations and are continuing to teach myth as though it were science,” Dawkins said. “Evolution is fact, supported by evidence from a host of scientific disciplines, and we do a great disservice to our young people if we fail to teach it properly. ”
A spokeswoman for the BHA said: “The government’s new wording is quite wide and in practice could prevent those who promote extreme religious or particular spiritual or pseudoscientific approaches from including them as part of the school curriculum as science or as evidence-based.”
Last week, we went through a familiar ritual: Hand-wringing and alarm over Republican politicians denying scientific reality. This time around, the main focus was Rick Santorum, the anti-evolutionist and climate change denier who is
one of the worst of the worst in this area (and who
promptly obliged by making a new and fresh anti-science statement).
But hey, it’s always something.
We’ve been repeating this pattern at least since the early George W. Bush years. A Republican makes a dubious scientific claim, a Republican officeholder or appointee suppresses a scientific report, a scientist in a Republican administration gets muzzled…the names change, but the story does not. I chronicled it all in a book that is now seven years old–The Republican War on Science–and I wasn’t the first.
Nor will I be the last. The very fact that Jon Huntsman (who just nabbed third place in New Hampshire) has been able to successfully frame himself as the “pro-science” Republican candidate itself speaks to the misalignment of his competitors with reality.
Some of the conservative denial of science may well be cynical in nature. But there’s no doubt from polls that large numbers of conservatives really believe this stuff–that global warming isn’t real, nor is evolution. And indeed, the denial of reality extends well beyond science and into other fields likeeconomics and history.
When you have a phenomenon this recurrent, it seems to me that at some point, it is reasonable to stop and ponder deeper causes. And are there any?
Recently, I posted a list of seven recent scientific studies showing that liberals and conservatives differ in ways that go far beyond their philosophies or views on politics. We’re talking about things like physiological responses when shown different kinds of words or images, and performance in neuroscience tests. Take just one recent example: Conservatives show stronger responses to negative and threatening stimuli (words like “vomit” and “disgust”). Could this also prompt more knee jerk reactions to scientific information that is perceived as threatening (or words like “evolution”)?
The point is not necessarily that the answer is yes, but rather that it is reasonable to ask questions like these. The root causes of our political differences are now under intensive exploration by multiple different research groups, which are churning out quite a lot of published, peer reviewed science. And while this work is surely not complete (science never is), it is also unlikely to be just plain wrong. Indeed, after having spent the past year reading this research and interviewing the scientists producing it, I can confidently say that those seven studies are just the tip of the iceberg.
Here’s the bottom line: An increasing body of science suggests that we disagree about politics not for intellectual or philosophical reasons, but because we have fundamentally different ways of responding to the basic information presented to us by the world. These are often ways of which we are not even aware–automatic, subconscious–but that color all of our perceptions, and that effectively drive us apart politically.
What’s more, what is true for how we come to our opinions about politics is also, assuredly, true for how we approach “facts” that are perceived to have some bearing on the validity of our political opinions–whether those facts are scientific, economic, historical or even theological in nature.
Thus far–and not surprisingly–conservatives don’t seem so fond of the emerging science of our politics. They seem to consider it demeaning–yet another slight aimed at them by “liberal” academia.
And it’s partly true: the research in question is–like all scholarly work–largely conducted by scientists and academic liberals who want to achieve a better understanding of the nature of our political dysfunction, and also of why we are divided over things like scientific reality. But ironically, when considered in all of its complexity and nuance, much of the research actually makes Republicans look very good (decisive, resolute, loyal) relative to liberals or Democrats–and certainly a lot more politically effective.
Frankly, it seems to me that this approach ought to prompt more tolerance and understanding across our political divides, rather than less. After all, if we are reaching many of our political and even our factual opinions for reasons that we’re not even conscious of–if we’re effectively being pushed to accept some views rather than others, because they resonate at a deep psychological level and just “feel right”–then the only appropriate response, it seems to me, is a deeply liberal one: Tolerance. Understanding. Acceptance. Empathy.
