A Senator Agrees to Appear by Video at the Reason Rally but His ‘Reason’ Credentials Are In Doubt

Yes, being pandered to is much better than being ignored.  We shouldn’t be burning bridges. I’d much rather Harkin (who is brave to publish even a recorded message considering that Iowa is a swing state and this could hurt him in reelection campaigns.) support part of our message rather than none at all. Bring Bill Maher, bring anyone who supports any part of our message because we need all the allies we can get. As long as they don’t advocate for pseudo-science at the rally, I’m willing to let them stand up for the more rational views that they hold.

I’m all for Harkin addressing the rally.  I think by pointing out some of the problems/dangers with alternative medicine, we can pull him away from supporting it in the future.  Don’t write people off.

I think it’s cool that he supports secular government, but if he’s not an atheist himself, then why would he speak?  I suppose I was under the impression that the rally would be for those of us attending to hear people who share our views speak, not just those who support us.  

I think a more effective approach would be for him to write an article or speak to his fellow congresspersons about us and how important it is that they keep our country from the theocracy it is turning into.

Politicians willing to support the cause are far and few.  I say let the man speak.

What are we?  The Reason police?  Of course let him make his video!  I doubt there will ever be any politician that I agree with 100%, so I won’t expect that from Harkin.  It sounds as if he fully supports the separation of church and state, and has the record to back him up.  As long as he doesn’t close with, “God bless America!” I’d be interested in what he has to say.

We need allies.  Lots of allies.  I think Harkin very well may be one. 

From the Buffalo Beast link:

[UPDATE] I forgot to also point out that Harkin was instrumental in creating the NIH Office of Alternative Medicine in 1992

(i.e. NCCAM)
Harkin’s support of alternative medicine is not a one-shot deal.
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Still, that’s one issue, and his stand on separation of church and state is certainly welcome. If someone wants to wave a protest sign during his talk, fine. But i hope no one tries to shout down his video.

Its the reason rally, not the atheist rally.

The question, as I see it, is whether would you rather keep the lines of communication open or closed. Phrased that way, it’s obvious.

Given that there are so few atheist congresscritters, it only makes sense to engage respectully with those who are willing to engage respectfully with you. You might even change his mind on some things. Probably not Catholicism, but there might be some teachable moments on the whole woo-woo thing.

as far as ‘alternative’ medicine goes, please don’t confuse lack in the belief of a creator deity with a distorted grasp of unscientific materialism.  i am an atheist and an acupuncturist and herbalist, and even though it works according to consistent principles, i always hear ‘scientists’ say it couldn’t possibly work, based on the fact that they have no interest in understanding it.  some people find intriguing rationalizations for being irrational! 

It seems that some are unclear about the mission of the rally. This is not just about church and state issues. One of the main sponsors of the event has nothing to do with church/state separation. JREF is a skeptic group, opposing alternative medicine and junk science. CFI deals with both secularism and scientific skepticism. This is a real problem for a so called “Reason Rally.” Otherwise, just call it the Atheist Rally.  

Hemant, I apologize for saying that you confirmed him as a speaker. You were asked to publicize his appearance. It’s reassuring that you did not know about his stance on alternative medicine. However, I’m disappointed that you are now defending the decision. This isn’t the American Atheists or the Secular Coalition for America Rally, it’s the Reason Rally, where organizations that strongly oppose alternative medicine have put a great amount of resources in to the event. 

I think this is going to be a great event. However, I will not endorse Harkin’s greeting. I will also criticize the decision to invite him. 

Yes, let him join in, but remember – there is no such thing as “alternative medicine.”
If something cures an illness or relieves the symptoms then it’s medicine, anything else is snake oil.

It’s rather odd that one of the sponsors has very little or nothing to do with secularism. 

Which sponsor is that? All of the sponsors I saw listed promote secularism, atheism, and/or free thought…just wondering if I missed something.

