Sunday School

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

How Easter turned to blasphemy at the White House.

Can Millennials or Gen Z save the American Church? The data says No.

Yes, The Right has an Omnicause.

Tucker Qatarson needs a vigorous spanking.

Huzzah for the Atheist Street Pirates!

The courts push religion into classrooms and FFRF pushes back.

World of Woo: Facilitated communication.

Environment: Earth Day’s war on Science and Reason.

The global decline of public trust in vaccines and the threat it poses to decades of progress.

Why humans are not clever chimps. (interesting site)

The fake disease that fooled the internet — and what it says about all of us

Does the brain work like an LLM in predicting words?

We don’t fully understand Spacetime yet. It may emerge from something more fundamental underneath.

Everything you eat is sunlight. Scientists want to cut out the middleman.

Does reading make us into better people?

Sunday Book Club:  On the future of Species.

Some photographs taken last week.

While you are waiting for the kettle to boil……

Podcast:  How democracies and dictatorships alike have turned against online speech freedom.

Coffee Break Videos: How to OWN Someone With THEIR argument. The Atheist Experience Top 5 Calls Of All Time! The 8 weirdest stories in the Bible.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Have a great week!!

I was deplatformed as a child… now everyone’s an expert. 

– Reg.

[Strega]

Thank you, Reg!!!

[TheEncogitationer]

Reg:

Tucker Qatarson needs a vigorous spanking.

Maybe the demons who scratched Tucker in his bedroom with four dogs coincidentally in attendance could give the spanking to Captain Incredulity Tucker.

From the article:

Watching MAGA leaders splinter over Trump’s abandonment of “America First” isolationism is great schadenfreude. Political reporters should cover it because it could have electoral implications. However, that coverage or related punditry should include reporting on the anti-Semitic conspiracy theorizing in far-right fever swamps, and not intimate that those breaking with Trump do so out of enlightened principles.

The reason the Left-Wing reporters and pundits don’t mention Tucker’s (or Marjorie Taylor Green’s or Candace Owens’ or Joe Kent’s or Alex Jones’) Antisemitic conspiracy theorizing is because the Left shares the same Antisemitism. The Left just has different terminology and agitprop for it.

Notably, neither Tucker nor Alex Jones directly condemn Trump, but claim that Trump has no agency and is under control of “demonic” forces. (((Read that as “small hats”.)))

Just yesterday, I encountered a sampling of the younger generation’s embrace of history’s most ancient hatred.

I rang the order of two guys aged less than thirty, and as urged by my company, I asked if they wanted to make a donation to the company’s charity that feeds Americans.

I always emphasize there’s no pressure or obligation, but instead of simply saying “no thanks,” one guy says: “I’m Jewish,” and the other guy says: “I’m American.”

I then reply without skipping a beat: “You know you can be both, right?”

I then gave then gave them their change, shook my head, and sighed exhaustedly. I had to save my energy to walk around any piles of broken glass likely to come.

[TheEncogitationer]

Reg:

World of Woo: Facilitated communication.

Funny, influencers try to do that with the non-autistic.

[Simon Paynton]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

World of Woo: Facilitated communication.

Facilitated communication may possibly be woo sometimes, but it’s not always, and it provides a communication lifeline for people who can’t talk but can use their fingers.

I have a nephew who is severely autistic and non-verbal, and he now communicates on an i-pad.  He has to have a facilitator because it’s a special skill to be clear what he is pointing at, at least it was before, when he was doing it on a paper letter board; and also, it takes a lot of trust for him to do it with somebody.  There are only 3 people he does it with.  He taught himself to read and spell by himself, when he was a boy.

It’s very possible that some people think they should hold the person’s elbow, but that is just asking for trouble, and nobody can trust the results.

[TheEncogitationer]

Fellow Unbelievers:

Sooo…Was last night’s indigestion and nightmare fuel in Washinton a conspiracy, stupidity, or a stupid conspiracy of dunces?

This link that happened before the main event is what got my head scratching:

https://x.com/MAGAVoice/status/2048180791356821988?s=20

At least no innocents got injured or killed, the bullet-resistant vest of the Secret Service Agent worked, and RFK Jr. Wasn’t on the scene diluting a bullet hundreds of times in Kangen Water as cure for bullet wounds,followed by a papier mâché poultice of raw milk.

