Recapitulations on the Descent of Man

The "Evilution" test

2011-12-11T12:00:00.007-10:00

Saw a link to this on pz myers site and thought it would be fun to answer the questions off the top of my head.

This test is from a creationist website linked below.
http://missinguniversemuseum.com/Evtest.htm

Evolution Test

Students, give this test to your teachers. When they fail it, ask them why they are teaching this nonsense!

Teachers, give this test to your students if you really want them to know the truth about evolution!

1. Which evolved first, male or female?
Most single celled organisms don't have male or female, they reproduce by asexual reproduction and do forms of gene transfer. I know that some protozoans reproduce by producing reproductive cells that are not morphologically distinct and can fuse with each other. I guess if we are going by the def. of male=sperm-like-gamete and female=egg-like-gamete, I would guess female/hermaphrodite, because it is most likely that sperm-like cells evolved in organisms that could produce both motile gametes and egg-like gametes, if you want to be pedantic sperm-like cells came from female like egg-gametes.

2. How many millions of years elapsed between the first male and first female?
That's a hard one and I don't know the answer and I bet that no one does, but here is a guess, if we are talking about the physical separation of the sexes male and female into organisms which only produce either male or female gametes, then that exists in early plants, such as mosses. There are male, female, and male-female mosses, so my guess is plants probably evolved this feature relatively quickly, i'm guessing a couple million years. Animals seem to have independently evolved male female separation cnidarians and ctenophores have some species that have distinct sexual forms, which most likely evolved rapidly just as in plants I'd say in a couple million years, but I am not sure if animal male-female separation evolved before plant male-female separation. Actually the questions wording can be taken literally and would mean that the first female was ~1 billion of years before a male, or that depending on your def. of a female, you can't have a male without a female so they came out from hermaphrodite progenitors in a single generation.

3. List at least 9 of the false assumptions made with radioactive dating methods.
False assumptions is a tricky term, this question is based on a false assumption, it assumes that radioactive dating is based on incorrect assumptions. I would argue that radioactive dating is based on, not false assumptions, but known and acceptable assumptions.

4. Why hasn't any extinct creature re-evolved after millions of years?
This can be done in lab, if you consider bacteria a creature, you can artificially select for mutants, destroy the mutants after genome sequencing, then artificially select for the same mutants, if you successfully reproduce all of the genomic changes, you would technically re-evolve the "creature" same can be done with species.

5. Which came first:
...the eye,
...the eyelid,
...the eyebrow,
...the eye sockets,
...the eye muscles,
...the eye lashes,
...the tear ducts,
...the brain's interpretation of light?
Light sensing proteins evolved first in single celled organisms without brains multiple times. Light sensing cells evolved in multicellular organisms without nervous systems. Light sensing cells were incorporated into organisms with nervous systems, but still lacking "brains". Light sensing organs (eyes) are present in organisms(cnidarians) without "brains" if by brains we mean centralized nervous systems.

6. How many millions of years between each in question 5?
If we assume that the evolution of eyes in cnidarians was present in ancient cnidarians, I guess we could say 600 mya, so bilaterian fossils are found around 550MYA, which equals 50MY for eye-brain evolution. I'm not answering the rest of the 20 combinations.

7. If we all evolved from a common ancestor, why can't all the different species mate with one another and produce fertile offspring?
This is mostly due to genetic differences. Horses and donkey's can still mate with each other, but their offspring can't. Most dogs, wolves, coyotes and jackals can mate, but some jackals can't mate with other jackals because they have less chromosomes and only mate with their own species. Same thing goes for some salamanders. Heck, some humans can't mate with other humans.

8. List any of the millions of creatures in just five stages of its evolution showing the progression of a new organ of any kind. When you have done this, you can collect the millions of dollars in rewards offered for proof of evolution!
Sure, mullusc eye evolution starting at pigmented light sensing cells, to infolded cup like eyes, to pin hole eyes, to semi-lens eye, to lens covered eyes. And, hopefully all the people who studied these features of eye evolution in mulluscs received their millions of dollars of funds for a job well done.

9. Why is it that the very things that would prove Evolution (transitional forms) are still missing?
Some are missing, some are not missing... Dead things decay, unless fossilized, which is a rare occurance.

10. Explain why something as complex as human life could happen by chance, but something as simple as a coin must have a creator. (Show your math solution.)
lol, human life didn't happen by chance, natural selection isn't the same as chance. A coin is actually not simple at all, take a current US penny for example, it is a complex alloy of zinc, copper, etc, with a specific shape and design, In all of the universe a penny has never occurred naturally. As opposed to humans which do occur naturally.

11. Why aren't any fossils or coal or oil being formed today?
They are... Mummies are fossils, coal and oil can be produced from plants.

12. List 50 vestigial or useless organs or appendages in the human body.
I don't think there are 50. I don't think that evolution often selects for vestigial organs, it's survival of the fittest remember, not survival of the inefficient.

13. Why hasn't anyone collected the millions of dollars in rewards for proof of evolution?
Actually, our lab just got a grant to study the evolution of novel cell types for a million dollars. I'd say that at least a billion dollars goes into research into parts of evolution every year, especially if you include parts of medical research.

14. If life began hundreds of millions of years ago, why is the earth still under populated?
Underpopulated in what way? Try to find a single non-artificial space that doesn't have a living organism in it on this planet...

15. Why hasn't evolution duplicated all species on all continents?
All continents are different, different topology, different weather patterns, etc.. Where continents or islands share similarities we see similar animals, wolves and tasmanian tigers, Koala's and sloths, kiwi and dodo.

Work

2010-09-25T16:10:00.002-10:00

Work has taken over so much of my time, I haven't had a chance to post in awhile and I should.

Watch this space.

Transformer War for Cybertron

2010-09-05T17:59:00.002-10:00

This is a great game. It is very similar to gears of war due to the third person shooter aspect of the game. I have played through a bit of the campaign and so far this game is really good. The load times are little to non-existent (at least on my computer). I think that where gears of war went wrong this game went right.

Pros:

1) the graphics are pretty good and seamlessly transition between scenes.

2) The story is nice

3) Megatron is a real asshole

4) Violence, transformers are destroyed left and right.

5) the controls are really easy to get use to.

6) seems to have a decent replay value to it.

Cons:

1) There is no map (or I have not found this function)

2) The story seems like it is missing the first 10,000 years before this game begins. (as the tv show doesn't give us this I have no idea where this game is coming from)

3) I enjoy gaining experience and levels with abilities, this game doesn't seem to incorporate this.

Overall I would rate this game 8.5/10

This looks Awesome

2010-05-24T21:49:00.004-10:00

Dana Carvey is "DARWIN" - watch more funny videos

Wish it was real.

Brian Greene Talks About The Beauty of Science

2010-05-20T08:42:00.005-10:00

Biologists should learn from physicists that the beauty of science does not lay with curing cancer, but in understanding the very nature of who and what we are. Cures and such are necessities but should not take precedence over our basic research programs.

Can a Christian believe in evolution?

2010-04-29T13:16:00.002-10:00

Recently I was sent an article from some sort of UK Christian site with the above title. (HERE) The article goes through with its claim and says that you can be a Christian and believe in evolution. Short answer, yes, yes you can. But not without a cost, a Christian who believes in evolution has to ignore large portions of the bible since evolution (or science in general) is in direct conflict with several major tenants of Christian dogma. (Original sin, god creating the earth, the earth being 6,000 years old, Jesus dying to redeem us of our original sin, Naoh’s flood, the garden of Eden existing)

Normally what we see from Christians who believe in science is that they tend to say ok “most” of science is true, but GOD made it that way. Why? It is because a large portion of these people are too afraid to admit that their deity has no place in modern society and they find the need to cling on to their Neolithic faiths for comfort and security from an uncertain afterlife. A type of behavior that I would classify as being weak, too weak to face reality.

