A hundred days into the new administration, Obama-related headlines had stopped carrying the punch they used to. People were also becoming numb to reports about the financial crisis. The media needed something new and scary.
So they soiled their pants with glee when Mexico began reporting an "outbreak" of swine flu. A pandemic scare! We haven't had one of those since avian flu became passe!
It's not a serious threat. It's the FLU. Just because it has the word "swine" in front of it doesn't make it the bubonic frakking plague.
There are still under 1000 cases worldwide, and an even smaller number of deaths. And most of those deaths, I think it's safe to say, testify not to the deadly nature of swine flu, but to the inadequacy of the Mexican healthcare system.
Yet people will panic when they're told to panic - and if you tell them not to panic, they'll panic anyway. One of the most vile manifestations of this daft herd mentality has been the mass killing of pigs, particularly in Egypt and Iraq. These killings have nothing to do with preventing the actual spread of the disease; anyone who's actually educated herself on the issue knows knows that, whatever its origins, the virus is spread from HUMAN to HUMAN. No - these mass killings are simply barbaric measures to make ignorant people feel safer.
In a few months, this exercise in scaring ourselves will be forgotten, and we can go back to fearing genuine threats to our well-being, like courts allowing men to marry each other, or presidents with foreign-sounding middle names, or immigrants stealing our much-sought-after janitorial and dishwashing careers.
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
05 May 2009
18 June 2008
Ben Stein and Rush Limbaugh: Partners in Idiocy
Evolution and intelligent design are both theories that attempt to explain the existence and diversity of past and present life on Earth. The theories may be summarized as follows.
Evolution: Life began on Earth several billion years ago with the appearance of simple single-celled organisms, which likely formed in a deep-sea vent or a 'primordial soup' of a propitious combination of biomolecules. Over time, genetic mutations during reproduction combined with the pressures of natural selection to guide the evolution of life in a myriad of directions. The complex, multi-celled organisms of today - be they people, redwood trees, or electric eels - are simply the latest iterations in extremely long chains of small, gradual genetic changes that have increased organisms' reproductive chances. This theory has been directly observed and proven in microorganisms, and although the generations of macroorganisms are too long to observe their evolution directly, their evolution may be observed through the fossil record. The theory is the underpinning of the entire field of modern biology.
Intelligent Design: God did it.
Incredibly, in our otherwise scientifically advanced day and age, many consider the latter theory to be every bit as scientific and compelling as the former.
One such intellectually decrepit individual is Ben Stein, whose Michael Moore-esque documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, attempts to show the injustice of 'suppressing' intelligent design and its advocates in the academy and the classroom. In Stein's own description, the film follows his "heroic and, at times, shocking journey confronting the world’s top scientists, educators and philosophers, regarding the persecution of the many by an elite few... educators and scientists are being ridiculed, denied tenure and even fired – for the 'crime' of merely believing that there might be evidence of 'design' in nature, and that perhaps life is not just the result of accidental, random chance."
Stein recently sat down with another half-wit, Rush Limbaugh, for a interview in which they paraded their astonishing ignorance on scientific and logical matters. The following are excerpts from the transcript of that interview, interspersed with my own rebuttals.
Stein: "Expelled" is about the Darwinists, who say that random mutation and random selection explains everything, and who believe that it is their right to fire anybody from any university job if that person even slightly questions the Darwinist worldview.
Wrong already, Ben. Random mutation, yes; but the selection aspect of evolutionary decent is anything but random. The whole point of natural selection is that the pressures organisms face when trying to survive and reproduce encourage evolution in a definite direction. For instance, two examples of random mutation might be slightly better camouflage and slightly worse camouflage. Selection is not at all random: the creature that gets slightly better camouflage will be more likely to survive and pass on that slightly better camouflage to its offspring, whereas the organism whose mutation worsens its camouflage is less likely to do so.
Rush: What is Intelligent Design, as opposed to Creationism?
Stein: Creationism believes that there is a God who created the earth [sic] in some finite, possibly measurable, amount of time. Intelligent Design-ers believe there is some intelligence revealed in the incredible complexity of life and the incredible complexity - and I would say beauty - in the governing principles of the universe... and that it's unlikely that these laws came about by random chance and random mutation and natural selection... Above all, I would say, it questions how the universe went from completely inorganic matter like mud to a living thing like a cell, and then eventually to a human being. [...] I say that we have as much science on our side as the Darwinists. The Darwinists cannot explain how life began... [or] how gravity began... [or] how thermodynamics began. They just take it on faith that it was done by some kind of process, a Darwinist process, and natural selection and random mutation. They don't have any evidence of that. So as long as we are talking about theories of which there is no evidence, why not bring in other theories?
Stein is scientifically illiterate if he thinks that Darwinian Evolution is supposed to explain the origin of the laws of gravity or thermodynamics. That's physics, not biology. No scientist believes that physical laws came about by a "Darwinist process" or natural selection.
How life originated on Earth is indeed still a matter of debate and postulation. But to simply posit "Well, since we don't yet have a good explanation, it must have been God" is to commit the ad hoc fallacy: to answer the question by just making shit up. At least when scientists debate the issue, they refer to evidence like the origins of organic molecules and what conditions under which life can flourish; they don't just throw out an idea for which there is not, nor has never been, any evidence.
To argue that proponents of intelligent design "have as much science on [their] side as the Darwinists" is to talk pure fiction. There is nothing scientific about the ad hoc, unempirical postulations of intelligent design-ers. They are simply bringing ancient superstition to bear against a solid scientific theory that is supported by countless observations in the fossil record and the laboratory.
