Posts Tagged ‘Science’

SCIENCE NEWS

Posted: March 13, 2013 in Science News
Tags: climate, Colbert Report, Curiosity, Gale, grand prize winner, Intel Science Talent Search, Malin Space Science Systems, Mars, Mars Science Laboratory, NASA, nasa jpl, Nicki Minaj, Red Planet, Science, science talent search, Stone Age

ONE SCOOP A photo transmitted from Mars shows the Curiosity rover’s first drilled rock sample. Analyses of the rock powder suggest that the area being explored by the rover was once hospitable to life. more >>
NASA, JPL-Caltech, MSSS

Atheists Face Extensive Discrimination, UN Rights Council Told

Posted: March 8, 2013 in Atheists Discriminated Against, Blasphemy, Islamic Fundamentalism, Islamist Fanatics, Persecution of Atheists
Tags: climate, Human Rights, IHEU, International Humanist and Ethical Union, Islamophobia, Libya, Maldives, Middle East, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Politics, Religion, Saudi Arabia, Science, Turkey, United Nations, United Nations Human Rights Council

Atheists face extensive discrimination, UN rights council told

Humanist group raises concerns amid new efforts by Muslim countries in UN to ban denigration of religion

Pakistan protest over Muhammad caricatures

Atheists, humanists and freethinkers face widespread discrimination around the world, with expression of their views criminalised and even subject to capital punishment, the United Nations has been told.

The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) said atheism was banned by law in a number of states where people were forced to officially adopt a faith.

“Extensive discrimination by governments against atheists, humanists and the non-religious occurs worldwide,” said the union, which has 120 member bodies in 45 countries.

In Afghanistan, Iran, Maldives, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Sudan “atheists can face the death penalty on the grounds of their belief”, in violation of UN human rights accords, the IHEU said in a document submitted to the UN human rights council.

In several other countries legal measures “effectively criminalise atheism [and] the expression and manifestation of atheist beliefs” or lead to systematic discrimination against freethinkers, it said.

Three of the states on the rights council – Pakistan, Mauritania and Maldives – have legislation providing for death for blasphemy against Islam, a charge that can be applied to atheists who publicly reveal their ideas.

The paper was submitted as the council opened its annual spring session against a background of new efforts in the UN by Muslim countries to obtain a worldwide ban on denigration of religion, specifically what they call Islamophobia.

Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, told the council there was a “rising trend” of Islamophobia. “We condemn all sorts of incitement to hatred and religious discrimination against Muslims and people of other faiths,” he said.

This month a senior official of the 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC) said the body would focus on getting agreement on criminalising denigration of religion in coming talks with western countries.

Last November the head of the 21-country Arab League told the UN security council in New York that his organisation wanted a binding international framework to ensure “that religious faith and its symbols are respected”.

The IHEU and other non-governmental rights groupings argue that many Muslim governments use this terminology and the concept of “religious blasphemy” within their own countries to cow both atheists and followers of other religions.

A number of these governments “prosecute people who express their religious doubt or dissent, regardless of whether those dissenters identify as atheist”, the IHEU document said.

Islamic countries including Bangladesh, Bahrain, Egypt, Indonesia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Turkey had also stepped up prosecution of “blasphemous” expression of criticism of religion in social media such as Facebook and Twitter, it said.

OIC countries have 15 seats on the council, all from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, making up almost a third of the rights body.

Atheists face extensive discrimination, UN rights council told (guardian.co.uk)
Atheists face increased discrimination around the world (thecommentator.com)
Atheists‚ humanists face discrimination around the world (thehimalayantimes.com)
U.N. Told Atheists Face Discrimination Around Globe: IHEU Report (americanhumanist.org)
Humanists call for freedom of speech at the UN Human Rights Council (secularnewsdaily.com)
U.N. told atheists face discrimination around globe (richarddawkins.net)

Religion Should Be Criticized

Posted: March 8, 2013 in Religion, Religious Criticism
Tags: Activism, American Humanist Association, climate, Emeritus, Human Rights, Norm (social), Politics, Psychology Today, Rational basis review, Religion, Science, society, storm salon, United States

Sometimes religion should be criticized

Posted by: American Humanist Association

Most people, understanding good manners, have distaste for those who are vocally critical of the religious beliefs of others. Theological decisions are recognized as deeply personal, and common decency dictates that we respect the rights of others to believe what they wish, assuming those beliefs cause no harm to others.

The vast majority of humanists, even those actively engaged in the secular movement, share the general public’s sentiments on this issue. Live and let live, right?

We should realize, however, that the social norm that discourages the criticism of religion can work to the great advantage of religious political activists. Social conservatives, for example, righteously claiming the highest moral authority grounded in religion, knowing that criticism of religion is considered off-limits, can demand that their policy positions be given legitimacy even when those positions lack any rational basis.

To read the rest of this Psychology Today article by AHA President Emeritus David Niose clickhere.

Relate

Why Sometimes Religion Should Be Criticized (americanhumanist.org)
Sometimes religion should be criticized (secularnewsdaily.com)
Why Sometimes Religion Should Be Criticized (richarddawkins.net)
Non-believers taking college campuses by storm (salon.com)

Strange Maps

Posted: March 5, 2013 in Strange Maps
Tags: aviation, Cartography, China, climate, gaming, Geographic information system, Geography, Martin Luther King Day, MIT Mystery Hunt, Nazi Germany, Red Army, Science, transportation, videogames

Strange Maps

Cartographic curiosities

Strange Maps

600 – Münster’s Monster Mash

One of cartography’s most persistent myths: mapmakers of yore, frustrated by the world beyond their ken, marked the blank spaces on their maps with the legend Here be monsters. It’s a pleasing hypothesis. For to label a cartographic vacuum with the stuff of nightmares solves two problems at …

Strange Maps

599 – The Nazi Snail of Defeat: Yes, We’re Losing, but Very Slowly!

The end of Nazi Germany in two words? Pincer movement [1]. After it turns the tide at the bloody battles of Stalingrad (August 1942 – January 1943) and Kursk (July – August 1943), the Red Army relentlessly steamrollers westward to Berlin. The Anglo-American push eastward, also in the general …

Strange Maps

598 – Fast Train to… Quincy? A Mirage Map of U.S. High Speed Rail

What to do with a dream that’s too big for reality? Among many other things, you could map it. Such a representation could serve as an exhortation – This is the plan, get going! But if the gap between cartography and reality remains unbridged, the exhortation becomes a souvenir of the road not …

Strange Maps

597 – China’s Chicken Syndrome, and the Man in the Iron Curtain

What was first, the chicken or the map? That question is perhaps as unanswerable as the one featuring hen vs. egg [1]. Not that it matters. Stare long enough at these twin images, and you will never see a map of China again without thinking of an agitated chicken flapping its wings as it runs …

596 – Sound Like a Map to You?

Question: Which contest is the nec plus ultra for puzzle fans and quiz aficionados everywhere? Answer: The MIT Mystery Hunt (MMH), which kicks off every year on the Friday before Martin Luther King Day [1] on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA. The …

Strange Maps

595 – It’s Always Chile in Norway: the Five Types of Territorial Morphology

Do Norwegians feel curiously at home in Chile, and vice versa? Do South Africans have a strange affinity with Italians? And Filipinos with Maldivians? They should, at least if they’re map nerds: each lives in a country with a territorial morphology [1] that closely resembles the other’s …

Strange Maps

594 – Mind over Map: the World Is What You Make It

This is a map that takes some time to get your head around; quite literally, because to appreciate it fully, you need to consider it both with its north side and its south side up [1]. The world, ‘upside up’. To spare you the risk of neck injury, we’re providing both versions below …

Strange Maps

593 – Greenland by Way of a Drainpipe: Accidental Cartography IV

It was this map of Greenland that triggered this post. I say map, but I mean hole in a drainpipe. This picture was sent in by Ruland Kolen, who was struck by this hole’s accidental resemblance to the shape of the world’s largest island: “Both Greenland and this hole look like a lion’s head …

Strange Maps

592 – Build Your Own Poland

Occasional exceptions notwithstanding, this blog steers clear of maps from the twin realms [1] of fantasy and alternate history. This might seem odd, as both genres rely heavily on maps to flesh out the world they describe. Consequently, both fantasy and alternate history teem with non-standard …

Strange Maps

591 – Elizabeth II, Queen of the South Pole

It’s a question on the minds of many, this gift-giving season: What do you get someone who already has everything? The problem gets a bit more pressing if you’re the British Cabinet, and the Queen is coming round to visit. Their solution? Clever: two gifts – 60 table mats, and a chunk of Antarctica …

Strange Maps

590 – Fake Metro Map of Montevideo

“Today, Montevideo is on a par with the great capitals of the world, like London, Milan and Rio de Janeiro. Finally, Montevideo has its Metro.” - Estero Bellaco, Engineer and President of the Corporación Metro de Montevideo (CMM). Those words were spoken at the inauguration of the metro …

Strange Maps

589 – Procrasti-Nation, Our Common Home

Why get done today what you can put off until tomorrow? Anyone who knows that feeling is an honorary citizen of this virtual country: Procrasti-Nation. For Freud, the need to procrastinate is a function of the Pleasure Principle, which dictates that we seek gratification, or least avoid pain …

Strange Maps

588 – No Land Ho: Sandy Island and the Age of Un-Discovery

Last week, the world didn’t so much lose an island, as gain a phantom island. To map-lovers, the former is a regrettable but increasingly common occurrence [1], what with rising sea levels and all. The latter, on the contrary, is an exciting event, all the more since it was presumed extinct. We …

