Archive for April, 2008
What Moms Are For
John Oliver’s Sticker Solution
Skepchick pointed me to this brilliant bit of old stand-up comedy by Daily Show corespondent John Oliver regarding politics, evolution and creationism.
I agree. Let’s teach the controversy about creationism. Let’s put stickers on all Bibles explaining that they only offer one of many creation theories.
Support ‘The Skeptologists’
The Skeptologists is a badly needed TV show that looks at cultural and pop phenomena with a scientific and skeptical approach. The concept is in its beginning stages and needs public support to get the attention of network executives. You can help by sending in an email describing why you think this TV show needs to be taken seriously and put on the air. The emails will be collected and presented to network executives during the pitch process.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0xAv_CEuaE
Raise your voice! Let it be known that it’s time for a TV series that focuses on the real, the intelligent and important advances in science, critical thinking and skepticism.
Obama Wrong About Autism
Already? He’s not even in the White House yet and he’s already making idiotic claims that go against scientific evidence. That little image on my sidebar shows that I support Barack Obama in the 2008 US Presidential election. I’ve agreed with most of what he’s said… until now.
We’ve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it’s connected to the vaccines. This person included. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it.
Oh dear. The evidence clearly shows that it is indeed a combination of increased awareness as well as new diagnosis criteria. When you broaden the definition of an illness you’re bound to find more cases. Here’s a nice simplified thought experiment.
Imaging there is an illness that causes headaches and runny noses. For years you only define the illness by the symptom of headaches. People with headaches have the illness. New evidence starts to show a connection with runny noses and the headaches. This new evidence clearly shows that the two symptoms are part of the same illness so you broaden your definition of the illness to now include both headaches and runny noses. In one fell swoop, you’ve increased the number of reported cases. Are there really more cases of the illness or just more people being diagnosed using the new definition?
My point isn’t to add fuel to the autism / vaccine debate because I don’t believe there is one. It’s a non-debate. The majority of respectable scientists agree that there is no link between vaccines and autism. My point is how numbers can be confusing and that it would do everyone a world of good to be a little skeptical. Our presidential candidates included. These candidates intend to run my country and I don’t take well to them being idiots who don’t do research before making public statements.
I also want to make the point that this is exactly what happens when select interest groups come down on the candidates with questions that pertain solely to their misguided and often misinformed causes. I’m sure Obama is only making attempts to stay neutral. He doesn’t want to shut the potential voters out by putting their idiotic cause in it’s rightful place. Saying, “I’m sure you have a legitimate concern, I’ll look into it.”, is far from admitting the validity of those concerns. But it’s also far from having the integrity to put misguided and misinformed causes where they belong. I believe the President of the United States should be informed enough to feel confident in putting ludicrous claims in the grave. I wonder if Obama would stand so neutral over James Watson’s claims that African Americans are less intelligent than Caucasians. A claim that respectable scientists rightfully refute. Something tells me he would have a somewhat stronger opinion about that non-debate.
UPDATE: After watching the video, I see the “This person included” remark was directed at someone in the audience. My point remains about being informed enough to stamp out dangerous notions when they’re presented.
Brian Eno’s ‘77 Million Paintings’
I’ve been hooked on watching Brian Eno’s latest visual music installation, 77 Million Paintings, quite a lot lately. Since the actual installation is still making its way through museums and galleries across the globe, I’ve been enjoying the PC/Mac DVD software version that lets you experience the installation on your computer’s monitor.
I’ve always been fond of Eno’s generative work (Ambient 1, Neroli, Thursday Afternoon) and the art generated by 77 Million Paintings is no exception. I love the concept of self-generating music that never ends. The songs on albums like Ambient 1: Music for Airports are but fractions of the actual music created during those sessions.
One of the things that is interesting in this, and about generative work in general, is that the artist doesn’t actually know exactly what the result is going to be.
