Well, if they can not offer a Master of Science degree I suggest they offer a Master of Magic degree. After all, they are people too.

Julia

Many world religions have a creationist plank in their religious platform, including many "First People" groups.

Would you make light of and celebrate a North American tribe's setback regarding their religion? Or do you just celebrate setbacks that happen to Evangelical Christians?

Perhaps you might consider hosting a forum on Religious Myths so you can shout the sect's appropriate word of praise as you laugh at their beliefs. Ghost Dancers, Pot-Bellied Statues, Trees, Cows. You could have a field day!

Dear Barry Wallace,
It's true, there are many, many religious traditions and many, many of them feature creation myths of one stripe or another. It is probably also true that Julia Whitty would be loathe to mock, say a Native American religious group in a public forum, despite these creation myths lacking any kind of scientific backing. In this regard, they are of course much like Christian "Creationism" or it's pseudo-scientific corollary, "Intelligent Design."

However, the major difference here is that no one is trying to force our schools to put Ghost Dancers and/or Pot-bellied statues on an equal footing with such enduring theories (yes, yes, "only" theories, not facts) as natural selection, et al.. Maybe these beliefs will receive the wrath of Ms. Whitty's acid pen/keyboard when they attempt to hijack the intellectual integrity of our school system.
-MJ

Global warming is the religion of the pagans. If you speak against global warming, these pagans look for their goddess tree and a rope to lynch you. How enlightened.

See Ben Stein's movie eXpelled.

I wonder. Is there some central 'reactionary center' that assigns one useless uber-right-winger to every left wing site?

I ask this because of the useless, unconvincing and yet persistent posts in nearly every left-wing blog environment. Witness "sarah' here.

Has anyone noticed this phenomenon too? Do leftists waste their time going on the 'left behind' blogs? I don't think so.

In response to Sarah:
Read the articles in Scientific American about how all of the scientists interviewed were mislead and the whole event was staged using mostly hired extra's to fill the auditorium.

Barry - creation myths (regardless of their origin) don't belong in science, you can't test them. As a trained anthropologist and ethnographer, I've personally spent years studying creation myths - from Aborigines to Roman Catholics - while I appreciate the cultural believe system and understand the important role of origin narratives in social cohesion (in a very real sense), I still think it's ok to laugh at a ridiculous believe. The truth of a belief doesn't detract from the significance or worthwhileness of that believe. As we all know, a myth doesn't have to be true for it to be important in our lives.

Poor, poor Sarah.

Researchers studying long-term changes in sea temperatures said they now expect a "lull" for up to a decade while natural variations in climate cancel out the increases caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions.(Today's NY Times)

The average temperature of the sea around Europe and North America is expected to cool slightly over the decade while the tropical Pacific remains unchanged.

This would mean that the 0.3°C global average temperature rise which has been predicted for the next decade by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may not happen, according to the paper published in the scientific journal Nature.
This means that from a practical standpoint climate models are of no practical use beyond providing some intellectual authority in the promotional battle over global climate policy. I am sure that some model somewhere has foretold how the next 20 years will evolve (and please ask me in 20 years which one!). And if none get it right, it won't mean that any were actually wrong. If there is no future over the next few decades that models rule out, then anything is possible. And of course, no one needed a model to know that.

Please don't lynch me if I am an unbeliever.

Sarah, your statements reflect a serious misreading of the scientific literature on climate change, and a profound lack of understanding about the scientific process in general. We're not "lynching" you (a loaded term you seem to throw around with ease). We're crying for you.

Sarah, I don't believe that the US could have 'won' a nuclear war with the former Soviet Union but doing nothing to prevent a nuclear war seems like an awful way to validate the science behind opposing theories on that subject.

MJ

Thank you for your respectful feedback. I agree with you for the most part. What I know of this issue, I gained from following the links in Julia’s article.

The Institute for Creation Research was seeking an accredited online M.S. degree for teachers in private schools. They were not trying to force a curriculum based on creationism into the public schools, which is what your last statement implies. For the ICR, I am sure they believe they are teaching the correct science, just as does Texas A&M.

Finally, I have taken required classes at both the B.S. and M.S. levels I did not totally believe in or support. But they were required for the degree and they did at least expand my thinking and understandng.

SuperA

Thank you for your respectful feedback. I agree with you as well. And as a person who has studied this topic in-depth, I appreciate your insight, even admitting that some beliefs are laughable. But let me ask you this, SuperA.

Assume you are in some rain forest studying a tribe’s beliefs on creation. When the Chief tells you a particularly “crazy to you” belief, would you laugh to his face and sarcastically use a word with a specific sacred meaning? I do not think you would. And this was my point.

This is a public forum of sorts that attracts people with diverse backgrounds. Staff writers should write their postings with that sensitivity.

One of the popular forum posts regards a proposal allowing the “sacred buffalo” to roam again freely from Canada to the U.S. This is a very symbolic and an important part of some Native Americans’ belief system. I seriously doubt the Mother Jones editors would allow Julia to introduce that subject the way she has this one.

And that was my original point. Disagree with a concept? Fine…but do so respectfully, as you have done.

Barry -

Great points. And I concede that respect is always vital - even for beliefs we find humorous. But I also think it's possible to laugh at a belief on one level, and respect it on another - two different planes of analysis.

I'm not sure that your two situations are really comparable. For one, as an anthropologist (I'll speak for myself here) I take a particular mythology and try to figure out how it functions in the society at large - how does a belief have real impacts on the way people operate. To do this, we need to look at the underlying power dynamics of a belief system in the society. On this point, Christian origin myths in our society are quite different than indigenous origin myths in a "tribal" society (which btw you can't just lump together into something abstractly singular) - one could write several dissertations on this.

Second: context, context, context. I wouldn't laugh in a "chief's" face anymore than I would laugh in a pastor's. But that is not the context of Julia's post. Her comments relate to the role religion plays in our educational system and our government at large - calling on rational, scientific analysis to be placed over religion in our classrooms (something that even many pastors agree with). And she's speaking to Americans, who have passionately debated this point since the founding of the colonies - you might be surprised at how "the founders" flung insults at each other over their beliefs. She's snarky, I'll grant you that, and she walks a fine line. But for me, I don't have an issue with that. It's important to be critical, and even to make fun of religion occasionally - even religious people do this.

On another note, I've spoken with many very religious intellectuals who believe the best way for religion to flourish is to keep it separate from the government, to not have it taught by government teachers with an approved curriculum, but to have it be something one explores personally, with their pastors, with the freedom to push and pull their beliefs over time. In this context, I find it somewhat ironic that the "Christian Right" thinks they should couple with government.

Thanks for the discussion, and the opportunity to ramble on this topic again.

Thank god!!!