In other words, the next time a Republican denies global warming, liberals ought to be better able to check the impulse to say “what an idiot!” and instead say something like, “I can understand why they have that kind of a response.”
But then again, the next time a liberal or Democrat does something typically and predictably liberal, Republicans ought to do the same. And now the paradox: What if liberals are more open to (and simply curious about) the science of liberals than conservatives are regarding the science of conservatives?
If so, then we’ll still probably have a factually polarized political arena–but at least we’ll know a little bit more about why.
Source: Alternet
“I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian, but you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.
As President, I’ll end Obama’s war on religion. And I’ll fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage.
Faith made America strong. It can make her strong again.
I’m Rick Perry and I approve this message.”
Log in to YouTube, click on this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PAJNntoRgA and vote for your like or dislike of this video.
- As of December 8, 2011 there are 4,400+ likes and 209,000+ dislikes: 47 to 1 against
- As of December 9, 2011 there are 12,685 likes and 487,817 dislikes: 38.5 to 1 against
- As of December 10, 2011 there are 16,902 likes and 576,630 dislikes: 34 to 1 against
- As of December 14, 2011 there are 21,817 likes, 678,725 dislikes: 31 to 1 against
- As of December 26, 2011 there are 23,396 likes, 710,034 dislikes: 30 to 1 against
Filed Dec 10 2011 by Gizzoh in Science
Filed Dec 15 2011 by Confictura in Atheism
Human rights groups in Bangladesh have demanded a severe punishment for the husband of a young wife who allegedly cut off most of her right hand. Police say Rafiqul Islam, 30, attacked her because she pursued higher education without his permission.
They say Mr Islam, a migrant worker, admitted to the crime shortly after returning home from the Gulf.
However there has been no independent confirmation from the suspect that he carried out the attack. The incident is one of a number of acts of domestic violence targeting educated women in recent months.
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Filed Dec 17 2011 by Atheist At Large in Arguments
Boggles the mind…
Here’s the skit…
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/Tebow/1374394 (The YouTube video was yanked-down by NBC Universal, so you’ll have to watch it on the NBC site).
And here’s Pat bitching about “anti-christian bigotry”…
Filed Dec 20 2011 by Hoover in Atheism
A lesson from Hitch: When rudeness is called for
I’ve just been reviewing my experiences with Christopher Hitchens. He informed me, entertained me, provoked me like nobody else, and I will miss his antic spirit more than I can say. I didn’t know him for long, though I’d been reading his pieces, with mixed reactions, for years. We met in early 2007, and had dinner in Las Vegas, where we were both appearing in an Amazing Randi meeting. He kindled a happy bonfire of discussion that continued intermittently in meetings and emails.
One moment stands out, and it was, in fact, the last time I saw him face to face, in November of 2009, more than two years ago. We were both appearing in a debate as part of the program of Ciudad de las Ideas, an excellent gathering held annually in Puebla, Mexico. (It’s modeled on TED-I call it TED Mex. Go. It’s well worth the visit.) One of the speakers for the other side, the God side, was Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, and after our short set pieces, the rebuttals started with the rabbi. We each were allotted four minutes only for rebuttal, and the rabbi launched into a series of outrageous claims trying to besmirch Darwin and evolutionary biology by claiming that Hitler was inspired by Darwin to organize slaughters to ensure the survival of his race. I sat there, dumfounded and appalled, and tried to figure out how best to rebut this obscene misrepresentation when my turn came.
Christopher didn’t wait his turn. “Shame! Shame!” he bellowed, interrupting Boteach in mid-sentence. It worked. Boteach backpedaled, insisting he was only quoting somebody who had thus opined at the time. Christopher had broken the spell, and a particularly noxious spell it was.
More..
via A lesson from Hitch: When rudeness is called for – - The Washington Post.
Filed by Atheist At Large in Science
Modern medicine at work
This is a great story of how evolution works. You need to go back in time a couple hundred years and travel to England for its beginnings.
