News From Around The Blogosphere 12.9.08

In Detroit, workers are praying for a bail-out – Apparently those car manufacturers didn’t have to get on their private jets and fly to Washington to beg for money after all because Yahweh is on the case. I know what you’re thinking: Phew! That’s a relief!

Bill O’Reilly wrong on state capitols, wrong on everything – In one of his latest rants against the atheist display in Washington’s capitol, Olympia, Bill-O spoke thusly:

Seattle now rivals San Francisco for secular-progressive nuttiness. The city fathers are allowing public nakedness in city parks, nude bike riding, and in Fremont, a Seattle suburb, they actually put up a statue honoring Lenin, the father of communism.

See if you can find the incredibly awkward mistake.

God vs. Science: will those 2 crazy kids ever get along? – NO. And stories like this exemplify why. Researchers did a study looking at attitudes regarding nanotechnology. Here’s what they found:

They found that countries where religious belief was strong, such as Ireland and Italy, tended to be the least accepting of nanotechnology, whereas those where religion was less significant such as Belgium or the Netherlands were more accepting of the technology.

Do The Bartman – Australian Supreme Court Justice Michael Adams is upholding the child pornography conviction against a man caught possessing images of characters from The Simpsons having sex. I’m with Amateur Scientist:

Look, no one’s arguing that looking at drawings of a naked Bart and Lisa is in good taste, but it has absolutely nothing to do with child pornography. These aren’t children. They’re cartoon characters. They aren’t even people. They’re cartoon characters.

Update on the witch hunts in Nigeria – Self-proclaimed bishop Sunday Ulup-Aya of southeast Nigeria has been arrested for the murders of several children he claimed were possessed by the spirits of witches. Unfortunately, there’s more where he came from.

I’m giving Water Vitalizer Plus a check minus – You might expect to pay up to $0.01 for this product but act now and you can get it for the low, low price of $500. But wait! There’s more!

The Water Vitalizer Plus water is Hexagonal Water.

That’s it. You can’t argue with that logic. . . you really, really, really can’t. They also say this little gem:

It is scientifically proven that when you drink pure water ran through the Vitalizer Plus it goes right into your cells hydating the body immediately,it doesn’t sit in your stomach slushing around undigested, making you nauseous like regular tap water or even bottled drinking water does.

WHAT?!

“I reject your reality… and substitute my own.” – On germ theory denial and other forms of rejecting reality.

A foxhole atheist speaks out

AND NOW A MOMENT OF SCIENCE:

Obesity Cure? Worms Destroy Their Own Fat – “A previously unknown mutation discovered in a common roundworm holds the promise of new treatments for obesity in humans, McGill University researchers say. Their study was published Dec. 3 in the journal Nature.”

Dogs Feel Envy, Austrian Study Finds – “Dogs can feel a simple form of envy, researchers have found.

Experiments with various species have shown that monkeys often express resentful behavior when a partner receives a greater reward for performing an identical task. Monkeys have been shown to stage strikes, refusing to participate and ignoring what they perceive as inferior compensation. Dogs are capable of similar, though less sensitive, discrimination, report Friederike Range and colleagues.”

Dinosaurs Were Airheads, CT Scans Reveal – “Paleontologists have long known that dinosaurs had tiny brains, but they had no idea the beasts were such airheads.

A new study by Ohio University researchers Lawrence Witmer and Ryan Ridgely found that dinosaurs had more air cavities in their heads than expected. By using CT scans, the scientists were able to develop 3-D images of the dinosaur skulls that show a clearer picture of the physiology of the airways.”

Brain Cells Key To Learning Discovered – “More than a century after Ivan Pavlov’s dog was conditioned to salivate when it heard the sound of a tone prior to receiving food, scientists have found neurons that are critical to how people and animals learn from experience.”

Chupacabra, Skepacabra’s goat-sucking cousin, apparently is in desperate need of a good cleaning:

News From Around The Blogosphere 12.8.08

Gattaca dubbed in Japanese – If you’ve never seen the Science Fiction film Gattaca, it’s about a near-future society where social, economic, and professional class is determined by ones genes. Well Japan’s moving in that direction except that their conclusions have no actual scientific merit. 4 bestsellers in Japan promote the new myth that blood type determines personality and offers guidance on what decisions one should make. Essentially this is another classic example of dressing up astrology-like voodoo in the clothes of science. They’re appropriately referred to as “blood horoscopes.”

Superstition is on the rise – I have some issues with this article. For instance, he cites the recent Baylor study, suggesting that it showed superstition was higher among the non or less religious, which is the common misconception. Religion itself IS a superstition, and the primary reason the more religious don’t believe in or participate in other superstitions is because religions tend to form monopolies on the supernatural. Those claiming access to other forms of supernatural tend to be viewed as either evil witches, devil worshipers, or mislead by trickery.

Though to be fair, I know plenty of atheists who believe all sorts of nonsense.

Kangaroo Cousins – Scientists in Australia have discovered that the kangaroo genome is remarkably similar to humans’.

Vampires take over Romania – Okay, not real vampires but close, creationists. These vampires have their own crosses. Romania is no longer teaching evolution in schools. Romania, you’re as dead to me.

A brief history of creationism

Atheist sign comes to Illinois

ATHEIST DISCRIMINATION:

Dramatic irony at its finest – Here’s what came out of the mouth of one person who was protesting the atheist sign in the Washington state capital:

“The No. 1 thing is, we want the state of Washington and the governor to represent everyone in the state,” said the Rev. Kenneth Hutcherson, the pastor of Antioch Bible Church in Redmond. “But just because you must represent everyone in the state doesn’t mean that you put up with intolerance from the people that you represent.”

