Everything you believe is a convenient and advantageous lie!

Okay, as a prelude to a long post, I give unto you, my adoring audience, a youtubular present.

I truly do love myself some rap music.
Anyway, for this post, lovingly crafted at the very end of a month in which I have posted next to nothing, I have decided to delve into the same Christianity Today article that was brought up over at The Pharyngula.  It is an article authored by philosopher Alvin Plantinga, who I personally thought was one of those apologists from the mid 1500's, due to his name and the high regard with which he is usually mentioned.  The article serves primarily as a brief summary of his "Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism", in which he attempts to show why holding evolution and naturalism to be true simultaneously is self-refuting.

What she means is that natural selection doesn't care about the truth or falsehood of your beliefs; it cares only about adaptive behavior. Your beliefs may all be false, ridiculously false; if your behavior is adaptive, you will survive and reproduce. Consider a frog sitting on a lily pad. A fly passes by; the frog flicks out its tongue to capture it. Perhaps the neurophysiology that causes it to do so, also causes beliefs. As far as survival and reproduction is concerned, it won't matter at all what these beliefs are: if that adaptive neurophysiology causes true belief (e.g., those little black things are good to eat), fine. But if it causes false belief (e.g.,if I catch the right one, I'll turn into a prince), that's fine too. Indeed, the neurophysiology in question might cause beliefs that have nothing to do with the creature's current circumstances (as in the case of our dreams); that's also fine, as long as the neurophysiology causes adaptive behavior. All that really matters, as far as survival and reproduction is concerned, is that the neurophysiology cause the right kind of behavior; whether it also causes true belief (rather than false belief) is irrelevant.

He is correct in saying "natural selection does not care about the truth or falsehood of your beliefs" if it either has no effect on your behavior or produces adaptive behavior.  But, let's take a look at the examples he gives.  A frog who possesses the belief that flies are good food and a frog who possesses the belief that flies will turn him into a prince, a true belief and a false belief.  The problem here is that the frog with the first belief will likely be willing to eat flies in a wide variety of situations, whereas the one who thinks he will turn into a prince will be unwilling to do so if he fears a sudden transformation will result in falling off his lillypad and drowning, or meaning that he will have to leave his frog-wife, or if he simply does not think becoming a prince is a good thing.  It is far less likely to be a positive motivator for eating and more likely to be a deterrent in certain situations than the more general, correct belief presented.  As for the relevance of "true belief"...it's kind of a recurring theme, so I'll address it later.

What we learn from Crick and Churchland (and what is in any event obvious) is this: the fact that our hypothetical creatures have survived doesn't tell us anything at all about the truth of their beliefs or the reliability of their cognitive faculties. What it tells us is that the neurophysiology that produces those beliefs is adaptive, as is the behavior caused by that neurophysiology. But it simply doesn't matter whether the beliefs also caused by that neurophysiology are true. If they are true, excellent; but if they are false, that's fine too, provided the neurophysiology produces adaptive behavior.

If that entire paragraph sounds at all familar, its because it is a painstaking repetition of the same exact idea alluded to in the previous paragraph and explicitly stated in its last sentence.  But, I am not one to judge.  If I were accused of being redundant everytime I was redundant, then I would be accused of being redundant.

So consider any particular belief on the part of one of those creatures: what is the probability that it is true? Well, what we know is that the belief in question was produced by adaptive neurophysiology, neurophysiology that produces adaptive behavior. But as we've seen, that gives us no reason to think the belief true (and none to think it false). We must suppose, therefore, that the belief in question is about as likely to be false as to be true; the probability of any particular belief's being true is in the neighborhood of 1/2. But then it is massively unlikely that the cognitive faculties of these creatures produce the preponderance of true beliefs over false required by reliability. If I have 1,000 independent beliefs, for example, and the probability of any particular belief's being true is 1/2, then the probability that 3/4 or more of these beliefs are true (certainly a modest enough requirement for reliability) will be less than 10(to the power -58). And even if I am running a modest epistemic establishment of only 100 beliefs, the probability that 3/4 of them are true, given that the probability of any one's being true is 1/2, is very low, something like .000001.[7] So the chances that these creatures' true beliefs substantially outnumber their false beliefs (even in a particular area) are small.