Throughout, Stein also implicitly advances the first-cause argument: that since everything has a cause, and we don't know what the cause of the universe was, that cause must have been God. This argument has been made in various forms since ancient Greece, and it remains as poor an argument today as it was then. The refutation is simple: what caused God? If everything must have a cause, then God must too (and thus we're faced with infinite regress); if God doesn't have to have a cause, then why must the universe? The first-cause argument doesn't solve anything; it merely trades one problem - the origins of the universe and of life - for another - the origin of God.
Rush: It seems they [Darwinists] have a paranoia about the whole concept of God; they cannot allow for one moment the concept that there is a God. What do they so fear about God?
Stein: I think they fear... that if there is a God, they are going to be judged at some point either in this life or the afterlife, if there is one, and that they will be found to have been violating moral codes. They don't want to be judged. They want to do whatever they want. After all, if they are just specks of mud, animated by a lightening strike, they don't have any moral responsibility to anyone.
Here Stein reveals that he is as illiterate in the field of ethics as he is in science. He unthinkingly assumes that religion is the foundation of all morality, despite the overwhelming evidence in daily life that there is no correlation between religiosity and ethical behavior. There are many religious people who do terrible things, and many non-religious people who lead virtuous and ethical lives; therefore it is not religion itself, but some other factor(s) which determine morality.
In fact, it could be argued that religion is an obstacle to the same "moral responsibility" that Stein so blithely touts. Religious people simply assume that as long as they act in accordance with the laws set down by the religion, they're in the clear. It is precisely this kind of thinking that engenders suicide bombing and all forms of religious persecution. By contrast, the secular person has to find rational justification for his or her actions. I don't steal from my neighbor, not because God told me not to, but because I believe it to be wrong for a number of reasons. Stein's assumption that the irreligious are morally adrift is as insulting as it is, in my experience and observations at least, wildly incorrect.
Scientists do not have a 'paranoia' of God, as Limbaugh would so like to believe; they just ignore God. They don't have time for any superstitious nonsense - God included - for which there is no evidence. God isn't testable; he isn't measurable; he isn't empirically knowable at all, and until it can be shown that he's anything other than a figment of ancient imaginations, science need not bother dealing with him. As Christopher Hitchens pointed out, "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." And science is all about evidence.
Rush: You spent two years interviewing more than 150 educators and scientists who claim that they were persecuted for challenging Darwinism. You say that in addition to whatever is involved here in terms of science that it is also a free-speech issue.
Stein: Absolutely.
The dismissal of pro-intelligent-design scientists, which Stein offers as the central and most powerful theme of his film, isn't an issue of free-speech; it's an issue of basic competence. If a chemistry professor started teaching alchemy, he would be fired for being an incompetent chemist. If an astrophysicist began preaching the Ptolmeic geocentric model of the universe, she too would be fired, and rightly so. So why should a biologist who rejects the theory of evolution - which is as central to biology as gravity is to physics - not be fired for gross incompetence? It's one thing if the scientist has actual evidence to question evolution, but they never do, and replacing a major scientific theory with illogical spiritualism is grounds for dismissal if ever there were such.
Stein: Darwinism basically said, at the end of the day, under all this rigmarole, that Northern European white people are destined to rule the world. That, it seemed to me, was a way of justifying the British Empire. Darwinism really was a theory legitimizing a certain political worldview more than anything else. By the way, Hitler's friends picked it up and ran with it - only they said that the Northern European country that was destined to rule the world was called Germany.
Rush: In the movie there is a trip you take with a curator.
Stein: Oh, my God. That was amazing - a Nazi killing center.
Rush: But the jaw-dropping episode shows the guide walking you around, and your facial expressions as she attempts to justify what went on there. You are right when you say that these people don't want to be judgmental. They don't even want to be judgmental about Hitler.
It's unclear how Stein and Limbaugh make the outrageous leap from the topic of Darwinian Evolution to that of the Holocaust, but Nazi similes are always the last refuge of demagogues. Here Stein and Limbaugh put the impressive range of their ignorance on display, conflating genuine Darwinian Evolution with Spencerian social Darwinism, the conservative social theory of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that had nothing to do with science or Darwin. From what I've read in other reviews, Stein also takes the opportunity in his film to blame evolution for abortion (apparently under the assumption that abortion is a bad thing). Blaming evolution for Nazism and abortion is as daft as giving Jesus credit for the Inquisition, or laying blame on the theory of gravity for the dropping of bombs that kill innocent civilians.
Rush: It [the film] so illustrates the closed-mindedness, the arrogance, and the fear of people who don't think they have to debate what they believe.
Close-mindedness, arrogance, and unjustified, indefensible beliefs - isn't Rush just describing himself here?
It is indeed discouraging that some eighty years after the Scopes Trial, some Americans are still dumb enough to choose religion over science. Stein, Limbaugh, and their willfully ignorant comrades prefer to side with the creation myths of ancient peoples instead of the empirically tested theories of modern biologists. They would fit in more among Neanderthals paying obeisance to the sun rather than among we modern - and evolved - homo sapiens.
Evolution: Life began on Earth several billion years ago with the appearance of simple single-celled organisms, which likely formed in a deep-sea vent or a 'primordial soup' of a propitious combination of biomolecules. Over time, genetic mutations during reproduction combined with the pressures of natural selection to guide the evolution of life in a myriad of directions. The complex, multi-celled organisms of today - be they people, redwood trees, or electric eels - are simply the latest iterations in extremely long chains of small, gradual genetic changes that have increased organisms' reproductive chances. This theory has been directly observed and proven in microorganisms, and although the generations of macroorganisms are too long to observe their evolution directly, their evolution may be observed through the fossil record. The theory is the underpinning of the entire field of modern biology.