Chasing out the Jews – Washington State Senator Jim Dunn (R) — a Christian — made this appalling comment yesterday:

“It is time to chase out all the Jews and evildoers,” Dunn said.

There has been no backlash. Actually he didn’t say that. What he said was:

“It is time to chase out of the house of God all the unbelievers and evildoers,” Dunn said.

I’m told this is supposed to be much better.

The Flying Car–on sale next year – What would you do for one?

Is body language junk science?

AND NOW FOR A MOMENT OF SCIENCE:

Amazon Butterflies: Evolution Favors Mutualism – “Many studies of evolution focus on the benefits to the individual of competing successfully – those who survive produce the most offspring, in Darwin’s classic ‘survival of the fittest’. But how does this translate to the evolution of species?

A new article considers an aspect of the natural world that, like survival of the fittest individual, is explained by natural selection: namely, mutualism — an interaction between species that has benefits for both. The work shows that some species of butterfly that live alongside one another have evolved in ways that, surprisingly, benefit both species.”

Spider Love: Little Guys Get Lots More – “Big males outperform smaller ones in head-to-head mating contests but diminutive males make ten times better lovers because they’re quicker to mature and faster on their feet, a new study of redback spiders reveals.” With a title like that, I had to post this one.

Flying Spaghetti Monster Nativity Scene:

We miss ya, John:

Why I go after the grand conspiracy theorists

Earlier today someone criticized me for deviating from my typical religious criticism to target the conspiracy theorist set and I wanted to take a few moments to address this issue in a bulletin. While I suspect that the criticism came from someone who is sympathetic to this crowd’s beliefs that is mere conjecture on my part, so is neither here nor there.

But to clarify one criticism right off the bat, it’s not that I and other skeptics reject the notion that two or more people are capable of conspiring to deceive for their own personal gain. That happens all the time and instances of this are well documented. This is why we usually try to remember to clarify that what we’re criticizing is “grand conspiracy theories.” These are beliefs in colossal deceptions that require thousands if not millions of players involved in order to succeed. Some are deliberate deceivers while others are mere dupes being manipulated. It’s not that such things are impossible, but they are highly unlikely and require extraordinary evidence. It could be argued by grand conspiracy theorists that the misinformation is spread just as religions and other memes are spread. That’s certainly fair. But again, then it still demands extraordinary evidence given the enormity of the claim. And while I hear almost every day from one grand conspiracy theorist or another that they have “smoking gun” evidence for their claims, that evidence has consistently been entirely underwhelming to me as to everyone else who isn’t already a believer.

But one of the two main reasons we seem to some people to take a break from religion to attack grand conspiracy theorists is because from our point of view these grand conspiracy theories ARE religion. We don’t see any meaningful distinction between the two at least as far as truth is concerned. We feel that the claims of these grand conspiracy theorists are not evidence-based (at least not by good evidence) claims that may have begun more as proto-religions, but have with the help of evolving media become very widespread delusional belief systems (and by that we mean merely false belief systems) built on a tower of myths and misconceptions about science, critical thinking, and the universe around us.

We find many other similarities to religion. For instance, the followers of these beliefs have the tendency to develop an emotional attachment to their conclusions creating a dogmatic certainty in their claims that makes it virtually impossible to deliver any meaningful criticisms of the beliefs without being viewed by the believers as mean, disrespectful, or downright villainous as like religions and cults, critics are frequently viewed as at best ignorant of “The Truth” contained by these insulated groups and at worst willful agents of misinformation working for the very forces of darkness the group is fighting. Concordantly, members of these groups tend to show no interest in sincerely seeking out or even hearing out where their conclusions may have fallen short or in hearing any evidence that challenges their claims. As with the religious, they frequently insist that old, tired arguments have never been properly refuted by their opposition when a simple 2-minute targeted Google search proves these statements demonstrably false. They simply KNOW The Truth and if you disagree with them, you’re wrong by default. Well, I’m sorry but that’s not rational. That’s not what a critical thinker does. That’s what the religious do. An that’s what cults do.

Then there’s the issue of never being able to get a straight answer as to the mechanics of the alleged plot. They’ll tell you that “the government” or “the media” is in on the conspiracy but when you challenge the point, they’ll quickly shift to the “they’re just manipulated sheep who aren’t in on it” gambit. So then when you challenge that claim, they shift back to the “they’re in on it” gambit while repeating that you’re just not getting it over and over again. And since no one argument can challenge both claims, it’s virtually impossible to corner them and force them to stick to a claim. Of course some people theoretically could be in on it while others, even most, could just be sheep, but the degree of the alleged deception always seems to require far more manipulation by knowledgeable and deliberate deceivers than the grand conspiracy theorists will accept while the systems of checks and balances designed to prevent such corruption seems more than sufficient to catch the misinformation.

