As I read this at Pharyngula, one commenter brought up the Doctrine of Signatures.

Man, our ancestors sure had some wild imaginations.

The doctrine of signatures is an ancient European philosophy that held that plants bearing parts that resembled human body parts, animals, or other objects, had useful relevancy to those parts, animals or objects. It could also refer to the environments or specific sites in which plants grew. Many of the plants that were so regarded today still carry the word root “wort“, an Anglo-Saxon word meaning “plant” or “herb”, as part of their modern name.

I’ll bypass the inferred sexual innuendoes for the nonce. “You are what you eat” may very well be a holdover of this imaginary legacy.

Of course, Christianity immediately jumped on this bandwagon:

Christian European metaphysics expanded this philosophy in theology. According to the Christian version, the Creator had so set his mark upon Creation, that by careful observation one could find all right doctrine represented (see the detailed application to the Passionflower) and even learn the uses of a plant from some aspect of its form or place of growing.

So what was the herb they used for hemorrhoids, I wonder? Something that vaguely resembles an asshole?

For the late medieval viewer, the natural world was vibrant with the numinous images of the Deity: “as above, so below,” an expression of the relationship between macrocosm and microcosm; the principle is rendered sicut in terra. Michel Foucault expressed the wider usage of the doctrine of signatures, which rendered allegory more real and more cogent than it appears to a modern eye:

“Up to the end of the sixteenth century, resemblance played a constructive role in the knowledge of Western culture. It was resemblance that largely guided exegesis and the interpretation of texts; it was resemblance that organized the play of symbols, made possible knowledge of things visible and invisible, and controlled the art of representing them.” (The Order of Things , p. 17)

Excuse me, but that sounds a great deal like animism, except that instead of everything having an individual ’soul’, there was one ’soul’ that permeated everything.

The radical visionary Jakob Böhme (1575-1624), a master shoemaker of Görlitz, had a profound mystical vision as a young man, in which he saw the relationship between God and man signaled in all things. Inspired, he wrote Signatura Rerum (1621), soon rendered in English as The Signature of all Things and the spiritual doctrine was applied even to the medicinal uses that plants’ forms advertised.

The shoemakers of the 16th-17th centuries must’ve been using some pretty severe chemicals, I think.

This is still a working principle in homeopathy, that pseudoscience that no medical doctor worth their salt prescribes for their patients.

So there it is: eating a passionflower will no more gift the eater with the skills of cunnilingus anymore than the cucumber is the cialis of the natural world.

Let the innuendoes commence.

Till the next post, then.

For those who might not have known…

A beautiful response…

It’s time to raise our voice in prayer,
And pray to–well, there’s no one there.
No god to urge to do our bidding;
Go on and pray–just know you’re kidding.

It’s time to all sit on our asses,
And pray forgiveness for trespasses
(Or is that to forgive our debtor?
Who cares, as long as we feel better.)

It’s time we all embrace god fully,
Feel all righteous, good, and holy–
Or be some atheistic jerk,
Roll up your god-damned sleeves, and work!

It’s time to say “I do not care
To join you in this day of prayer.”
Sure, a day off looks like fun,
But there is work that must be done.

Our problems will not fix themselves
There is no god to send in elves
To do the work of human ranks
So… join, today, in prayer? No thanks.

And another good response…

It always interests me how the same arguments are pulled out against atheism. I mean, here’s a guy from Berkeley, who I’m sure is relatively intelligent, and then I read the following:

That led me to re-turn to one of C.S. Lewis’s finest books–and one of his first “Christian” ones–”The Problem of Pain.” And here’s the quote: “We ‘have all we want’ is a terrible saying when ‘all’ does not include God. We find God an interruption. As St. Augustine says somewhere, ‘God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full—there’s nowhere for Him to put it.’” Lewis is simply right, and even though it’s a tough word, it’s a good one. As he concedes, “It does not matter that I know I must become, in the eyes of every hostile reader, as it were, personally responsible for all the sufferings I try to explain…. But it matters enormously if I alienate anyone from the truth.”