I guess to make my point that a Christian can believe in evolution, we could use a couple of analogies. Can a Mormon believe that native Americans are not Jews? Can a Jehovah’s witness approve of blood transfusions? Can a catholic priest believe in and practice pedophilia? Sure, they can believe all of these things and still claim to be a member of whatever religion they are a part of. It just depends on what their interpretation of their holy dogmas is, how much they ignore literal interpretations of the bible and how they define what a Christian is. We can see this in reality considering there are ~38,000 denominations of Christianity with each of them claiming to be the true version of Christianity with each their own special way to be saved and get to heaven.

Now that I have gone through that claim I have a few gripes with the content of the article.

“Perhaps we should start by defining the term ‘evolution’. Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859 as a theory to explain the origins of biological diversity. And at the time, that’s all it was - a biological theory that Christians were in fact quick to declare as a biblical doctrine of creation.”

The origin of species was a book purporting the theory of evolution to explain the observed bio-diversity and it still is. Biological evolution has not changed, only the methods as to how evolution works has changed since Darwin’s time. And in fact Christians were not quick to declare it as a biblical doctrine of creation, Darwin was mocked, his theory was disregarded by most of the religious scientists at the time (which were 99% of all scientists at the time). The Linnaean society where the original paper by Darwin and Wallace had this to say "The year which has passed has not, indeed, been marked by any of those striking discoveries which at once revolutionize, so to speak, the department of science on which they bear". So in fact the views on evolution were very mixed, some Christians accepted it, most didn’t and continue not to (~50% of Americans today and a large portion of the world’s population do not believe in evolution because of conflicting religious interests).

“Unfortunately, as often happens with the big scientific theories, evolution has become encrusted with all kinds of ideological baggage down the years.

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) was a great populariser of evolution in North America in the latter part of the 19th century, selling 370,000 books, but unfortunately he tried to make evolution into a ‘theory-of-everything’, in which the entire universe was ascending towards ultimate perfection. It was Spencer (not Darwin) who coined the term ‘survival of the fittest’, a notion that was to be misapplied with such terrible consequences by the Kaiser during the First World War and then by Hitler in the Third Reich… But the fact that evolutionary theory has been called upon to justify such a wide range of ideologies as communism, capitalism, racism and militarism, some of them mutually exclusive, should alert us to the dangers of extrapolating scientific theories into arenas in which they actually have little or nothing to say.”

The above statement makes absolutely no sense. Big scientific theories encrusted with ideological baggage? Why even mention Spencer’s Social Darwinism? Social Darwinism has nothing to do with Darwin’s proposed Evolution by Natural Selection. Darwin’s theory of evolution has about as much to do with the first world war, Nazi’s, and communism as gravity has to do with people dying when they jump off of high buildings. Evolution is a fact. Selective breeding works, you can breed for faster horses, bigger cows, all the dogs we see, it works, but, that does not mean that the scientific fact is in anyway responsible for how people behave. Fission and fusion is a property of the universe, it works, setting off nuclear bombs is one use, nuclear power plants another, the sun existing is another.

Mr. Denis R Alexander needs to face reality. If there was no need for a creator of all of life on earth, then what need is their for Christianities creation myths? NONE. Dawkin’s is correct in saying that Darwin’s theory in a way allows atheists to be intellectually fulfilled, I would go one step further and say that every single scientific discovery to date has led to atheists being more intellectually fulfilled. Not one, not even one scientific fact shows any evidence for the supernatural. Why is that? It doesn’t need to be that way. Magic could exist and science would be able to show it, but at this time there is absolutely no evidence for it.

In closing the rest of the article is special pleading. Saying that Christians should believe everything science tells us by claiming that GOD made it that way. With that kind of thinking he has made his position unfalsifiable as anything that science says he can immediately answer with "yes, but GOD did it", and by doing so shows that he is not willing to change his mind (he is close-minded by definition) about the subject, no matter how much evidence is shown to disprove massive portions of the bible he will never stop believing.

“So is it possible to be a Christian and believe in evolution? Certainly, as long as ‘evolution’ refers not to some secular philosophy, but to the biological theory describing how God has created all living things.”

So is it possible to be a Christian and believe in evolution? Certainly, as long as that Christian is willing to ignore the book of genesis and discount all mentions of miracles in the bible.

Fucking Magnets How Do They Work?

2010-04-18T22:16:00.004-10:00

The group the Insane Clown Posse seems to be made up of uneducated fools. It also seems to follow that they practice the religion of a large many rappers, with their outright bigotry, drugs, anti education, violent lyrics, law breaking, gang banging, and immorality all forgiven because they follow their stupid religion at the end of the day.

Where the Wild Irritating Things Are

2010-04-03T23:58:00.003-10:00

Of fond memories and childhood times, this movie ruins it all.

The movie starts out with a psychopathic young child running like a mad man and barking like a dog, if you are already irritated by this boy then turn the film off because you will only end up utterly frustrated and disturbed by the end of the film. This film doesn’t contain a single likable character, normal people should not behave like anything portrayed in this film.

The film follows the story of a young boy named Max. This kid is a great example of a child who has no direction in his life, due to a combination of bad parenting skills and a dead-beat father who deserted his family leaving a mother to bring up a child with obviously faulty genes. The opening scenes say a lot about this film, Max decides to throw snow balls (ice balls) at his sisters friends because she won’t play with him. The snowball fight gets heated and Max’s igloo gets smashed, he then gets upset (why? I don’t know why, considering he started the fight in the first place and should have been willing to accept the consequences) and trashes his sisters room destroying everything in sight. Max really needs some serious psychiatric help because he will probably grow up to be a drug addict, social deviant/criminal, or a serial killer considering how much sociopathic tendencies he shows as a child.

Max then gets angry at his mom for not giving him 100% of her time, even though she is busy trying to get this boy a father, he gets angry again, and jumps on the dinner table, bites his mom, then runs away. He finds a boat, travels to an island filled with a bunch of psychopathic monsters and becomes their king through a string of incoherent stories and lies. The book has Max dreaming up the whole ordeal, but in the movie we are made to believe that Max actually traveled to this island (he never eats or drinks anything even though he was there for about a week). Max gets the monsters (who all are suppose to resemble characters from Max’s life, even though there was little to no character development leading the viewer to guess as to who is who) to follow his ill forbidden advice, which leads to all of the monsters but one hating him and wanting to kill and eat him. From scenes of utter danger (trees getting blown up, rocks being hurled, dirt being thrown in sizes to decapitate a grown human) and ignorant stupidity to dismemberment and physical harm (this film glorifies physical harm and makes it seem that ripping off limbs and hitting people is “Good Fun”) this movie has it all. But what I find most disturbing is the absence of any type of resolution, the relationship problems which present themselves in the film are never resolved, which led me to feel lost and almost cheated at the end. The little boy learns no lesson in the end and will continue down his path to self destruction.

The cinematography of wide screen shoots of the environment and musical score is also an obvious rip off of Japanese feature films. But, it worked because people who are ignorant of this would never notice.

The one thing a person can learn from this film is that if your child behaves like this, DO SOMETHING QUICK because if you don’t he will be spending his time in a gutter scoring cocaine for tricks.

I would like to thank the directors and writers of this film for ruining one of my favorite childhood books with this disgrace of a film.

Addendum: I have come to realize that if you are able to relate to the protagonist of the film then this could be a very meaningful and emotional film. But, if you don't have someone who likes the movie to explain to you why they feel connected to the movie then I would still stick clear of it.

In Defense of Evil

2010-04-02T20:57:00.002-10:00

Why religion poisons the world.