Then there’s the problem of grand conspiracy theorists embracing eyewitness testimony ( a notoriously weak form of evidence) and the beliefs of lone expert “whistle blowers” over mountains of evidence to the contrary and a far larger consensus of experts. They also notoriously have greater confidence in their own abilities to play armchair detective armed with nothing but a search engine than they are in those who have studied the issues for decades. A popular tactic is anomaly hunting, where grand conspiracy theorists seek out lots of little independent oddities that aren’t immediately explicable and insist that by collecting enough of these random oddities that they’ve built a strong case for their particular pet theory. Creationists are most notorious for using this tactic, now focusing their energy on blowing up the alleged gaps in Evolution in order to merely promote their own world view, all without presenting any positive evidence for their particular presupposed conclusion. But let’s face it. There are too many factors going on in the world for us to be able to 100% explain every anomaly we come across. And nothing short of a time machine could give us the opportunity to fully analyze an historical event enough to understand every factor that played a role in that event. Also, to the typical grand conspiracy theorist, there’s no such thing as coincidence. Never. Everything happens with some intention and that’s simply that. But in reality, there’s far more chaos than they’re willing to admit. I’m reminded of the recent film, Burn After Reading, which without giving too much away, revolves largely around a very elaborate series of seemingly important events that is merely the result of incompetence and the random intersecting of lives between random people with their own random motivations. It may not be wrapped up in a nice bow but that’s just life.

Now even a basic understanding of human psychology can explain why such beliefs are so attractive. Like with religion, they offer a satisfying reason for why senseless tragedies occur by inventing a shadowy evil force that is simply evil by nature on which to blame for these tragedies. Psychologically, people prefer simpler explanations for things, and reducing complex ethical ideas into simple black and white explanations helps fundamental critical thinking skills to atrophy, which in turn makes it easier to be brainwashed to accept nonsense. Also, people have a tendency to want to believe all our problems can be solved, so by attributing senseless tragedies to a specific physical agency that’s simply evil by design, it gives them hope that they’ll one day defeat the great evil force and all will be good. This again, sounds suspiciously like religion. Another attractive trait of these beliefs is that they feed into believers’ sense of self-satisfaction and superiority. Everyone wants to believe they’re special and everyone wants to be in the exclusive, elite club that has all the answers and is heroically fighting to save the world. Storytellers recognize the power of these motifs and that’s why films and stories in other media frequently capitalize off them knowing that the audience will identify with these characters and live exciting and adventurous lives vicariously through the characters. Bottom line: everyone wants to be Neo.

And living a secret double life feeds into the classic superhero paradigm that allows you to still be imperfect you most of the time. And as I said earlier, a major part of the deal is that the group is exclusive, elite. Not everyone can be champions of Truth and part of the resistance to save humanity. This insulation is key to the survival of these memes, which is why successful cults promote disconnection policies making the members choose between the group or their loved ones outside the group. The only options for the cult member are to leave the group that has empowered them by seemingly giving meaning to their lives and revealed their true destiny, convert their loves into the group, or disconnect from those loved ones permanently.

But people have every right to believe what they please, so the most important reason why we oppose these grand conspiracies as well as other seemingly benign false beliefs is because they do demonstrable harm, or at least are capable of doing demonstrable harm. Just some examples of how can be found here:

http://whatstheharm.net/conspiracytheories.html

Now arguably the most dangerous grand conspiracy theory being perpetuated today is that vaccines cause autism and that the medical scientific community is covering it up because they’re in bed with the pharmaceutical companies. The leaders of the movement pushing these myths are as anti-science and as unmoved by evidence as any creationist only in this case they’re discouraging people from getting proper medical treatment and from giving infants basic medical necessities. We can see firsthand the level of destruction this can cause by observing similar anti-vaccine myths in Africa. If we allow these beliefs to spread through the Western world without a fight the amount of damage it may cause is incalculable.

Now one of our Myspace friends sent us some of the content of this website here:

http://www.the7thfire.com/new_world_order/illuminati/secret_order_of_the_illuminati.htm

And while some who are outsiders to these beliefs might accuse me of picking the lowest fruit, in my experience this website exemplifies what I’m finding to be an increasingly popular position among grand conspiracy theories. For instance, it begins with a traditional grand conspiracy theory and then grows increasingly more erratic, irrational, and nonsensical the further and further you go down the page, adding all sorts of completely different pseudo-scientific belief modalities one at a time: UFOs, David Icke’s amusingly absurd shape-shifting reptilian space aliens, interpretations of Biblical prophecy relating to “the Antichrist,” etc.

These days it always seems to start with just a “simple” conspiracy of thousands, right, and then if that wasn’t implausible enough they gradually seem to introduce the shapeshifting space aliens lizards and the black magic, the Antichrist, numerology. 13 families–ya don’t say? What do you fancy the odds were that it’d happen to be 13? And the Merovingians–aren’t they in vogue these days among the conspiracy set?

Now far be it from me to encourage those I believe to be delusional but I always like to ask, why if they’re so sure that David Rockefeller and company are ruling the world and will on a whim kill thousands of people to further their Bond-villain-like plans–why don’t the conspiracy theorists just stop them, like kill them or something? Oddly, as convinced as they claim to be, it never seems to ever occur to them to take any real definitive action, just collect and spread the information. And seriously, given all the exact data these individuals claim to have found, wouldn’t these have to be the most incompetent secret societies ever?

News From Around The Blogosphere 10.25.08

WEBSTER COOK UNIMPEACHED! – Screw you Donohue! Crackergate continues on, bitches!

Woman arrested for killing virtual reality husband – Someone’s going to need a Third Life.

San Francisco considers legalizing prostitution

AMERICAN BIGOTRY:

California’s Proposition 8 must be stopped – This is a fundamentalist ballot measure that aims to ban same-sex marriage.

New blog uniting The Skeptologists. . .ALL OF THEM! –

And from that site comes this great entry from Brian Dunning of the Skeptoid podcast addressing the problem of marketing skepticism.