Two interesting assumptions are made.  One is that beliefs become believed in at random.  The other is that, by setting the probability of all beliefs being true at 50% and then stating that it is profoundly unlikely that 75% of a random assortment of a large sample of beliefs are true, he is actually stating something of significance.  The argument here is that, given a .5 chance that a belief is true, it is unlikely that .75 of beliefs are true, in case that rephrasing makes it clearer.  I am sure that this is a remarkable observation to someone out there.  

So, I guess now is the time to lay my cards on the table:  the chances of any given belief being true is higher than he suggests it should be.  Why, you may ask?  Well, intrigued reader who obviously cares about this a little too much, it is because, even though "producing true belief is irrelevant" as long as it produces adaptive behavior, adaptive behavior is far more likely to come from true beliefs than from false ones.  True beliefs, or those that are at least good at approximating reality, are inherently more likely to give advantages to the creature that possesses them than false ones.   This is because false beliefs rely on luck and specific contexts in order to not be maladaptive, and most often are outright maladaptive in almost all situations if they deviate from reality enough.  By contrast, there is almost no imaginable circumstance in which true beliefs are maladaptive, even if there are some cases where it would be nonadaptive and deemed irrelevant to survival.  To better get an idea of the problem here, I summon forth another example he uses in establishing this argument, from Wikipedia:

Perhaps Paul very much likes the idea of being eaten, but when he sees a tiger, always runs off looking for a better prospect, because he thinks it unlikely the tiger he sees will eat him. This will get his body parts in the right place so far as survival is concerned, without involving much by way of true belief. ... Or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a large, friendly, cuddly pussycat and wants to pet it; but he also believes that the best way to pet it is to run away from it. ... Clearly there are any number of belief-cum-desire systems that equally fit a given bit of behaviour

In the first situation, he has offered up a double-set of false beliefs that interact in order to offer up adaptive behavior.  The first is a maladaptive desire to be eaten, and the second is a belief that the animal about to eat him is unlikely to do so and thus he is compelled to leave.  Of course, the problem is that this set of beliefs is nowhere near as beneficial as a simple fear of getting maimed to death.  Primarily because it depends on Paul being able to outrun a tiger, on the second belief always trumping the former whenever it triggers, and on Paul not setting himself up in a situation that he cannot escape from before he has a chance to be promped to believe that the animal approaching is not fit to devour him.  The second belief acts as a safety net that only works if he is in position to meander away safely.  In any other circumstance, he will be screwed over and will have put himself in that position due to the maladaptive first belief. 

The second scenario is slightly better, because the two beliefs directly redefine one another into "the tiger is a large, friendly, cuddly pussycat, run away from it".  The only problems he would incur would be that he would run away from anything that he wanted to pet (not too significant), that he would still be willing to approach the tiger under the assumption that he is "cuddly pussycat" prior to his attempt to "pet it", and this once again relies on the ability of someone being able to outrun a tiger while simultaneously having a mitigated, but still inordinately large, desire to be near one.  And this is to say nothing of how he would deal of news of tigers approaching (as opposed to approaching them himself), or how much problems it might cause for other people if he insists that tigers are harmless.  Who knows what would happen if he didn't inform his children about the proper way to "pet" the tigers...

But of course this same argument will also hold for us. If evolutionary naturalism is true, then the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable is also very low. And that means that one who accepts evolutionary naturalism has a defeater for the belief that her cognitive faculties are reliable: a reason for giving up that belief, for rejecting it, for no longer holding it. If there isn't a defeater for that defeater—a defeater-defeater, we could say—she can't rationally believe that her cognitive faculties are reliable. No doubt she can'thelp believing that they are; no doubt she will in fact continue to believe it; but that belief will be irrational. And if she has a defeater for the reliability of her cognitive faculties, she also has a defeater for any belief she takes to be produced by those faculties—which, of course, is all of her beliefs. If she can't trust her cognitive faculties, she has a reason, with respect to each of her beliefs, to give it up. She is therefore enmeshed in a deep and bottomless skepticism. One of her beliefs, however, is her belief in evolutionary naturalism itself; so then she also has a defeater for that belief. Evolutionary naturalism, therefore—the belief in the combination of naturalism and evolution—is self-refuting, self-destructive, shoots itself in the foot. Therefore you can't rationally accept it. For all this argument shows, it may be true; but it is irrational to hold it.