And I feel the same way. I’d suggest that looking at both the amount and distribution of natural and moral evils shows that this “too much on one’s plate” explanation is simply a vapid attempt that goes nowhere.

And then, if that wasn’t enough, I get to read — once again — the values argument from theism.

The existence of good—and the related realities of meaning, purpose, and beauty—present together an almost insoluble problem for the atheist. […] Consider the words of Richard Dawkins, Oxford scientist, and bestselling author of The God Delusion: “In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.” That’s a reasonably bleak portrayal of the universe, and, since we’re part of that universe, of our lives as well. It does, however, correspond perfectly with a basic conviction from Philosophy 101—“nothing comes from nothing.” Start with a purely physical system without any Creator, and all you have is brute fact. If the universe is simply a physical system, then why should something non-physical like good, meaning, purpose, or beauty arise? It cannot.

I’ll leave the “physical” and “non-physical” fallacies for the reader for homework.

And this is out of Berkeley?

[*sigh*]

When xians try to think, run for cover…

Church Sign Causes Controversy

Pastor Roger Byrd of Jonesville Church of God put the sign up which reads “Obama Osama humm are they brothers?” Pastor Byrd says the sign is not meant to be racial or political but rather to make people think. “His name is so close to Osama I have a feeling he might be Islamic therefore he doesn’t recognize Christ,” Pastor Byrd said. Barack attends Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Eugunia Foster is offended by the church sign. “I’m embarrassed and hurt. I’m surprised a small town like Jonesville still has this separation. It is racial and hatred,” Foster said. Pastor Byrd told News Channel 7 he would ask his congregation to vote on whether to keep the sign. They voted unanimously to keep the sign up Sunday night. Jonesville Church of God does not have any African American members.

Praise Be! Glory!

Last month, talking about the latest blowup in the Myers/Nisbet fight over framing, I wrote:

Now, when your opponent refuses to so much as engage in honest debate with you, you do have the option of explaining to the world once again why they’re wrong to do so, but a good “fuck you” really isn’t out of line.

Though I thought PZ was justified in what he said, I didn’t quite know first hand the hopeless anger he was feeling. Until today.

What triggered it? It was seeing this post by Chris Mooney. It starts off with a disingenuous “I merely report the facts” on the creationist documentary Expelled’s supposed success, and then follows up with a clearly editorializing “update” which says “Randy Olson, with whom I just went to see Expelled* here in LA, has more on why this film counts as a major success for the anti-evolution forces.” Follow the link to Olson’s post, and what do I see?:

To counter the blockbuster power of Expelled,* the National Science Foundation, NAS and AAAS are organizing a panel discussion about putting together a committee to look into the possibility of creating a brochure that tells the public how to make a website for a petition that says evolution is fun.

True, to my knowledge, the three mentioned organizations didn’t do much, but pro-science folks who specialize in fighting creationism have been doing everything they can to take on Expelled, first and foremost by creating and promoting a website that debunks the movies bogus claims (i.e. the site I’ve already linked three times in this post), but also posting independent criticisms of it. Olson’s post, along with the weird post script “Ben Stein says evolution is for losers, and nobody seems to be able to answer him,” mainly serve to denigrate what defenders of evolution have been doing. As with Nisbet, the main purpose seems to be self aggrandizement: Olson’s claim to fame is having made a movie about what bad communicators scientists are, and is clearly enjoying his “I told you so” moment.

Here’s some meta-constructive criticism for Olson: Go ahead, say you think more needs to be done to combat the lies peddled in Expelled. Go ahead, campaign to get the NSF, the NAS, and the AAAS to back what the NSCE is doing. Offer help to atheist student groups in organizing anti-Expelled events. Especially the Minnesota Group, they rock. [Though our rocking prowess doesn’t match theirs, the group I’m involved with has spent time discussing Expelled with Christians.] Hold an emergency brainstorming session for internet activists, with emphasis on the emergency. [GisF readers: feel free to use this comments thread to brainstorm.] Use your knowledge of film making to create a short parody for YouTube. [Same goes for anyone reading this who does YouTube stuff.] But don’t denigrate hard-working defenders of evolution trying to fight Expelled. Don’t let what should be constructive criticism degenerate into fratricide.

