Recently in Science Fiction Category

United Kingdom: a little over three weeks ago, The Observer posted a story about a prominent Tory, Philippa Stroud, alleging that she was involved in attempts to "cure" LGBT people. She has disputed this allegation, and the paper has appended her complaint to the article. Part of the summary of this complaint jumped out, as it makes her look as if she's a believer in the Satanic abuse myth:

In addition, the reference to demonic activity in her book "God's help for the poor' does not relate to sexual orientation but to those who have been involved in occult practices, including violence and sexual abuse.

That last comma is in a particularly interesting place...

Rising Tory star Philippa Stroud ran prayer sessions to 'cure' gay people—The Observer, 2nd May 2010.

Northern Ireland: A government minister is calling for a Belfast museum to treat fairy stories as science, and claims their failure to do so is a human rights issue. Culture minister Nelson McCausland, wrote to the trustees of the Ulster Museum demanding their exhibitions reflect his belief that his imaginary friend made the universe in less than a week. And he claimed a substantial proportion of the Northern Irish population shared his insanity.

McCausland defended a letter he wrote to the trustees calling for anti-evolution exhibitions at the museum. He claimed that around one third of Northern Ireland's population believed either in intelligent design or the creationist view that the universe was created about 6,000 years ago.

I have had more letters from the public on this issue than any other issue, he said.

So clearly, the museum, as an educational establishment, needs to correct their misconceptions, not encourage them. McCausland has some other insane ideas: he believes that Ulster Protestants are one of the Lost Tribes of Israel! One suspects that deporting them there would only cause more trouble.

The Guardian does not indicate whether he was writing in his official capacity, but indicates there is an orchestrated campaign against Northern Irish museums who wish their exhibitions to reflect reality. He's also not the only lunatic in the Northern Irish Assembly. Fellow party- and Assembly- member Mervyn Storey insists that publicity for one of Northern Ireland's few tourist attractions, the Giant's Causeway, reflect his belief that it is only 6000 years old, rather than the millions indicated by the evidence. He did not indicate whether equal space should be given to the just as convincing belief that the Causeway was created by legendary warrior Fionn mac Cumhaill so he could get to Scotland for a fight.

Northern Ireland minister calls on Ulster Museum to promote creationism—The Guardian, 26th May 2010.

United States: Scientists have complained that anti-gay religious groups are pretending to be legitimate scientific organisations, and presenting deliberately distorted versions of their research as fact. This is nothing new—the Prattle dissected one example back in 1998. The most recent case involves Dr. Gary Remafedi of the University of Minnesota, whose work on adolescent sexuality has been appropriated and misrepresented by a bogus paediatrics organisation, the American College of Pediatricians, trying to deny any support whatsoever to LGBT kids in school.

The letter, and the Facts About Youth website it pointed school officials to, was dense with footnotes citing scientific studies. Remafedi's research was at the top of the list.

The ACP argues that schools shouldn't support gay teens because they're probably just confused. Most adolescents who experience same-sex attraction...no longer experience such attractions at age 25, the letter says, citing a 1992 study by Remafedi.

Except that's not what Remafedi's research suggested at all. His work showed that kids who are confused about their sexuality eventually sort it out—meaning many of them accept being gay.

That's not the only example of this organisation lying about Remafedi's research. They took his finding that people who come out earlier are more likely to experience stigma and isolation, leading to an increased suicide risk, and twisted it to claim that identifying as gay itself was the problem. As Remafedi noted, It's obvious that they didn't even read my research. I mean, they spelled my name wrong every time they cited it.

Alvin McEwan has summarised the problem in a posting at the Huffington Post, and also links to Respect My Research—a Truth Won Out site dedicated to highlighting such abuses.

Evangelists treat the distorted research as the truth when they need to justify hate speech against LGBT people. Bradlee Dean looks like a 1980s hair rocker, a particularly naff one. His You Can Run But You Cannot Hide ministry uses allegedly punk music (with hair that long?!) to corrupt young minds with his imaginary friend. He has recently praised Islam for its murderous intolerance of homosexuality, and urged Christians to kill LGBT people. And he uses falsified scientific research to justify his violence.