And that's how he refutes naturalism.  By indicating that our brain is unreliable and pulling a Descartes on us, specifically focusing on the "belief in evolutionary naturalism" that is assumed in order to establish that the brain is unreliable.  But, the problem is that the brain is not unreliable according to his projection based on evolutionary theory, at least not to the degree that Plantiga would have us believe.  As I said above, the probability of a belief being true is higher than the probability he gives.  Partly because I cheat.  I feel that "true" is overrated, and "true enough" needs to be given some credit as well.  Making it a dichotomy between beliefs that are either wholly true or wholly false is missing the point of having a "reliable" brain.  Example: believing that an object is blue is technically a false belief.  In reality, an object perceived as blue is just that:  perceived as blue.  It is reflecting light that is of a wavelength interpretted by our eyes as blue.  Which is why we need to have a more lax distinction between "true" and "false"; because sometimes the answers that we arrive at are necessarily simplistic in comparison to the reality.   

Another part of it is because not all beliefs are equiprobable to possess, in that any given belief is more likely to be believed in the closer it is to reality.  Picture an acute angled piece of a pie chart.  Imagine that the point that was once at the center of chart is representive of the one true belief about a subject matter, and every other belief is "false".  Now, the further out you go, the more false the belief is, and, in addition, the more possible beliefs there are.  There are an increasingly large number of possible beliefs the more wrong you become.  The number of beliefs that are close to the truth are much smaller than the number of possible wrong beliefs.  This would suggest that it is more likely to get a false belief, given the sheer difference in number.  But, I would like to declare right now that belief is not determined by chance alone.  We do not simply receive beliefs from all possible options that are randomly plugged into our skull.  We receive our beliefs based on, well....reality.  Our beliefs are inherently biased to be near the shallow end of the piece of pie, deviating from the one true belief as little as possible.  This is just because it requires an incredible amount of effort to make conclusions about reality that are backasswards to that degree, and the fact that there are probably so many possible ways of determining its falsity when you reach the "counterfactual" zone of false beliefs that it is unlikely that any creature that isn't already non-functional would adopt it.  The "true enough" beliefs are significantly more likely because they actually have evidence to support them, and thus we make reality serve as the common reference point for determining our beliefs.  

Anyway, further granting that beliefs are also more likely to be maladaptive as you deviate from reality further, and require other improbable but complementary false beliefs to make it potentially adaptive or neutral (as in the tiger examples), it becomes clear that false beliefs should be far less common, or should at least have a small enough of a magnitude, to make it so that our brain is "reliable enough".

I'll admit, false beliefs can creep in, but they would be scarce in comparison to true beliefs, which are infinitely more convenient, in that they don't need to rely on other beliefs to allow you to be functional.  I assume that it is rather analogous to lying:  tell the truth and everything is straight forward, but tell a lie and you better be prepared to continue lying in order to provide a network of support for the original.  Instead of simply rendering the world accurately, you need to create a flimsy house of cards and try your damndest to not accidentally knock the whole thing over.  Humans do in fact have known false beliefs and perceptions.  We have oversimplifying heuristics, we experience some known illusions and have some common cognitive biases and delusions that we encounter every now and then as well.  So, in short, the human mind is unreliable to a degree, just as one would expect for an evolved brain in a species that, though not infallible, has its brain as its almost exclusive remarkable feature.  Interestingly, the explanations for these shortcomings are less than satisfactory for those purporting theistic evolution/creation.  Well...I thought it was interesting at least...

Just a side note though, is that even if "naturalism" were refuted, we would still necessarily need to adopt methodological naturalism in order to function in the world, and we would still have no reasonable case for why we should believe in anything but methodological naturalism.  Indeed, there is a possibility that there is more to reality than the observed, natural world, but, sadly, we have yet to see evidence for whether there is more, let alone what kind of things we should expect that more to be.

So reflect once more on what we know about these creatures. They live in a world in which evolutionary naturalism is true. Therefore, since they have survived and reproduced, their behavior has been adaptive. This means that the neurophysiology that caused or produced that behavior has also been adaptive: it has enabled them to survive and reproduce. But what about their beliefs? These beliefs have been produced or caused by that adaptive neurophysiology; fair enough. But that gives us no reason for supposing those beliefs true. So far as adaptiveness of their behavior goes, it doesn't matter whether those beliefs are true or false.

Here's the point to drive home, I suppose:  adaptiveness of belief does not guarantee truth of belief, but adaptiveness of belief does correlate with accuracy of belief (which correlates with the likeliness of obtaining that particular belief, due to beliefs being easier to adopt when you actually have facts to support them).  I have yet to be convinced that adaptiveness of a belief and veracity of a belief are mutually exclusive, despite the number of times it has been repeated.