Intelligent Design: God did it.
Incredibly, in our otherwise scientifically advanced day and age, many consider the latter theory to be every bit as scientific and compelling as the former.
One such intellectually decrepit individual is Ben Stein, whose Michael Moore-esque documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, attempts to show the injustice of 'suppressing' intelligent design and its advocates in the academy and the classroom. In Stein's own description, the film follows his "heroic and, at times, shocking journey confronting the world’s top scientists, educators and philosophers, regarding the persecution of the many by an elite few... educators and scientists are being ridiculed, denied tenure and even fired – for the 'crime' of merely believing that there might be evidence of 'design' in nature, and that perhaps life is not just the result of accidental, random chance."
Stein recently sat down with another half-wit, Rush Limbaugh, for a interview in which they paraded their astonishing ignorance on scientific and logical matters. The following are excerpts from the transcript of that interview, interspersed with my own rebuttals.
Stein: "Expelled" is about the Darwinists, who say that random mutation and random selection explains everything, and who believe that it is their right to fire anybody from any university job if that person even slightly questions the Darwinist worldview.
Wrong already, Ben. Random mutation, yes; but the selection aspect of evolutionary decent is anything but random. The whole point of natural selection is that the pressures organisms face when trying to survive and reproduce encourage evolution in a definite direction. For instance, two examples of random mutation might be slightly better camouflage and slightly worse camouflage. Selection is not at all random: the creature that gets slightly better camouflage will be more likely to survive and pass on that slightly better camouflage to its offspring, whereas the organism whose mutation worsens its camouflage is less likely to do so.
Rush: What is Intelligent Design, as opposed to Creationism?
Stein: Creationism believes that there is a God who created the earth [sic] in some finite, possibly measurable, amount of time. Intelligent Design-ers believe there is some intelligence revealed in the incredible complexity of life and the incredible complexity - and I would say beauty - in the governing principles of the universe... and that it's unlikely that these laws came about by random chance and random mutation and natural selection... Above all, I would say, it questions how the universe went from completely inorganic matter like mud to a living thing like a cell, and then eventually to a human being. [...] I say that we have as much science on our side as the Darwinists. The Darwinists cannot explain how life began... [or] how gravity began... [or] how thermodynamics began. They just take it on faith that it was done by some kind of process, a Darwinist process, and natural selection and random mutation. They don't have any evidence of that. So as long as we are talking about theories of which there is no evidence, why not bring in other theories?
Stein is scientifically illiterate if he thinks that Darwinian Evolution is supposed to explain the origin of the laws of gravity or thermodynamics. That's physics, not biology. No scientist believes that physical laws came about by a "Darwinist process" or natural selection.
How life originated on Earth is indeed still a matter of debate and postulation. But to simply posit "Well, since we don't yet have a good explanation, it must have been God" is to commit the ad hoc fallacy: to answer the question by just making shit up. At least when scientists debate the issue, they refer to evidence like the origins of organic molecules and what conditions under which life can flourish; they don't just throw out an idea for which there is not, nor has never been, any evidence.
To argue that proponents of intelligent design "have as much science on [their] side as the Darwinists" is to talk pure fiction. There is nothing scientific about the ad hoc, unempirical postulations of intelligent design-ers. They are simply bringing ancient superstition to bear against a solid scientific theory that is supported by countless observations in the fossil record and the laboratory.
Throughout, Stein also implicitly advances the first-cause argument: that since everything has a cause, and we don't know what the cause of the universe was, that cause must have been God. This argument has been made in various forms since ancient Greece, and it remains as poor an argument today as it was then. The refutation is simple: what caused God? If everything must have a cause, then God must too (and thus we're faced with infinite regress); if God doesn't have to have a cause, then why must the universe? The first-cause argument doesn't solve anything; it merely trades one problem - the origins of the universe and of life - for another - the origin of God.
Rush: It seems they [Darwinists] have a paranoia about the whole concept of God; they cannot allow for one moment the concept that there is a God. What do they so fear about God?
Stein: I think they fear... that if there is a God, they are going to be judged at some point either in this life or the afterlife, if there is one, and that they will be found to have been violating moral codes. They don't want to be judged. They want to do whatever they want. After all, if they are just specks of mud, animated by a lightening strike, they don't have any moral responsibility to anyone.
Here Stein reveals that he is as illiterate in the field of ethics as he is in science. He unthinkingly assumes that religion is the foundation of all morality, despite the overwhelming evidence in daily life that there is no correlation between religiosity and ethical behavior. There are many religious people who do terrible things, and many non-religious people who lead virtuous and ethical lives; therefore it is not religion itself, but some other factor(s) which determine morality.
In fact, it could be argued that religion is an obstacle to the same "moral responsibility" that Stein so blithely touts. Religious people simply assume that as long as they act in accordance with the laws set down by the religion, they're in the clear. It is precisely this kind of thinking that engenders suicide bombing and all forms of religious persecution. By contrast, the secular person has to find rational justification for his or her actions. I don't steal from my neighbor, not because God told me not to, but because I believe it to be wrong for a number of reasons. Stein's assumption that the irreligious are morally adrift is as insulting as it is, in my experience and observations at least, wildly incorrect.
Scientists do not have a 'paranoia' of God, as Limbaugh would so like to believe; they just ignore God. They don't have time for any superstitious nonsense - God included - for which there is no evidence. God isn't testable; he isn't measurable; he isn't empirically knowable at all, and until it can be shown that he's anything other than a figment of ancient imaginations, science need not bother dealing with him. As Christopher Hitchens pointed out, "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." And science is all about evidence.