On average, they molest 117 people before they’re found out. How many kids have been destroyed, how many adults have been destroyed because of crimes against nature?

As The Freethinker points out, this claim is bollocks, based on misrepresentation of research. Perhaps he was confused and thinking about the child abuse scandals involving Christian clergy (of several denominations) which have recently come to light?

University of Minnesota professor's research hijacked—City Pages, 26th May 2010; 'Let's threaten gays with death as the Muslims do', says Christian wingnut—The Freethinker, 26th May 2010.

Science fiction is apparently evil and to be avoided, but not because most of it is crap. No, it's because it's about science and written by atheists.

With it being a product of an evolutionary worldview that denies the Almighty Creator, you'd think the Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service would have no trouble coming up with more than the six dead men they did. They completely forgot about Douglas Adams, Iain Banks, Ben Bova, Angela Carter, Thomas M. Disch, Greg Egan, Harlan Ellison, Harry Harrison, Stanislaw Lem, H.P. Lovecraft, China Miéville, Terry Pratchett, Rober J. Sawyer, Bruce Sterling and Charles Stross.

They also chose to ignore this list and linked pages at adherents.com, which shows a wide variety of superstitious belief, or lack thereof, among SF writers. And clearly are unaware of that noted name William Charles Deich IV (via Pharyngula.)

Meanwhile, here is a useful summary of all knowledge.

Australia: It seems an unofficial front for the Catholic Church's contraception disinformation campaign has been sleazing its way through regional New South Wales state school spreading its propaganda about condoms being ineffective in preventing HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.

Real Choices Australia operates the program, Choices Decisions Outcomes, mainly in government schools across Australia. One of its directors and spokeswoman, Debbie Garratt, has links to the Catholic Church and has worked with anti-abortion groups.

The program is used at Ulladulla High School. Teams are trying to promote it in the Newcastle, Kempsey, Macksville, Port Macquarie and Taree regions. On the Choices Decisions Outcomes' website, students are warned that condoms are not 100 per cent effective in stopping sexually transmitted infections. It highlights that children who engage in sexual activity are flirting with danger.The website goes on to say there is no scientific evidence that condoms prevent the transmission of most sexually transmitted diseases.

In the UK, there is still some stigma attached to HIV/AIDS, but it's nothing like the scale we see in other parts of the world. HelpAge International, noting an increase in HIV infection amongst older heterosexual couples in sub-Saharan Africa, draws our attention to what that stigma can mean:

In Tanzania, older women are accused of witchcraft if a member of their family has HIV. These women are ostracised from their communities and subjected to violence and even death.

Superstition still plays a part in shaping people's attitudes to the condition, and has provided some novel preventatives and "cures". In her entry to the The Guardian International Development Journalism Competition, Kirsty Taylor looked at the situation in Kenya:

I went to very many herbalists to try and find a cure, but they didn't know what was wrong with me, [Damaris Cagina] explains. They told me my mother-in-law had bewitched me. They told me to buy special fabric - a white cloth with red stripes - and to put soil in a basket to stop the spell. I tried it all but nothing helped. It was only after very many visits to herbalists that I decided to come to hospital.

Cagina is one of the estimated 1.4 million people living with HIV/Aids in Kenya today. But like many of them, she first refused tests to discover her status, viewing a positive result as an immediate death sentence and spiritual curse.

The role of religion in promoting superstition, stigmatising people with HIV/AIDS and getting in the way of preventative efforts is well-known, and doesn't just affect Africa. Even in the relatively godless UK, it's regarded as a problem.

Religions are often credited as the means by which moral values, such as care for others, are reinforced and passed on.

But some charities and anti-HIV groups claim religion is helping to breed the very stigma that the UN says has helped give the UK twice as many new cases of infection each year as any other country in western Europe....

In denouncing the behaviour that allows the virus to spread, religious leaders sometimes drive HIV-positive people underground.

That same story contains an interesting profile of an HIV-positive imam, originally from the Ivory Coast, but now resident in the UK, and afraid to let his family know of his condition because he would be ostracised. Another African Muslim explained the problem from his point of view:

Along with a conservative African culture, religion has played a significant role in creating this taboo. Ismael is 40 and originally from Sudan.