PETA takes “animal protection” to an extreme that actually harms animals – they rescue companion animals under false pretenses and then kill them. They engage in some pretty slimy campaigns as well. Just for one example, they posted a series of little video game knock-offs online meant to appeal to kids that were pretty scary. Here’s another example of a fun, fun PETA ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=m0vQOnHW0Kc Apparently after you go vegan, you become so virile that your girl friend is all bruised and needs a neck brace, and that’s a good thing.

Melody, I looked through the sponsors, and am confused by your statement too. Which of them do you think has little to do with secularism?

 If you look at the scorecard the Secular Coalition for America gave 46 other Senators besides Harkin an A rating (based on only 5 votes in 2010), so an A rating doesn’t necessarily mean a very high level of support for secular causes.

Really I don’t see how being a critic of miss palin makes him deserve an accusation of hating all women.

I see. I didn’t realize they had become so extremist… thanks for the info 🙂

The last time I checked, it is still called Reason Rally. The keyword is ‘reason’, and not ‘atheism’. Advocating for alternative medicine is a failure to exercise reason. I don’t see how anyone guilty of that deserves to be a speaker in that rally. This may sound simplistic, but I’d rather not let any corrupting influence seeps into our movement. Not to mention that JREF and CFI are sponsors, as mentioned above.

I see you being very vague about what it is that lead to your conclusion. All you’ve said is it was before the recent Limbaugh comments and before Palin comments. What general derogatory comments about women in general lead to your conclusion?

 Okay… then if he is not one representing “reason” then why address the crowd?   Let’s just play a semantics game.  That makes things wonderful!

 We should take what we can get. We can still be critical of his positions on various issues, but we should be happy that he is willing to speak (in a positive way) to us.

 I think the broader scope of things has been stated fairly clearly here in the comments. This is a politician that is willing to publicly support secularism, despite personal beliefs and such.

Any elected official that believes in superstitions and myths as life-guides has already placed themself outside of the boundaries of “reason.” But so far, that’s about 99% of all elected officials (i’ve done no homework. If my number is off by .001% or so, I apologize).

It’s already been suggested above that if we wait for some sort of political “Atheist Messiah” that will embody each of our individual particular beliefs, we’ll be waiting until the “real” one comes. Nobody is going to perfectly fit the bill for each of us.

By accepting the statement in the spirit in which it was given, we are showing that there is a body of voters that appreciates the gesture. We’re showing that even though we don’t all agree on every single thing, we definitely agree on this one thing (separation). And once this one thing starts to become more prevalent, we can start picking off the other things that hang tenaciously on and also have no business in politics or a first-world county.

Baby steps. This is a good thing.

 Well, first of all, you have to understand that I am not a fan of insult humor. Some other people like it, I know. I just don’t. Very frequently he runs to sexual innuendo when talking about particular women, even when they’re not in sexual situations.

For Larry’s comments as well, do you want when he compared breastfeeding in public to masturbating in public? How about when he said the nation’s fundamental problem was that it was too feminized? Do you want the time he characterized women in general as wanting diamonds at any price?

I got really tired of him well before Politically Incorrect finished its run, so I usually don’t follow his ramblings.

And if he did close with “God bless America” you’d discount everything that he’d said before?

It is true that once upon a time there was no difference between medicine and alternative medicine. 

We need to make sure that we get rid of the current treatments that are not based on evidence of improved outcomes. This makes up too much of medicine, but wishful thinking-based treatments make up all of alternative medicine.

I am sometimes very critical of Sen. Harkin. He and I disagree on far more than we agree. However, I do not expect to find any politician who completely agrees with me.

Maybe Sen. Harkin will be more likely to listen to reason from a group of people he takes the time to address at the risk of losing votes.

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I agree, except that I hope we would discuss and dissect better than the MSM. 

The MSM coverage of science and rationality are usually a good opportunity to educate people about the misunderstandings and faulty conclusions of the journalists.