COMMON MYTHS – THE MORE YOU KNOW!

“Don’t drink soda because it will make you acidic!” – Let’s see about that.

SPOOKY!

And in the spirit of Halloween, here’s something SPOOOOOKY!

And here’s is the debunking of the video above, courtesy of Japanese editors:

AND NOW FOR A MOMENT OF SCIENCE:

White Rhino Born Using Frozen Sperm – “A world-first: researchers announce the birth of a white rhino after artificial insemination with frozen sperm. The rhino baby, a male, was born at 4:57am in the Budapest Zoo on the 22nd of October 2008. In June 2007, scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin artificially inseminated his mother, the rhino cow Lulu, with frozen bull semen.”

-Frozen Bull Semen was the name of my band in college–what are the odd?!

Coffee can shrink women’s breasts – Damn you, Starbucks!!

Eternal sunshine of the mouse mind: scientists have developed a way to erase specific memories in mice while leaving others intact.

THE FUNNIES:

Will the wonders of modern science never cease?

Astrologists predicted the market crash? So did I. And without the aid of magic powers

New Jersey newspaper, The Star-Ledger, reported about how astrologers predicted the stock market crash and went into all the wacko astrology terms. What they seemed to forget to talk about is that astrology is total and utter nonsense and that such predictions are easy. In fact, back in January, when I inaugurated my first annual list of my own “psychic” predictions for the upcoming year to mock all the “real” psychics’ (oxymoron) predictions for the upcoming year and see if I can outdo them, I too vaguely predicted that the economy would get worse. Given the consistent history of the Bush Administration, it was a NO-BRAINER! But even if it doesn’t it’s very easy to make blanket predictions, especially in groups and especially if you include both general predictions that are very likely with a few highly unlikely ones. This way you’re likely to get at least some predictions right by chance along and people tend to forget the misses. But if one of your more unlikely predictions happens to hit–well then, that’s how you get disciples. And of course, if a prediction comes true much later than you said, you can claim that as a hit too. Example: Months ago, I saw a tabloid headline suggesting Brad and Angelina were having relationship troubles and were considering breaking up. Statistically, marriages have over a 50 percent chance of failing and celebrity marriages or serious relationships have a much higher chance of breaking up, so there’s a good chance that the couple will 1 day split. And if/when it does, is there any doubt the tabloids won’t take credit for predicting it even though they pretty much make that prediction every single week. Here’s another funny example:

And here’s what he came up with:

News From Around The Blogosphere 10.13.08

The dangers of the flu and the need for flu vaccines – On average, 36,000 Americans of all ages die of flu complications each year. This article also discusses other serious dangers of not getting a flu vaccine.

Another 2 bloggers are added to the Science-Based Medicine blog – After adding Dr. Val Jones (whose other new blog is Getting Better With Dr. Val) to the blog last week, SBM is adding Dr. Peter Lipson aka PalMD of the Denialism blog and David J. Kroll, Ph.D., who’s “a natural products cancer researcher who studies plant-derived compounds as potential treatments for cancer.” I already regularly read the Denialism blog, so I’m a fan of PalMD already but I also look forward to reading Val Jones’ and David J. Kroll’s perspectives.

Identifying fake diseases

The case against homeopathy

The natives of Poyue, China claim that just being there adds years to your life – Poyue and villages in the surrounding region comprise a so-called “longevity cluster.” They allege to have people who are 113 years old living in the region. Although I haven’t researched this issue, the article suggests that the scientific consensus is skeptical. And this would hardly be the first time a people have claimed to possess some form of the timeless elixir of life. (Thanks Brian)

Christopher Hitchens is voting Obama! Yea! – When it comes to the religious criticism you’ll find few, if any, better at smacking down religionists than Christopher Hitchens. He has proven time and time again to have earned his placement among that exclusive club many have dubbed The Four Horsemen of Atheism (The other 3 horsemen being Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett). But when it comes to politics, I frequently disagree with Hitchens, who’s a Republican, albeit more of a Goldwater Republican. Now Hitchens has written an article that says McCain lacks the character and temperament to be president and calls Palin a disgrace.

Baseball players relying on magic amulets? – A bunch of baseball players are apparently wearing Phiten necklaces, said to promote pain relief and enhance performance through improved circulation and stress reduction. Of course there is no medical proof the Phiten necklaces actually work, though. The FDA does not approve the therapeutic claims made by the company and many doctors have said there is no indication that titanium affects performance.

This is very similar to the obscenely-priced sham product known as a Q-Link that James Randi has written a great deal about . This latest product seems like just another variation on the same pseudo-scientific theme. (Thanks Brian)

PZ Myers briefly reviews, Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne

A review of Godless by Dan Barker – Barker is a former evangelical preacher of the same crazy denomination that Sarah Palin belongs to. And now he’s the head of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

And on a related note, how to de-convert the religious – Greta Christina asked her readers what finally convinced them to stop believing. Some of the answers are surprising.

You’ve heard of phantom limb syndrome? How about phantom erections? – Just because you’ve had sexual reassignment surgery and had your penis removed doesn’t mean mean you can’t have a hard-on.

Premature evacuation? Blame the genes

900-Pound Squid Joins Cast Of The View –

“We feel that the squid brings a fresh new point of view to the program,” said View executive producer and host Barbara Walters. “We looked at hundreds of potential candidates, but in the end, this rare and exotic creature from the darkest depths of the sea truly stood out.”