Strange Maps

587 – Maps as War by Other Means

War, as Clausewitz said, is the continuation of politics by other means [1]. But sometimes, war itself is being continued by other means – cartographic means. Maps are an excellent propaganda weapon against a (geo)political enemy. We trust cartography instinctively to ‘show us the right way’, and …

Strange Maps

586 – “God Knew We Would Have Satellites”: A Map of Jesus In Arabia

8176096244

How do you determine the value of a place? The answer to that question often reduces ‘value’ to ‘yield’: how much money does it generate? The genius loci [1] of a place is calculable by the monetary value of the crops it generates, of of the oil and gas that we frack out from under it. There’s …

Can the shape of a country determine its economics? (kottke.org)
Big Think’s Guide to Thinking and Doing Bigger in 2013 (bigthink.com)
Germany reopens hundreds of Nazi investigations (news.blogs.cnn.com)
Strange maps (abc.net.au)
600 – Münster’s Monster Mash (bigthink.com)

Satanic Ritual Abuse

Posted: March 5, 2013 in Christian Fundamentalism, Hoax, Moral Panic, Pseudo Therapists, Satan Ritual Abuse
Tags: climate, Courage to Heal, current-events, Human Rights, MAKING MONSTERS: FALSE MEMORIES PSYCHOTHERAPY AND SEXUAL HYSTERIA., Ofshe, Politics, Red Scare, Religion, Richard Ofshe, Salem witch trials, Satanic ritual abuse, Science, Sexual abuse

Satanic Ritual Abuse

Sacrifice of a Christian Child (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The flyers were all over the psychology building. Dr. Richard Ofshe, a renowned professor at the University of California at Berkeley who had won a Pulitzer years earlier, was delivering a lecture on the use of recovered memories in psychotherapy. It was the mid-1990s, and I was in graduate school at the time. I knew that Ofshe had become a controversial figure due to his evidence-based criticism of attempts by therapists to recover client’s memories of childhood sexual abuse during therapy. I rearranged my schedule so I could attend his lecture. I had no idea just how controversial it was going to be.

I assume that my readers are generally familiar with the term moral panic. Notorious examples of moral panics in the U.S. include the Red Scare, Salem witch trials, and the so-called “Satanic panic” that emerged during the 1980s over fears of Satanic ritual abuse. The idea that there were Satanic cults operating in nearly every town throughout the U.S. caught on in a big way and would not really begin to fade away until the late 1990s. It was a fascinating period to have lived through, and I sometimes have a difficult time believing that it happened at all.

The connection between fears of Satanic ritual abuse and efforts by therapists to recover repressed memories of child sexual abuse was critical to understanding the phenomena. Some of the key developments included the following:

The publication of self-help books that told readers “If you ever suspect that you might have been abused as a child, you were abused as a child.” The most notorious example of such a book and one with which I am unfortunately quite familiar was The Courage to Heal.
The reliance on outdated, unsupported, and even thoroughly discredited theories of human memory by many therapist-training programs.
Widespread use of hypnosis and other methods known to distort memory and even create false memories among suggestible individuals by poorly trained therapists.

Efforts by well-intentioned but misguided therapists during this time ruined many families, sent innocent people to prison, and fueled the panic over Satanic ritual abuse. Dr. Ofshe was one of the leading skeptics in psychology, and his research helped to end some of the worst abuses by therapists. His influential book at the time, and one still occupying a place on my bookshelf, was Making Monsters: False Memories, Psychotherapy, And Sexual Hysteria.

Dr. Ofshe’s lecture was held in one of the larger rooms on campus, but it was overflowing with attendees. The campus community was well-represented, but there seemed to be even more people there from the surrounding community. Clearly, someone had done an excellent job of publicizing the event. I listened eagerly to one of the most interesting presentations I had heard in some time.

Nothing could have prepared me for the hecklers. Person after person in the audience stood up and angrily yelled at Dr. Ofshe. Many identified themselves as therapists from the community, people who were still using some of the methods he was advising against. But the most heartbreaking part of the spectacle were those who were in therapy at the time or who had already been convinced by their therapists that they had been sexually abused. They screamed, they cried, and they called Dr. Ofshe every name in the book. How he remained so composed is beyond me.

Critics of recovered memory therapy and Satanic ritual abuse never claim that child sexual abuse is not real. It is very real, and part of the problem with the recovered memory stuff is that it ends up harming those who were really abused by convincing countless more who were never abused that they were abused. Scariest of all, the memories created in the process are indistinguishable from the real thing.

When I think of Dr. Ofshe and those like him who have had the courage to use science and skepticism to take on some of the “sacred cows” of the psychotherapy profession and a destructive moral panic, I am deeply grateful for their presence. They have saved many people from unimaginable harm, and they should be celebrated.

Satanic Ritual Abuse, Religiously Fuelled BULLSHIT, HOAX (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
Satanic Ritual Abuse (atheistrev.com)
Satanic Panic Reemerges In Jimmy Savile Scandal (wideshut.co.uk)

Study Indicates Atheists Are Better People

Posted: March 5, 2013 in Atheism, Atheist, Atheist Good Guys, Atheists, Atheists Are Better People, Atheists Are Smarter
Tags: Antisemitism, Atheism, Ethnocentrism, God, Human Rights, negative stereotypes, Organizations, philosophy, Politics, Religion, Religion and Spirituality, Science, Secularity, Semitic

Study Indicates Atheists Are Better People

“Numerous studies reveal that atheists and secular people most certainly maintain strong values, beliefs, and opinions. But more signiﬁcantly, when we actually compare the values and beliefs of atheists and secular people to those of religious people, the former are markedly less nationalistic, less prejudiced, less anti-Semitic, less racist, less dogmatic, less ethnocentric, less close-minded, and less authoritarian.”

See here:-

Atheism, Secularity, and Well-Being: How the Findings of Social Science Counter Negative Stereotypes and Assumptions

http://www.pitzer.edu/academics/faculty/zuckerman/Zuckerman_on_Atheism.pdf

All Children are Born Atheists (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
Atheism, Defined (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
Atheists in the Heartland (atheistrev.com)
How To Know If You Are An Atheist (atheistrev.com)

Atheism, Defined (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
All Children are Born Atheists (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
Calm Atheist Versus Crazy, Shrieking Catholic Theist Harpy (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)

Why Genesis Is Literally False, But Also Metaphorically False!

Posted: March 5, 2013 in Fundamentalism, Genesis, Metaphor
Tags: Bible, Book of Genesis, Christian, Christianity, Garden of Eden, Genesis, God, Human Rights, Mary Midgley, Metaphor, Old Testament, philosophy, Politics, Religion, Science, theology

How Genesis Is Not Only Literally False, But Metaphorically False

Posted by Daniel Fincke

Mary Midgley argues that only the views of fundamentalist literalists are refuted by the fact of evolution:

Appeals to evolution are only damaging to biblical literalism. Certainly the events described inGenesis 1 are not literally compatible with what science (from long before Darwin’s day) tells us about the antiquity of the Earth. But this is not news. The early Christian fathers pointed out that the creation story must be interpreted symbolically, not literally. Its message centres not on the factual details but on gratitude for the intelligible unity of the creation. Later Christian tradition always understood this, even before the historical details began to be questioned.

This argument is so old that I feel justified in simply replying by reiterating the points I made in an old post.I

I made the central argument more clearly in the comments section, so I’ll start by reproducing most of that remark:

just because science-accepting Christians offer to read Genesis only metaphorically does not exempt them the metaphorical or mythical meanings from scrutiny. Just being a myth does not make the ideas contained within it automatically true.

If this was indeed a book described by God, why is it false both literally and metaphorically? Can’t God get his story right? If he was divinely writing books why not just be literally true and tell us about evolution in the Bible? Why not tell us we emerged through a long process and because we were naturally selected for different environments and ways of life than those in which we presently live, we must take care to correct for some of our ill-fit cognitive tendencies.   In other words, if this were a divine book it would get these sorts of facts right. But it doesn’t. Because it wasn’t inspired by God it was dreamed up by ancient people doing the best they could to imagine and wonder what things were like.

There was nothing wrong with that at the time, but now we’ve moved past those primitive guesses and we should accept that authorities once taken to be true simply are not. That’s not “war” against Christianity and religion, it’s how reason works. We abandon ideas and authorities when they are proven false.

The problem with religion is that it wants to freeze us in the past.   We must forever think of humanity as fallen, even when we realize we’re just descended from other animals and not from a pristine state of human perfection in a pristine garden. We must forever think that pain comes from a curse when in reality it’s just an adaptive trait that warns us of danger and it existed long before humans could have ever sinned. We must forever think of humans as inherently corrupted by some ancestor’s sins instead of fundamentally innocent beings who learned a set of social relationships of cooperation and hierarchy while still lower order primates and are still struggling to learn the best ways to take care of our own needs and flourishing while balancing the interests of our society.

Religion insists we must always freeze our knowledge, we must suspend our ability to say, “oh, the old religious myths turned out false—we’re not inherently evil, we’re not to blame for suffering in the world, we don’t have to mistrust our natural drives as corrupt—just instead see them as sometimes ill-fit for contemporary society since they evolved in another time for different needs.”