On the Evolution of Cooperation

2010-03-16T00:25:00.006-10:00

A recent paper has been published in the journal of Evolution that shows the evolution of cooperation between two separate species of bacteria. The importance of this paper is that it provides experimental evidence to the previously theorized factors that need to be in place for cooperation to evolve.

(i) directed reciprocation--cooperation with individuals who give in return; (ii) shared genes--cooperation with relatives (e.g., kin selection); and (iii) byproduct benefits

An intriguing hypothesis brought forth by (Sachs et al. 2004) suggests that the "excretion of waste products may provide a mechanism for the initiation of reciprocation." Which the paper experimentally shows and if the model holds true in other cases it could explain much of the symbiosis that we see in organisms (Rhizobium, Corals, etc...). It is not difficult to understand the relationships set by Trivers reciprocal altruism where costs and benefits are weighted against the likely-hood of repayment. ( W > C/B )

"Individuals that pay a cost to help their partners will only spread in a population if they get more of the benefits from the partner than do individuals that do not pay the cost of helping."

Individual selection is used to evolve cooperation and symbiosis. It is a whole other level to propose the selection of cooperative groups as being anyhow a part of symbiosis. It does not to me seem like the case of the fixation of alleles within a group of cooperators can benefit the group without first benefiting the individual. Although an interesting model proposed as fits my own criteria and deserves further notice to see if it is actually valid for the evolution of cooperation.

A simple model of group selection works as follows (51). A populationis subdivided into groups. Cooperators help others in theirown group. Defectors do not help. Individuals reproduce proportionalto their payoff. Offspring are added to the same group. If agroup reaches a certain size, it can split into two. In thiscase, another group becomes extinct in order to constrain thetotal population size. Note that only individuals reproduce,but selection emerges on two levels. There is competition betweengroups because some groups grow faster and split more often.In particular, pure cooperator groups grow faster than puredefector groups, whereas in any mixed group, defectors reproducefaster than cooperators. Therefore, selection on the lower level(within groups) favors defectors, whereas selection on the higherlevel (between groups) favors cooperators. This model is basedon "group fecundity selection," which means that groups of cooperatorshave a higher rate of splitting in two. We can also imaginea model based on "group viability selection," where groups ofcooperators are less likely to go extinct.
In the mathematically convenient limit of weak selection andrare group splitting, we obtain a simple result (51): If n isthe maximum group size and m is the number of groups, then groupselection allows evolution of cooperation, provided that ( b/c>1 +(n/m) )

Five Rules for the Evolution of Cooperation Martin A. Nowak (8 December 2006)
Science 314 (5805), 1560. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1133755]

But for now I am happy that individual selection can potentially explain a significant proportion of the cooperation and potential symbiosis that we observe in the wild.

ABSTRACT:

Cooperation violates the view of "nature red in tooth and claw" that prevails in our understanding of evolution, yet examples of cooperation abound. Most work has focused on maintenance of cooperation within a single species through mechanisms such as kin selection. The factors necessary for the evolutionary origin of aiding unrelated individuals such as members of another species have not been experimentally tested. Here, I demonstrate that cooperation between species can be evolved in the laboratory if (1) there is preexisting reciprocation or feedback for cooperation, and (2) reciprocation is preferentially received by cooperative genotypes. I used a two species system involving Salmonella enterica ser. Typhimurium and an Escherichia coli mutant unable to synthesize an essential amino acid. In lactose media Salmonella consumes metabolic waste from E. coli, thus creating a mechanism of reciprocation for cooperation. Growth in a spatially structured environment assured that the benefits of cooperation were preferentially received by cooperative genotypes. Salmonella evolved to aid E. coli by excreting a costly amino acid, however this novel cooperation disappeared if the waste consumption or spatial structure were removed. This study builds on previous work to demonstrate an experimental origin of interspecific cooperation, and to test the factors necessary for such interactions to arise.

P.S. It seems to be the case that poop is oddly an important player in the evolution of many species CoEvolution. (Jerry Coynes Blog: Pitcher plant evolves to be shrew loo)

William Harcombe (2010) NOVEL COOPERATION EXPERIMENTALLY EVOLVED BETWEEN SPECIES. Evolution. 21 Jan 2010. DOI: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2010.00959

Why is this in Nature?

2010-03-02T23:20:00.005-10:00

Sure this is great science, but does this really deserve to be in Nature? This concept is almost universally accepted within the biological community and has been since the 70's.

Antagonistic coevolution accelerates molecular evolution

The Red Queen hypothesis proposes that coevolution of interacting species (such as hosts and parasites) should drive molecular evolution through continual natural selection for adaptation and counter-adaptation1, 2, 3. Although the divergence observed at some host-resistance4, 5, 6 and parasite-infectivity7, 8, 9 genes is consistent with this, the long time periods typically required to study coevolution have so far prevented any direct empirical test. Here we show, using experimental populations of the bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25 and its viral parasite, phage Φ2 (refs 10, 11), that the rate of molecular evolution in the phage was far higher when both bacterium and phage coevolved with each other than when phage evolved against a constant host genotype. Coevolution also resulted in far greater genetic divergence between replicate populations, which was correlated with the range of hosts that coevolved phage were able to infect. Consistent with this, the most rapidly evolving phage genes under coevolution were those involved in host infection. These results demonstrate, at both the genomic and phenotypic level, that antagonistic coevolution is a cause of rapid and divergent evolution, and is likely to be a major driver of evolutionary change within species.

Paterson, S., Vogwill, T., Buckling, A., Benmayor, R., Spiers, A.J., Thomson, N.R., Quail, M., Smith, F., Walker, D., Libberton, B., Fenton, A., Hall, N., Brockhurst, M.A. (2010) Antagonistic coevolution accelerates molecular evolution. Nature. 2010 Feb 24. [Epub ahead of print] [doi:10.1038/nature08798]

Miracle of Lanciano Again, 2 years later....

2010-02-25T21:05:00.006-10:00

Ok so I am re-uploading this paper.

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B9kNbgL3NNN1YTdmYzQ0ZTUtNjAxMS00NWI3LTgwOTgtOWMyNzgzOGY4MTNj&hl=en

there, now I hope that this link doesn't go bad because I get lazy and won't check it for a while again.

Now for the people who keep claiming that this was a miracle. What are you claiming is a miracle? The blood and tissue samples were decayed with significant amounts of contaminants in both. No blood cells were found just trace amounts of proteins and unusual amounts of minerals.

Do any of you know what fresh blood looks like? While you are pretending to have stigmata why don't you look at that fresh blood you have cut out of yourselves under a microscope.

Above is what you should see

.
not that

Link to original post: here

The Accomodationists Divide

2010-02-23T23:50:00.003-10:00

Accomodationists put forth the idea that science and religion are compatible. At the crux of the argument is the fact that several prominent scientists (Ken Miller, Francis Collins) are religious. The accomodationists would have us believe that because there are religious scientists therefore religion and science are compatible. Guess what, NO. Now, let us see why.

Science is in the practice of empiricism, testing hypothesis, experimentation, and independent validation. While religion (which depending on what you define religion as) is in the practice of belief without evidence, a priori reasoning, revelation, and faith.

Some religions such as the Abrahamic religions purport facts about the world that are in direct conflict with science (6000 year old earth, efficacy of prayer...). These are obviously incompatible with science.

While it is possible to come up with a religion that does not come into complete conflict with scientific facts such as the theoretical "last Thursdayism" (where a person believes in a God who created the world last Thursday with the light from stars on it's way, thoughts planted in our heads and things in their current places), but guess what last Thursdayism is an untestable hypothesis therefore, NOT SCIENCE.