The imams don't talk too much about it, but they start off by saying 'this is a taboo, this is a sin, a punishment from Allah'.

"When you disclose it, straight away they think you are gay, or maybe you got it from a prostitute or you did something bad and Allah is punishing you. That is why it has to be kept secret.

Over in Indonesia, we see a fine example of exactly that problem:

The image of a giant condom draped in Indonesia's national red and white colors towered over the opening ceremonies of National Condom Week in Jakarta. To coincide with World AIDS Day, the National AIDS Commission crafted the message, Use Condoms, Celebrate Life. But some hardline religious groups don't believe condom use should be promoted, let alone celebrated.

The Islamic group Hizbut Tahrir held banners during a demonstration on Sunday aimed at urging the government to end programs that provide free condoms to male and female sex workers, based on the argument that condoms encourage sex outside of marriage.

Because humans always need to be encouraged to have sex, right?

Rise in HIV and AIDS cases among older Africans—HelpAge International, 1st December 2009; Truth is the first casualty—The Guardian, 25th November 2009; Imam aims to break Aids taboo—BBC News, 1st December 2009; Condom friction in pious Indonesia—Asia Times, 1st December 2009.

Indonesia: Muslims aren't supposed to drink alcohol, but it seems that Indonesian communications minister Tifatul Sembiring had a wee tipple before he addressed a prayer meeting last Friday in an area where over 1000 people had been killed by an earthquake last September.

Communication and Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring linked disasters to declining public morals when he addressed a prayer meeting in the city of Padang to mark a Muslim holiday on Friday.

Television broadcasts that destroy morals are plentiful in this country and therefore disasters will continue to occur, national news agency Antara quoted Sembiring as saying in the Bahasa Indonesia language.

He also referred to Indonesian-made hard-core sex DVDs available in street markets as an example of growing public decadence and called for tougher laws against pornography.

It looks as if his intemperate words might be a career-limiting move, as it has offended relatives of the victims, who know perfectly well that Indonesia lies on a series of fault lines.

Kikie Marzuki, a Muslim Aceh resident who lost 10 relatives in the tsunami, said victims were not to blame.

I prefer to believe that natural disasters occur because of the destructive force of nature that cannot be avoided by humans, he said.

The minister does have the support of religious authorities, though, as they are not concerned with actual facts or anything resembling the truth.

Indon minister blames disasters on immorality—My Sinchew, 29th November 2009; Indonesia minister says immorality causes disasters—BBC News, 28th November 2009.

Turkey: Creationist bampots are rather active in allegedly secular Turkey, and they have an Islamic flavour. Adnan Oktar, author of the notorious Atlas of Creation is apparently banged up for creating an illegal organisation for personal gain and making threats, so it's up to his cronies to fly the creationist flag. And they are even more lacking in basic science, even though one of them is a brain surgeon! A correspondent for soL, a Turkish left-wing news portal, watched the TV debate and reports:

During the TV show, Dr. Oktar Babuna and Cihat Gündoğdu tried to disprove arguments of the scientists...

They called in the question which evolution created angel and daemon, how felicities in the heaven evolved, how the snake came into existence out of the baton as well as the bird out of mud. The creationists tried to disprove evolution theory with these questions.

They did not address how other similar creatures, such as invisible pink unicorns, cast doubt on evolutionary theory.

"Well then, how did angels evolve?"—soL, 16th August 2009.

Scotland: A few days ago, a tornado hit Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis. Ten days or so before that, the first Sunday ferry sailed to Stornoway, and eight days (the Record got it wrong) after the first civil partnership took place on the island. It took less than 24 hours for a superstitious bampot to make a connection between these events and his imaginary friend.

The Reverend James Tallach, of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, told the Record: I'm not in a position to say this was the will of God. I don't have that information here.

"But I am prepared to say that it's certain no good will come out of defying God's law.

"That is what a Civil Partnership does. What happened on Monday was in defiance of God.