Rush: You spent two years interviewing more than 150 educators and scientists who claim that they were persecuted for challenging Darwinism. You say that in addition to whatever is involved here in terms of science that it is also a free-speech issue.
Stein: Absolutely.
The dismissal of pro-intelligent-design scientists, which Stein offers as the central and most powerful theme of his film, isn't an issue of free-speech; it's an issue of basic competence. If a chemistry professor started teaching alchemy, he would be fired for being an incompetent chemist. If an astrophysicist began preaching the Ptolmeic geocentric model of the universe, she too would be fired, and rightly so. So why should a biologist who rejects the theory of evolution - which is as central to biology as gravity is to physics - not be fired for gross incompetence? It's one thing if the scientist has actual evidence to question evolution, but they never do, and replacing a major scientific theory with illogical spiritualism is grounds for dismissal if ever there were such.
Stein: Darwinism basically said, at the end of the day, under all this rigmarole, that Northern European white people are destined to rule the world. That, it seemed to me, was a way of justifying the British Empire. Darwinism really was a theory legitimizing a certain political worldview more than anything else. By the way, Hitler's friends picked it up and ran with it - only they said that the Northern European country that was destined to rule the world was called Germany.
Rush: In the movie there is a trip you take with a curator.
Stein: Oh, my God. That was amazing - a Nazi killing center.
Rush: But the jaw-dropping episode shows the guide walking you around, and your facial expressions as she attempts to justify what went on there. You are right when you say that these people don't want to be judgmental. They don't even want to be judgmental about Hitler.
It's unclear how Stein and Limbaugh make the outrageous leap from the topic of Darwinian Evolution to that of the Holocaust, but Nazi similes are always the last refuge of demagogues. Here Stein and Limbaugh put the impressive range of their ignorance on display, conflating genuine Darwinian Evolution with Spencerian social Darwinism, the conservative social theory of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that had nothing to do with science or Darwin. From what I've read in other reviews, Stein also takes the opportunity in his film to blame evolution for abortion (apparently under the assumption that abortion is a bad thing). Blaming evolution for Nazism and abortion is as daft as giving Jesus credit for the Inquisition, or laying blame on the theory of gravity for the dropping of bombs that kill innocent civilians.
Rush: It [the film] so illustrates the closed-mindedness, the arrogance, and the fear of people who don't think they have to debate what they believe.
Close-mindedness, arrogance, and unjustified, indefensible beliefs - isn't Rush just describing himself here?
It is indeed discouraging that some eighty years after the Scopes Trial, some Americans are still dumb enough to choose religion over science. Stein, Limbaugh, and their willfully ignorant comrades prefer to side with the creation myths of ancient peoples instead of the empirically tested theories of modern biologists. They would fit in more among Neanderthals paying obeisance to the sun rather than among we modern - and evolved - homo sapiens.
16 May 2008
Answering Creationist Nonsense
Scientific American: 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense
When Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution through natural selection 143 years ago, the scientists of the day argued over it fiercely, but the massing evidence from paleontology, genetics, zoology, molecular biology and other fields gradually established evolution's truth beyond reasonable doubt. Today that battle has been won everywhere--except in the public imagination.
Embarrassingly, in the 21st century, in the most scientifically advanced nation the world has ever known, creationists can still persuade politicians, judges and ordinary citizens that evolution is a flawed, poorly supported fantasy. They lobby for creationist ideas such as "intelligent design" to be taught as alternatives to evolution in science classrooms.
Besieged teachers and others may increasingly find themselves on the spot to defend evolution and refute creationism. The arguments that creationists use are typically specious and based on misunderstandings of (or outright lies about) evolution, but the number and diversity of the objections can put even well-informed people at a disadvantage.
To help with answering them, the following list rebuts some of the most common "scientific" arguments raised against evolution. It also directs readers to further sources for information and explains why creation science has no place in the classroom.
My personal favorite (because one hears this idiotic objection so often):
1. Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact or a scientific law.
Many people learned in elementary school that a theory falls in the middle of a hierarchy of certainty--above a mere hypothesis but below a law. Scientists do not use the terms that way, however. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a scientific theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." No amount of validation changes a theory into a law, which is a descriptive generalization about nature. So when scientists talk about the theory of evolution--or the atomic theory or the theory of relativity, for that matter--they are not expressing reservations about its truth.
In addition to the theory of evolution, meaning the idea of descent with modification, one may also speak of the fact of evolution. The NAS defines a fact as "an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as 'true.'" The fossil record and abundant other evidence testify that organisms have evolved through time. Although no one observed those transformations, the indirect evidence is clear, unambiguous and compelling.
All sciences frequently rely on indirect evidence. Physicists cannot see subatomic particles directly, for instance, so they verify their existence by watching for telltale tracks that the particles leave in cloud chambers. The absence of direct observation does not make physicists' conclusions less certain.
When Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution through natural selection 143 years ago, the scientists of the day argued over it fiercely, but the massing evidence from paleontology, genetics, zoology, molecular biology and other fields gradually established evolution's truth beyond reasonable doubt. Today that battle has been won everywhere--except in the public imagination.
Embarrassingly, in the 21st century, in the most scientifically advanced nation the world has ever known, creationists can still persuade politicians, judges and ordinary citizens that evolution is a flawed, poorly supported fantasy. They lobby for creationist ideas such as "intelligent design" to be taught as alternatives to evolution in science classrooms.
Besieged teachers and others may increasingly find themselves on the spot to defend evolution and refute creationism. The arguments that creationists use are typically specious and based on misunderstandings of (or outright lies about) evolution, but the number and diversity of the objections can put even well-informed people at a disadvantage.