During the Black Plague there was one village alone in the world that seemed to be virtually unaffected by the Plague and no one knew why until modern medicine came about. Genetics was the key, and what was observed was a genetic mutation in humans that allowed them to be virtually immune to the Plague. A gene labeled the Delta 32 gene was discovered and proved to cause resilience to the Plague. This find was partially due to something seemingly totally unrelated, 13 people in Australia seemed to be immune to the aids virus … The research lead to the Delta 32 gene and its beginnings in England.
When the gene is expressed from one parent the offspring have a huge resistance to the Plague, when its represented by both parents the offspring are resistant to aids.
Over the last say 30 years there have been many questions arising because the human body does seem to have the ability to filter out or destroy the aids virus. A virus usually isnt destroyed in the human body, it lingers but is impudent and cant lock on cells to insert its destructive genes.
Well mankind can now insert its own destructive force to aids and it comes from others that have the ability to fight the virus one on one, here’s one mans story and a legacy not just to mans invention but to evolution …
Filed Dec 28 2011 by DeltaV in Atheism
Stamp out theocracy and inform the public about what gods really are… imaginary.
- Purchase a self-inking rubber stamp for $16.95 here, or a smaller one for $11.95 here
- Customize it to read: “WWW.GODISIMAGINARY.COM”
- When you receive it, stamp out “In God We Trust” on your $1, $5, and $10 bills since these are what get circulated among the population. Don’t worry about stamping $20s since those get bundled up and sent to the bank each night.
I’ve been able to get 1.5 years out of my rubber stamp before it needed a replacement red ink pad. But if your pad dries up sooner (which is a GREAT thing) get replacement pads here for $3.95 each.
If you ever come across any paper money with this lettering stamped on the back, you know it was from me, DeltaV.
Filed Jan 02 2012 by DeltaV in Science
Last year, Robertson claimed God told him that America’s future will be bleak because of debt and divisions, and today on The 700 Club said that God again communicated to him that financial problems and partisan politics are going to bring America into decline.
Unsurprisingly, Robertson said God is no fan of President Obama:
“Your president holds a radical view of the direction of your country which is at odds with the majority, expect chaos and paralysis.”
(more…)
Filed Jan 05 2012 by DeltaV in Atheism
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From the movie Jesus Camp (deleted scenes).
From: http://imgur.com/r/atheism/gegqk
Text from image: “This is an actual logo designed in 1973 for the Catholic Church’s Archdiocesan Youth Commission. It even won an award from the Art Directors Club of Los Angeles.”
Filed Jan 11 2012 by DeltaV in Atheism
The Court rules that Plaintiff [Ahlquist] has standing in this matter and rules in her favor on the merits of this dispute. The Court also orders the immediate removal of the Prayer Mural from the auditorium at Cranston West.
The religious banner that hangs in the auditorium at Rhode Island’s Cranston High School West will soon be coming down — the school has ten days to comply with the ruling.
(more…)
Filed Jan 12 2012 by DeltaV in Science
“I don’t have an issue with what you do in the church, but I’m gonna be up in your face if you’re gonna knock on my science classroom and tell me they’ve got to teach what you’re teaching in your Sunday school. Because that’s when we’re gonna fight!” – Neil deGrasse Tyson
Filed Jan 13 2012 by Confictura in Politics
Apparently it’s that time of year when every Republican controlled legislature introduces bills designed to force Christianity upon us. As I reported earlier on Thursday, the Indiana Senate introduced a bill that allows school boards to force teachers to teach creationism as science. Now I’m disappointed to report that my home state of Missouri is considering a similar bill, except this one is far worse.
On January 10, 2012, the Missouri House of Representatives introduced a bill that would force educators to teach creationism in schools as an accepted science, despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of the scientific community rejects creationism as science. But this bill is worse than the Indiana bill. House bill 1227 or the Missouri Standard Science Act skips school boards and directly forces teachers to teach creationism. The bill goes even further than that, however. It not only requires that creationism be taught in elementary and high school, but also in introductory college science courses as well. It also requires textbooks to include creationism.
This bill seeks to violate religious freedom and is an attempt by Republicans to indoctrinate our kids. It forces teachers to drill an unfounded Biblical belief into the minds of students, even if it goes against their own religious beliefs. It also forces college professors, who have spent their academic careers in the science community, to teach an entirely rejected theory that has no factual basis in science as an accepted theory to impressionable college students. This can easily be construed as a church effort to convert non-believers and those of different faiths to Christianity.