Religion tries to teach people to defer to ancient authorities who have no knowledge credentials and to override free, rigorous, and sincere reassessment of what is good and bad in our nature. Religion teaches you that bronze age people’s fantasies are somehow divine revelations when there is not a single good reason to think so. They have no special knowledge that only a God could give them. They didn’t give us the theory of quantum mechanics as a gift from the designer of quantum mechanics. They don’t seem to know any single fact about that alleged creator’s world that they couldn’t have made up themselves. So why think they got special knowledge from that creator?

It goes on and on and on, Lisa. There is no good reason to believe.   The Bible is false on every level. The legal code it gives is repulsive barbarism and the antithesis of the democracy I believe is just and enlightened. The genocides of the Old Testament are the height of immorality. They’re indistinguishable in their evil from the actions of Hitler. There are commands to slaughter men, women, infants, to rip open the wombs of pregnant women. It’s pure corruption and no sign of divine wisdom. It took a turn away from faith to Enlightenment to get the democratic institutions and scientific advancements that make possible an egalitarian society and technological power to extend lifespans into the 70s and to create powerful means of creating and communicating. Faith doesn’t do these things. It freezes knowledge in the past, it teaches us to hate our human nature as fallen, and it opposes the spirit of free, secular society. And in all these ways, it represents an obstacle to people’s free reason and rational decisions about ethics.

And:

the non-literal reading of Genesis is just as false as the metaphorical one. When religious people argue that the Garden of Eden story is unaffected by scientific knowledge they ignore the fact that the Eden myth asserts an initial state of perfection from which we have fallen because of a sin. But that’s not “metaphorically” or “mythically” true. Our ancestors were (1) not even better human beings than us, let alone “metaphorically perfect” humans, in fact they were “lesser” evolved than we are socially, culturally, morally, and physically—pretty much by every standard we have for judging human excellence, (2) they did not incur pain on the universe, either literally or metaphorically, since it already preexisted our arrival by millions of years, and (3) our tendencies towards ethical failings and our sufferings are not punishments for any sins (“original” ones or otherwise, either literally or metaphorically) but are in fact explicable in terms of both the precision and imprecision of complex sets of strategies for social and environmental success that proved most benefiical to our survival. Similarly our intellectual shortcomings have everything to do with an evolutionary necessity for making judgments of a local kind coupled with an evolutionary indifference to judgments of highly precise theoretical kind.

In other words, an evolutionary understanding of primeval history exposes not only that the Genesis story is not literally true but that its mythically presented propositional claims that pain in the universe is connected to moral failing, that moral failing is a punishment for a sin, that the need to work and for women to suffer excruciatingly during child birth are both owed to matters that are our faults, and that humanity was initially better off than we are now are, are all flat out false.

And finally I want to repost two superb videos that add much, much more to those points I just made. The first points out the falsehood, both literal and metaphorical, of Eden myths and the points out the harmful consequences of such thinking.

embedded by Embedded Video
YouTube Direkt And start Christopher Hitchens’s brilliant speech below (maybe my favorite of his) and think about whether the scientific picture of reality he presents is one that we were made in the image of God by a benevolent personal God who selected the ancient Israelites to reveal himself to us and to provide us with our morality:

embedded by Embedded Video

An Outsider’s Perspective on Religion (new.exchristian.net)
Metaphor and The Enlightenment (jonchadwickchambers.com)

Philosopher submits gibberish fake abstract and gets accepted on theological conferences

Posted: March 1, 2013 in Philosophy, Theist Gibberish, Theology
Tags: climate, Human Rights, philosophy, Politics, Religion, Science

Philosopher submits gibberish fake abstract and gets accepted on theological conferences

Jerry Coyne, over at Why Evolution Is True (a great blog), has talked about a real gem of a hoax, based on the original Sokal hoax. The Sokal affair was famous int he academic world and is summed up by wiki as follows:

The Sokal affair, also known as the Sokal hoax,^[1] was a publishing hoax perpetrated by Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University. In 1996, Sokal submitted an article to Social Text, an academic journal of postmodern cultural studies. In subsequent publications, Sokal claimed that the submission was an experiment to test the journal’s intellectual rigor and, specifically, to investigate whether such a journal would “publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if it (a) sounded good and (b) flattered the editors’ ideological preconceptions.”^[2]

The article “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity“, published in the Social Text Spring/Summer 1996 “Science Wars” issue, proposed thatquantum gravity is a social and linguistic construct. At that time, the journal did not practice academic peer review and did not submit the article for outside expert review by a physicist.^[3]^[4] On its date of publication (May 1996), Sokal revealed in Lingua Franca that the article was a hoax, identifying it as “a pastiche of Left-wing cant, fawning references, grandiose quotations, and outright nonsense . . . structured around the silliest quotations [by postmodernist academics] he could find about mathematics and physics”.^[2]

The resultant academic and public quarrels concerned the scholarly merit of humanistic commentary about the physical sciences; the influence of postmodern philosophy on social disciplines in general; academic ethics, including whether Sokal was right or wrong to deceive the editors and readers of Social Text; and whether the journal had exercised the appropriate intellectual rigorbefore publishing the pseudoscientific article.

Coyne relates how a Belgian philosopher of religion who is none too keen on religion did the very same thing to a couple of theological conferences. The philosopher, Maarten Boudry, has attracted Coyne’s regard:

Boudry has spent a lot of time showing that religion and science are incompatible, attacking the distinction between “metaphysical naturalism” and “methodological naturalism” (a distinction much beloved by accommodationists), and generally pwning “Sophisticated Theologians™.”

Both conferences that Boudry submitted his fake abstract to straight away accepted him to speak. Here is the utter nonsense that they stamped with their approval:

The Paradoxes of Darwinian Disorder. Towards an Ontological Reaffirmation of Order and Transcendence.
Robert A. Maundy, College of the Holy Cross, Reno, Nevada

In the Darwinian perspective, order is not immanent in reality, but it is a self-affirming aspect of reality in so far as it is experienced by situated subjects. However, it is not so much reality that is self-affirming, but the creative order structuring reality which manifests itself to us. Being-whole, as opposed to being-one, underwrites our fundamental sense of locatedness and particularity in the universe. The valuation of order qua meaningful order, rather than order-in-itself, has been thoroughly objectified in the Darwinian worldview. This process of de-contextualization and reification of meaning has ultimately led to the establishment of ‘dis-order’ rather than ‘this-order’. As a result, Darwinian materialism confronts us with an eradication of meaning from the phenomenological experience of reality. Negative theology however suggests a revaluation of disorder as a necessary precondition of order, as that without which order could not be thought of in an orderly fashion. In that sense, dis-order dissolves into the manifestations of order transcending the materialist realm. Indeed, order becomes only transparent qua order in so far as it is situated against a background of chaos and meaninglessness. This binary opposition between order and dis-order, or between order and that which disrupts order, embodies a central paradox of Darwinian thinking. As Whitehead suggests, reality is not composed of disordered material substances, but as serially-ordered events that are experienced in a subjectively meaningful way. The question is not what structures order, but what structure is imposed on our transcendent conception of order. By narrowly focusing on the disorderly state of present-being, or the “incoherence of a primordial multiplicity”, as John Haught put it, Darwinian materialists lose sense of the ultimate order unfolding in the not-yet-being. Contrary to what Dawkins asserts, if we reframe our sense of locatedness of existence within a the space of radical contingency of spiritual destiny, then absolute order reemerges as an ontological possibility. The discourse of dis-order always already incorporates a creative moment that allows the self to transcend the context in which it finds itself, but also to find solace and responsiveness in an absolute Order which both engenders and withholds meaning. Creation is the condition of possibility of discourse which, in turn, evokes itself as presenting creation itself. Darwinian discourse is therefore just an emanation of the absolute discourse of dis-order, and not the other way around, as crude materialists such as Dawkins suggest.

As Coyne puts it:

This shows once again the appeal of religious gibberish to the educated believer, and demonstrates that conference organizers either don’t read what they publish, or do read it and think that if it’s opaque then it must be profound.

Theology. It can sometimes sound like complete bollocks. Or is it that complete bollocks sometimes sounds like theology?

- See more at: http://skepticink.com/tippling/2013/02/26/philosopher-submits-gibberish-fake-abstract-and-gets-accepted-on-theological-conferences/#sthash.6f4RBWPQ.dpuf

The 5 Most Outrageous Hoaxes (livescience.com)
The Guardian hoax (stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com)
Blancke on Among the Creationists [EvolutionBlog] (scienceblogs.com)
The 5 Most Outrageous Hoaxes (news.discovery.com)
Here Are 12 Scientific Findings That Were Actually Faked (businessinsider.com)

Faith and Foolishness: When Religious Beliefs Become Dangerous

Posted: February 27, 2013 in Religion, Religious beliefs
Tags: Arizona, Arizona State University, Bradley Byrne, Child Abuse, climate, current-events, Human Rights, Lawrence M. Krauss, National Science Board, National Science Foundation, Politics, Religion, Science, United States

Cover Image: August 2010 Scientific American Magazine

Faith and Foolishness: When Religious Beliefs Become Dangerous

Religious leaders should be held accountable when their irrational ideas turn harmful

By Lawrence M. Krauss

A church tower in Budva, Montenegro.

Image: iStockphoto

Every two years the National Science Foundation produces a report, Science and Engineering Indicators, designed to probe the public’s understanding of science concepts. And every two years we relearn the sad fact that U.S. adults are less willing to accept evolution and the big bang as factual than adults in other industrial countries.