Suppose the adaptive neurophysiology produces true beliefs: fine; it also produces adaptive behavior, and that's what counts for survival and reproduction. Suppose on the other hand that neurophysiology produces false beliefs: again fine: it produces false beliefs but adaptive behavior. It really doesn't matter what kind of beliefs the neurophysiology produces; what matters is that it cause adaptive behavior; and this it clearly does, no matter what sort of beliefs it also produces. Therefore there is no reason to think that if their behavior is adaptive, then it is likely that their cognitive faculties are reliable.

Again, yes it is does not matter whether a belief is true or not if it is adaptive.  And yet, true beliefs are more often adaptive than false ones, and false ones are more often maladaptive than true ones.  Fancy that.  [ I can repeat things too ;) ]

And now, for dessert, a brief discussion of something completely similar, stolen from the Pharyngula comment thread.  Take it away, , Jim:  

Because I think naturalism is a false view of reality, I have no trouble trusting that my thoughts - such as the thought that my bed exists - can be rational (i.e. possessing reason and understanding) and valid. You, on the other hand, have no doubt that your bed exists, but you subscribe to a worldview (naturalism) that provides no basis for trusting that what you think about your bed is true. You argue for the truthfulness of naturalism, but you conduct your mental activity as if it isn't true. If it were true, there would be no "you" engaged in any mental activity; that mental activity would instead be nothing more than electro-chemical neural activity induced by material causes, all of which are irrational (i.e., lacking reason and understanding).

Here is the rub:  emergent properties.  The straw naturalist/materialist always seems to involve dismissing humans as simply a cluster of cells/molecules/chemicals, and dismissing thoughts as mere "electro-chemical" reactions.  The argument is overly reductionist and is inordinately obsessed with the components rather than the whole.  Please though, dismiss the spoken word as mere syllables.  Dismiss the written word is simple globs of graphite, streaks of ink, or random arrangements of pixels (depending on your medium).  Dismiss a building as just bricks.   Completely ignore the larger functions such things have.  An interesting note:  you can observe this kind of thing in molecules themselves.   Compounds comprised of molecules have much different properties than the elements of its component atoms possess.  A slight change in atom type or amount can also significantly change a molecule.  Hell, even a change of the position of the atoms relative to one another without changing the component atoms at all can result in a change in its observed properties at a macro level (e.g. isomerism, stereoisomerism).  In short, it is not that consciousness is just electro-chemical signals, it is that consciousness is a very difficult to explain phenomenon that fairly clearly results from said signals.

As for why he thinks that his ability to rationally determine the truth of something is superior to those who admit the neural basis to their thoughts, I have no idea.  Considering that all that we know about the fallibility of the human mind (independent of Plantinga, of course), it probably isn't a good idea to trust your thoughts alone, especially if you think that naturalism is wrong.  You might find yourself encased in a solipsist nightmare, forced to doubt external reality and the existence of other people, doomed to an existence entirely defined by only your own thoughts, since they are the only thing beyond the Deceptive Demon's reach. 

So, on that note: sleep tight.

[If you still having difficulty seeing how the video at the start of the post relates to anything at all, you are sane.  Congratulations.]

The Outbreak and the Paranoia Treatment

Sure, many people have been warning us about it from the outset, and yet there was only a single case for the longest time.  And then, suddenly, bam, 2009 and its running rampant, spreading from state to state with incredible speed and much fear and outrage in its wake.  It has yet to be seen whether it will become a pandemic, or if it will be fought off.  But, nonetheless, it has happened:  Maine has legalized gay marriage.

Here's a brief summary of events:

1996:  Defense of Marriage Act is passed in anticipation of states soon legalizing gay marriage.

2003:  Massachusetts court ruling finds gay marriage bans unconstitutional.

October 10, 2008:  Connecticut court rules that banning same sex marriage is unconstitutional.

November 4, 2008:  Proposition 8 passes.  In addition, legislation to ban adoption by gay couples was passed in Arkansas and Florida and Arizona passed laws banning same sex marriage.

April 3, 2009:  Gay marriage is made legal in Iowa with a court ruling that they cannot ban same sex couples from getting marriage certificates.

April 7, 2009:  Vermont passes legislation that will allow for gay marriage to replace civil unions come September 1st, 2009.