Anyway you look at it a scientists who is religious does not practice science when he/she is practicing their religion. So, until a specific religion provides evidence and testable hypothesis for it's claims that are demonstrably true, religion and science will remain incompatible.

Science organizations such as the NSF, NSCE, NAS should not be in the business of telling religious people that their religions are compatible with science, otherwise known as "lying for science". It is not only dishonest and obviously false, it creates a negative atmosphere where people are not made to confront their false beliefs head on. If a person is told that his beliefs are compatible with science when they are not, what is the probability that this person will even question the validity of their beliefs? Science organizations should not be in the business of taking theological positions and should remain indifferent to religious beliefs and just promote science, instead of telling religious people what to believe.

On the Intellectual Stance of Bible Literalists

2010-02-21T22:40:00.002-10:00

It has been stated by several people (Coyne, Myers, Dawkins) that bible literalists are more intellectually honest than their liberal counterparts. But, is there any truth to this claim? On the opposite side of the spectrum others have fired back with the claim that “All Christian believers pick and choose”, which they claim negates the above statement that bible literalists are more intellectually honest than liberal theologians. So what do we make of this apparent contradiction? Well, it is obvious that what bible literalists believe is different than their modern liberal counterparts, but, do these beliefs make them more intellectually honest?

Intellectual honesty is defined as “consistency” in this instance. The broad definition of intellectual honesty is sometimes put forth as “The willingness to have our certainties about the world constrained by good evidence and good argument.” The broad definition is obviously not applicable to our purposes, considering that there is no good evidence or good arguments for believing in religious beliefs, so we will focus on consistency. Consistency could be looked at as a measure of degree, such as, the degree to which bible literalists believe the word of God to be true.

Considering that the bible is full of internal contradictions and inconsistencies it is unlikely that a true “bible literalist” could even exist, although it is possible for a person to hold two contradictory beliefs as true within their heads due to the complex nature of our CNS, so such a possibility is not truly out of the question. Let’s take an easy example: there are two creation stories within the book of Genesis, now then, which believer is more consistent than the other, a bible literalist who claims that God created the earth 6000 years ago according to either one of these creation stories or a moderate believer who sees both of these accounts as metaphor? What about a moderate believer that sees Christ’s virgin birth as a metaphor, and the literalist who sees it as a statement of fact? The point I am trying to get at is that a bible literalist obviously takes a much larger degree of the bible as fact, while the moderate believer is forced to concede their beliefs in a much more wishy-washy method.

But, what about certain laws in the bible that obviously most people who label themselves as bible literalists do not actively follow? Such as, “Luke 6:30: Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back.”, or “Leviticus 20: 9 For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother; his blood is upon him.” Guess what, a bible literalist does not need to follow these rules in order to still believe that they are true. Let’s look at it from another direction, a moderate believer will view the above as metaphor and thus not practice the above but see it as a moral guideline, while a bible literalist could view both passages as being literal truth but not put those verses into practice making them inconsistent in practice but maintaining consistency in literalistic belief.

So, by using the above definition of intellectual honesty a bible literalist does not need to take the entire bible as truth in order to be more intellectually honest than a moderate believer. He just needs to believe more of the bible as literal truth and not view it as metaphor in order to be considered intellectually honest. Although I must say that I do not think that the word intellectual honesty should be used to label bible literalists, we should just use the words consistency, degree of literal consistency or literalistic honesty when referring to the literalists.

My New Best Friends

2010-02-15T16:54:00.002-10:00

These can be found here:Evolution Fucked Your Shit Up: The World’s 50 Freakiest Animals

Ajolote

Pygmy marmoset

Giant coconut crab

Giant salamander

Dumbo octopus

A Rebuttal to a Poor Argument

2010-02-15T16:19:00.013-10:00

A Rebuttal to a Poor Argument

This is a rebuttal to a very weak argument/fictional story sent out by one of my friends parents to him arguing for the existence of "God".

'Let me explain the problem science has with religion.'
The atheist professor of philosophy pauses before his class and then asks one of his new students to stand.

'You're a Christian, aren't you son?'
'Yes sir,' the student says.

˜So you believe in God?'

'Absolutely.'

Is God good?'

'Sure! God's good.'

˜Is God all-powerful? Can God do anything?'

'Yes'

˜Are you good or evil?'

'The Bible says I'm evil.'

The professor grins knowingly. 'Aha! the Bible!' He Considers for a moment. ˜Here's one for you. Let's say there's a sick person over here and you can cure him. You can do it. Would you help him? would you try?'

'Yes sir, I would.'

'So you're good...!'

'I wouldn't say that.'

'But why not say that? You'd help a sick and maimed person if you could. Most of us would if we could. But God doesn't.'

The student does not answer, so the professor continues. ˜He doesn't, does he? My brother was a Christian who died of cancer, even though he prayed to Jesus to heal him. How is this Jesus good? Hmmm? Can you answer that one?'

The student remains silent.

'No, you can't, can you?' the professor says. He takes a sip of water from a glass on his desk to give the student time to relax.

'Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?'

'Er..yes,' the student says.

Professor: 'Is Satan good?'

The student doesn't hesitate on this one. 'No.'

'Then where does Satan come from?'

The student falters. 'From God'

'That's right.. God made Satan, didn't he? Tell me, Son. Is there evil in this world?'

˜Yes, sir.'

'Evil's everywhere, isn't it? And God did make Everything, correct?'

'Yes'

'So who created evil?' The professor continued, 'If God created everything, then God created evil, since evil exists, and according
to the principle that our works define who we are, then God is evil.'

Again, the student has no answer. 'Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things, do they exist in this world?'

The student squirms on his feet. 'Yes.'

˜So who created them?'

The student does not answer again, so the professor repeats his Question. 'Who created them?' There is still no answer.. Suddenly the
lecturer breaks away to pace in front of the classroom. The class is mesmerized. 'Tell me,' he continues onto another student. 'Do you believe in Jesus Christ, son?'

The student's voice betrays him and cracks. 'Yes, Professor, I do.'

The old man stops pacing. 'Science says you have five Senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Have you ever seen Jesus?'

'No sir. I've never seen Him.'

'Then tell us if you've ever heard your Jesus?'

'No, sir, I have not.'

'Have you ever felt your Jesus, tasted your Jesus or smelt your Jesus? Have you ever had any sensory perception of Jesus Christ, or God for that matter?'

'No, sir, I'm afraid I haven't.'

'Yet you still believe in him?'

˜Yes'

'According to the rules of empirical, testable, Demonstrable protocol, science says your God doesn't exist. What do you say to that, son?'

First off the fictitious professor is defining good as something totally different than what the student views as being good and this distinction is not addressed. But, under the views of the professor God is not good and is the creator of all things evil. As for the professors last statement that science says your God doesn’t exist, this is a false statement, science does not say that this or that does not exist, science only says if there is any evidence for the existence of God, which there is none. The above statement about science “says you have five senses you use to identify and observe the world around you” is a misclassification of the scientific method. The scientific method is separate from our five senses, we use our five senses to experience the world but scientific knowledge is gained by non-subjective means. First you may observe a phenomenon but that is not good enough to validate it’s “existence”, that phenomena must be tested for and reproduced, otherwise known as hypothesis testing and falsification. It is also possible to test for things with which we cannot see with our “five senses”, we have x-ray machines, microscopes, and various other indirect methods of observation available.

'Nothing,' the student replies. 'I only have my Faith.'

˜Yes, faith,' the professor repeats. 'And that is the problem science has with God. There is no evidence, only faith.'

The student stands quietly for a moment, before asking a question of his own. 'Professor, is there such thing as heat?'

'Yes.
'And is there such a thing as cold?'

˜Yes, son, there's cold too.'

'No sir, there isn't.'