“And as far as we can tell, it is a female,” Walters added.

The 900-pound cephalopod from the family Architeuthidae joins cohosts Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, and Sherri Shepherd.

Sherri Shepherd still remains the only co-host who’s uncertain of whether or not the Earth is round.

AND NOW FOR A MOMENT OF SCIENCE:

Unique Fossils Capture ‘Cambrian Migration’ – “A unique set of fossils indicates that 525 million years ago marine animals congregated in Earth’s ancient oceans, most likely for migration, according to an international team of scientists.”

Baldness Gene Discovered: 1 In 7 Men At Risk – “Researchers at McGill University, King’s College London and GlaxoSmithKline Inc. have identified two genetic variants in Caucasians that together produce an astounding sevenfold increase the risk of male pattern baldness.”

News From Around The Blogosphere 10.9.08

A collection of analyzes of many studies proving Vitamin C doesn’t cure cancer

Mark Crislip rains on Parade – A little over a week ago, I blogged about my intention to write Parade Magazine for a particularly credulous story they ran that recommended acupuncture among other crap-based medicine. Well, I never got around to it. Fortunately Mark Crislip tore them a new one. Great job, Mark!

NY Times endorses dowsing – I hope they got a good price for that journalist integrity. Maybe the subject of this article would care to take the Randi Million Dollar Challenge.

Speaking of Randi, I’m going to get to see the amazing one in person tomorrow in NYC.

And Randi’s annual skeptic’s convention is also the focus of the latest Captain Disillusion video:

Voodoo! – George Ann Mills, a South Carolina voodoo high priestess, is alleging that Annette Kesting, an Atlanta, Georgia county commissioner, tried to pay her to cast curses on a political rival and bounced checks in the process.

WHAT’S THE HARM?

Attempted Witch Burning – Darin Najor, a 20-year-old adult education student in Michigan, has been charged with assault and battery after dousing his teacher with holy water and trying to burn her with a lighter because he thought she was a witch. Amateur Scientist points out:

Nor does he understand how to properly burn a witch. If someone’s wet, you’re going to have a hard time burning him or her. Yes, even if the water is holy.

For more info. on this story, click here.

The Amateur Scientist blog is now banned in China

Campus Crusade For Christ is raising money to buy supplies for the soldiers – So what are they buying? Armor? No. Guns? No. Bullets? Food? No. Medical equipment? Anything even remotely useful? No. Just useless Bibles.

Sydney Atheists doing charity work in the name of reason

ATHEIST DISCRIMINATION:

Those Evil Humanists – The Humanists and Freethinkers of Cape Fear in North Carolina set up a booth about Humanism and Freethinking at an annual street festival. Someone noticed a sign directed right at them at a local church nearby (and God’s a terrible spell checker):

Richard Dawkins named one of the 50 people who wrecked Britain! WOOO!!! – This critical document was produce by some random guy named Quentin Letts, who clearly has been granted special authority on these matters. And to think I didn’t even know Britain was wrecked? Funny, in all my exchanges with friends living in Britain, not one of them has ever mentioned that Britain is wrecked.

Review of The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality by Andre Comte-Sponville

Christian reality dating show – I can’t beat the comment on Skepchick: “Get advice from a twice-divorced Pentecostal minister who plead guilty to assaulting one of his ex-wives! What better source could there be? ”

Browse the artifacts of Geek History in Jay Walker’s library – Coolest library ever!

MONKEY NEWS:

Monkey waiters – In America we only have to compete with Indians and Mexicans for jobs. The Japanese are losing their jobs to monkeys! It’s a mad house. A MAD HOUSE! Damn, dirty primates!

AND NOW FOR A MOMENT OF SCIENCE:

Circadian Clock May Be Critical For Learning – “The circadian rhythm that quietly pulses inside us all, guiding our daily cycle from sleep to wakefulness and back to sleep again, may be doing much more than just that simple metronomic task, according to Stanford researchers.

Working with Siberian hamsters, biologist Norman Ruby has shown that having a functioning circadian system is critical to the hamsters’ ability to remember what they have learned. Without it, he said, ‘They can’t remember anything.’ “

Computers ‘Taught’ To Search For Photos – “A pair of Penn State researchers has developed a statistical approach, called Automatic Linguistic Indexing of Pictures in Real-Time (ALIPR), that one day could make it easier to search the Internet for photographs.”

Genome Of Relapsing Malaria Parasite Decoded – “In research aimed at addressing a global epidemic, a team of scientists from around the world has cracked the genetic code for the parasite that is responsible for up to 40 percent of the 515 million annual malaria infections worldwide, Nature reveals in its October 9 cover story.”

News From Around The Blogosphere 10.6.08

The Turk

Defining A.I. – On October 12 the Loebner Prize for Artificial Intelligence will conduct a formal Turing test of six machines to determine if through the use of complex algorithms if the machines can simulate human conversation so well that testers will not be able to distinguish the machine from an actual human when engaging in a text conversation back and forth. There is a link to a site that displays 2 text conversations, 1 where the subject is talking to a human and the other where they’re talking to a machine. So far it’s very easy to tell which is which but in time that may be much harder, which raises the question of what would real artificial intelligence entail.

THIS DAY IN GOD:

Insecure minds wired for pattern-finding – Another study shows causation between uncertainty or insecurity and seeing patterns that aren’t necessarily really there.

Saudi cleric thinks women showing two eyes is just too seductive, and has called for women to wear a full veil that reveals only one eye.