May 6, 2009:  Maine passes legislation that will allow for gay marriages to occur after September 14th, 2009.

 New York recognize gay marriages, and New Hampshire and New Jersey 

allow for civil unions (Connecticut and Vermont have in the past as well).   Legislation for allowing gay marriage is pending in Rhode Island.  Flip side: Proposition 8 is likely to remain upheld by the Supreme Court in California.  And the decision in Maine is already meeting opposition, with a petition being signed in an attempt to get a referendum.  Luckily, the story makes it sound as if the activists have learned their lesson of Proposition 8, and are just as willing to fight for the decision as its opponents are to fight against it.  Which, brings me to my actual observation (which I believe is a point also made in the former of those two articles):  the injustice that was the passage of Proposition 8 may have invigorated gay marriage proponents, as well as sympathy for the cause, more than if it had actually passed.  This recent avalanche of legislation may actually owe its entire existence to Proposition 8, which illegalized gay marriage after it had already been legalized and invalidated marriages in the process.  It has intensified the voice of those who had already supported them, and may have broadened support as well.  

It is unclear whether we are seeing a trend that will continue, especially since most of the states that have turned within the past year or so were already rather gay-friendly, and it is unclear whether greater acceptance of homosexuality and the idea of same-sex marriage has been exclusive to locations that were already rather accepting of both, rather than being a full-nation phenomenon.  But, as a word of caution, we should not only expect that this will be the last state legalizing gay marriage in the near future, but we should also expect that those who oppose gay marriage will be trying everything in their power to shift things back to the status quo.  It's overly pessimistic, but we need to concentrate on keeping the ground that we have now made, and not allow ourselves to become overwhelmed by a sense of accomplishment for something that could be taken away so easily when in such a state of self-satisfied arrogance.  The advances that we have made are only tentative if there are enough people out there with the means and the passion to undo it.  Stay vigilant, and guard the reset buttons with all your might!

(For those of you who initially thought that this post would be about the spreading swine flu meance and some of the over-the-top reactions that people have about it....I am too ambivalent about the matter to really do such a thing.  And, anyway, xkcd has done it for me.)

Blog Day Afternoon

I give to you a video that is in much the same spirit as a variety of internet chain letters.  Go ahead. Play along.



I think that this video has a message that we can all agree with. Except, I like playing games, so I am mildly offended!  

I kinda wish that it was a serious video, so that I could either try to determine if they had a novel trick in getting a predictable response [like using the intermittent images as a method of priming responses] or try to find a way in which to make it so that the system doesn't work.  But, poking fun at woo is good enough for me.

Also:  getting goddamn hot all of a sudden.  I hate non-winter seasons.

Student vs. Professor: A Timeless Battle

For whatever reason, be it because of having a culture that makes the word "elitist" into a slur, or due simply to a pathological desire to see victories for the underdog, there seems to be a lot of stories, fictional or otherwise, focusing on the conflicts between professors and students.  Usually, the student is portrayed as being in the right, and either finds a way to outwit oppressive and unfair professors, or to confront their usually negatively portrayed viewpoints.   The students are never portrayed as they easily could be: as petulant, overly-defiant, and possibly more opinionated than the professor they are opposing.   Only the stories where the professor is clearly in the wrong, and a student could be portrayed positively in doing things that would otherwise be frowned upon in other classrooms does there seem to be a particular interest.

We will begin with a video that Stacy brought up a few weeks ago:

(relevant part starts around 0:55)

Summary: professor teaches evolution and "scientific reasons why the Earth is here" and a student interrupts and starts arguing the standard creationist viewpoint. They argue, because apparently the education of the other students never matters, and it ends with the student dropping an apple to the ground, asking if the professor knows what it tastes like, and when he says "no" states "neither have you tasted my Jesus". A particularly pointless version of this basic concept, but it is part of a larger trend of turning many of these student vs. professor stories into Christian vs. "atheist" stories as well. I say "atheist" because often evolution is shoved under that same tent.  For a similar story, we can go no further than the Great and Powerful Jack Chick:

(After asking his students whether they believe in evolution, the professor gets a single student who raises his hand saying that he does not.  The professor calmly responds.)