To help with answering them, the following list rebuts some of the most common "scientific" arguments raised against evolution. It also directs readers to further sources for information and explains why creation science has no place in the classroom.
My personal favorite (because one hears this idiotic objection so often):
1. Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact or a scientific law.
Many people learned in elementary school that a theory falls in the middle of a hierarchy of certainty--above a mere hypothesis but below a law. Scientists do not use the terms that way, however. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a scientific theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." No amount of validation changes a theory into a law, which is a descriptive generalization about nature. So when scientists talk about the theory of evolution--or the atomic theory or the theory of relativity, for that matter--they are not expressing reservations about its truth.
In addition to the theory of evolution, meaning the idea of descent with modification, one may also speak of the fact of evolution. The NAS defines a fact as "an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as 'true.'" The fossil record and abundant other evidence testify that organisms have evolved through time. Although no one observed those transformations, the indirect evidence is clear, unambiguous and compelling.
All sciences frequently rely on indirect evidence. Physicists cannot see subatomic particles directly, for instance, so they verify their existence by watching for telltale tracks that the particles leave in cloud chambers. The absence of direct observation does not make physicists' conclusions less certain.
22 February 2008
How not to be an agent of germ warfare
YouTube: Why don't we do it in our sleeves?
If you think it's proper to cover your mouth with your hand when you sneeze or cough, you need to watch this CDC-approved video and learn the correct way to stop spreading germs.
If you think it's proper to cover your mouth with your hand when you sneeze or cough, you need to watch this CDC-approved video and learn the correct way to stop spreading germs.
08 February 2008
Atoms
"At sea level, at a temperature of 32 degrees Fahrenheit, one cubic centimeter of air (that is, a space about the size of a sugar cube) will contain 45 billion billion molecules. And they are in every single cubic centimeter you see around you. Think about how many cubic centimeters there are in the world outside your window - how many sugar cubes it would take to fill that view. Then think about how many it would take to build a universe. Atoms, in short, are very abundant.
"They are also fantastically durable. Because they are so long lived, atoms really get around. Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numerous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms - up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested - probably once belonged to Shakespeare. A billion more came from Buddha and Genghis Khan and Beethoven, and any other historical figure you care to name.
"So we are all reincarnations - though short-lived ones. When we die our atoms will disassemble and move off to find new uses elsewhere - as part of a leaf or other human being or drop of dew. Atoms, however, go on practically forever. Nobody actually knows how long an atom can survive, but according to Martin Rees it is probably about 10^35 years - a number so big that even I am happy to express it in notation."
Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, p. 133-134
"They are also fantastically durable. Because they are so long lived, atoms really get around. Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numerous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms - up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested - probably once belonged to Shakespeare. A billion more came from Buddha and Genghis Khan and Beethoven, and any other historical figure you care to name.
"So we are all reincarnations - though short-lived ones. When we die our atoms will disassemble and move off to find new uses elsewhere - as part of a leaf or other human being or drop of dew. Atoms, however, go on practically forever. Nobody actually knows how long an atom can survive, but according to Martin Rees it is probably about 10^35 years - a number so big that even I am happy to express it in notation."
Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, p. 133-134
10 December 2007
Oxymoron of the day: 'Creationist Biologist'
Reuters: Christian biologist fired for beliefs, suit says
A Christian biologist is suing the prestigious Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, claiming he was fired for refusing to accept evolution, lawyers involved in the case said on Friday.
The zebrafish specialist said his civil rights were violated when he was dismissed shortly after telling his superior he did not accept evolution because he believed the Bible presented a true account of human creation.
If an auto mechanic, a district attorney, or a real estate agent were to get fired for being a creationist, that's discrimination.
But if a marine biologist gets fired for being a creationist, that's just because the moron is too incompetent to perform his job.
It is perfectly acceptable that Nathaniel Abraham was fired for his religious beliefs. His beliefs not only indicate loose epistemic standards - which should discredit any scientist - they also come into direct conflict with the foundations of his scientific field. Just as no physicist can perform his job without belief in the theory of gravity, no responsible biologist can hold that his literal, word-for-word belief in the biblical creation story dislodges the theory of evolution. With some logical stretching, an advocate of intelligent design might be able to fuse his beliefs with evolutionary theory and still be a competant biologist, but no one who is daft enough to disregard a towering amount of essential scientific knowledge in favor of a puerile ancient myth can call himself a scientist.
In its concluding paragraph, the article reports that Abraham is now a biology "professor" at Liberty "University", the pseudo-academic shithole in Virginia founded by Jerry Falwell. Liberty University: where students and faculty alike come to insulate their god-given backward beliefs against the heretical facts and logic that run so rampant in today's world.
A Christian biologist is suing the prestigious Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, claiming he was fired for refusing to accept evolution, lawyers involved in the case said on Friday.
The zebrafish specialist said his civil rights were violated when he was dismissed shortly after telling his superior he did not accept evolution because he believed the Bible presented a true account of human creation.
If an auto mechanic, a district attorney, or a real estate agent were to get fired for being a creationist, that's discrimination.
But if a marine biologist gets fired for being a creationist, that's just because the moron is too incompetent to perform his job.
It is perfectly acceptable that Nathaniel Abraham was fired for his religious beliefs. His beliefs not only indicate loose epistemic standards - which should discredit any scientist - they also come into direct conflict with the foundations of his scientific field. Just as no physicist can perform his job without belief in the theory of gravity, no responsible biologist can hold that his literal, word-for-word belief in the biblical creation story dislodges the theory of evolution. With some logical stretching, an advocate of intelligent design might be able to fuse his beliefs with evolutionary theory and still be a competant biologist, but no one who is daft enough to disregard a towering amount of essential scientific knowledge in favor of a puerile ancient myth can call himself a scientist.