Rev. Dr. Peter Mullen recommends homosexual practices be discouraged “after the style of warnings on cigarette packets” – He also added:

“Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan SODOMY CAN SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH and their chins with FELLATIO KILLS.”

Oo, what if instead we tatooed numbers on their arms and threw them into concentration camps until such time as we can shove them into ovens and gas chambers? Don’t worry; it’s cool. Now he says many of his “dear friends” are gay and he was only joking. Yeah, I bet.

ATHEIST DISCRIMINATION & DENIGRATION:

Hank Fox has quit his job at a newspaper because they ran an unnecessary quote, in spite of his protests that it was blatant bigotry against atheists:

The final anecdote of the article was about his plane getting shot down, and one quote the reporter used was him saying something like “My co-pilot was an atheist before, but he’s been a good Christian ever since.”

I flagged the quote with a note to my immediate editor: “Ahem. If this quote said ‘My co-pilot was a Jew before, but he’s been a good Christian ever since,’ would we even think about including it?”

In my head was a very clear understanding that the quote was a serious insult to a certain demographic. I happen to be one, in this case, but I would certainly have flagged the line if it was that equivalent quote about a Jew being converted by the experience into being a Christian, even though I’m not a Jew. If it said “My co-pilot was a black man before, but this scared him white,” I would’ve brought it up, even though I don’t happen to be black. If the story made a similar statement about a gay or lesbian, or a handicapped person, I would have flagged it. . . Hey, if it’s vital factual information, it goes into the newspaper no matter whose nose gets out of joint. But if it’s just casual insults or jokes that you know in advance will offend, you just don’t throw it in with the attitude of “what the hell, screw ‘em.”

Here’s another great excerpt from his blog:

Atheists today face discrimination so subtle, so pervasive, that it doesn’t even have a name.

It’s rare to hear stories like this in the modern age of someone taking a stand like that against injustice. If I had some sort of Golden Cajones Award or something, I’d give it to him.

In Defense of ‘Militant’ Atheism part 2

SPACE ALIEN NEWS:

First, this would be a good time to remind people that October 14 is the day UFOs are supposed to reach Alabama, according to Australian actress, writer, and part-time “psychic channeler” Blossom Goodchild. I can’t wait to see the post-hoc rationalizations to explain away an epic fail.

Carl Sagan’s name reclaimed – Last month I blogged about The Carl Sagan Institute of UFOlogy, a bunch of Brazilian UFO nuts who claimed not only that Jesus is a flying saucer pilot but that Sagan was a secret believer in alien visitations. Well now they’ve removed Sagan’s name from their title and replaced it with Galileo for some reason.

Cryptoastronautics – The following video is commonly passed around by UFO believers as proof that aliens have visited our world. But there are far more plausible explanations for the video:

EPIC FAIL!

Astrology and Jell-O – Stuart Buck persists in claiming that scientists have a bias against the supernatural, and that we dismiss it out of hand. Here is just 1 example of why he’s wrong. This is actually the story of an old epic fail. It involves skeptic Robert Grumbine testing a specific claim made by astrologer, Thomas Seers involving Bill Cosby’s favorite brand of gelatin. And well, Grumbine falsified Seers’ stupid hypothesis. But maybe this instance just happened to occur while Mercury was in retrograde, so maybe that’s why the astrologer was made to look like an idiot.

Jenny McCarthy gets Rickroll’d – As previously reported, Jenny was going to be involved in a web chat after her latest Oprah appearance where she’d answer people’s questions. As predicted, no actual hardball questions got through but she did not escape being punked with a Rickroll. In case you don’t know, this is what Rickrolling is. LOL. This is freakin’ hilarious:

What do your elected officials think about science? – Find out what your duly elected United States politician thinks about science at the Scientist and Engineers for America website, where they have helpfully listed this info.

Phil Plait’s new book “Death From The Skies!” drops in bookstores in 2 weeks!

AND NOW A MOMENT OF SCIENCE:

‘Engine’ That Drives Cell Movement Discovered – “How a cell assembles its internal machinery required for cell movement has been revealed for the first time.”

Quarter Of World’s Mammals Risk Extinction – “The most comprehensive assessment of the world’s mammals has confirmed an extinction crisis, with almost one in four at risk of disappearing forever, according to The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™, revealed at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona.”

Alaskan Glaciers Are Retreating, Thinning – “Most glaciers in every mountain range and island group in Alaska are experiencing significant retreat, thinning or stagnation, especially glaciers at lower elevations, according to a new book published by the U.S. Geological Survey. In places, these changes began as early as the middle of the 18th century.”

HPV And Cancer, HIV Discoveries Win Nobel Prize – The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has today decided to award The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2008 with one half to: Harald zur Hausen for his discovery of “human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer” and the other half jointly to Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier for their discovery of “human immunodeficiency virus.”

Earliest Footprints: Animals Walked Sooner – “The fossilized trail of an aquatic creature suggests that animals walked using legs at least 30 million years earlier than had been thought. The tracks — two parallel rows of small dots, each about 2 millimeters in diameter — date back some 570 million years, to the Ediacaran period.”

Birds Have ‘Thumbs,’ Alligator Gene Study Hints – “Bird wings only have three fingers, having evolved from remote ancestors that, like humans and most reptiles, had five fingers. Biologists have typically used embryology to identify the evolutionary origin (homology) of structures; the three fingers of the bird wing develop from cartilage condensations that are found in the same positions in the embryo as fingers two, three and four of humans (the index, middle and ring fingers). However, the morphology of the fingers of early birds such as Archaeopteryx corresponds to that of fingers one, two and three in other reptiles (thumb, index and middle finger). The fossil record clearly shows that fingers four and five (ring and pinky finger) were lost and reduced in the dinosaur ancestors of birds.”