Except for this time. Was there suddenly a quantum leap in U.S. science literacy? Sadly, no. Rather the National Science Board, which oversees the foundation, chose to leave the section that discussed these issues out of the 2010 edition, claiming the questions were “flawed indicators of scientific knowledge because responses conflated knowledge and beliefs.” In short, if their religious beliefs require respondents to discard scientific facts, the board doesn’t think it appropriate to expose that truth.

The section does exist, however, and Science magazine obtained it. When presented with the statement “human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals,” just 45 percent of respondents indicated “true.” Compare this figure with the affirmative percentages in Japan (78), Europe (70), China (69) and South Korea (64). Only 33 percent of Americans agreed that “the universe began with a big explosion.”

Consider the results of a 2009 Pew Survey: 31 percent of U.S. adults believe “humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.” (So much for dogs, horses or H1N1 flu.) The survey’s most enlightening aspect was its categorization of responses by levels of religious activity, which suggests that the most devout are on average least willing to accept the evidence of reality. White evangelical Protestants have the highest denial rate (55 percent), closely followed by the group across all religions who attend services on average at least once a week (49 percent).

I don’t know which is more dangerous, that religious beliefs force some people to choose between knowledge and myth or that pointing out how religion can purvey ignorance is taboo. To do so risks being branded as intolerant of religion. The kindly Dalai Lama, in a recent New York Times editorial, juxtaposed the statement that “radical atheists issue blanket condemnations of those who hold religious beliefs” with his censure of the extremist intolerance, murderous actions and religious hatred in the Middle East. Aside from the distinction between questioning beliefs and beheading or bombing people, the “radical atheists” in question rarely condemn individuals but rather actions and ideas that deserve to be challenged.

Surprisingly, the strongest reticence to speak out often comes from those who should be most worried about silence. Last May I attended a conference on science and public policy at which a representative of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences gave a keynote address. When I questioned how he reconciled his own reasonable views about science with the sometimes absurd and unjust activities of the Church—from false claims about condoms and AIDS in Africa to pedophilia among the clergy—I was denounced by one speaker after another for my intolerance.

Religious leaders need to be held accountable for their ideas. In my state of Arizona, Sister Margaret McBride, a senior administrator at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix, recently authorized a legal abortion to save the life of a 27-year-old mother of four who was 11 weeks pregnant and suffering from severe complications of pulmonary hypertension; she made that decision after consultation with the mother’s family, her doctors and the local ethics committee. Yet the bishop of Phoenix, Thomas Olmsted, immediately excommunicated Sister Margaret, saying, “The mother’s life cannot be preferred over the child’s.” Ordinarily, a man who would callously let a woman die and orphan her children would be called a monster; this should not change just because he is a cleric.

In the race for Alabama governor, an advertisement bankrolled by the state teachers’ union attacked candidate Bradley Byrne because he supposedly supported teaching evolution. Byrne, worried about his political future, felt it necessary to deny the charge.

Keeping religion immune from criticism is both unwarranted and dangerous. Unless we are willing to expose religious irrationality whenever it arises, we will encourage irrational public policy and promote ignorance over education for our children.

This article was originally published with the title Faith and Foolishness.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Lawrence M. Krauss, a physicist and science commentator, is Foundation Professor and director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University (www.krauss.faculty.asu.edu).

The Unbelievers (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
Teaching Creationism Is ‘Child Abuse,’ Says Prominent Physicist (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
Lawrence Krauss: Teaching Creationism is Child Abuse (richarddawkins.net)
Lawrence Krauss: Teaching Creationism is Child Abuse (kestalusrealm.wordpress.com)
Physicist Lawrence Krauss on teaching creationism: It’s a form of child abuse (rawstory.com)
Lawrence Krauss, Physicist, Claims Teaching Creationism Is Child Abuse And ‘Like The Taliban’ (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
Understanding Secularism (atheistrev.com)
20 Percent of Americans Don’t Believe in God – So Why is Our Congress So Religious? (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
I can defend both Lawrence Krauss and philosophy! (freethoughtblogs.com)
Lawrence Krauss: ‘The Purpose of Education is Not to Validate Ignorance but to Overcome It’ (patheos.com)

Pill To Gill | Mood Drugs In Waterways, Alter Fish Behaviour, Study Finds

Posted: February 27, 2013 in Drugs, Fish, Mood, Nature
Tags: climate, Drug, Environment, Fish, Health, medicine, nature, Science, Umeå University

Mood-changing drugs enter waterways, affect fish, study finds

Courtesy of Umeå University, Science and World Science staff

Some medicines that end up in the world’s waterways after being used are affecting fish behavior, according to a new study.

Tomas Brodin of Sweden’s Umeå University and colleagues found that wild European perch ate faster, became bolder and acted less social after exposure to an anxiety-moderating drug known as Oxazepam.

Perch. (Courtesy Ben Christensen)

Residues of the drug often wind up in natural aquatic systems after people consume it, the researchers said. They’re excreted, flushed down the toilet, treated at wastewater treatment plants, and end up in the water unchanged.

Brodin and colleagues dosed wild perch with amounts of Oxazepam equivalent to those found in Sweden’s rivers and streams. Their results, they said, suggested that even small amounts of the drug can alter the behavior and foraging rates of these fish.

“Normally, perch are shy and hunt in schools. This is a known strategy for survival and growth. But those who swim in Oxazepam became considerably bolder,” said Brodin, lead author of the report, published in the Feb. 15 issue of the journal Science. The affected fish left their schools to seek food on their own, a behavior that can be risky, he explained; they also ate more quickly.

“We’re now going to examine what consequences this might have. In waters where fish begin to eat more efficiently, this can affect the composition of species, for example, and ultimately lead to unexpected effects, such as increased risk of algal blooming,” said Brodin.

“The solution to the problem is not to stop medicating ill people but to try to develop sewage treatment plants that can capture environmentally hazardous drugs,” added environmental chemist Jerker Fick, a co-author of the study.

The scientists added that the findings should be seen as a pointer about what might be underway in many waters around the world, though fuller studies are required before any far-reaching conclusions can be drawn.

Psychiatric Meds in Water Supply May Alter Fish Behavior – U.S. News & World Report (health.usnews.com)
Drugs Laked Into Rivers Make Fish Antisocial (news.yahoo.com)
Study: Anxiety Drugs Found In Fish Could Have Evolutionary Consequences (washington.cbslocal.com)
Drug passed on to fish boosts their confidence (smh.com.au)
Pill to Gill: Antianxiety Drugs in Flushed into Water May Be Making Fishes Fearless (scientificamerican.com)
Anxiety Drug in Water Makes Shy Swedish Fish Greedy (bloomberg.com)
Drug residues ‘alter fish behaviour’ (bbc.co.uk)

The Heretics: Adventures With The Enemies of Science

Posted: February 18, 2013 in Conspiracism, Conspiracy, Lunatic Fringe, The Heretics
Tags: Belief, climate, David Irving, gaming, Human Rights, James Randi, John McKay, Religion, Richard Dawkins, Science, Storr, UFO, Unidentified flying object, videogames

Book review: The Heretics by Will Storr

NOAH HAD dragons on board his ark.

By: Rob Crossan

The Heretics is an accessible and absolutely compelling read

Homosexuality leads to paedophilia. Las Vegas is full of aliens in wigs playing the gaming tables. We have eyes in the back of our heads.
These are just some of the beliefs, ranging from the farcical to the toxic, explored in journalist Will Storr’s utterly engrossing series of interviews.
Laced with self doubt and, at times, intense irritation with his subjects, Storr sets out to discover why individuals nurture beliefs that fly in the face of scientific evidence, from climate change denier Lord Monckton to the late UFO believer and Harvard professor John Mack.
Yet this is no Louis Therouxstyle “let’s laugh at the oddballs” narrative as Storr delves deep into the world of neuroscience. He grapples manfully with attempts to explain how our brains can deceive us and selectively create a universe that slots in with our belief system, despite a lack of consensus among the disciplines that research the workings of the mind.
“Intelligence is no protection against strange beliefs,” Storr tells us.

He admires the raw IQ of such heretics as David Irving and creationist John McKay while failing to be remotely convinced by their arguments.

On the other hand, when speaking to the internationally renowned doyens of science, rationality and reason Richard Dawkins and James Randi (an opponent of anyone who believes in the paranormal and the occult), Storr discovers an astonishing amount of subterfuge and skulduggery at work to prevent their own beliefs being tested too rigorously.
There never seems to be any danger of Storr buying too deeply into the polemics of any “enemies of science” but he also mounts a considerable attack on the smugness and arrogance of those who attack believers in homoeopathy, past-life regression and creationism.
At one point, Storr takes part in a mass public overdose of homoeopathic medicine which claims to “prove” the uselessness of the products and he is amazed by the participants’ lack of knowledge. “Have you ever read any scientific studies into homoeopathy?” Storr asks one of the organisers of the overdose. “Not personally,” is the response.

Storr sets out to discover why individuals nurture beliefs that fly in the face of scientific evidence

This kind of complacency and hubris irritates Storr who, not unreasonably, suggests that perhaps the high-handed approach of the sceptics is masking a deeper insecurity. How else, he asks, can one explain James Randi’s belligerence? He takes part in a series of last-minute dodges to avoid participating in scientific tests with people who believe they can prove the existence of paranormal power under controlled conditions.
Perhaps predictably, many of these “heretic” believers turn out to be rather damaged individuals. The motley crew of racists, conspiracy theorists and fantasists who join Nazi historian David Irving on a concentration camp tour are granted the opportunity to expand upon their opinions. The result is an achingly heavy vista of dead air punctuated by bigotry, self loathing and personal loneliness.
Despite the appalling personal characteristics of many of the people he bravely manages to engage, The Heretics is an accessible and absolutely compelling read, Storr leaving us with a distinct lack of trust in the verity of our own beliefs. The most dangerous thing anyone can do is dismiss as stupid the beliefs of fringe extremists.