The professor turns to face the student, obviously interested. The room suddenly becomes very quiet. The student begins to explain.
'You can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat, unlimited heat, white heat , a little heat or no heat, but we don't have anything called 'cold'. We can hit up to 458 degrees below zero, which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold; otherwise we would be able to go colder than the lowest -458 degrees. ˜Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-458 F) is the total absence of heat. You see, sir, cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat we can measure in thermal units because heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.'

This is a misuse of the words heat and cold. While the student is correct by stating that we have a concept of what absolute zero is and is correct in his definition of what absolute zero is, he is wrong in his defining that there is no such thing as cold. Temperature is a function of the movement of particles, you can either get colder or hotter based upon what temperature you start with. While there is a absolute zero (which actually physicists don’t believe you can actually get to absolute zero), physicists also believe there is a limit to temperature on both ends, it is called the plank temperature 1.41679 x 10^32 Kelvins, this is the temperature at which space boils, and I will also say that these ideas are only theory that are applicable to our universe, we have no way of knowing at this moment what the laws of physics are if there are multiple universes or dimensions of space. But back to the definition of cold, the word cold being an adjective is widely used as a statement of low-temperature and since it is an adjective it is an arbitrary measurement of the amount of heat and object has. Heat is a noun defined as a form of energy that is produced by the movement of atoms. In no way is the word cold dependent on whether or not we can get past absolute zero on the temperature scale, neither is the word heat dependent upon whether or not we can get past the Planck temperature. The above paragraph shows a false dichotomy of the words cold and heat, then precedes to attacks a straw-man position which no sane person should hold. While yes it is true that we cannot “measure” cold that is because cold isn’t defined as a type of energy it is only defined as an amount of energy in comparison to another object or place.

Silence across the room. A pen drops somewhere in the classroom, sounding like a hammer. 'What about darkness, professor. Is there such a thing as darkness?'

'Yes,' the professor replies without hesitation. 'What is night if it isn't darkness?'

'You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is not something; it is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light,
flashing light, but if you have no light constantly you have nothing and it's called darkness, isn't it? That's the meaning we use to define the word. In reality, darkness isn't. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn't you?'

The professor begins to smile at the student in front of him. This will be a good semester. 'So what point are you making, young man?'

Again the student thinks he is making a point but he isn’t. Darkness is a measure of the amount of light. You can have no light or light. Darkness is defined as the absence of light, the definition is not dependent on whether or not you can make darkness darker. Therefore Darkness is a quantity of light or it’s absence, it is an adjective.

'Yes, professor. My point is, your philosophical premise is flawed to start with, and so your conclusion must also be flawed.'

The professor's face cannot hide his surprise this time. 'Flawed? Can you explain how?'

˜You are working on the premise of duality,' the student explains. 'You argue that there is life and then there's death; a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science can't even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but it has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life, just the absence of it.'

The student is actually using flawed logic here. The premise of the professor is not actually fully explained. But even so, within the limited definitions with which the professor used to define good and evil the students God actually falls under those categories. The professor also did not argue that there is life and death, but any sane person should know that there are things with which are alive and things with which are dead. Does the professor actually argue that “God” is measurable? I don’t see anything above that indicates this. The fact is that God is only measurable if he has effects on reality, if this theoretical God has no effects on reality he cannot be tested for and thus shall remain hidden and unknown, although one should keep in mind that this type of God is far removed from the God purported by the followers of the main Abrahamic religions. The student then makes a claim that science cannot explain a thought, actually science can explain a lot of things about a thought, science just doesn’t fully understand all of the mechanisms that go into producing a thought, but we do know bits and pieces of how thoughts are produced. Science also can explain the observed force of electro-magnetism, not to mention that electricity and magnetism are observable, so the student doesn’t make a point here. Now back to the skewed definitions and false dichotomy straw-man positions, death is the act of dying, life means that something is alive, what is the point of saying that they are not opposite?

'Now tell me, professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?'

'If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, young man, yes, of course I do.'

'Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?'

The professor begins to shake his head, still smiling, as he realizes where the argument is going. A very good semester, indeed..

'Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you now not a scientist, but a preacher?'

Have we evolved from Monkey’s? That depends on whether or not you call the clade which gave rise to primates Monkeys, if you do than we did evolve from monkeys, as we did evolve from reptiles, amphibians, fish. Creationists often think that because the progeny of ancestral Monkey’s still exist and since we call them Monkeys, it is impossible for humans to exist at the same time. Evolution is not a ladder, monkeys do not need to go extinct in order for apes to evolve, two monkey populations can be separated and one population can evolve into a different species by natural selection, all the while the other population due to low selective pressures and high genetic variance can remain “resistant” to evolution. Also Evolution is observable, we can artificially select for many traits in animals and plants, even to the point of evolving different species, this has been done in the lab and on the farm, for as long as the domestication of plants and animals by humans. There is also extensive literature on the evolution of organisms observed within our life-times in scientific journals, through various methods most commonly though natural selection.

The class is in uproar. The student remains silent until the commotion has subsided.

To continue the point you were making earlier to the other student, let me give you an example of what I mean.' The student looks around the room. 'Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the professor's brain?' The class breaks out into laughter. 'Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor's brain, felt the professor's brain, touched or smelt the professor's brain? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain, with all due respect, sir.'

'So if science says you have no brain, how can we trust your lectures, sir?'

Actually science can say if the professor has a brain or not. You can do this by various methods i.e. X-ray, cut his head open…. This goes back to the general misunderstanding of what science is. Science is not equal to the human five senses and does not in any way prove that the professor does not have a brain.

Now the room is silent. The professor just stares at the student, his face unreadable. Finally, after what seems an eternity, the old man answers. 'I guess you'll have to take them on faith.'

'Now, you accept that there is faith, and, in fact, faith exists with life,' the student continues. 'Now, sir, is there such a thing as evil?'

Actually no one has to take it on faith that the professor has a brain. This is another problem with word use in this lame story. Faith when used by those who are religious is used to delineate a belief in which there is no substantial evidence, an untestable belief, and a belief in which if there is evidence to the contrary should still be believed. While obviously the question of whether or not the professor has a brain is a testable hypothesis and requires no faith, it is simply a reasonable belief. As for the existence of faith, yes there are people who have and use the above definition of faith in their lives, while thinking people who are moral, honest with themselves and open-minded should try to minimize “faith” as much as possible.

Now uncertain, the professor responds, 'Of course, there is. We see it everyday. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil.'

To this the student replied, ˜Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light.'

The professor sat down.

The student makes the same error again. Evil as defined by the professor is based upon a simplified utilitarian viewpoint, which states that evil constitutes crime and violence (while I do find this definition lacking it still is a definition). Why would the student claim that evil does not exist, then in the next sentence state that it does exist? Then the student defines evil as the absence of God, as if this definition is a priori correct and better then the simplified utilitarian definition put forth by the professor. So if evil is the absence of God and is analogous to cold and darkness then it is a measure of how much God there is in a system? Lol!? It baffles me to think that the person who wrote this does not consider mindless acts of violence as evil. This has to be one of the most depressing things I have read in quite a while. Why can’t people just be honest with themselves and admit that their God is immoral and evil by any sane usage of the word?

PS: the student was Albert Einstein

Actually, no, the student was probably not Albert Einstein. Einstein would never have argued for such bad arguments based upon misused words, straw-man fallacies, false facts, and poor logic.

The following is an actual statement from Einstein, with which I have posted in the past. It comes from a letter from Einstein that was auctioned off for ~200,000$

The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. ... For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong ... have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything “chosen” about them.

Delayed Darwin Day Post

2010-02-14T10:54:00.002-10:00

My plans were fandangled this year for my Darwin day festivities. I was unable to proselytize Darwin door to door, but there is always next year...