I really think Eno missed a golden opportunity with this software though. Instead of creating a stand-alone art program, he could have created an open software system for creating generative paintings in addition to the stand-alone program. He could have opened up the basic rule sets and image choices, letting users create their own paintings or share ’sets’ of paintings over the internet. I’m sure the basic functionality could be designed in Flash using PNG transparencies and various overlay effects. I would love to see an open project for software like this develop on the web.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRkNrWp6tLg
Brian Eno - 77 Million Paintings
Religion Is ‘The New Social Evil’
I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘new’ but pollsters in the UK asked 3,500 people what they thought were the worst aspects of modern society and discovered religion was high on the list. The results were very reassuring… for the UK, that is.
The researchers found that the “dominant opinion” was that religion was a “social evil”.
Though poverty and drug abuse are higher on the list (and rightly so), it seems Britain is fed up with religion. Other issues expressed by the 3,500 polled included family breakdown, young people’s behavior and fears over immigration.
“Britain has had it with religion,” said Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society.
Via: Times Online
Dawkins Responds To Misguided Jew
The coming aftermath of Ben Stein’s disgusting excuse for a documentary Expelled is shown crystal clear in the form of a letter received by Michael Shermer sent by an angry Jewish filmgoer.
Now I truly understand who you atheists and darwinists really are! You people believe that it was okay for my great-grandparents to die in the Holocaust! How disgusting. Your past article about the Holocaust was just window dressing. We Jews will fight to keep people like you out of the United States!
Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins felt compelled to respond to the Jewish individual in an open letter in hopes of clearing up his misguided anger towards scientists and atheists. Anger created by the misinformation portrayed in Ben Stein’s Expelled film that incorrectly links Darwin to Hitler.
Things began to make sense once I saw the movie and I am just appalled. I have learned a lot from Ben Stein, a Jewish brother, who has opened my eyes up a bit.
I fear there are more ‘Jewish brothers’ out there who have been twisted by Stein’s film into thinking the same way. Make it a point to show these twisted minds the light.
Via: Richard Dawkins
More Quick Evolving Lizards
In just 36 years since being relocated by biologists from their home island of Pod Kopiste, in the South Adriatic Sea, to the neighboring island of Pod Mrcaru, a population of Italian wall lizards (Podarcis sicula) have undergone rapid evolutionary change in both physical appearance and internal structure.
Striking differences in head size and shape, increased bite strength and the development of new structures in the lizard’s digestive tracts were noted after only 36 years, which is an extremely short time scale,” says Duncan Irschick, a professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “These physical changes have occurred side-by-side with dramatic changes in population density and social structure.”
Because the lizard’s diet has changes to roughly two-thirds plant food, they’ve evolved longer and wider heads than their Pod Kopiste counterparts. Most interesting though is the changes in their digestive tract as a result of having to eat mostly plant food. They’ve developed fermentation chambers in their gut so microbes can break down harder to digest parts of plants.
Examination of the lizard’s digestive tracts revealed something even more surprising. Eating more plants caused the development of new structures called cecal valves, designed to slow the passage of food by creating fermentation chambers in the gut, where microbes can break down the difficult to digest portion of plants. Cecal valves … have never been reported for this species, including the source population on Pod Kopiste.
“These structures actually occur in less than 1 percent of all known species of scaled reptiles,” says Irschick. “Our data shows that evolution of novel structures can occur on extremely short time scales.
Via: Science Daily
Image Credit: Anthony Herrel of the University of Antwerp
Private Christian Schools
… are no better than the rest.
Sexpelled: No Intercourse Allowed
Proponents of Stork Theory claim that “Big Sex” has been suppressing their claim that babies are delivered by storks. Furthermore, Stork Theory proponents warn of the serious moral dangers posed by teaching children that sex has a function. They point out that evil dictators such as Hitler, Stalin and Mao all believed in Sex Theory, and they may have even had sex themselves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ThQQuHtzHM
Via: Richard Dawkins