*Needless to say, these links did not appear in the original Mooney/Nisbet posts.

Man, it’s so hard to distinguish the real ones from the fake ones, isn’t it? I think I need special glasses or something…

Detroit mayor says God is punishing him for disobedience

Kilpatrick told the crowd: “I’m not being whupped by the devil; I am being punished by my God. I know that my disobedience put me in the situation I am in.”

And my personal favorite (with video!)…

Breach of Faith

HOUSTON (KTRK) — The founder of a Christian school is confronted after 13 Undercover catches him soliciting sex from a parent, who’s trying to get her daughter a high school diploma.

My wife has often said with a smirk (over dinner, usually), “We’re definitely in the wrong profession. We need to start a church or something. You can lie, right? Come on, flocks give houses to their preachers around here. You can do just about anything here in the rural Midwest. Think of the money!”

Nah. I guess we’ll stay in education (for now).

If you’re anything like myself, you probably like to research books prior to purchase. Money’s money, right?

So I stumbled upon this little gem, and it piqued my interest. Humanity being much older than the accepted 100,000 years? Hmmm…

So, I foraged. Data mined, what have you.

In 1979, researchers at the Laetoli, Tanzania, site in East Africa discovered footprints in volcanic ash deposits over 3.6 million years old. Mary Leakey and others said the prints were indistinguishable from those of modern humans. To these scientists, this meant only that the human ancestors of 3.6 million years ago had remarkably modern feet. But according to other scientists, such as physical anthropologist R. H. Tuttle of the University of Chicago, fossil bones of the known australopithecines of 3.6 million years ago show they had feet that were distinctly apelike. Hence they were incompatible with the Laetoli prints. In an article in the March 1990 issue of Natural History, Tuttle confessed that “we are left with somewhat of a mystery.” It seems permissible, therefore, to consider a possibility neither Tuttle nor Leakey mentioned–that creatures with anatomically modern human bodies to match their anatomically modern human feet existed some 3.6 million years ago in East Africa. Perhaps, as suggested in the illustration on the opposite page, they coexisted with more apelike creatures. As intriguing as this archeological possibility may be, current ideas about human evolution forbid it.

Gotta love that last bit, no? From much of my reading at Pharyngula, I gather that it’s not uncommon in evolution for anomalies in the fossil record to show some startlingly modernistic characteristics in ancient lineage. These tend to come and go, however. Besides which, this has been adequately explained here. The footprints are much smaller than modern humans, and besides which, are obviously contaminated by the environment.

Knowledgeable persons will warn against positing the existence of anatomically modern humans millions of years ago on the slim basis of the Laetoli footprints. But there is further evidence. Over the past few decades, scientists in Africa have uncovered fossil bones that look remarkably human. In 1965, Bryan Patterson and W. W. Howells found a surprisingly modern humerus (upper arm bone) at Kanapoi, Kenya. Scientists judged the humerus to be over 4 million years old. Henry M. McHenry and Robert S. Corruccini of the University of California said the Kanapoi humerus was “barely distinguishable from modern Homo.” Similarly, Richard Leakey said the ER 1481 femur (thighbone) from Lake Turkana, Kenya, found in 1972, was indistinguishable from that of modern humans. Scientists normally assign the ER 1481 femur, which is about 2 million years old, to prehuman Homo habilis. But since the ER 1481 femur was found by itself, one cannot rule out the possibility that the rest of the skeleton was also anatomically modern. Interestingly enough, in 1913 the German scientist Hans Reck found at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, a complete anatomically modern human skeleton in strata over 1 million years old, inspiring decades of controversy.

The Kanapoi humerus? See here. Oldoway Man? See here.