Asking James Randi: What do so many people have against science? (richarddawkins.net)
The Heretics: Adventures with the Enemies of Science by Will Storr – review (guardian.co.uk)

Genetically Engineered Meat, Coming Soon to a Supermarket Near You

Posted: February 18, 2013 in Frankenfish, Genetically Engineered Meat
Tags: American Anti-Vivisection Society, Bruce Friedrich, Center for Food Safety, climate, consumer rights advocates, Environment, FDA, Food & Drug Administration, food and drug administration, food and drug administration fda, General Electric, Genetically modified salmon, Health, Science

Genetically Engineered Meat, Coming Soon to a Supermarket Near You

by Bruce Friedrich

If you’re one of the 91 percent of Americans who opposes genetically engineered (GE) meat, you may have limited time to act: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed approval of the first-ever GE animal, called “AquAdvantage Salmon.” If this first approval proceeds, the process is likely to become top secret in the future: we won’t find out about new GE animals until after they’re approved for human consumption, and they won’t be labeled. Welcome to the new world of genetically engineered meat — unless we act now.

The Process

The problems begin with FDA’s bizarre decision to consider GE meat using its “New Animal Drug Approval” (NADA) process, a process designed for evaluation of new animal drugs (hence the name), not genetically engineered animals. The GE salmon themselves are, according to this analysis, the animal drug. As food blogger Ari LeVaux explains on Civil Eats, “the drug per se is AquaBounty’s patented genetic construct… Inserted at the animal’s one-cell stage, the gene sequence exists in every cell of the adult fish’s body.”

Of course, NADA was not designed to analyze the human health or environmental consequences of new animal drugs, and because the animals are the drugs in this process, their welfare is also ignored. In all three areas, there is ample reason for concern.

Human Health

Since they aren’t consumed by humans, new animal drugs are not evaluated for their human health impact, so perhaps it’s unsurprising that FDA’s analysis in this area has been almost nonexistent. Health and consumer rights advocates have raised alarms, noting among other concerns, that: 1) these animals will require massive doses of antibiotics to keep them alive in dirty, crowded aquaculture conditions, and we don’t know these antibiotics’ effect on human health; 2) the limited testing that has been conducted was carried out by or for AquaBounty and included shockingly small sample sizes; and 3) what studies have been done indicated increased allergic potential and increased levels of the hormone IGF-1, which is linked to various cancers — an outcome ignored in FDA’s approval according to the Consumers Union, Food & Water Watch, and the Center for Food Safety.

Our Environment

The process of examining new drugs’ environmental impact is also lax, so it’s also not surprising that FDA bungled this analysis as well. As just one glaring example, the agency looked only at how one small pilot project in Canada and Panama will affect U.S. waters, ignoring its legal obligations to consider the likelihood of salmon escaping as the pilot program expands—an expansion the company has already announced. Similarly, FDA suggests that the GE salmon’s lack of fear and rapacious appetite means that they could not survive escape. Another possibility, ignored by FDA and feared by environmental groups including Friends of the Earth, is that escapees would “wreak havoc on the ecosystem.” The Center for Food Safety (CFS) points out that every year “millions of farmed salmon escape, outcompeting wild populations for resources and straining ecosystems.” Regarding GE salmon, CFS continues: “Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences notes that a release of just sixty GE salmon into a wild population of 60,000 would lead to the extinction of the wild population in less than 40 fish generations.” FDA totally ignores this scenario and its vast implications for our aquatic ecosystems.

Animal Welfare

Animal welfare is the one area where we might expect NADA to do a passable job because the process is supposed to guarantee drug safety in the target animal. Sadly, FDA ignored animal welfare in its decision to recommend approval of GE meat, perhaps because it considers the GE animals to be drugs, not animals. In 2010, the American Anti-Vivisection Society and Farm Sanctuary detailed more than a dozen concerns with the AquAdvantage salmon, any one of which should have precluded approval. Yet, in its proposal, FDA ignored animal welfare concerns entirely.

Here are just a few of our concerns, none of which were addressed in FDA’s proposal:

Although AquaBounty supplied limited animal welfare data, its own application indicates that it engaged in “extensive culling” of deformed, diseased, dying, and dead fish from its analysis. This would be like studying smoking’s impact only on long-distance runners who had shown no signs of cancer or heart disease.
All aquaculture causes physical deformities and makes fish sick; nevertheless (and even after culling the sickest animals), the limited data supplied by AquaBounty indicates that AquAdvantage fish are even sicker and more prone to abnormalities and death losses than other farmed fish
Even within these parameters, there were problems with the studies. For example, sample sizes provided were tiny and included limited data, and all analysis was done by the company (do you recall how this worked out with the tobacco companies?).
Salmon in the wild are remarkable animals, swimming thousands of miles, including up streams and waterfalls; and of course, they feel pain and have similar cognitive, emotional, and behavioral complexity to other animals. AquAdvantage salmon will be crammed into tanks in grossly unnatural conditions, and slaughter will be completely unregulated (see video below). Imagine living your entire life, day and night, in an elevator with 20 other people — you can’t even stand up; you live in a pile of everyone else’s limbs and excrement. That’s aquaculture.

Brave New World

The scariest thing about approving GE animals through NADA is that once a type of technological drug advance is approved (here, genetic animal engineering), future approvals become much easier and much less transparent: the process that protects corporate drug development secrets will protect the GE process, resulting in reduced scrutiny and no transparency at all for future approvals. The American public will probably not even find out about future GE animals until after they’re approved for sale. As Friends of the Earth notes, FDA’s approval “will open the floodgates for other genetically engineered animals, including pigs and cows, to enter the food supply.”

Conclusion

FDA’s process for approving genetically engineered meat is rotten to the core, and the effects of such a bad process on human health, our environment, and animals cannot be overstated. In the 2010 process, FDA received more than 400,000 comments and letters from more than 300 health, consumer advocacy, environmental, animal protection, and other organizations. All were ignored. We have one more chance before litigation becomes necessary. Click here to take action.

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Obama Moves Forward with GE Salmon Approval (foodfreedomgroup.com)
Frankenfish: genetically engineered salmon close to winning FDA approval (vineoflife.net)
Genetically-Engineered Meat Isn’t Tested for Human Safety (globalresearch.ca)
Salmon Fishing in Test Tubes (leanonlife.com)

Unfortunate Sons: CIA and DoD Betrayal of Their Own

Posted: February 18, 2013 in CIA, DOD
Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, climate, David Petraeus, gaming, Jack Brewer, Libya, Military Intelligence Hall of Fame, New York Stock Exchange, Politics, Science, Unidentified flying object, United States Department of Defense, videogames

Unfortunate sons: CIA and DoD betrayal of their own

Central Intelligence Agency Director David Petraeus at the New York Stock Exchange, where the CIA commemorated its 65th anniversary in September.

Credits: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Projects included involuntary human research subjects, failure to obtain informed consent and conducting surveillance. Symptoms experienced by research subjects included perceptions animals came through walls, amnesia and post traumatic stress disorder. While UFO buffs and self-described investigators might be quick to tell a person describing such an ordeal that they were likely abducted by aliens, it was actually the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense and associates that designed, conducted and concealed such research projects.

Covert operations consisting of abusing and monitoring involuntary human research subjects escalated to what could be described as unconscionable proportion during the mid 20th century. Victims included but were not limited to U.S. citizens and members of the armed forces. Such circumstances led select UFO researchers to strongly suspect the intelligence community was much more responsible for what came to be known as the modern UFO phenomenon and alien abduction than some would prefer we consider.

This writer’s plunge into the implications resulted in assessing that further research is indeed justified. My work with Leah Haley, a former self-described alien abductee who now believes herself to be a victim of covert research projects, revealed a number of relevant yet unanswered questions. The same could be said for circumstances surrounding such cases as the extremely intriguing Gulf Breeze Six and my interactions with certain additional members of the UFO community.

Similarly, my work related to members of the intelligence community who jockeyed to become staples of UFO conventions revealed numerous potentially important yet often unaddressed issues. Such individuals and their circumstances included the incredible claims and career path of Commander C.B. Scott Jones. I also considered the manner Military Intelligence Hall of Fame member Major General Albert N. Stubblebine III publicly claimed knowledge of covert mind control operations continuing after Congress ordered them ceased, yet the general failed to respond to multiple requests for clarification. I additionally had the opportunity to observe a man who is chronically interviewed yet rarely asked relevant questions, Colonel John B. Alexander, refuse to participate in a previously agreed upon interview with this writer. I continue to welcome their statements should the general or colonel ever decide to address issues I presented for their consideration in such posts on ‘The UFO Trail’ as ‘John Alexander, Contradictions and Unanswered Questions’ and ‘Ufology and Alleged Post-MKULTRA Mind Control’.

So, you might ask, why would some researchers immerse themselves in such circumstances while running down stories of black budget operations that go back some 60 years? One reason would be because the stories remain current.

Vietnam Veterans of America, et al. v. Central Intelligence Agency, et al.