• This reply was modified 2 weeks, 5 days ago by TheEncogitationer. Reason: Addendum of new information

[TheEncogitationer]

Reg:

Huzzah for the Atheist Street Pirates!

When I attempt some activism for this before my stroke, I found I had to get out of the car and photograph the signs while parking in awkward places. Also, many signs are out of reach for people without specialized equipment or stuck like glue onto poles and utility boxes. It best to call Highway maintenance for these things and let them sort it out.

[TheEncogitationer]

Simon Paynton:

I don’t know the situation with your Nephew, but look up “Facilitative Communication” and “Augmentative and Alternative Communication” on Wikipedia. For some reason, my posts don’t go through when I post the links.

Anyhow the links may be good to pass on to your Nephew’s family. Going with the evidence is the best thing in all situations.

[TheEncogitationer]

Reg:

Yes, The Right has an Omnicause.

A Fatburger™ with Omni-toppings, trimmings, and dressings is a perfect antidote to ideological fatbergs and Omnicauses. “The Last Great Hamburger Stand”™ beats all the other stands and their stans.

And you don’t have to go to L.A. to enjoy a Fatburger™. They can be found or requested at any good non-Commie-run grocery store meat department freezer. Each pack also includes the recipe for making your own Fatburger™ all-the-way, but unlike ideological fatburgs and Omnicauses, Fatburger™ won’t cancel you if you use other relishes or just eat it plain!

The only barrier nowadays to getting a Fatburger™ is all the “so much winning” of MAGA inflation, tarrifs, and fuel prices. But Fatburger™ is well worth holding out for as a luxury item. Maybe if things go normie, they’ll be a weekly treat.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Facilitated Communication sits at the intersection of hope, identity, and perceived injustice, which makes it unusually resistant to evidence. When you watch FC in action, it can be convincing. The person appears to be communicating fluently, even sometimes at a level far beyond what anyone expected. The problem is that this impression is exactly what you’d expect from the Ideomotor Effect, the same subtle or unconscious movement seen in Ouija boards or dowsing rods. The facilitator believes they’re not influencing the output, but they are.

The goal behind FC,  which is to help non-speaking individuals communicate, is absolutely valid. The problem is the method itself doesn’t reliably work. There are evidence-based alternatives, especially in the field of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (like speech-generating devices or independent typing systems) that give people a real voice without facilitator influence.

Even questioning FC can be framed as silencing disabled people, which puts critics on the defensive immediately. So when studies say it doesn’t work, it feels like science is denying lived experience. This is a classic clash between anecdote and controlled evidence, subjective and objective experiences. Once someone believes FC works, they start noticing every “successful” interaction and explaining away failures and over time belief becomes very hard to shake. But it is just confirmation bias at work.

It must be tough on families that have non-verbal children. I understand how they see FC as empowering or that calling it pseudoscience is dismissing their child’s experiences or even denying disabled people agency. But it is pseudoscience. There are much better alternatives in Augmentative and Alternative Communication – AAC.

[Simon Paynton]

If somebody’s pushing somebody’s elbow as they type at a keyboard, or point to letters, then obviously that’s a pointless exercise.  But if they’re doing it themselves, it opens up communication to an otherwise non-verbal person.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

If they are doing it themselves it is not FC.

[Simon Paynton]

But it has to be facilitated to some extent – someone has to be there to interpret and read out loud what someone is pointing to.

[TheEncogitationer]

Simon Paynton:

But it has to be facilitated to some extent – someone has to be there to interpret and read out loud what someone is pointing to.

Ah, but I’m not facilitating your communication by reading your post.

And you’re not facilitating my communication by reading my post.

We’re both conveying, exchanging, and absorbing each other’s thoughts autonomously and independently.

This is what the autistic and non-verbal need.

And the goal should be to enable them to communicate autonomously and independently not just with Guardians and Professionals, but with anyone they encounter. With all the various techniques of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) we’re more likely to get there. This is the reason why the bulk of professional organizations who treat the autistic and non-verbal go with AAC.

[Author]

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