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This is really a question of how big we want our tent to be.  We can have people that support some of our views talk about those views, and stay quiet on issues that we disagree with, or we can only limit ourselves to those people who march in lock-step with us on all of our issues.

Is alternative medicine mostly just silly?  Yes.  Is being Catholic silly?  Yep.  But if he stands with us on everything else, or if he is just willing to stand with us on issues he also supports, shouldn’t we be thankful for that?

If your tent is too small, you can just be ignored.  If it is too big, you can be hijacked or simply not have a cohesive message.  If Harkin wants to support our  exercising of our rights, I say great.  If he wants  to talk to us about reflexology, then he can talk to someone else at a different event.

I’m quite familiar with JREF and DJ. He used to be my boss. JREF is not a secular organization. In fact, they would like more religious people to join their organization. They don’t want to touch the god-question, as it may offend some of their religious members. Yes, they will investigate claims like miracles, which can be scientifically tested. That’s not the same thing as secularism. 

I can’t stand non-skeptics and their pseudoscience nonsense. Their ignorance, cognitive dissonance, avoidance of facts, etc. drive me absolutely bonkers.
That being said, the Reason Rally, according to its own web page, has nothing to do with skepticism, and everything to do with “The intent is to unify, energize, and embolden secular people nationwide, while dispelling the negative opinions held by so much of American society… and having a damn good time doing it!”
The Senator, while certainly a pseudoscience proponent of alternative medicine, supports the Separation of Church and State and has voted consistently with secular values, hence his high grade from the Secular Coalition of America. He is also a huge proponent of Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion.

 Yes, Harkin is willing to support secularism, but I think it’s a valid point about the name of the event.

Calling it the *Reason* Rally implies that Sagan-style skepticism is important to the creators of the event and plays a part in their vision for it. It’s not called the “Secularism Rally”, nor the “SoCaS Rally”

As such it is understandable why many people might think it baffling and a pseudoscience supporter like Senator Harkin be asked to participate.

Yes,
a lot of Atheists came to it by way of Skepticism (I did), but Skepticism is not a necessary cause. Look at Bill Maher. Nothing says
that an Atheist has to base their atheism on reason and evidence – they
can be pro-altmed, anti-vaxer, UFO believing 9/11 Truthers and still be
valid atheists just as concerned with separation of church and state as someone like myself who self-identifies as a Skeptic
who merely happens to be an Atheist.

I guess this is just another example of the all too common conflation in our ranks of “Atheist” and “Skeptic”, eh?

There is a consensus among scientists about evolution.

Please provide some evidence of some similar consensus about economics.

There are several implicit errors in your comment. 
1) “Evolution” is more properly know as “The Theory of Natural Selection”  so I can’t tell if you are referring to the fact of evolution or the theory.
2) You compare “Evolution” to “Economics” this is a category error.   It would be more proper to compare biology to economics.  Just as it makes no sense to say “There is a consensus among scientiests about biology” it make no sense to say it about economics.
3) There are hundreds of theories in both biology and economics with varying degrees of consensus.   
4) Consensus is NOT a criteria that you can use to tell if a theory is or is not scientific, nor whether a field of inquiry is scientific.  Do you think Darwin used consensus as an argument for his theory?
5) Many theories that have had scientific “consensus” have turned out to be wrong.
6) Creationist have argued against the Theory of Natural Selection specifically on the basis that there is no consensus on exactly how it operates.  See for example Gould vs. Dawkins.
Biological consensus 40 years ago was that evolution proceeded by a strict mendialian process.   That is no longer the case.
7) Using consensus as a criteria is committing the fallacy of “argumentum ad populum”
8) There are disagreements in all the major branches of science on various theories and topics, using your criteria then none of them are sciences.
9) Using your criteria many cults would be considered as sciences.

… and even if you think wrongly that consensus is a criteria for telling whether a theory is or is not scientific …

There is consensus in economics on many economic theories.