Too busy taking photos of deformed animals on the confocal, ah, well.

Are the terms Atheism and Theism Mutually Exclusive?

2010-01-29T23:45:00.003-10:00

Yes,

Two contradicting propositions cannot both be true when one proposition is the direct negation of the other.

This invokes two of the formal laws of logic, Excluded middle and the law of Noncontradiction.

Atheism and Theism is a true dichotomy. Atheism is a lack of belief in a god/Gods, Theism is a belief in a God/Gods.

Now where does that leave agnostics? Agnostics claim that knowledge of a God is unknowable. But is it possible to believe in something that is unknowable? Assuming that the matter is truly unknowable I have to answer yes (it is otherwise known as faith). Therefore the word agnosticism is not mutually exclusive to the terms of atheism and theism. One may call themselves an agnostic and be a theist or an atheist.

But, what about a person who professes no belief in a God and calls himself an agnostic? By default that person is shoved into the true dichotomy of Atheism and Theism, and must label themselves as an atheist, whether he/she likes it or not.

The Misuse of the word "Faith" Reproduced

2010-01-29T23:34:00.001-10:00

The following was found on this forum written by a user by the name of MRiedl: I feel it necessary to reproduce it as a great many people do not understand how definitions and words work and do not understand how to argue concepts.

A lot of times on these forums I have heard the word "Faith" applied in two separate incorrect ways.

As such, I am going to make the attempt to explain exactly why misusing the word eventually boils down to a straw man argument.

For those not familiar with the straw man fallacy, it is, in simplest terms, to misrepresent your opponent's position and argue against that misrepresented position.

It is considered a fallacy because you never actually argue against your opponent's position.

=======

The first and most common method of misusing the word Faith is to use the word without regard for definition. Let's begin by looking at the definition:

faith - Definitions from Dictionary.com

Quote:

faith

1.confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.

2.belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.

3.belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.

4.belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.: to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.

5.a system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.

6.the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.: Failure to appear would be breaking faith.

7.the observance of this obligation; fidelity to one's promise, oath, allegiance, etc.: He was the only one who proved his faith during our recent troubles.

8.Christian Theology. the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved. —Idiom

9.in faith, in truth; indeed: In faith, he is a fine lad.

Now, let's break it down into the related groups of definitions:

#'s 1, 4, 6, 7, and 9 all relate to concepts like trust and fidelity.

#2 is a special case.

#'s 3, 5, and 8 are all purely religious terms.

======

As for the top set of definitions, they rarely apply to these matters. Faith is something of a loaded word, and as such, a lot of people like myself shy away from using it because there is a great deal of potential for misunderstanding.

Admittedly I could say "I have faith in the scientific method."

However, I would typically say something like "I have a great deal of confidence in the scientific method."

It's essentially the same thing as faith definition #1, but it lacks the potential for misinterpretation.

Now, when the word Faith is used in these forums, it is typically used either as a religious term, or as #2. Part of the problem is that this is rarely defined specifically.

I have often heard assertions like: "Evolution is a religion which requires faith." where they could be trying to apply either definition #2 or any of the religion specific definitions to it.

The big problem with these assertions is that they are woefully inaccurate.

For an example, I highly doubt that there is a single Atheist here who thinks of evolution as a religion. Similarly, I have yet to see an evolutionist fail to cite evidence as the reason for their belief in evolution.

As such, faith is not a part of their argument, at least as far as the aforementioned definitions go. If you want to dispute the validity of the evidence that is cited, by all means do so. The argument that someone is using faulty evidence is very different from the assertion that they are going without evidence, and faith only applies to the latter.

In other words, you are not actually arguing against the position of your opponent, and you are building a Straw Man.

========

The other, thankfully less common misapplication of the word faith is when people make up their own definition.

Honestly, it just doesn't work. The reason should be obvious. The reader hasn't the slightest clue what your personal definition of the word is. How could they?

You could just as effectively type in random letters as a definition, as the result is exactly the same.

Instead, if you have your own special definition for something like this; please, in the interest of effective communication, just describe it in your own words.

==========

To conclude, I would just like to say that intentionally misusing the word faith as such is only really a propaganda tool, and a rather ineffective one at that. There is really very little that can be done about such of course. That just leaves individuals who are misusing the word unknowingly, at whom this essay is directed.

Whenever I see an assertion like "Evolution is a religion that requires faith." I dismiss it as the rhetoric it is. Why? Because it is demonstrably incorrect and has nothing to do with the arguments involved.

Similarly, I would extend an appeal to people in general to endeavor always to address your opponent's actual arguments when you discuss things. Otherwise you aren't really arguing with them at all.

Look at this Adamant Atheist Scientist

2010-01-28T22:13:00.003-10:00

Do you see those fangs and horns growing out of him. Oooohhh he said that religion and myths are on the same level. Can we honestly get over the dishonesty and call a spade a spade. Faith is a belief for which there is no evidence, and a belief which is impervious to contradicting evidence, it does not deserve reverence or respect.

to quote noble prize winner Jack Szostak:

In my view a scientific world view is one based on continuous questioning and therefore a search for more and better evidence and theories; faith in the unknowable plays no role. I think that belief systems based on faith are inherently dangerous, as they leave the believer susceptible to manipulation when skepticism and inquiry are discouraged.

How low can you go?

2010-01-26T12:57:00.007-10:00

The following video is supposedly not satire. It consists of a man/preacher telling us how to raise people form the dead through the power of Jesus.

Synopsis: He went to Africa where he was preaching and some Africans interrupt him which makes him angry, they take him to a dead woman, whereupon he raises her from the dead and the Africans run and tackle her, she then steals their money and they tackle her again, then they share the gospel of Jesus Christ with her and she converts to Christianity (OMG Praise the Lord).

Watch this video to see how ridiculously idiotic this shit is. But, I think that this video isn't as bad as the fact that I know that there are some people who will/have watch/watched this and actually believe/believed this shit.

The above idiots website: http://www.kingdomrevelation.org

One of the Dangers of Pseudoscience

2010-01-23T15:18:00.002-10:00

Are there any consequences for believing in things with which there is no evidence for? YES! Dowsing rods do not work and there are consequences for believing that they do.

WTF!?

2010-01-18T11:21:00.000-10:00

A Cause Worth Donating to

2010-01-17T16:50:00.003-10:00

If you have money to spare you can trust that it will go to the right place without the religious baggage attached. If a poor graduate student like me can donate so can you.

"It's an uncaring universe out there, if we don't pull together and support each other, no one else is going to do it for us. We are all we have."

Reproduced from Pharyngula:

Non-Believers Giving Aid

Category: Godlessness
Posted on: January 16, 2010 8:52 PM, by PZ Myers

If you haven't already donated to disaster relief in Haiti, here's your chance: a new umbrella organization to coordinate charitable giving for the godless has been set up. In the first two hours that this was created, over $11,000 has been donated. Get on the bandwagon!

Non-Believers Giving Aid: a religion-free way to help disaster victims

Washington, DC January 17, 2010

In response to the tragedy in Haiti, several organizations representing 'non-believers' and others have set up a disaster relief fund called 'Non-Believers Giving Aid'. In an appeal for donations, the website of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science states (http://givingaid.richarddawkins.net/):

Spurred by the horrific suffering in Haiti, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS) has set up a dedicated bank account and PayPal facility to collect donations to non-religious relief organizations. This new account is in the new name of Non-Believers Giving Aid, with all of the money donated being distributed to disaster relief.

Clearly the immediate need is for the suffering people of Haiti, and all the money raised by this current appeal will go that cause, but the new account will remain available for future emergencies too. There are, of course, many ways for you to donate to relief organizations already, but doing it through Non-Believers Giving Aid offers a number of advantages:

100% of your donation will be go to these charities: not even the PayPal fees will be deducted from your donation, since Richard will personally donate a sum to cover the cost of these (Capped at $10,000). This means that more of your money will reach the people in need.