Chick has a funny tendency to have the word "fanatic" come from his antagonists at very strange times.  It may be an intentional attempt to make the person calling the True Believer a "fanatic" irrational due to using the term when it isn't really applicable.  Or it might just be that Chick really doesn't know what beliefs and what presentation of them causes a person to be called a "fanatic", because he is just that much of a fundamentalist.
(Professor makes a dramatic pose, rants, and name drops).
"Evolution" of stars and planets from gas, as well as chemical evoluton, as well as "cosmic evolution", have everything to do with chemistry, physics, and astronomy, and nothing to do with evolution or biology.  And organic evolution (aka, abiogenesis) is rarely ever taught as a fact, or at all, simply because it doesn't have conclusive evidence either way and has nothing to do with the two "basic concepts of evolution", which are the only two that are actually evolution.  

(Professor next brings up Lucy and the student rebuts the reported age of Lucy by saying something about a few extremely askew results received using dating techniques.  Brings up the Piltdown Man, et al. )

(Goes through some stuff about vestigial organs, including the hilariously wrong "Even if there were 'vestigial" organs, isn't losing something the opposite of evolution?".  His coup de grace is random stuff about "gluons" and how they don't exist.  Which ends in....)

You know that it's a happy ending when it involves a professor being so disspirited by an encounter with a tenacious and disruptive student that he feels compelled to end his own teaching career with a sense of defeat.  That's what he gets for being mean and teaching established science.

Okay, here's a more light-hearted one (though, despite the humor, it really is rather vicious at its core...like most good comedy, really...):

After having failed his exam in "Logistics and Organization", a student goes and confronts his lecturer about it.
Student: "Sir, do you really understand anything about the subject?"
Professor: "Surely I must. Otherwise I would not be a professor!"
Student: "Great, well then I would like to ask you a question.

If you can give me the correct answer, I will accept my mark as is and go. If you however do not know the answer, I want you give me an "A" for the exam. "
Professor: "Okay, it's a deal. So what is the question?"
Student:"What is legal, but not logical, logical, but not legal, and neither logical, nor legal?

Even after some long and hard consideration, the professor cannot give the student an answer, and therefore changes his exam mark into an "A", as agreed.
Afterwards, the professor calls on his best student and asks him the same question.

He immediately answers: "Sir, you are 63 years old and married to a 35 year old woman, which is legal, but not logical. Your wife has a 25 year old lover, which is logical, but not legal. The fact that you have given your wife's lover an "A", although he really should have failed, is neither legal, nor logical." 

You see, it gets credit because it is clever, and humorous, but it is the same old formula: student outwits teacher, and teacher deserves it.  I say that he is portrayed as "deserving it" because the first line of the student's answer shows us why we are supposed to see the teacher in a negative light:  the fact that he has such a comparatively young wife, which is framed as "not logical".  In fairness, though, it is neither suggested that the student's actions are to be respected, or that the professor having a young wife is a bad thing, outside of the view of the student who is sleeping with her behind the professor's back.  In addition, it allows you room to see the student in a negative light, which makes it a rather unique member of this gallery.

Next up:

The story is told of the English Professor from hell.  He spent years creating a reputation as the most intimidating Prof. on the east coast and was not going to let this years graduating class escape his judgment. Seeing several students as less than worthy of a diploma, he felt it his duty to fail them for not passing one final exam.

The tactics used to control the test mood included pacing about the lecture theater of 500+ students howling "Failure!" to each student he observed to be struggling. This and many other objections by the Prof. seemed to be working well.  The final minutes of the exam brought several student to the brink of tears, stressed with the anxiety and fear of facing their peers and parents with an F.

One student, unusually determined to succeed, seemed unmoved as the bell rang and the pile of exams grew mountainous in the front of the room.  He sat in silence with fixed attention to the half finished exam in front of him.

The Prof. jeered as the last of the students cleared the forum, and staring in disbelief at the lone student in the corner of the room grew ominously enraged.

"Give it up.   You've FAILED!  The test is OVER!!!" he shouted.

The student continued unmoved.

Half in unbelief and half in pompous arrogance, the Prof. gathered the mountain of exams into a stack upon his desk and began correcting them with a large RED marker.

A half hour goes by. Then an hour. One and a half hours and the Prof. finally becomes unnerved and orders the student to cease his futile efforts to escape another year of education. He cat-calls the young student and reminds him of his fate once again. "The test is OVER. Put your tail between your legs and crawl home!!!" he shouted.

With that the student closed the test folder and slowly walked to the front of the room.

"Professor, do you know who I am?" remarked the young student.

"Yes", shouts the Prof. "you're a FAILURE!."

Quietly, the student replies: "I asked, do you know WHO I am?"