Here again, some will caution us not to set a few isolated and controversial examples against the overwhelming amount of noncontroversial evidence showing that anatomically modern humans evolved from more apelike creatures fairly recently–about 100,000 years ago, in Africa, and, in the view of some, in other parts of the world as well.

The current evidence points to yes, but this fellow is sideways hinting that he’s found evidence that says otherwise.

But it turns out we have not exhausted our resources with the Laetoli footprints, the Kanapoi humerus, and the ER 1481 femur. Over he past eight years, Richard Thompson and I, with the assistance of our researcher Stephen Bernath, have amassed an extensive body of evidence that calls into question current theories of human evolution. Some of this evidence, like the Laetoli footprints, is fairly recent. But much of it was reported by scientists in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. And as you can see, our discussion of this evidence fills up quite a large book.

As we are in the 21st CE, any assumptions/theories/hypotheses made by scientists in the earlier years deserves more the critical eye: the techniques used back then were cruder, the base of knowledge much smaller than now. And interpretations vary, usually changing as the knowledge base grows and the science refines.

I’m going to skip ahead here and there: it’s a lengthy intro to the book, and the reader is welcome to read the whole synopsis.

In the first chapter of Part I of Forbidden Archeology, we survey the history and current state of scientific ideas about human evolution. We also discuss some of the epistemological principles we employ in our study of this field. Principally, we are concerned with a double standard in the treatment of evidence.

We identify two main bodies of evidence. The first is a body of controversial evidence (A), which shows the existence of anatomically modern humans in the uncomfortably distant past. The second is a body of evidence (B), which can be interpreted as supporting the currently dominant views that anatomically modern humans evolved fairly recently, about 100,000 years ago in Africa, and perhaps elsewhere.

We also identify standards employed in the evaluation of paleoanthropological evidence. After detailed study, we found that if these standards are applied equally to A and B, then we must accept both A and B or reject both A and B. If we accept both A and B, then we have evidence placing anatomically modern humans millions of years ago, coexisting with more apelike hominids. If we reject both A and B, then we deprive ourselves of the evidential foundation for making any pronouncements whatsoever about human origins and antiquity.

Historically, a significant number of professional scientists once accepted the evidence in category A. But a more influential group of scientists, who applied standards of evidence more strictly to A than to B, later caused A to be rejected and B to be preserved. This differential application of standards for the acceptance and rejection of evidence constitutes a knowledge filter that obscures the real picture of human origins and antiquity.

So, the short version: “Listen to us, we have the actual evidence that humanity existed millions of years ago. We even have real scientists, influential ones, who agree with us!” Do they? Let’s see.

Chapter 2 deals with anomalously old bones and shells showing cut marks and signs of intentional breakage. To this day, scientists regard such bones and shells as an important category of evidence, and many archeological sites have been established on this kind of evidence alone.

In the decades after Darwin introduced his theory, numerous scientists discovered incised and broken animal bones and shells suggesting that tool-using humans or human precursors existed in the Pliocene (2-5 million years ago), the Miocene (5-25 million years ago), and even earlier. In analyzing cut and broken bones and shells, the discoverers carefully considered and ruled out alternative explanations–such as the action of animals or geological pressure–before concluding that humans were responsible. In some cases, stone tools were found along with the cut and broken bones or shells.

A particularly striking example in this category is a shell displaying a crude yet recognizably human face carved on its outer surface.

Reported by geologist H. Stopes to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1881, this shell, from the Pliocene Red Crag formation in England, is over 2 million years old. According to standard views, humans capable of this level of artistry did not arrive in Europe until about 30,000 or 40,000 years ago. Furthermore, they supposedly did not arise in their African homeland until about 100,000 years ago.

(Note to the intrepid, curious reader: this particular piece of ‘artwork’ is what you see on the upper right hand corner of this post. It could’ve fallen a few feet and gotten those markings just as easily)

Concerning evidence of the kind reported by Stopes, Armand de Quatrefages wrote in his book Hommes Fossiles et Hommes Sauvages (1884): “The objections made to the existence of man in the Pliocene and Miocene seem to habitually be more related to theoretical considerations than direct observation.”