When donating via Non-Believers Giving Aid, you are helping to counter the scandalous myth that only the religious care about their fellow-humans.

It goes without saying that your donations will only be passed on to aid organizations that do not have religious affiliations. In the case of Haiti, the two organizations we have chosen are:

Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans Frontières)

International Red Cross

You may stipulate using a dropdown menu which of these two organizations you want your donation to go to; otherwise, it will be divided equally between them.

Preachers and televangelists, mullahs and imams, often seem almost to gloat over natural disasters - presenting them as payback for human transgressions, or for 'making a pact with the devil'. Earthquakes and tsunamis are caused not by 'sin' but by tectonic plate movements, and tectonic plates, like everything else in the physical world, are supremely indifferent to human affairs and sadly indifferent to human suffering. Those of us who understand this reality are sometimes accused of being indifferent to that suffering ourselves. Of course the very opposite is the truth: we do not hide behind the notion that earthly suffering will be rewarded in a heavenly paradise, nor do we expect a heavenly reward for our generosity: the understanding that this is the only life any of us have makes the need to alleviate suffering even more urgent. The myth that it is only the religious who truly care is sustained largely by the fact that they tend to donate not as individuals, but through their churches. Non-believers, by contrast, give as individuals: we have no church through which to give collectively, no church to rack up statistics of competitive generosity. Non-Believers Giving Aid is not a church (that's putting it mildly) but it does provide an easy conduit for the non-religious to help those in desperate need, whilst simultaneously giving the lie to the canard that you need God to be good.

Please help us to help the suffering people of Haiti.

The organizations and supporters actively involved in this effort include:

Atheist Alliance International
Atheists United
The British Humanist Association
James Randi Educational Foundation
Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers
Pharyngula
The Reason Project
The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science
The Skeptics Society

Quoting Richard Dawkins, "The merciless power of tectonic plate movement has conjured a disaster of epic proportions and all of us, whether religious or not, must do all in our power to help."

Author, scientist and Founder of the Reason Project Sam Harris said, " It is widely imagined that, in times of crisis, religious people render aid in disproportion to their numbers. Richard Dawkins has now created an opportunity for nonbelievers, who are rightly focused on the welfare of their fellow human beings in this life, to put the lie to this myth."

The President of Atheists United commented "The indiscriminate consequences of earthquakes, floods, fires and such remind us that there is no god to protect us, and that humankind must come together to do what we can to help and protect each other."

Michael Shermer, the Executive Director of the participating Skeptics Society, notes: "It's all well and good to say that we nonbelievers are just as moral as believers (we are, but that's a philosophical point)--actions count more than words and real donations are where the theoretical rubber meets the practical road. This is our time to pony up and show the world our true character.

Jason Torpey, President of Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers stated, "As they have done with the Out Campaign, Non-Believers Giving Aid continues the RDFRS tradition of positive, community-centered atheist coalition building."

A spokeswoman for the Richard Dawkins Foundation noted, "While those of us who do not believe in a god or gods might identify ourselves as 'atheists', 'humanists', 'non-theists', 'skeptics', 'Freethinkers', or other label - the term 'non-believer' has been brought into the public consciousness by President Obama and is easily identifiable. Independent of whether we are non-believers or not, the tragedy of Haiti pulls at everyone's heartstring. All of us are unified in our humanity."

Non-Believers Giving Aid
http://givingaid.richarddawkins.net

The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is a 501(c)(3).
www.RichardDawkinsFoundation.org
www.RichardDawkins.net

Contact: Liz Cornwell, rec@RichardDawkins.net
719.351.6324
Mailing Address: 11605 Meridian Market View, Unit 124 PMB 381, Falcon CO 80831

Photo downloads: http://richarddawkins.net/media

Contacts for participating organizations

Atheist Alliance International
http://www.atheistalliance.org/
Contact: Stuart Bechman, President email: president@atheistalliance.org
Tel: +01-866-HERETIC.

Atheists United
http://www.atheistsunited.org/
Contact: Bobbie Kirkhart, President email:e-mail president@atheistsunited.org
Tel: 323-229-5500.

The British Humanist Association
http://www.humanism.org.uk
Contact: Andrew Copson, Chief Executive email: andrew@humanism.org.uk
Tel: 020 7079 3584 or 07534 248596.

James Randi Educational Foundation
http://www.randi.org
Contact: D.J. Grothe, President email: idjgrothe@randi.org
Tel: 954-467-1112
Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers (MAAF)
http://www.maaf.info
Contact: Jason Torpy, President email: president@maaf.info
Tel: 614-329-1776

Pharyngula
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/
Contact: PZ Myers, pzmyers@gmail.com
Tel: 320 589-7116

The Reason Project
http://www.reasonproject.org/
Contact: Sam Harris email: contact@reasonproject.org

The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science
http://www.RichardDawkinsFoundation.org & www.RichardDawkins.net
Contact: Liz Cornwell, Executive Director email: rec@RichardDawkins.net
Tel: 719.351.6324

The Skeptics Society
http://www.skeptic.com/
Contact: Michael Shermer, Founder email: mshermer@skeptic.com
Tel: 626/794-3119

For information on the Disaster Relief Agencies:

Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans Frontières)
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/

International Red Cross
http://www.icrc.org/

A Whole Lot of Nothing

2010-01-13T17:48:00.007-10:00

For this weeks mandatory CMB graduate seminar the department invited Aubrey de Grey the Chief Science Officer of the SENS Foundation. He gave a talk on something he called rejuvenating research, whereby taking care of so called pre-defined "Damage" humans will be able to extend their lifespans indefinitely. He proposed that the possibly for humans to live indefinitely is attainable within the next 20-30 years. While the talk was humorous at times, it was utterly bogged down by its lack of anything resembling science. I think that I can summarize his talk quite easily, ooohhh nice quick quips, bullet points, gotta define my points so that I can defend against major intrinsic problems with them, big colorful graphs with numbers, very scientefeek (own def. resembling science to people who don't know better), oh ya just to be controversial and make money let's end this thing with a bang and say something ridiculous then plug my book and ask for donations.

The talk was actually about the advocacy for awareness of longevity research. The speaker made it very clear that his SENS(Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) foundation does not do science, they just hypothesize about what they think science can do. In a very "Kurzweilian" manner the speaker presented a graph that proposed a pseudo-Moore's law for aging therapies (healing his so called "Damage") which would double every 20-30 years leading to humans indefinitely living. One should keep in mind that not a single therapy for the ill defined "damage" has ever been shown to increase the life-span of anything. 'That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.' to quote one of my favorite intellectuals, Christopher Hitchens perfectly sums up this situation. In a lovely display of intellectual dishonesty the speaker presented quotes showing a false dichotomy of a "you are either with us or against us attitude". You either support longevity research or you are responsible for the deaths of countless human lives, totally ignoring the fact that one of the goals of Biomedical science is to prolong lives without suffering and the fact that practically everyone wants to live longer and healthier lives minus the hard work to achieve it. Sorry Mr. Grey but we don't need to believe in your bullshit in order to support and research methods to help improve and stop the aging process.

What should I say about this? Isn't it a disgrace for our school to invite pseudo-science speakers to science class lectures? I guess the best thing I can say about the guy is that at least he did say that nothing he talked about has any type of scientific data to support it.

While it would be impolite to call MR. Aubrey de Grey a hack, I hope that it is evident that I strongly imply that he is.