The Prof. quieted a bit and shuffled a paper on his desk.

"DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?" the student asked once again.

With that final question, the student raised the top half of the exams and quickly slipped his test into the mountain of folders. "I didn't think so", said the student as he turned and proudly walked away....confident of his success.

Yes.  Very unique, very blatant, very sympathetically portrayed cheating implicitly justified because the professor is very, very, very mean.  I do like the fact that he used his essential anonymity in a large class to his advantage.  I also liked that it toyed around with the fact that the audience would expect a student assertively asking if the professor "knew who he was" to follow up with an attempt to coerce the professor by mentioning his connections or wealth, rather than using the fact that he actually does not know to his advantage. Though, ultimately, I really do think they would have precautions against this sort of thing.

Here's a good one that PZ brought up not too long ago:

A United States Marine was attending some college courses between assignments. He had completed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the courses had a professor who was an avowed atheist and a member of the ACLU.

One day the professor shocked the class when he came in, looked to the ceiling, and flatly stated, "God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I'll give you exactly 15 minutes."

The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop.

Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, '"Here I am God. I'm still waiting." It got down to the last couple of minutes when the Marine got out of his chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked him, knocking him off the platform. The professor was out cold.

The Marine went back to his seat and sat there, silently. The other students were shocked, stunned, and sat there looking on in silence.

The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the Marine and asked, "What the heck is the matter with you? Why did you do that?"

The Marine calmly replied, "God was too busy today protecting American soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid stuff and act like an idiot. So, He sent me."

PZ had a good discussion of how reflective this of the mentality of the person bringing it up.  It is also particularly interesting that this student decided to physically assail the professor in the name of God and patriotism in order to have the professor's challenge to have been met.  Even in fictional narratives ostensibly in favor of the religious worldview, God failed to directly intervene. But, I shouldnt' say much, because a more familar version of the tale is next:

A e-mail that has been received by many USC students has recently caught the atten- tion of the School of Philosophy, which reports that the tale is not true. The e-mail alleges that a USC professor was a "deeply committed atheist" whose main goal in his class was to prove that God didn't exist.
The first inquiries began a few months ago and have been steadily coming ever since, said philosophy professor Edwin McCann.
The e-mail's story is one that was written to reaffirm faith in miracles and in God, but includes USC in the telling of the story. 
The e-mail claims that at the end of every semester for the past 20 years, the professor is said to have asked his class of about 300 students to stand up if they believed in God, and no one ever stood.
Then he would "prove" God did not exist by dropping a piece of chalk on the floor and saying, "If God existed, he could stop this piece of chalk from hitting the ground and breaking."
The e-mail says that one year, a young Christian man stood up and said he "still believed in God" when the professor posed the question to his class. The professor dropped another piece of chalk, and this time it did not break. Then the professor fled the lecture hall, the e-mail says. 

Another professor trying to flamboyantly disprove God in the classroom.  I would gladly see a professor fired for stunts like these, and I am as militant of an atheist as the next guy.  But, fortunately, these seem to either be outright fiction or an extreme exaggeration.  So, I think I will take my righteous outrage somewhere else, where it is not in response to a fabrication.

And, finally, there is this little tale.  It is a rather long exchange between a student and professor over the existence of the Christian God based upon the problem of evil.  Some of you may familar with the story, and may have seen it in a form where the student was claimed to have been  "Albert Einstein".  The student resolves the problem of evil by ultimately comparing it to phenomena that we describe but are ultimately the lack of something else rather than things unto themselves (i.e. darkness is absence of light, cold is absence of heat).  He claims that goodness is the extant thing (and is the presence of God) and that evil is the absence of good/God, and thus not something that exists in of itself. (He claims also that there is no such thing as "injustice" and "immorality" along the same lines of reasoning). Of course, one could just as easily assert that evil is the thing that exists, and good is the default state, devoid of the things that are labelled "evil".  It really is rather arbitrary.  This particular version of the story also touches on free will, gets a jab against evolution, and culminates with a criticism against science's use of methodological naturalism because you can't verify the existence of a "mind" using sensory observation or any other known form of scientific measurement.  It ends with the "class in chaos".   

Well, I hope that everyone out there is now thoroughly encouraged to take up a teaching career.  As for me, I think I've decided to go back to school and heckle my former teachers so that I can go down in history as a noble fighter for truth and freedom.  Or to prematurely end their careers.  They totally have it coming, I swear.