In its concluding paragraph, the article reports that Abraham is now a biology "professor" at Liberty "University", the pseudo-academic shithole in Virginia founded by Jerry Falwell. Liberty University: where students and faculty alike come to insulate their god-given backward beliefs against the heretical facts and logic that run so rampant in today's world.
12 September 2007
Fire Water!
AP: Radio Frequencies Help Burn Salt Water
John Kanzius happened upon the discovery accidentally when he tried to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency generator he developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as the salt water was exposed to the radio frequencies, it would burn.
The discovery has scientists excited by the prospect of using salt water, the most abundant resource on earth, as a fuel.
Rustum Roy, a Penn State University chemist, has held demonstrations at his State College lab to confirm his own observations.
The radio frequencies act to weaken the bonds between the elements that make up salt water, releasing the hydrogen, Roy said. Once ignited, the hydrogen will burn as long as it is exposed to the frequencies, he said.
John Kanzius happened upon the discovery accidentally when he tried to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency generator he developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as the salt water was exposed to the radio frequencies, it would burn.
The discovery has scientists excited by the prospect of using salt water, the most abundant resource on earth, as a fuel.
Rustum Roy, a Penn State University chemist, has held demonstrations at his State College lab to confirm his own observations.
The radio frequencies act to weaken the bonds between the elements that make up salt water, releasing the hydrogen, Roy said. Once ignited, the hydrogen will burn as long as it is exposed to the frequencies, he said.
11 July 2007
Meat's Pressures on the Planet
Many people assume that there are only two reasons to become a vegetarian: health concerns and ethical considerations. But the widespread consumption of meat has effects on the environment that go far beyond human nutrition or the well-being of animals.
BBC online has begun a new series, Planet Under Pressure, which explores six of "the most pressing environmental issues facing the human race today": food, water, energy, climate change, biodiversity, and pollution. All of these crises are directly or indirectly linked to eating meat.
FOOD
More agricultural crops in the world today are grown to feed the animals that feed humans, rather than to feed humans directly. Meat-eating is one of the most insanely inefficient processes that free markets tolerate.
In the world's oceans, overfishing has depleted many fish populations to critical levels. If demand continues to rise and stocks continue to shrink, some fishing stocks will disappear entirely.
WATER
Livestock, and the huge amounts of crops grown to feed livestock, consume epic amounts of water that could be supplying our homes and human-intended crops instead.
ENERGY
The huge amounts of land that are being used now for raising livestock and growing the food that feeds them could be used for wind or solar energy, thus easing our reliance on coal and nuclear power.
POLLUTION, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND BIODIVERSITY
Meat-eating is a leading cause of deforestation, since large tracts of land are required not only to graze livestock, but to grow the aforementioned crops that feed livestock. And deforestation, in turn, is a leading cause of species extinction. Moreover, we need forests in order to keep the air in our atmosphere clean, and as we chop down more forests, pollution will worsen and global warming will accelerate.
In the sea, overfishing has heinous effects on biodiversity. The fact that many fish populations have been depleted to less than 10% of their original levels not only threatens the survival of those individual target species, but other species in the food web as well. According to oceanographer Doug Segar, overfishing may constitute "a far greater threat [to marine ecosystems] than the oil spills or industrial and domestic sewage discharges that often dominate media coverage."
The planet is indeed under pressure - and much of the pressure comes from humans' insistence on eating cows, chickens, pigs, and fish. Keep these animals off your plate more often and you'll be giving Mother Nature a break she desperately needs.
BBC online has begun a new series, Planet Under Pressure, which explores six of "the most pressing environmental issues facing the human race today": food, water, energy, climate change, biodiversity, and pollution. All of these crises are directly or indirectly linked to eating meat.
FOOD
More agricultural crops in the world today are grown to feed the animals that feed humans, rather than to feed humans directly. Meat-eating is one of the most insanely inefficient processes that free markets tolerate.
In the world's oceans, overfishing has depleted many fish populations to critical levels. If demand continues to rise and stocks continue to shrink, some fishing stocks will disappear entirely.
WATER
Livestock, and the huge amounts of crops grown to feed livestock, consume epic amounts of water that could be supplying our homes and human-intended crops instead.
ENERGY
The huge amounts of land that are being used now for raising livestock and growing the food that feeds them could be used for wind or solar energy, thus easing our reliance on coal and nuclear power.
POLLUTION, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND BIODIVERSITY
Meat-eating is a leading cause of deforestation, since large tracts of land are required not only to graze livestock, but to grow the aforementioned crops that feed livestock. And deforestation, in turn, is a leading cause of species extinction. Moreover, we need forests in order to keep the air in our atmosphere clean, and as we chop down more forests, pollution will worsen and global warming will accelerate.
In the sea, overfishing has heinous effects on biodiversity. The fact that many fish populations have been depleted to less than 10% of their original levels not only threatens the survival of those individual target species, but other species in the food web as well. According to oceanographer Doug Segar, overfishing may constitute "a far greater threat [to marine ecosystems] than the oil spills or industrial and domestic sewage discharges that often dominate media coverage."
The planet is indeed under pressure - and much of the pressure comes from humans' insistence on eating cows, chickens, pigs, and fish. Keep these animals off your plate more often and you'll be giving Mother Nature a break she desperately needs.
14 May 2007
Two H, One O, No Matter What You Pay For It
What's in a name? That which we call Dasani
By any other name would taste as refreshing....
Truly the biggest triumph of coporate marketing in the past 10-15 years has been the rise of the bottled water industry. Every day, millions of suckers buy water for a cost that is several thousand times its actual value, just because it comes in a plastic container and has some artist's depiction of a mountain spring on the label.