The San Francisco law offices of Morrison and Foerster are collectively representing Vietnam Veterans of America, Swords to Plowshares (a veterans advocacy organization) and a few specific veterans in a suit currently pending. The case is being handled pro bono against the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, U.S. Army and Department of Veterans Affairs. The suit states:

Plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief only – no monetary damages – and Plaintiffs seek redress for several decades of diabolical experiments followed by over 30 years of neglect, including:

the use of troops to test nerve gas, psychochemicals, and thousands of other toxic chemical or biological substances and perhaps most gruesomely, the insertion of septal implants in the brains of subjects in a ghastly series of mind control experiments that went awry;

the failures to secure informed consent and other widespread failures to follow the precepts of U.S. and international law regarding the use of human subjects, including the 1953 Wilson Directive and the Nuremberg Code;

an almost fanatical refusal to satisfy their legal and moral obligations to locate the victims of their gruesome experiments or to provide health care or compensation to them;

the deliberate destruction of evidence and files documenting their illegal actions, actions which were punctuated by fraud, deception, and a callous disregard for the value of human life.

The Complaint asks the Court to determine that Defendants’ actions were illegal and that Defendants have a duty to notify all victims and to provide them with health care going forward.

Readers familiar with the Project MKULTRA saga and related authenticated documents will be aware such circumstances as cited by Morrison and Foerster have long been acknowledged and conceded by the CIA. Basically, the agencies being sued do not deny what took place, they just want no current responsibilities in the matters.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled in October that the suit could continue forward, setting the stage for a 2013 summer showdown. Judge Wilken denied repeated government attempts to derail the suit, ruling that federal regulations require notifying participants of increases in knowledge of potential health hazards. She additionally ruled the suit could include involuntary research subjects and their heirs dating as far back as 1922.

Sources such as the San Francisco Chronicle and Military.com reported an estimated 7,600 service members were abused in experiments conducted at Edgewood Arsenal from 1955 to 1975. As many as 100,000 people are suspected of being subjected to hundreds of drugs, chemicals and biological agents without their informed consent and spanning over 50 years.

Plaintiff Frank D. Rochelle served in the Army in the late 1960′s and volunteered to be stationed at Edgewood for what he was apparently led to believe were harmless tests. During one incident, Rochelle stated, “I stayed high for two days.”

Rochelle experienced hallucinations of animals coming out of the walls and at one point he used a razor blade to try to remove what he thought were bugs from beneath his skin. Upon leaving Edgewood, Rochelle says he was instructed to never tell anyone about his experiences there. He was later assigned to Vietnam.

Congressional hearings into MKULTRA were conducted during the 1970′s. Testimony from individuals such as former CIA director Admiral Stansfield Turner included assurances a list would be produced of exploited veterans. Turner further stated that the participants would be notified of their involvement and provided proper medical care. The commitments were never fulfilled.

“Over 30 years ago,” Vietnam Veterans of America President John Rowan stated, “the government promised to locate the victims of the MKULTRA experiments and to take care of their needs. It now is painfully obvious that what it really wants is for the victims to just quietly die off while the government takes baby steps. VVA cannot leave these veterans behind.”

Potential significance to UFO Land

Researchers with whom I discussed the lawsuit were confident the CIA will never produce a complete list of involuntary human research subjects or notify all of them of the circumstances, regardless of what courts may rule. Reasons included possibilities that some victims might be prominent figures.

Many members of the UFO community avert from the implications for any number of reasons. I nonetheless invite consideration of just a few of the many potentially significant possibilities.

What if we were to find that a famous political figure had been an MKULTRA research subject? Would you find that interesting?

How about an infamous criminal? Would it interest you if you found out such a person had been an involuntary research subject?

More specific to ufology, imagine if we were to discover a high profile, self-described alien abductee was a former mind control subject; or an iconic researcher of alien abduction. Might you find those kinds of things worthy of further research?

What if you found out a family member was among the unfortunate sons? What would you think about that?

How about if you were notified that you were a former uninformed research subject? Then would the topic interest you?

Vietnam veteran Frank D. Rochelle and his fellow plaintiffs find themselves at the center of what became a decades-long saga. Them, and about 100,000 or so redacted others.

Propaganda and UFOs in Movies and Television (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
DoD Current & Future Drone Activities Map (leaksource.wordpress.com)
The Pentagon (Finally) Gets Real About Secure Software (veracode.com)
Selling to Government (Especially DoD) – It’s not all about YOU! (ctovision.com)
DARPA Joins Those Digging Deep Into Software Supply Chain (veracode.com)
DoD Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury Traumatic Brain Injury Research Award (nsti.org)

THE UNBELIEVERS

Posted: February 14, 2013 in THE UNBELIEVERS
Tags: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, climate, Cormac McCarthy, entertainment, http www youtube, Ian McEwan, James Randi, Lawrence M. Krauss, oscars, Paul Provenza, Richard Dawkins, Science, Tim Minchin, werner herzog

THE UNBELIEVERS Official Trailer (Richard Dawkins & Lawrence Krauss)

‘The Unbelievers’ follows renowned scientists Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss across the globe as they speak publicly about the importance of science and reason in the modern world – encouraging others to cast off antiquated religious and politically motivated approaches toward important current issues.

The film includes interviews with celebrities and other influential people who support the work of these controversial speakers, including:
Ricky Gervais

Woody Allen

Cameron Diaz

Stephen Hawking

Sarah Silverman

Bill Pullman

Werner Herzog

Tim Minchin

Eddie Izzard

Ian McEwan

Adam Savage

Ayaan Hirsi-Ali

Penn Jillette

Sam Harris

Dan Dennett

James Randi

Cormac McCarthy

Paul Provenza

James Morrison

Michael Shermer

David Silverman …and more.

http://www.twitter.com/@unbelieversfilm

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Unbelievers/451679344852916

continue to source article at youtube.com

Physicist Lawrence Krauss rips creationists: It is like the Taliban (rawstory.com)
A Feature Film About Atheism – Brought to you by Dawkins and Krauss (blogs.scientificamerican.com)
Lawrence Krauss: Stop Validating Ignorance (susananthony.newsvine.com)
Is This Movie the Next Religulous? (patheos.com)
Movie Trailer: “THE UNBELIEVERS” (skeptical-science.com)
HumanistLife : ‘The Unbelievers’ Official Trailer (humanistlife.org.uk)

Red Brain, Blue Brain: Republicans and Democrats Process Risk Differently, Research Finds

Posted: February 14, 2013 in Process Risk, Red Brain Blue Brain, Risk Process
Tags: Brain, climate, current-events, Democratic Party (United States), Democrats, how the brain functions, James H. Fowler, PLOS ONE, Political party, Politics, Republican, Science, uc san diego, University of Exeter

Red Brain, Blue Brain: Republicans and Democrats Process Risk Differently, Research Finds

A team of political scientists and neuroscientists has shown that liberals and conservatives use different parts of the brain when they make risky decisions, and these regions can be used to predict which political party a person prefers. The new study suggests that while genetics or parental influence may play a significant role, being a Republican or Democrat changes how the brain functions.

Republicans and Democrats differ in the neural mechanisms activated while performing a risk-taking task. Republicans more strongly activate their right amygdala, associated with orienting attention to external cues. Democrats have higher activity in their left posterior insula, associated with perceptions of internal physiological states. This activation also borders the temporal-parietal junction, and therefore may reflect a difference in internal physiological drive as well as the perception of the internal state and drive of others. (Credit: From: Darren Schreiber, Greg Fonzo, Alan N. Simmons, Christopher T. Dawes, Taru Flagan, James H. Fowler, Martin P. Paulus. Red Brain, Blue Brain: Evaluative Processes Differ in Democrats and Republicans. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (2): e52970 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0052970)

Dr. Darren Schreiber, a researcher in neuropolitics at the University of Exeter, has been working in collaboration with colleagues at the University of California, San Diego on research that explores the differences in the way the brain functions in American liberals and conservatives. The findings are published Feb. 13 in the journalPLOS ONE.

In a prior experiment, participants had their brain activity measured as they played a simple gambling game. Dr. Schreiber and his UC San Diego collaborators were able to look up the political party registration of the participants in public records. Using this new analysis of 82 people who performed the gambling task, the academics showed that Republicans and Democrats do not differ in the risks they take. However, there were striking differences in the participants’ brain activity during the risk-taking task.

Democrats showed significantly greater activity in the left insula, a region associated with social and self-awareness. Meanwhile Republicans showed significantly greater activity in the right amygdala, a region involved in the body’s fight-or-flight system. These results suggest that liberals and conservatives engage different cognitive processes when they think about risk.

In fact, brain activity in these two regions alone can be used to predict whether a person is a Democrat or Republican with 82.9% accuracy. By comparison, the longstanding traditional model in political science, which uses the party affiliation of a person’s mother and father to predict the child’s affiliation, is only accurate about 69.5% of the time. And another model based on the differences in brain structure distinguishes liberals from conservatives with only 71.6% accuracy.

The model also outperforms models based on differences in genes. Dr. Schreiber said: “Although genetics have been shown to contribute to differences in political ideology and strength of party politics, the portion of variation in political affiliation explained by activity in the amygdala and insula is significantly larger, suggesting that affiliating with a political party and engaging in a partisan environment may alter the brain, above and beyond the effect of heredity.”

These results may pave the way for new research on voter behaviour, yielding better understanding of the differences in how liberals and conservatives think. According to Dr. Schreiber: “The ability to accurately predict party politics using only brain activity while gambling suggests that investigating basic neural differences between voters may provide us with more powerful insights than the traditional tools of political science.”