The bill is wrong on so many levels it’s pitiful. For decades, religious fundamentalists have attempted to force the Bible on school children and their number one target has been evolution. They hate it because it is supported with facts and evidence. So they have tried to re-introduce creationism as “intelligent design” or “biological intelligent design” as this bill refers to it as. The fact is, creationism has zero evidence to support it. Proponents of creationism can only use Biblical text as a source. Real scientists rely on evidence to prove theories and evolution is an evidence supported scientific fact. That is why evolution, NOT creationism, is taught is schools. Teaching a religious theory only opens the doors to division among students. If one religious theory has to bed taught, then ALL the theories of other religions must be taught as well. That takes students away from actual learning, which will only cause our national science scores to drop. How can our kids learn about real sciences if most of the class time is wasted presenting all the various religious theories that have no evidence to back themselves up? In short, they can’t. Schools have a limited amount of time as it is to cram as much of the curriculum they can into the developing minds of the kids they teach. Adding a bogus religious theory to the curriculum only makes their jobs more difficult. And that would be disastrous to our education system which I suspect is also part of the reason why conservatives are pushing these bills.
Link Here
Sec. 4.6. (a) In order that each student recognize the importance of spiritual development in establishing character and becoming a good citizen, the governing body of a school corporation or the equivalent authority of a charter school may require the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer at the beginning of each school day. The prayer may be recited by a teacher, a student, or the class of students.
(b) If the governing body or equivalent authority requires the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer under subsection (a), the governing body or equivalent authority shall determine the version of the Lord’s Prayer that will be recited in the school corporation or charter school.
(c) A student is exempt from participation in the prayer if:
(1) the student chooses not to participate; or
(2) the student’s parent chooses to have the student not
In order that each student recognize the importance of spiritual development in establishing character and becoming a good citizen, the governing body of a school corporation or the equivalent authority of a charter school may require the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer at the beginning of each school day. The prayer may be recited by a teacher, a student, or the class of students.
Since when is “spiritual development” important in becoming a good citizen?! Being an ethical person doesn’t result from believe in bullshit. It comes from a variety of sources, including good parenting, strong role models, and the ability to think reasonably and rationally through situations.
The legislation was introduced by Senator Jim Tomes and co-authored by Senators Dennis Kruse and Travis Holdman.
Source Here, and Here
“When I was given a DVD of a protest rally in the small town of King, near where I live, I was shocked by the sight of five thousand people waving Christian Flags and cheering one of the speakers when he said that everyone there should “encourage” those who weren’t Christian in the area to move somewhere else.
My first reaction was anger and I told my wife, Susan, we were going to put our house up for sale the next day and move somewhere more tolerant. But the next morning, I decided that I would do something else first. I took my video camera down to the Veteran’s Memorial in King’s Public Park and started interviewing people.
I learned that the rally had been ignited by a returning Afghanistan Veteran who threatened to sue the town if they didn’t remove the Christian Flag from the public Veteran’s Memorial.
I was surprised that most residents believed that Separation of Church and State is a myth and that the Founders intended this to be an officially Christian Nation. They quoted so many historical facts from a man named David Barton to back up their claims, that I really wondered if what I’d taken for granted might be incorrect.
And thus began a year-and-a-half journey in my spare time to find out the truth and source of the idea of Separation of Church and State, as well as interviews with half a dozen different religious groups in the area about what and why they believed what they do. The story quickly became as much about what we believe about God as what we believe about the Founders of the United States — and how we evaluate truth itself.
Although I started the project out of anger, I ended up truly liking the people I interviewed on all sides of the issue and it helped to diffuse my own negative emotions to the point where I felt a responsibility to honestly represent the viewpoints of even those I disagreed with the most. To that end, I have not done any narration, but have simply let the people themselves give their opinions in their own words. I will leave it up to you to decide who you agree with.