"We have also seen a clear breach of the Fourth Commandment, which regards keeping the Sabbath holy. Sunday sailings were also against the law of God.

You can see why we keep these people on a small island a long way from civilisation. Anyway, we can draw one major conclusion from this: God has a really shit aim. He managed to miss the fuel depot for the ferries, for example. Furthermore, the Prattle has a contact on Lewis, a man who was on that first Sunday ferry and who wore a T-shirt designed to wind up the protesters. Obviously the sort of character God would want to smite, and indeed He got within about 20 metres. The exact quote was something like Well it hit number 34, but I live at number 32! Really, you can't get the deities these days.

Discussion in the pub also brought forth an interesting hypothesis: if we take the time between an event said to incur the wrath of God, and an incident which is said to be caused by the aforementioned wrath, then we can work out how far away God must be. Of course, this assumes a deity is bound by the speed of light.

Stornoway tornado was 'wrath of God', says minister—Daily Record, 30th July 2009.

Well, the comments might be working, or they might not be (previewing first definitely does work), and regardless, they look odd. Search definitely isn't working, but here are a few stories to keep you occupied while I try and fix things:

• One of the day care abuse cases from the 80s has been resolved as Bernard Baran wins his appeal after 21 years in prison for a crime which never happened. Background information at freebaran.org.


• Virgin Mary spotted in bird shit.


• Israeli Supreme Court rules in favour of a Christian who had Kosher certification removed from her bakery due to her having the wrong set of superstitions.

Martin of The Lay Scientist has been hanging around the Daily Mail web site, so that we don't have to. The level of his sacrifice can be judged by a recent article which featured a reconstruction of the first modern European human, who arrived from Africa and looks kind of, well, black. It seems that the BNP supporting types don't like being reminded that humanity evolved in Africa and that white skin is a relatively recent mutation.

Rubbish. Europeans did not come from Africans and never could. This is just more anti-European propaganda, of as much real scientific merit as Piltdown Man.

Others don't like the idea that we evolved at all, and in their comments demonstrate that they never got past the single-celled stage:

We are all descended from Adam and Eve, who were most probably had brown skin and were from the middle east no more than 10,000 years ago.

Daily Mail Readers in Revolt over Black Ancestors—The Lay Scientist, 5th May 2009. Headline courtesy of the Daily Mail-o-matic.

Amanda Gefter is a book reviews editor at New Scientist, and this week she has written her own guide to spotting bollocks disguised as science.

When you come across the terms "Darwinism" or "Darwinists", take heed. True scientists rarely use these terms, and instead opt for "evolution" and "biologists", respectively. When evolution is described as a "blind, random, undirected process", be warned. While genetic mutations may be random, natural selection is not. When cells are described as "astonishingly complex molecular machines", it is generally by breathless supporters of ID who take the metaphor literally and assume that such a "machine" requires an "engineer". If an author wishes for "academic freedom", it is usually ID code for "the acceptance of creationism".

In related news, 80% of the UK population disagree with creationism.

United Kingdom: Today's Grauniad is quite a terrifying read. As well as the Pope's anti-LGBT hate speech, we also learn that over a quarter of science teachers would teach creationism as if it were science:

The Ipsos/Mori poll of 923 primary and secondary teachers found that 29% of science specialists agreed with the statement: Alongside the theory of evolution and the Big Bang theory, creationism should be TAUGHT in science lessons

And they clearly don't mean discussing it as a way of demonstrating that it's superstitious bollocks, not science:

The Ipsos/Mori poll also canvassed support for the more hardline position of only mentioning creationism in the context of dismissing it. It found that only 26% of all teachers and 46% of science specialists agree with Professor Chris Higgins, vice-chancellor of the University of Durham, who is quoted as saying the only reason to mention creationism in schools is to enable teachers to demonstrate why the idea is scientific nonsense.

The poll did not ask if astrology should be taught at the same time as children learn about the planets, nor if alchemy should be given equal time in chemistry lessons.

Would you Adam and Eve it? Quarter of science teachers would teach creationism—The Guardian, 23rd December 2008 (note The Guardian making its own contribution to the misunderstanding of the word theory) .