Guess what? The water that comes out of my tap is H-O-H, just like the water they're buying. It has the same nonexistant taste, the same chemical composition, and the same thirst-quenching properties. Except I get it for free.
We don't live in Russia, people. The water is safe. Buy a Brita filter, fill it up a few times a week, and stop shelling out piles of cash for the cheapest and most abundant liquid on Earth.
By any other name would taste as refreshing....
Truly the biggest triumph of coporate marketing in the past 10-15 years has been the rise of the bottled water industry. Every day, millions of suckers buy water for a cost that is several thousand times its actual value, just because it comes in a plastic container and has some artist's depiction of a mountain spring on the label.
Guess what? The water that comes out of my tap is H-O-H, just like the water they're buying. It has the same nonexistant taste, the same chemical composition, and the same thirst-quenching properties. Except I get it for free.
We don't live in Russia, people. The water is safe. Buy a Brita filter, fill it up a few times a week, and stop shelling out piles of cash for the cheapest and most abundant liquid on Earth.
20 April 2007
Survival of the Fittest
Most people assume that Charles Darwin coined the famous phrase 'survival of the fittest'. Actually, Darwin never used those words in any of his writings. The man who invented the term was Herbert Spencer, the 19th-century thinker and founder of the school of thought known as Social Darwinism.
Darwin used the phrase 'natural selection' to describe the process that lay at the center of his theory of evolution. 'Survival of the fittest', though still a term commonly used as shorthand for Darwin's theory, is actually misleading: it makes it seem as if survival is the standard for evolutionary success. Actually, reproduction is what counts, and survival only matters insofar as it allows reproduction. If you compared a parent of three who died at 25 years old with another person who lived to 100 but never had children, the former of the two would be the more successful in evolutionary terms.
Darwin used the phrase 'natural selection' to describe the process that lay at the center of his theory of evolution. 'Survival of the fittest', though still a term commonly used as shorthand for Darwin's theory, is actually misleading: it makes it seem as if survival is the standard for evolutionary success. Actually, reproduction is what counts, and survival only matters insofar as it allows reproduction. If you compared a parent of three who died at 25 years old with another person who lived to 100 but never had children, the former of the two would be the more successful in evolutionary terms.
23 February 2007
Good Riddance to Bad Bile Farmers
BBC: Bears Eat Keeper Who Took Their Bile
Gee. I wonder why the bears were upset:
The bile is extracted in an excruciatingly painful process which involves slicing into the animal's flesh and "milking" the substance with a tube.
What the hell is the deal with traditional Chinese medicine's penchant for killing and abusing rhinos, tigers, bears, and other wildlife? Is it a traditional doctrine of theirs that to help humans you have to maim and torture innocent animals?
These traditional superstitions hold that the tiger penis and rhinoceros horn are aphrodisiacs, and that bear bile can be used as a versatile 'medicine'. Riiiiight. Clearly they got their MDs at Hopkins.
This is NOT a matter of cultural relativism - these practices should not be seen as acceptable simply because they cloak themselves in "tradition". This is a matter of sheer ignorant superstition being used to justify appalling immorality.
Go bears! Well done. That ignorant reprobate asswipe got exactly what he deserved: a dose of his own "medicine".
Gee. I wonder why the bears were upset:
The bile is extracted in an excruciatingly painful process which involves slicing into the animal's flesh and "milking" the substance with a tube.
What the hell is the deal with traditional Chinese medicine's penchant for killing and abusing rhinos, tigers, bears, and other wildlife? Is it a traditional doctrine of theirs that to help humans you have to maim and torture innocent animals?
These traditional superstitions hold that the tiger penis and rhinoceros horn are aphrodisiacs, and that bear bile can be used as a versatile 'medicine'. Riiiiight. Clearly they got their MDs at Hopkins.
This is NOT a matter of cultural relativism - these practices should not be seen as acceptable simply because they cloak themselves in "tradition". This is a matter of sheer ignorant superstition being used to justify appalling immorality.
Go bears! Well done. That ignorant reprobate asswipe got exactly what he deserved: a dose of his own "medicine".
15 January 2007
Just A Theory
Despite that all of modern biology is based on the theory of evolution, there still exist numerous religious and otherwise stupid people in our society who doubt the reality of the evolutionary process.
These people can commonly be heard declaring, with grave authority: "Evolution is, after all, just a theory."
And they're right. Evolution is a theory.
But so is gravity.
So the next time someone tells you that evolution is "just a theory", tell them to go jump off a bridge.
These people can commonly be heard declaring, with grave authority: "Evolution is, after all, just a theory."
And they're right. Evolution is a theory.
But so is gravity.
So the next time someone tells you that evolution is "just a theory", tell them to go jump off a bridge.
04 January 2007
Galileo
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
-Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
Too bad the Church didn't feel the same way. Poor Galileo was convicted of heresy and put under house arrest for the rest of his life - all because he had the outrageous audacity to suggest that the sun does not revolve around the Earth.
The Bible - which was written many centuries before even the telescope was invented - implied that the Earth was at the center of the whole universe. And the Church believed the innocent scientific ignorance of this ancient book of myths as the Absolute Truth. So that was that. Galileo, one of the most brilliant thinkers in history, was dismissed as nothing but a simple heretic.
That's the trouble with religion: it always requires you to forgo sense, reason, and intellect. This practice of forgoing rational thought is called faith, which is a euphimism for stupidity and is a prerequisite for all religious thinking.
-Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
Too bad the Church didn't feel the same way. Poor Galileo was convicted of heresy and put under house arrest for the rest of his life - all because he had the outrageous audacity to suggest that the sun does not revolve around the Earth.