EU enters expensive race to map out brain secrets with computers (fiercebiotechit.com)
Why we’re building a €1 billion model of a human brain (newscientist.com)
Brainy Musicians – It’s All in Their Heads (healthyhearing.com)
PTI elections drew a line between believers of true democracy, monarchy: Imran (sananews.net)
Cameron and Miliband really are on a different wavelength: People at different ends of political spectrum ‘use their brains differently’ (dailymail.co.uk)
The party in your brain (medicalxpress.com)
The party in your brain (eurekalert.org)
Red brain, blue brain: Republicans and Democrats process risk differently, research finds (sciencedaily.com)

Scientologists’ Alleged ‘Alien Space Cathedral’ Found

Posted: February 12, 2013 in Scientologists, Scientology
Tags: Church of Scientology, climate, Daily Mail, Human Rights, John Sweeney, John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, l ron hubbard, Libya, LiveScience, New Mexico, Politics, Religion, Science, Scientology, Scientology Church

Scientologists’ Alleged ‘Alien Space Cathedral’ Found

Marc Lallanilla, Life’s Little Mysteries Assistant Editor

Digsby IM, Email, and Social Networks in one easy to use application! http://digsby.com

A report claims this is the secret New Mexico bunker of the Church of Scientology. CREDIT: Google Maps

View full size image

A secret bunker hidden deep within the deserts of New Mexico is reported to be the “alien space cathedral” of the Church of Scientology, according to the author of a new book on Scientology.

The site is marked by a large symbol etched onto the desert floor: two diamonds surrounded by a pair of overlapping circles, according to the British newspaper The Sun. A private airstrip, built to serve the controversial church’s leaders, is within walking distance of the symbol.

The entire complex is located near Mesa Huerfanita, N.M., roughly two-hour’s drive from Santa Fe, N.M., and three hours north of Roswell, N.M., site of numerous purported UFO sightings, according to The Sun.

The Sun report, penned by BBC journalist (and author) and Scientology debunker John Sweeney, claims the church designed the underground site to withstand a nuclear holocaust. Hidden within the complex’s vaults are titanium caskets that hold gold disks inscribed with the original texts of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, according to theDaily Mail.

Best known for its celebrity members like Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Kirstie Alley, scientology “is a religion that offers a precise path leading to a complete and certain understanding of one’s true spiritual nature and one’s relationship to self, family, groups, Mankind, all life forms, the material universe, the spiritual universe and the Supreme Being,” according to the organization’s website.

The symbols seen on the desert floor are reportedly there to help guide such Scientologists returning to Earth after fleeing the planet to escape a future “Armageddon,” writes the Daily Mail.

The Church of Scientology did not respond to requests for comment, according to the Daily Mail. Sweeney’s new book “The Church of Fear: Inside the Weird World of Scientology” (Silvertail Books), is scheduled to be published in January 2013.

Scientology hides from grave allegations behind the mask of religion | John Sweeney (guardian.co.uk)
Scientology Church Has Secret Alien Space Cathedral In New Mexico Desert-Founder Ron Hubbard & Aleister Crowley (countdowntozerotime.org)
Scientologists’ Alleged ‘Alien Space Cathedral’ Found (thegreatone22.wordpress.com)
Scientologists’ Alleged Apocalypse Bunker Found (livescience.com)

Operation INFEKTION: Soviet Bloc Intelligence and Its AIDS Disinformation Campaign

Posted: February 12, 2013 in AIDS Conspiracy, CIA, KGB, Propaganda, Soviet Disinformation
Tags: AIDS, Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, climate, KGB, Libya, Pentagon, Politics, research, Science, Soviet Union, U.S. News & World Report, United States, videogames

Operation INFEKTION: Soviet Bloc Intelligence and Its AIDS Disinformation Campaign

“Our friends in Moscow call it ‘dezinformatsiya.’ Our enemies in America call it ‘active measures,’ and I, dear friends, call it ‘my favorite pastime.’”—Col. Rolf Wagenbreth, director of Department X(disinformation) of East German foreign intelligence The CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence has just published Volume 53, Number 4 (December 2009) of Studies in Intelligence. The issue includes an unclassified extract from a classified study of the Soviet Union’s propaganda “campaign to implicate the United States in the emergence of the AIDS pandemic that appeared in the early 1980s.” According to a note at the beginning of the extract, “This article was the recipient of an Annual Studies in Intelligence Award in 2009.”The author writes:

The opening salvo of the AIDS disinformation campaign was fired on 17 July 1983, when an obscure newspaper in India, the Patriot, printed an anonymous letter headlined “AIDS may invade India: Mystery disease caused by US experiments.” The letter, allegedly written by a “well-known American scientist and anthropologist” in New York, claimed that “AIDS…is believed to be the result of the Pentagon’s experiments to develop new and dangerous biological weapons.” (4)…

The 17 July letter’s extensive quoting of US sources—e.g., U.S. News & World Report, Associated Press, and Army Research, Development & Acquisition magazine—suggests that US-based KGB officers initiated the AIDS campaign, or at least collected the material that triggered the idea. The KGB had large residencies in New York City and Washington, DC, both of which were assigned officers who worked solely on active measures. (5)

Read the CIA’s introduction here and the actual study by Thomas Boghardt here.

The Truth Behind UFO Sightings and the U.S. Air Force (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)

Terrified Glenn Beck: Technology Leads To ‘Transhumanism’ And Nazi Atrocities (Video)

Posted: February 12, 2013 in Clown Glenn Beck, Glenn Beck, Transhumanism
Tags: Beck, climate, current-events, Disputed Domain Names, Domain Names, gaming, Glenn Beck, Human condition, Politics, Ray Kurzweil, Science, Technology, Transhumanism, videogames

Terrified Glenn Beck: Technology Leads To ‘Transhumanism’ And Nazi Atrocities (Video)

Glenn Beck is the king of fear-mongering and he routinely instills irrational and paranoid delusions and fears into his listeners as well. Of course, he does this because his idiot disciples will buy gold, and seeds and other snake oil garbage from his worthless website. He’s a charlatan, a fraud. A freak.

So what is terrifying Beck now? Something called “Transhumanism” brought on by a technological singularity. The “Singularity” is the moment when the exponential growth of technology intersects and surpasses the processing of the human brain. This is an idea conceived by Ray Kurzweil and others.

Transhumanism, abbreviated as H+ or h+, is an international intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. SOUNDS TERRIFYING!!!! We think the reason Beck is so scared is that he counts on his audience NOT using their brains.

Here are the psychotic ramblings of Glenn Beck on the subject.

Glenn Beck’s Utopia (politicalirony.com)
Glenn Beck Explains How He Tricks His Audience, To His Audience (VIDEO) (addictinginfo.org)

ARE UFOs JUST A CIA CON-TRICK?

Posted: February 12, 2013 in CIA, Conspiracy, UFO's
Tags: aviation, David Icke, gaming, George Adamski, Libya, MailOnline, Mark Pilkington, Science, transportation, U.S. Air Force, UFO, Ufology, Unidentified flying object, United States, United States Air Force, US government, videogames

ARE UFOs JUST A CIA CON-TRICK?

MIRAGE MEN BY MARK PILKINGTON

By HARRY RITCHIE

The way of things to come?: Or are UFOs just a CIA conspiracy?

Ufology is a faith that includes many beliefs, from the oddly popular one about Nazi aliens who live under the ground to David Icke’s contention that the Duke of Edinburgh is in fact a shape-changing, blood-sucking alien lizard.

But here’s the core of the faith – that some UFO sightings and encounters are real, the U.S. government knows all about these extraterrestrial visitations, and they’ve mounted a huge conspiracy to keep the aliens secret and us in the dark.

This book threatens to demolish that faith. Because here Mark Pilkington sets out to prove that the U.S. government really has been conducting a top-secret UFO conspiracy – only one designed not to hide UFOs but publicise them, fuelling and even creating the major UFO myths. Flying saucers, alien abductions, crash-landed spacecraft, secret underground bases in New Mexico – they were all created by the U.S. government.

As Mark Pilkington immediately acknowledges, that might sound only marginally less ridiculous and emptily melodramatic than claiming that the Royal Family are actually alien reptiles. But he begins to build a pretty convincing case that U.S. agencies really have been conducting just such a long-running disinformation campaign to promote UFOs. And it does make sense.

UFOs make the perfect cover story to hide experimental aircraft from prying Russian eyes as well as those of their own citizens. Ufologists are a particular pest to U.S. Air Force security, for ever trying to root around their secret projects and hack into their systems – they need to be led up various extraterrestrial garden paths and far away from finding out about actual highly-classified experiments in weaponry or aircraft.

The Roswell Incident: were alien bodies really found?

Pilkington’s theory would certainly explain why so many of the key UFO sightings and events happen near U.S. Air Force bases – such as Roswell, home of the famous ‘incident’ when an alien craft was supposed to have crash-landed, with a couple of aliens aboard.

And why so many extraterrestrial spaceships seem to behave like the pilotless drones and stealth aircraft developed by the U.S. Air Force. And why flying saucers should first turn up at the start of the Cold War, just when the U.S. Air Force was beginning to experiment with exotic new types of flight.

According to Pilkington, the campaign to promote the idea of UFOs was masterminded in the Fifties by the head of the CIA, Allen Welsh Dulles. More recently, many of the leaked fake documents and bogus stories seem to have come from the U.S. Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI).