It's 4/20. You know what that means...

It's Hitler's Birthday!  In celebration, here's another Hitler singing routine:

It's the anniversary of the Columbine Massacre!  In celebration, here's some KMFDM:

It's 420!

In celebration, here is THE TRUTH.

It's the beginning of Ridvan!

In celebration...what the hell is Ridvan?


Okay, okay...I'll stop now...

This Blog is now officially NSFW

Now, normally I am not afraid to be partisan:  I am not embarrassed to be liberal, and I will insult conservatism in American culture freely and with minimal remorse.  But, you see, in light of my recent post on Tea party protests, I felt like my images may have been unfair and misrepresented the protests by showing the most extreme views.  Well, actually, no, I don't care.  That was just a claim made about a similar post made by Orac, and resulted in a link showing some particularly funny signs from a variety of liberal protests.  So, though I could say I am doing this for fairness, I am really just doing it because it is hilarious:

I would laugh at this one, but I have no friggin' idea what is going on.
Somehow I doubt that we have any Israelis in our country that could reasonably be called a "murderer" (who isn't already in jail, that is) in anyway more significant than saying the same of any American citizen, let alone a soldier.  
Describing the Jews as "Nazis" (while simultaneously using a slur to describe them) is an interesting blend of humorous and disgusting that I simply have yet to acquire a taste for.
Oh my no-God!  It's like deja vu!
You know what they say:  It isn't truly free speech unless it makes you throw up in your mouth a little.  Or involve naked bicycling.
I doubt that this is the first time that Gore has had his name written on another man's ass.  I mean, in the Clinton White House and all...
"Child's Guide to Nihilism".  Only slightly better for impressionable youth than "The O'Reilly Factor for kids".
In fairness, this occurred at some rally involving "anarchists".  So talking about blowing up cop cars comes with the territory.
Really?
...I am so reusing that image....
I actually don't think that this one is all bad.  Looks like a jocular turnabout-is-fairplay kinda sign.  And man do I love the crazy hair!
I swear that it must say "The End is Nigh" on the back of that sign. 
Also, not that bad of a sign.  Except that the U.S. cannot" get out of the ovaries" of the man holding the sign, without first getting the ovaries into him.  And that's a costly venture, right there.
Gotta hate it when I sort of agree with them, but they overstate their case so much that it impossible to do so completely.
Oh come now.  Bush isn't a murderer.   And probably isn't psychotic (juries still out on that one, still need to check on how he goes about getting his instructions from God...).
Nudes in the trees!  I swear that half of the protestors we've seen so far just wanted an excuse to be naked.
Case in point.  "Breasts not bombs".  Are you planning some sort of exchange?  Because if so, I think I may need to start procuring some bombs...
That is one creepy looking Uncle Sam.  If Uncle Sam were a superhero, and he was portrayed in The Dark Knight instead of Batman, we would see an Uncle Sam who looks similar to this.  
Ladies and gentleman, I give to you:  Larry King, circa 1974.
That's either something saying "Tuck" or "Fuck" at the top, and that is either a picture of Bush or of J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, sans pipe.
Take that, broad geographic region!
Hasan Akbar was a U.S. soldier who killed two U.S. troops and wounded 14 more.  After being arrested, he was at one point let out of handcuffs in order to go to the bathroom and used the opportunity to use a pair of scissors he had hidden on his person to stab into another officer.  Fuck him and fuck this lady, is all I have to say on that matter.
If you want to get rid of Israel, I don't think "smashing" will be helpful.  Unless you've got the Incredible Hulk on your side...
My God.  That effigy looks like a South Park character!
Bush wearing a crown and holding Mein Kampf?  Are they implying that Bush could read?  (Wow...that felt good).
This gaijin has begun his journey down the path of a thousand Godwins.
If you begin any written statement with the phrase "Death to America!", chances are that you are going to have make a hell of a good point later on in order to be taken seriously.   Just food for thought.
Interesting that they decided to put those two messages together on the same sign...
Man, they really went all out.  Lady Liberty and Grim Reaper costumes, large banner, reductio ad hitlerum, crisp images.  They thought of everything!

Man...that guy really hated the World Trade Center.  So, I have come up with the only logical explanation:  the man holding this sign is Homer Simpson.  Or he is one of the guys who made 9/11 an inside job. 

Well, I hope that this was a fun glimpse into the insanity that is our nation.  Now, let us never speak of it again.