This was just me with a camera on my own, so it is definitely not a professionally produced documentary, but I hope some will find it as interesting a subject and as much an education as I did in making it.”
By: Scott Burdick
Filed Jan 14 2012 by Confictura in Science
Ask many scientists what they believe separates the pursuit of scientific inquiry from most everything else and you’ll get a wide range of open-ended, flowery, idealistic, and nearly altruistic, statements like ”unlock the mysteries of the world”, “the thrill of discovery”, “making a meaningful contribution to society”, or “improving people’s lives”. No matter how you cut it, scientists tend to agree that science is an important framework for systematically establishing the validity of claims by relying on evidence.
Scientists’ idealism is honorable, and genuinely heartfelt. Few other groups of people really do want the change the world in such a positive, progressive manner. Yet, in a twist of irony, few other groups who prize evidence and free thought systematically follow dogmatic traditions that are directly in conflict with their idealistic world view. Why are some of the smartest people in the country allowing publishing companies to fleece them, their institutions and libraries, the federal government and the american taxpayers of their money?
Sadly, what is occurring is not illegal, but to the average person it might sound like a fine line between fee-for-service and embezzlement of taxpayer money. Scientists, at least those receiving federal and state grants, are awarded taxpayer’s money based on merit of proposals by a groups of their peers. This money is managed through academic institutions and when it comes time to publish these results in the peer-reviewed literature, fees are paid out to private, profit-driven publishing companies. The publishing companies provide editorial assistance and the peer review process and once accepted, print it out or make the works available online and ship copies to subscribers. There is nothing wrong about providing fees for service, but these publishing companies then charge the same academic and federal institutions and the taxpayers who provided the initial funds for the research to access the information that they paid for.
Herein lies the paradox. Consider an investment broker who takes clients’ money offshore evading the United States tax system and then charges their clients fees to access their own money and to merely look at their portfolio or balance. Not a perfect analogy, and not entirely illegal perhaps, but it smells just as funny. This is why there are groups of people, not only scientists, that insist on open access of publication results and data for taxpayer-funded research. Who else wants access to research besides scientists? Non-profit groups with strapped budgets, advocacy groups for patient rights, teachers and students at grade schools or even non-research universities, journalists and writers working on news stories or books, etc. – all are participants of the knowledge ecosystem along with the researchers. Many are indeed taxpaying United States citizens who have actually helped to fund the research they desperately need access to.
In 2008, the National Institutes of Health recognized the irony and proclaimed that all federally-funded research publications be made openly accessible. They even provide a repository (PubMedCentral) and a gave researchers (and publishing companies) a generous leeway up to 12 months post-publication to accomplish this. The publishing companies still had a year to make money off the research and taxpayers would eventually get to read relevant research results after an arguably reasonable period.
Not satisfied with this compromise, though, the American Association of Publisher’s, has been fighting back and curiously appear to have secured a few members of Congress in their back pocket. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Darrell Issa (R-CA) introduce HR3699, the “Research Works Act“, into Congress just before Christmas. And it not a tenuous link that Maloney and Issa both received donations from major publishing companies in 2011 and ended year introducing this short, and potentially misleading, bit of text intended “to ensure the continued publication and integrity of peer-reviewed research works by the private sector.” It reads as follows:
No Federal agency may adopt, implement, maintain, continue, or otherwise engage in any policy, program, or other activity that–
(1) causes, permits, or authorizes network dissemination of any private-sector research work without the prior consent of the publisher of such work; or
(2) requires that any actual or prospective author, or the employer of such an actual or prospective author, assent to network dissemination of a private-sector research work.
As with any legislation, language is always very important. As Dr. Michael Eisenpointed out on his personal blog, “this bill would not only end the NIH’s Public Access Policy, but it would forbid any effort on the part of any agency to ensure taxpayer access to work funded by the federal government.” Additionally, the part about the “private-sector” refers to any non-governmental research. In this manner, universities would be regarded more as independent contractor and their research works would thus be non-governmental and part of the “private sector”.
