John Sutherland interviewed Michael Behe in the Guardian yesterday. (P Z comments on the interview at Pharyngula). He didn’t ask some questions that it seems to me he might have.

JS: It’s no secret that you are a Catholic. But, as I understand it, your scientific theory does not predicate God in any form whatsoever. You’ve suggested that the designer could even be some kind of evil alien. Is that right?

MB: That’s exactly correct. All that the evidence from biochemistry points to is some very intelligent agent. Although I find it congenial to think that it’s God, others might prefer to think it’s an alien – or who knows? An angel, or some satanic force, some new age

Salman Rushdie has a few suggestions. Let’s hope his meet up with Irshad Manji’s and those of other reformers and start to displace the putative ‘leadership’ and ‘representativeness’ of the MCB. Let’s hope the whole project thrives.

Reformed Islam would reject conservative dogmatism and accept that, among other things, women are fully equal to men; that people of other religions, and of no religion, are not inferior to Muslims; that differences in sexual orientation are not to be condemned, but accepted as aspects of human nature; that anti-Semitism is not OK; and that the repression of free speech by the thin-skinned ideology of easily-taken “offence” must be replaced by genuine, robust, anything-goes debate in which there are no forbidden

I’m shocked – I went and forgot B&W’s birthday. It was days ago – September 10th. How could I forget?! Well I didn’t exactly forget; I thought it was later – late September or maybe October. But I forgot to check until today, so it comes to the same thing. How could I forget? I never have before. I suppose it’s because one of its progenitors doesn’t like it any more, poor little thing, so perhaps it seems tactless to fuss about birthdays. But anyway, another year older it is. It’s three. Last year it was two. The year before that it was one. The year before that it began. Happy Birthday, B&W.… Read the rest

Madeleine Bunting. What does she mean by it.

Why is it that a significant section of liberal and left-leaning opinion has signed up with such relish to the “clash of civilisations” argument? Its champions in the media may not phrase it as such, but you can hear the creak of the drawbridge being pulled up: they believe they are surrounded by enemies – Muslims and their dastardly non-Muslim apologists – and must defend to the last man the checklist of universal Enlightenment values that sustain their mission.

That’s quite a high proportion of rhetoric to argument or straightforward factual claim. That bit about not phrasing it as such – what that means is that the argument she’s talking about … Read the rest

Simon Schama comes up with a great many zingers on the devout slacker of the free world.

George W Bush has decreed that…there is to be a further day of solemnities on which the nation will pray for the unnumbered victims of Hurricane Katrina. Prayers (like vacations) are the default mode for this president who knows how to chuckle and bow the head in the midst of disaster but not, when it counts, how to govern or to command. If you feel the prickly heat of politics, summon a hymn to make it go away; make accountability seem a blasphemy. Thus has George Bush become the Archbishop of Washington even as his aura as lord protector slides into the putrid

Golly. It’s over. I’m a bit choked. I told you I was looking forward to congratulating Homa – but she got there first. I tell you what, honey, when I clicked onto my email page and saw that subject line in an email from Homa – ‘congratulations to you all for a battle well fought’ – I must have jumped a foot.

I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t be all that elated, it’s just the prevention of something that never should have been suggested in the first place. But I don’t care. It was suggested, and it has been prevented, and that will make a difference, so I am elated.

And so is Homa. It says so right here.… Read the rest

Seyran Ates has very interesting things to say.

Why are a few particularly estimable, highly intelligent women and men in very prominent positions, blind in one eye when it comes to the protection of minorities? Why are they blind in that eye with which they have otherwise promoted equal rights for the sexes, and still do? The so-called minority protection with respect to Islam and religious freedom can only be had at the cost of the equal rights of women, and ultimately only serves to perpetuate and reinforce obsolete, archaic, patriarchal structures. The situation of Muslim girls and women in Germany has been played down to an extreme…I want to know, and many thousands of Muslim girls and women