Another bad day for Young Earth Creationists.

News From Around The Blogosphere 10.3.08

WHAT’S THE HARM?

Another child has died because his parents put faith ahead of common sense –

Their son, 16-year-old Neil Jeffrey Beagley, died June 17 of complications from a urinary-tract blockage. A deputy state medical examiner said the boy apparently suffered for years from the intensely painful but medically treatable condition. . . Some of those present told police that Neil Beagley, despite his prolonged suffering, chose faith healing over medical care. . .After Beagley died, a medical examiner ruled his death could have been prevented had his family taken him to a doctor. Based upon findings from the grand jury, the Clackamas County Circuit Court issued arrest warrants Wednesday for Jeffrey Dean Beagley and Marci Rae Beagley in connection with their son’s death.

A 16-year-old is dead from a medically treatable condition and his parents are facing charges of “criminally negligent homicide.” And this is not uncommon:

According to a 1998 analysis by The Oregonian, at least 21 of the dozens of children buried since the 1950s in the Followers of Christ church cemetery south of Oregon City could have been saved by medical intervention. None of the deaths from that era resulted in prosecution.

And in Uganda, spiritual healing promoted by several Pentecostal churches has endangered the lives of many HIV-positive Africans told to forego their medications in favor of a miracle from God.

This is the harm caused by superstition and magical thinking. And this is why we fight.

HOMOPHOBIA NEWS:

Would you vote for this guy for political office?

“A young man asked me what I think of homosexual marriages and I said I think homosexuals should be executed,” he said. “My whole reason for running is the Bible and the Bible couldn’t be more clear on that point.”

This is a quote from David Popescu, and he yes, he’s really running for public office in Canada in the year 2008. Oh, and this is what he told high school students. Now the local police are apparently investigating whether or not he committed a hate crime and that bothers me. Yes, the guy is ignorant, delusional asshole but I happen to believe that being an ignorant, delusional asshole is not a crime. Nor is saying stupid things. At least not in the U.S. I’m a bit fuzzy on the laws in Canada. But in the U.S., the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution protects unpopular and offensive speech. And since this was not stated over the airwaves, had this taken place in the U.S. the FCC wouldn’t be able to fine him for obscenity. So this looks like another example of the self-appointed watchdogs of decency taking political correctness too far and infringing upon free speech. It is good to hear though that the students called for him to be “cut off.”

Candidates and teachers looked on in silence as students called for him to be “cut off.” Despite their outrage, the discussion moved to other topics.

My question is, why didn’t the faculty do anything? Since he began his little hate speech with a prayer in public school, someone should have stepped up right from the get-go and warned him to either skip the proselytizing or get the fuck out of the public school. But even if they hadn’t acted earlier, they should have cut him off and kicked him out long before the students called for such action. Apparently though, the board has now banned Popescu from future events.

The truth about Mercy Ministries of America – It’s said to be a Christian-based rehabilitation home for “young women who are seeking freedom from life-controlling problems.”

Entrusting their recovery to untrained counselors barely out of Bible college, the Mercy girls said that exorcisms and speaking in tongues took the place of treatment, that expulsion was the punishment for peeing without permission, and that DVDs featuring the testimony of former gays were peddled as a cure for lesbianism.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Mercy Ministries believes that bulimia, depression, self-mutilation, and unplanned pregnancies are all just symptomatic of the Devil’s work.

Alcorn admonished girls for wearing their hair short, despite keeping her owns locks in a shoulder-length bob. If girls got too close they were forced to sign a separation contract that prevented them from being alone together. Mercy didn’t advertise itself as a gay-repair ministry, but some girls enrolled to be cured of their “disease.”

Here’s a clip relating to another woman’s story about these kinds of ex-gay ministries:

Psychics predicted Palin wouldn’t do well in VP debate – “Overall, the consensus among the psychics was that the presidential race has at times been too unpredictable for them.” Wow, I’d hate to think what would happen if we didn’t have psychics to give us these important pieces of information.

This year’s Ig Nobel Award winners announced – For those who don’t know the Ig Nobel Awards, they award ten achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” For instance, here’s one of the winners:

“MEDICINE: Dan Ariely for demonstrating that expensive fake medicine is more effective than cheap fake medicine.”

No letter beginning, “I am more or less aware of your writings and ideology” can turn out very well – Apparently, those Islamic creationist fucktards in Turkey, the Science Research Foundation,  founded by Adnan Oktar want to have an email debate with PZ Myers to show how wonderfully open to free speech and scientific inquiry they are. PZ’s response is awesome:

NO.

Oktar is a crook, a fraud, a liar, and a man completely ignorant of the most basic concepts of science. There is no more point to my engaging him than already have, so why should I grant him the privilege of treating him as an equal? He hasn’t earned it.

Who’s to blame for the malfunctions with Hubble and the Large Hadron Collider? The planet Mercury of course. Duh! Remember?

Wow, this is the stupidest thing I’ve heard all day.

AND NOW FOR A MOMENT OF SCIENCE:

‘Little Bang’ Triggered Solar System Formation – “For several decades, scientists have thought that the Solar System formed as a result of a shock wave from an exploding star—a supernova—that triggered the collapse of a dense, dusty gas cloud that contracted to form the Sun and the planets. But detailed models of this formation process have only worked under the simplifying assumption that the temperatures during the violent events remained constant.