One victim of fake UFO documents evidently supplied by the American government was Timothy Good, whose international bestseller about supposed contact with aliens, Above Top Secret, included completely bogus papers planted in the American National Archives.

Another is George Adamski, an early fan of flying saucers whose bestselling books in the Fifties described his meetings with a chap called Orthon from Venus and his own trips in flying saucers.

I came across one of Adamski’s mad books in my local public library when I was a boy, and I remember being disturbed and perplexed – this was a book, a proper printed book, so all this stuff about going to Venus and meeting Venusians … it had to be real, didn’t it? Now, it seems Adamski was an innocent, eager dupe and that Orthon and the spaceships weren’t figments of his silly or venal imagination but real people and vehicles supplied by the CIA.

Fake spaceships, fake aliens, fake documents and even a fake underground alien base – it might all seem unduly elaborate and indeed expensive.

But the Americans certainly had the money for it, budgeting billions of dollars for the CIA’s black arts.

The Pentagon already had a good bash at that themselves, sponsoring a recruitment film of the Seventies, which claimed that UFOs were real and which included footage of a flying saucer landing at a U.S. Air Force base and a couple of aliens disembarking.

And that, you might think, is the Pentagon bang to rights. But at this point in the book, things begin to get even more complicated.

An AFOSI agent takes Pilkington aside and confides the real ‘truth’ – yes, there is a huge government conspiracy to produce a smokescreen of nonsense about UFOS, of course; however, it’s designed to hide not supersonic test-flights but … real UFOs.

Because, you see, by offering up a series of scary stories about UFO invasions and alien abductions, this will gradually desensitise the public to the eventual truth that the U.S. government really has been in contact with aliens.

Argh! Clearly, obviously, surely, this is more hokum, an attempt to exploit Pilkington with a slightly refined version of the same old stories – but he has previous as a Ufology believer and he can’t quite shake off the thrill of thinking that maybe, just maybe, an alien spaceship did crash-land at Roswell. That’s typical of a book that isn’t quite the rigorous hard-hitting investigation it could and should have been. Pilkington just about manages to hold on to his scepticism but ends with a spiel about nobody knowing for sure what the truth can be and Ufology being a murky, grey area.

No, no, no. There’s nothing grey about it. Either we have been visited by aliens and the American government is covering this up or we haven’t and it isn’t.

Either that debris at Roswell was part of a crashed flying saucer or it came from a test-flight that went wrong or a knackered high-altitude weather balloon. Either the Duke of Edinburgh is a blood-sucking alien reptile seeded from a distant star system or he is a human from Greece. So. What do you reckon? Great credit to Pilkington, though, for revealing who Orthon really was/ those aliens really are.

The Truth Behind UFO Sightings and the U.S. Air Force (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
‘Star Trek’ Prototype Tractor Beam Developed By Scientists (huffingtonpost.com)
Our Aliens Are Better Than Your Aliens (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)

Conspiracy Theories Used as Propaganda | Operation INFEKTION | The KGB and Anti-American AIDS Conspiracies

Posted: February 12, 2013 in 9/11 conspiracy theories, Conspiracism, Conspiracy, Conspiracy Crackpots, Conspiracy Crazies, Conspiracy Cult, Conspiracy Delusions, Conspiracy Loons, Conspiracy Lunatics, Conspiracy Nut, Conspiracy Nuts, Conspiracy Sociopaths, Conspiracy Theories, Conspiracy Theorists, Conspiracy Thinking, KGB, Moscow, Russia
Tags: AIDS, Asia, climate, Conspiracy theory, gaming, KGB, Libya, Operation INFEKTION, Politics, Science, Soviet Union, United States, videogames, Wikipedia

Government use of conspiracy theory: Operation INFEKTION

Art: Burning heart by Leslie Ann O’Dell. Listening: Black Star by Lustmord.

A future common theme on this blog will be that governments don’t just partake in conspiracies, but they also create and amplify conspiracy theories. Note the difference here. The former is legal term about individuals colluding in secret; while the latter pertains to a narrative about these collusions. One is ontological to do with the world; while the other is epistemic to do with beliefs about the world.
There are various reasons why governments would need to create a belief in conspiracy. Sometimes it is to cover up black projects or intelligence failures, i.e. covering up real conspiracies. Other times the conspiracies are created as offensive weapons against some international actor, i.e. creating fake conspiracies. For the moment, I’d like to discuss the aforementioned reason from a case that is in actual scholarly literature: Operation INFEKTION, which was the Soviet disinformation campaign to pin the origin of AIDS on the USA.

A good source on this disinformation operation is an essay entitled “AIDS Made in the USA”: Moscow’s Contagious Campaign, which is from the book The New Image Makers: Soviet Propaganda & Disinformation Today. The author is the noted historian of counterintelligence Roy Godson. You won’t find this essay published on the Internet, which is unfortunate given it is a well-reasoned argument giving us a clear example of governments creating conspiracy theories (I may get around to scanning it, and putting it up on this blog). The reason why this clear example is so important is because it allows us to draw some broader themes of how governments go about spreading disinformation. True believers in high weirdness and conspiracy circles often accuse each other of spreading disinformation, and it sometimes becomes hard to sort the wheat from the chaff. A clear non-bullshit example can be quite illuminating.

Godson argues in the essay that the “AIDS was made in the USA” disinformation campaign was created by the KGB in 1985. They continued this disinformation campaign for around two years. Godson identifies five reasons why they did this:

To discredit the United states by falsely claiming that AIDS originated in CIA-Pentagon experiments.
To discourage undesirable political contact with Westerners by portraying them as potential carriers of the disease.
To create pressure for removal of US military bases overseas on the grounds the US service personnel spread AIDS.
To undermine US credibility in the Third World by maintaining that hypotheses about the African origin of AIDS are an example of Western, and especially American, racism, and;
To divert attention from Soviet research on biological warfare and genetic engineering and to neutralize accusations that the Soviet Union has used biochemical agents in Asia.

Notice the two wider themes here of using conspiracy theory. (1) to (4) are all examples of undermining the ethos or moral stature of some actor or groups. (5) is an example of diverting attention away from an actual conspiracy. These twin themes of undermining ethos and diverting attention from actual conspiracies will arise again in future posts about government use of disinformation. Also, when I say ethos, I mean in the rhetorical sense. To undermine someone’s ethos in rhetoric is to undermine their character. This is important in rhetoric, as building rapport with the audience by appealing to one’s character and moral stature is one of the foundations for a rhetorical speech.

I won’t recount the timeline of how this disinformation campaign came about. You can read the Wikipedia article above on the operation to recount this. But some other tidbits worth noting here are the following:

The disinformation campaign started in newspapers in Russia and India. They then spread to radio, and then other sources from around the world picked up on the disinformation. This disinformation campaign was also backed by pamphlets, which were spread in Africa. One of these pamphlets was written by biologist named Jacob Segal, and was backed by (what appeared to be) scientific reasoning. Segal was then cited in a news article in England, which then spread the disinformation about the planet like wildfire. Once major papers from around the planet picked up on it, the KGB no longer used their primary sources. Instead they started spreading the disinformation by stating other major papers from around the planet had confirmed the theory about AIDS. What we can learn from these is that:

disinformation can be sophisticated. It can use individuals that people trust (like scientists), and can dress itself up with reasonable arguments.
disinformation campaigns can use multiple sources (radio, newspapers, pamphlets).
disinformation campaigns will try to hide the original sources. Once the campaign is in the open, they may switch to sources that their targets may trust (in this case, domestic newspapers). In rhetoric this is a combination of using kairos (the opportune moment to switch sources), combined with exploiting ethos (sources people trust).

Godson also has a lengthy paragraph on how the AIDS campaign was, “a diversionary tactic against claims that the Soviet Union has used biochemical weapons in Cambodia, Laos, and Afghanistan and is engaged in genetic-weapon research.” The first claim about chemical weapons pertains to Yellow Rain. Those interested in disinformation should also read that Wikipedia article on Yellow Rain for a possible similar campaign conducted by the USA. The second claim about genetic-weapons pertains to US attempts to undermine Soviet bioweapons research via UN arms control treaties (Godson quotes a State Department report here). Godson states that one of the aims was to “muddle the debate” between bio-chemical weapons and AIDS.
So finishing up, we have the two aims of government use of conspiracy theory:

To undermine ethos, and;
To divert attention away from actual conspiracies.

We also have some general properties of these disinformation campaigns:

They can be epistemologically sophisticated.
The sources will change themselves according to the opportune moment for spreading the disinformation.
They will take into consideration the targets of the campaign, and will use sources that the target trusts.

Now, true-believing conspiracy theorists might state something along the lines of, “Yeah, but how do we know this Operation happened? It could be a conspiracy theory about a conspiracy theory.” The answer to this, is that it actually happened. You can look up old news archives and find the disinformation spread in actual newspapers. There are also multiple corroborating sources that this event occurred, including sources from the Russian parliament and members of the East German Stasi admitting to the campaign. Godson has 26 footnotes to his essay, most of which are primary sources. I will endeavour to upload a scan of this essay in the future.

Pope’s resignation sparks conspiracy theories… (telegraph.co.uk)
New Winger Conspiracy Theory Takes Flight (talkingpointsmemo.com)
Crazy Michele Bachmann Still Spouting Conspiracy Theories (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
There’s a sucker born every minute (and most of them end up listening to right wing talk radio) (digbysblog.blogspot.com)
Now, the Pope Benedict Conspiracy Theories (newser.com)

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Government use of conspiracy theory: Operation INFEKTION