The Bible - which was written many centuries before even the telescope was invented - implied that the Earth was at the center of the whole universe. And the Church believed the innocent scientific ignorance of this ancient book of myths as the Absolute Truth. So that was that. Galileo, one of the most brilliant thinkers in history, was dismissed as nothing but a simple heretic.
That's the trouble with religion: it always requires you to forgo sense, reason, and intellect. This practice of forgoing rational thought is called faith, which is a euphimism for stupidity and is a prerequisite for all religious thinking.
02 January 2007
Fear
"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less."
-Marie Curie
-Marie Curie
13 December 2006
Deliver us from soy
This just in: soy causes not only homosexuality, but also obesity, cancer, and probably genocide too.
Jim Rutz is actually dense enough to look at how most Americans eat fast food, drink soda, and don't exercise, and conclude: yep, it's the soy that's making them fat. Oh, and it also causes gay babies.
Jim Rutz is actually dense enough to look at how most Americans eat fast food, drink soda, and don't exercise, and conclude: yep, it's the soy that's making them fat. Oh, and it also causes gay babies.
I wonder how much he benches. As a vegetarian, I get a whole lot of my protein from soy, especially soy milk, tofu, and soy peanut butter. And as someone who lifts a lot of weights, I have a sneaking suspicion that I could kick the shit out of this guy, despite my estro-femi-wuss diet. But that's just my liberal, pinko, gay slant towards listening to M.D.s, whose years of education and experience has given them such an uninformed bias towards nutrition that they actually say that soy is healthy and as effective as animal meat in building muscle. Lies. All lies. It may be true that I can run a sub-6:00 mile and do more than twice as many pushups as the average healthy person, but it's all a momentary fluke before the fall. I'mreally on a one-way trip to fat gay death.
Oh, and if you're wondering about Jim Rutz's credentials, he's not a doctor. He's chairman of Megashift Ministries and co-founder of Open Church Ministries. Who needs brains when you have faith? Besides, thinking is so gay.
02 November 2006
Go Fish
I'm a vegetarian. I do not eat pigs, cows, birds, fish, or any other meat, because in our age of supermarkets, it is absolutely unnecessary to kill animals in order to have a complete, nutritious, delicious diet.
Many people on some level understand my compunction with killing animals that walk or fly, but it's often harder for them to conceive why I don't eat seafood. Swordfish or lobster don't scream or squeel when you kill them, so their suffering is more of an abstraction. And come on - to give up eating meat AND fish I must be some kind of kook!
But occasionally, science comes along and vindicates erstwhile kooks, making them look like the only reasonable people in the room. And it's now becoming clear that eating fish is no longer a reasonable dietary choice.
Only Fifty Years Left for Sea Fish (BBC)
There will be virtually no fish or other seafood from the oceans by the middle of the century, scientists conclude.
"The way we use the oceans is that we hope and assume there will always be another species to exploit after we've completely gone through the last one," said research leader Boris Worm, from Dalhousie University in Canada.
Steve Palumbi, from Stanford University in California, one of the other scientists on the project, added: "Unless we fundamentally change the way we manage all the ocean species together, as working ecosystems, then this century is the last century of wild seafood."
Now, this really shouldn't come as a surprise. It's simple arithmetic. There are now over six billion people on the planet, and although the oceans are vast, they aren't infinite. Fishing used to be sustainable when they're weren't so many people and the fishing itself wasn't so industrial. Now, if people keep glutting themselves on cod and tuna, there just won't be any left.
Fortunately, there is a simple solution, albeit one that's unsatisfying for our self-centered society: STOP EATING FISH. You don't need to eat fish to have a complete diet; it is unnecessary, it is a luxury, and now an ethically indefensible one. There are plenty of other sources for the protein and nutrients found in fish. If petty selfishness overrides your moral compass and you choose to keep contributing to the disappearance of sea life as we know it, at least consider eating less seafood. We can't have our oceans and devour them too.
Many people on some level understand my compunction with killing animals that walk or fly, but it's often harder for them to conceive why I don't eat seafood. Swordfish or lobster don't scream or squeel when you kill them, so their suffering is more of an abstraction. And come on - to give up eating meat AND fish I must be some kind of kook!
But occasionally, science comes along and vindicates erstwhile kooks, making them look like the only reasonable people in the room. And it's now becoming clear that eating fish is no longer a reasonable dietary choice.
Only Fifty Years Left for Sea Fish (BBC)
There will be virtually no fish or other seafood from the oceans by the middle of the century, scientists conclude.
"The way we use the oceans is that we hope and assume there will always be another species to exploit after we've completely gone through the last one," said research leader Boris Worm, from Dalhousie University in Canada.
Steve Palumbi, from Stanford University in California, one of the other scientists on the project, added: "Unless we fundamentally change the way we manage all the ocean species together, as working ecosystems, then this century is the last century of wild seafood."
Now, this really shouldn't come as a surprise. It's simple arithmetic. There are now over six billion people on the planet, and although the oceans are vast, they aren't infinite. Fishing used to be sustainable when they're weren't so many people and the fishing itself wasn't so industrial. Now, if people keep glutting themselves on cod and tuna, there just won't be any left.
Fortunately, there is a simple solution, albeit one that's unsatisfying for our self-centered society: STOP EATING FISH. You don't need to eat fish to have a complete diet; it is unnecessary, it is a luxury, and now an ethically indefensible one. There are plenty of other sources for the protein and nutrients found in fish. If petty selfishness overrides your moral compass and you choose to keep contributing to the disappearance of sea life as we know it, at least consider eating less seafood. We can't have our oceans and devour them too.
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