You are way to ignorant to be making claims about whether economics is a science or not.   You don’t even understand what the criteria are for deciding what is and is not science.  Consensus isn’t one of them.

I refer you to my comment two levels up.    

Actually, no. I assessed that you are not a good learner and decided you were not worth the effort. You obviously are ignorant nd have a chip on your shoulder, and seem to think I owe you my time to straighten out your ignorant challenges. Challenging on the basis of “consensus” means that you don’t even know how to assess whether something is science.

You claimed that predictions are not possible and I proved your assertion false with the example of Cash For Clunkers. I can use innumerable other examples but, of course, I only needed one. You showed no humility and instead diverted to “consensus” because I just got done telling you there was much disagreement and political distortion in the field of economics. The problem is, that consensus is not a measure of whether any particular individual is doing science or not. If the government were subsidizing biology classes atthe universities that teach creationism, plus handing out jobs preferentially to biologists that believed in creationism that would not make other schools of thought on biology nonscientific.

Also you could still find areas of biology that are science where creationists agree with the other people trained as biologists.

In economics there is wide agreement of the effects of price controls. There is widespread belief in Gresham’s law. There is widespread belief in marginal price theory. So on and so forth. Every single time some politician attempts to violate these laws we end up in trouble.

Your ability to assess where an argument is or even has been is really bad. You are completely unaware of your own ignorance. You came in here announcing that economics is not science with zero information to make any assessment with regards to economics in particular and the philosophy of science in general.

You made a claim, how about you support it instead of post hoc trying to manufacture something. Your hypothesis was that economics was not science because it cannot predict. That’s been falsified. Now instead of accepting the defeat of your claim, you do ad hoc fishing for some other criteria to reassertion your claim. That is not a sign of someone who is intellectually honest with themselves.

You took a question about consensus to the extreme (reductio as absurdam).
There is consensus in science on many things, but the government has nothing to do with that consensus. Outside of extreme examples, such as Lysenkoism, the government has little to do with consensus. Yes, the government does fund science, but the alternative is to depend on economic theories of private funding. 

You seem to view consensus as some sort of blasphemy. Consensus also means that people are able to come to similar conclusions when presented with the same evidence.

There are some areas of science that are significantly politicized, but that is only by the creation of a false controversies. 

I asked for an example of economics predicting something that would work, but in all of your comment, you failed to provide any.

I am just stating that I do not believe that your god is real. You are the one trying to convince others that economics is a true science. You are not persuasive.

You wrote – “You claimed that predictions are not possible . . . ”

What I actually wrote was – “Economics needs to be much more predictive to be in any way seen as a science.”

You need to stick to what I actually write.

Please, stop with the logical fallacies and switch to some evidence.

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The great thing about Bill Maher is that he supports animal rights and PETA.  Sure, I hate his show “politically correct”, but, for that matter, ALL talk shows are nauseating garbage.  We need a Mathematical Modeling Party – NOT a party who weakens itselfs with this self-delusion of nonviolence.  The law IS violence. Hence, supporting or advocating for any law IS violence. Face those facts. Can’t figure out why Maher would oppose vaccines. That’s dumb. But, then, I don’t agree with the Green Party’s anti-war stance, since I support war for leftwing causes (free prisoners, both human and non-human, from factory farms and fur farms, equal pay for equal work – that means CEOs don’t get corporate welfare, they get paid the same as all other workers). Yet, I am a registered Green. Also, Maher knows nothing about the UFO phenomena. *I* know little about it, but I know enough to know it is worthy of serious attention.

I fully plan to hold up my “Vegan Atheists” sign at the rally.

The issue i see with whole “alternative medicine” is quackery bit is that it really wasn’t that long ago that leeches and lobotomies were the “real medicine” and everything else was “quackery”. I’d agree that faith healing is quackery unless they get it to work nearly 100% of the time on steadfast atheists tho. Still new or controversial doesn’t equate to quackery.