Speaking of language, the text of the AAP’s press release commending the legislation is mind-bogglingly superfluous! Is there really rogue peer review out there that needs protecting against? Where Tom Allen, president and CEO and AAP notes, “The professional and scholarly publishing community thanks Representatives Issa and Maloney for supporting their significant investments that fund innovations and enable the essential peer-review process maintaining the high standards of U.S. scientific research.” It is disingenuous at best to connect the free, open dissemination of publicly-funded research works with standards of peer review and innovation. If anything, the taint of profit-driven shenanigans causes a detriment to the credibility of research and peer review.
The AAP even goes so far as to boldly state “Journal articles are widely available in major academic centers, public libraries, universities, interlibrary loan programs and online databases. Many academic, professional and business organizations provide staffs and members with access to such content.” Being widely available is not the same thing as being widely accessible! If you offer something on the internet, by definition it is widely available. This blog is widely available since internet connections exist in most countries around the world. But locking research works behind paywalls makes them widely inaccessible and not just geographically either as anyone without the means (poor people -which are historically minorities; cash-strapped nonprofits, teachers and students; etc.) is effectively barred from knowledge that they financially contributed to, in a collective sense, through tax payments.
So, we are where I started this conversation, why do the some of the smartest people in country allowing this to happen? I think Danah Boyd put it best in a pointed rant onsaving ideas, not the publishing industry
But what pisses me off to no end is that the same Marxist academics who pooh-pooh corporations justify their own commitment to this blood-sucking process with one word: tenure. Not like that is the end of the self-justifications. Even once scholars get tenure, they continue down the same path – even when not publishing with students – by telling themselves it’s for promotion or because grants require it or because of any other status-seeking process.
With the rise of at least two prominent open access publishing companies, Public Library of Science and BioMedCentral, with an assortment of general and niche topic science publications, there is little excuse to support this institutionalized fleecing. In fact, as the blog for the Association of College and Research Libraries notes, there are several ways we can be break out of the vicious cycle, produce noteworthy publications in popular, highly-accessed and openly available journals. The fact of the matter remains that the large, profit-driven scientific publishing companies are touting an unsustainable and outdated model and failing to innovate their own industry. Instead, they are pumping thousands of dollars into politicians to enact legislation making it more difficult for individuals and institutions to access research works. In fact, we’ve seen the initial dying throws of the industry as it spews out dozens of new, highly-specialized journals to target ever more niche audiences.
There is one thing that we all need to do, though. If you have ever supported science, if you rely on research works for your advocacy group or non-profit (medical, environmental, etc.), if you are scientist who understands how precious every research dollar is, or even if you are a taxpayer concerned about publishing companies double-dipping (remember, many public universities’ libraries are publicly-funded to some extent!) you need to get off you ass and get involved right now! The Office of Science Technology and Policy (OSTP) puts out calls for comments on science and technology related legislation. Guess who answered the call? Private publishing companies. Guess who did not answer the call? Scientists.
In fact, since no scientists commented on 2 recent calls and the deadlines were extended. One, Public Access to Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Publications Resulting From Federally Funded Research, unfortunately just passed (was extended to January 12!). I do not think that should stop you from making a comment though, perhaps to your elected representatives. The other, Public Access to Digital Data Resulting From Federally Funded Scientific Research, is still accepting comments through January 12. If you are unhappy with something, it is incumbent upon you to do your part to change things. I hope readers will join me in contacting representatives Maloney and Issa and sharing why we think limiting access to taxpayer-funded research is a bad idea for our nation.
Source: Scientific American
Filed Jan 20 2012 by Confictura in Humor
WASHINGTON—After more than five decades of tireless work, brave exploration, and technological innovation aimed at a single objective, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced Wednesday that it had finally completed its mission to find and kill God. Enlarge Image NASA officials celebrate after finally locating and murdering the Supreme Being. “I am ecstatic to [...]
Filed Jan 18 2012 by Atheist At Large in Science
http://richarddawkins.net/videos/644610-jake-hanging-out-with-a-teenage-einstein
Filed Jan 17 2012 by Atheist At Large in Science
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2012/01/black-widow-pulsar-imaged-destroying-a-companion-star-.html