Now, astrophysicists at the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM) have shown for the first time that a supernova could indeed have triggered the Solar System’s formation under the more likely conditions of rapid heating and cooling.”

Plastic Contaminants Linked To Health Risks – “Exposure to Bisphenol A (BPA), phthalates and flame retardants (PBDEs) are strongly associated with adverse health effects on humans and laboratory animals. A special section in the October 2008 issue of Environmental Research — “A Plastic World” — provides critical new research on environmental contaminants and adverse reproductive and behavioral effects.”

Bacterial Cell’s ‘Crisis Command Center’ Seen – “A bacteria cell’s ‘crisis command centre’ has been observed for the first time swinging into action to protect the cell from external stress and danger, according to new research published in Science.”

News From Around The Blogosphere 9.23.08

Call Jenny 867-5309 – No, not that Jenny. I mean Jenny McCarthy, The Witless Witch of the West. She’ll be on the Oprah Woo Woo Show and is going to be available live for a web chat tomorrow evening at 7 PM CDT. If you intend to call think very carefully about the question. Commenters on Orac’s much more popular blog linked to above are posting question suggestions. Here are 3 super uncritical clips from that show airing tomorrow available at anti-vaccinationist Kim Stagliano’s blog. Jim Carey’s final line in the 3 clip couldn’t be more apt to his situation: “Love can kill you if you make the wrong choices.”

Sam Harris rips Sarah Palin a new one in Newsweek

Islamic assault on human rights

Jewish ‘ultras’ defend morals with menace

Gianna Jessen survived an abortion attempt and is now a pro-life advocate shamelessly attacking Barack Obama – As to why this constitutes as news on Faux News is even more shameless:

Sometimes the harm done because of magical thinking is done to the pseudoscientists themselves – “Biologist-turned- nutty-parapsychologist Rupert Sheldrake was stabbed in the leg earlier this year by Kazuki Hirano, a Japanese day laborer who had been stalking Sheldrake after believing he was the victim of mind control experiments.”

CREATIONIST NEWS:

A review of Christopher Hitchens’ most recent theist-crushing – Hitchens debated against Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete, a physicist, theologian, and author of God at the Ritz: Attraction to Infinity. And it seems that unsurprisingly he kicked his Albacete’s ass. I expect the debate will probably make it to YouTube soon enough.

Last week, I mentioned that creationist Bill Lucas was going to be speaking at Virginia Tech. Well he gave his talk and guess what? It turns out he’s at best totally full of it and at worst, crazy.

New excavation reveals Stonehenge was once a miracle healing destination – Not surprisingly, no real healing actually seems to have taken place there.

UK Cathedral seminar to equip clerics to deal with Dawkins

Atheists reading holy tests out loud for charity

Cleanliness is far from godliness – A little dirt is a good thing

Did Neanderthals Pray? part 2

Will anyone buy Expelled on DVD? Anyone? Anyone? – That’s right, the little creationist propaganda film that proved that Ben Stein doesn’t use “Clear Eyes” that nobody saw is coming to DVD. Jimmy cracked corn and I don’t care. But I figured I use this as yet another opportunity to plug the website that totally debunks the claims in the film, ExpelledExposed.com

EPIC FAIL:

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway’s logical fallacy in The Wall Street Journal – Hemingway’s idea of a logical argument is to cite a Baylor University study that vaguely suggests religious people are less likely to believe in other pseudosciences or paranormal claims to make her case that skeptics and atheists do more harm than good by trying to teach people how to think critically. Of course it doesn’t seem to occur to her that the reason the religious tend not to believe in other forms of pseudoscience or paranormal claims is because often the specific beliefs of the religion demand mutually exclusivity. For instance, fundamental Christians must reject psychics as at best charlatans and at worst devil worshipers. Religions are very good at keeping their parishioners away from the competition.

NEWS I SHOULD HAVE MENTIONED BEFORE NOW:

James “The Amazing” Randi is giving a talk in NYC – I will definitely be there with bells on (I haven’t decided whether these are to be literal or figurative bells yet). If you can come, this is not to be missed. There’s a reason they call him “The Amazing.” Oh, and it’s FREE.

New skeptical-friendly show, The Mentalist, coming to CBS – The main character is a guy who uses his keen observational skills to solve crimes. He used to make money pretending to be a psychic but then went straight. Sounds a little like the show Psych. Though it’s also received lots of comparisons to House.

AND NOW FOR A MOMENT OF SCIENCE:

New Optics Technology To Study Alien Worlds – “NASA Goddard scientist Rick Lyon has been working on potential missions and technologies to find planets around other stars (called exoplanets or extrasolar planets) since the late 1980s. Only recently has he begun to believe that NASA may actually fly a planet-finding mission in his lifetime.”

Why Chemo Works For Some People And Not Others – “MIT researchers have shown that cells from different people don’t all react the same way when exposed to the same DNA-damaging agent — a finding that could help clinicians predict how patients will respond to chemotherapy.”

Primordial Fish Had Rudimentary Fingers – “Tetrapods, the first four-legged land animals, are regarded as the first organisms that had fingers and toes. Now researchers at Uppsala University can show that this is wrong. Using medical x-rays, they found rudiments of fingers in the fins in fossil Panderichthys, the “transitional animal,” which indicates that rudimentary fingers developed considerably earlier than was previously thought.”