1884? Are you kidding me?

The most rudimentary stone tools, the eoliths (”dawn stones”) are the subject of Chapter 3. These imlements, found in unexpectedly old geological contexts, inspired protracted debate in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

For some, eoliths were not always easily recognizable as tools. Eoliths were not shaped into symmetrical implemental forms. Instead, an edge of a natural stone flake was chipped to make it suitable for a particular task, such as scraping, cutting, or chopping. Often, the working edge bore signs of use.

As to eoliths, answers.com gave me this:

Obsolete term, formerly used for a naturally shaped or fractured stone fancifully considered to be created by humans. The origin of eoliths was once the subject of long-running debate connected to recognizing and accepting the great antiquity of the human species.

In Chapter 6, we review discoveries of anomalously old skeletal remains of the anatomically modern human type. Perhaps the most interesting case is that of Castenedolo, Italy, where in the 1880s, G. Ragazzoni, a geologist, found fossil bones of several Homo sapiens sapiens individuals in layers of Pliocene sediment 3 to 4 million years old. Critics typically respond that the bones must have been placed into these Pliocene layers fairly recently by human burial. But Ragazzoni was alert to this possibility and carefully inspected the overlying layers. He found them undisturbed, with absolutely no sign of burial.

This adequately explains Castendolo Man. Colin Groves (at the Talkorigins site) does a brief review of the book here.

Are you starting to glaze over? I was. So I skipped ahead.

Just as Groves points out, these fellows (Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson) are affiliated with the Bhaktivedanta Institute - Cremo is a Vedic creationist, no less. So he (and his erstwhile buddy) rail about presupposition, all the while approaching the ‘evidence’ in an effort to prove their…eccentric viewpoint.

A quote from the link above:

Professor Jonathan Marks, a biological anthropologist at the University of North Carolina who reviewed Cremo’s book in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, said Cremo relies on poorly documented 19th century archaeological finds.

“What Cremo does in `Forbidden Archaeology’ is he takes all this stuff that has been confined to the rubbish pile and says, `Look at all this evidence that archaeologists have ignored,”‘ Marks said. “It’s not evidence at all. He believes humans existed in the Precambrian era, but the world was a very different place then. There was no oxygen, there was no life; without multi-cellular organisms, there wouldn’t have been anything for them to eat.”

Caught between two extremes: the Young Earthers and the Vedic contortionists. Hard to tell, sometimes, which ones are crazier than the others. I mean, they all go rooting in the trashbins of science and holler “Eureka!” when they find something that might vaguely support a premise treading on thin ice.

All the while, fool’s gold.

Till the next post, then.

Ugh.

If you want to get pissed off first thing in the morning and read something stupid from a meat puppet, here you go:

Americans Are Right To Resist An Atheist As President

Actually, there’s little chance that atheists will succeed in placing one of their own in the White House at any time in the foreseeable future, and it continues to make powerful sense for voters to shun potential presidents who deny the existence of God. An atheist may be a good person, a good politician, a good family man (or woman), and even a good patriot, but a publicly proclaimed non-believer as president would, for three reasons, be bad for the country.

Oh yes, we’re bad for the country. (I wonder if we’re also bad just by being in and walking around the country.)

Anyhoo, P.Z. Myers has an excellent spanky-spank that can be found here. A taste, if you prefer:

His first excuse is that an atheist president couldn’t exercise ceremonial functions, like saying the pledge of allegiance, without being hypocritical. You heard that right: a right-wing water carrier for the Republicans considers hypocrisy to be a disqualifying offense. Further, a president who doesn’t say “under god” in the pledge is “a formula for a disastrously unpopular presidency”. Isn’t it nice to know that a tanking economy and a catastrophic failure of a war aren’t quite as damaging to a presidency as refusal to say a loyalty oath to an invisible man?