I have come across a great review as to why Mr. de Grey's ideas are incompetent. Here is an excerpt:

1) SENS is based on the scientifically
unsupported speculations of Aubrey de Grey, which are camouflaged by the legitimate
science of others; 2) SENS bears only a superficial resemblance to science or
engineering; 3) SENS and de Grey’s writings in support of it are riddled with jargonfilled
misunderstandings and misrepresentations; 4) SENS’ notoriety is due almost
entirely to its emotional appeal; 5) SENS is pseudoscience.

http://www.technologyreview.com/sens/docs/estepetal.pdf

The author received 10k for his efforts from MIT review for his attempt at debunking this pseudo-science.

My New Hero

2010-01-13T08:50:00.000-10:00

Learn Something New

2010-01-10T02:29:00.001-10:00

Perfect parody.

The earliest Tetrapod

2010-01-07T18:17:00.004-10:00

Niedzwiedzki G, Szrek P, Narkiewicz K, Narkiewicz M, Ahlberg PE (2010) Tetrapod trackways from the early Middle Devonian period of Poland. Nature 463(7277): 43-48.

What motivates students to study science?

2009-12-30T22:40:00.003-10:00

An acquaintance asked me what motivates me to study science considering that my educational background was not originally in the natural sciences. Which, led me to think about what motivates others into studying science.

I was having a discussion with a fellow graduate student/lab member a few weeks back who told me about how she became interested in science. She told me of how her high school classes had their students memorize desperate facts for some sort of AP Bio test. She also told me about many somewhat uninteresting classes that she had to take as an undergraduate Bio major. And that if it wasn't for a single teacher during high school who made science interesting she wouldn't be studying it.

Although I am not privy as to how that teacher inspired his students, it made me think about how I became interested in science. What's funny is that I never had to go through the classes that make you memorize scientific facts, I learned them on my own time in the past couple of years with the help of Richard Dawkins, not because someone made me do it but because Prof. Dawkins made it seem so interesting. Perhaps the science classes could be improved if the people in charge of those classes introduced the students to what makes science so great. Maybe the students just need more motivation and reason to study science.

The following is a video that explains what makes science so great when you compare it to other disciplines.

Who cares?

2009-12-12T02:44:00.004-10:00

I'm not sure why, but it seems as though the majority of Biology majors around me do not even understand science. Graduate students, undergraduate students, all alike. The further I go forth into science, the more I learn the more I become disillusioned at the state of others around me. What drives people who have no goals or whose goals are based upon illogical thinking?

The quest for perfection has it's consequences...The loss of commonalities with those around you. The fact that those around cant' see all of the beauty that surrounds them, tears my heart in two.

Beauty

2009-12-12T02:35:00.000-10:00

Who understands it?

A Beautiful Letter from Einstein

2009-10-07T18:02:00.004-10:00

Have you ever heard "Einstein believed in God!" I have, and I have even heard it used to argue for the existence of a God. Even though any thinking man would know that Einstein was not religious. Here are several excerpts from a letter written by Einstein a year before his passing to an author of a book titled 'Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt'.

The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. ... For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong ... have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything “chosen” about them.

The letter was bought on auction for £170,000. That is about $100,000 USA more than a first edition Darwin.

Link to original post: Here

Correlation With Increased Teenage Birthrates and Religiosity

2009-09-28T16:00:00.006-10:00

A recent paper was published in the Journal of Reproductive Health showing the correlation of religiosity and Teenage Birth rates. Religion 0 : Secular Society ∞

The Studies Abstract:

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: The children of teen mothers have been reported to have higher rates of several unfavorable mental health outcomes. Past research suggests several possible mechanisms for an association between religiosity and teen birth rate in communities. METHODS: The present study compiled publicly accessible data on birth rates, conservative religious beliefs, income, and abortion rates in the U.S., aggregated at the state level. Data on teen birth rates and abortion originated from the Center for Disease Control; on income, from the U.S. Bureau of the Census, and on religious beliefs, from the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey carried out by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. We computed correlations and partial correlations. RESULTS: Increased religiosity in residents of states in the U.S. strongly predicted a higher teen birth rate, with r = 0.73 (p<0.0005). r =" -0.66," r =" -0.63." r="-0.45," p="0.002." correlation="0.68," correlation="0.54," p="0.001).">

Religiosity and teen birth rate in the United States.
Strayhorn JM, Strayhorn JC.
Reprod Health. 2009 Sep 17;6(1):14. [Epub ahead of print]

Stairway to Heaven

2009-09-20T13:24:00.004-10:00

The Stairway to Heaven (aka. Ha'ikū Stairs) shall henceforth be known as The Stairway to Science.

The Bible: Reality Version

2009-09-02T22:20:00.009-10:00

2009-08-31T19:33:00.006-10:00

Graph originally from here,
State IQ statistics from McDaniel Estimating State IQ
Religious importance statistics from Gallop - State of the States: Importance of Religion

A few outliers on there, Hawaii and California being the most prominent. Hawaii, California and Nevada are also on the top 5 list for the biggest homeless populations by state (here). Hawaii and California are also on the top 5 foreign born population list. (here)

Correlation does not equal causation without proper statistical significance, so just throwing those two facts out there for others to come to their own conclusions.

Synaptotagmin

2009-08-26T09:07:00.010-10:00

I will be working on identifying Synaptotagmin genes in Nematostella in my new lab with Mark Martindale at the Kewalo Marine Laboratory . I will be doing some in-situ's, phylogenetic trees, cell fate mapping, antibody staining, and DAPI. Also I will be working on pro-neural gene transcription factors.

I'll write something up on Synaptotagmin in the future.

On the Intellectual Stance of Atheists Before Darwin

2009-08-26T08:10:00.005-10:00

Famously, in Richard Dawkins various books (The Blind Watchmaker...etc.) and various talks, Prof. Dawkins has eluded to the fact that before Darwin intellectuals were not fully justified in their disbelief. These various statements made by Prof. Dawkins have brought out a plethora of critics on the matter.

Darwin gave the answer to the apparent illusion of the irreducible complexities of life. From Darwin (and friends) we now know that the original self-replicating molecule/molecules gave rise to all the different complexities of life. Humankind was knocked down off of its high pedestal of self importance and ignorance and brought down to the level of all other living organisms. No longer were we justified to say that we were created in a Gods image, we were just like all of the other animals utterly unimportant in terms of the universe as a whole. And as we look up into the sky with our modern day telescopes we find that we are on a single planet in a sea of galaxies each containing estimates of ~100 billion stars, each with their various planets and moons and most likely life of their own.

I argue that Dawkins was completely justified in making the statement that "Darwinism allowed one to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." But, I would go one step further and say that every single scientific discovery fills a hole that was once left to the dead Gods of old. Darwins contribution while not sufficient to get rid of all of the different beliefs in a God, sure did well to justify the disbelief in the Judeo-Christian God.

"From so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."
the concluding passage from, The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin 1859.

The Disparity of the Intelligent and the Ignorant in the USA

2009-08-24T20:17:00.006-10:00

Nature 453, 28-30 (1 May 2008) | doi:10.1038/453028a; Published online 30 April 2008

I have heard it said by Neil deGrasse Tyson that America produces the smartest people in the world, while at the same time producing the dumbest people in the world.

And Now for Something Completely Different.
Original graph from here, 2002 religiosity pew poll here, and IQ from IQ and the Wealth of Nations by Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen.

Darwin Was Right!

2009-08-23T21:20:00.002-10:00

About natural selection and almost everything else he wrote about. Any questions?

Smith HF, Fisher RE, Everett ML, Thomas AD, Randal Bollinger R, Parker W (2009) Comparative anatomy and phylogenetic distribution of the mammalian cecal appendix. J Evol Biol. 2009 Aug 12. [Epub ahead of print]

On the Concept of Racism

2009-08-23T19:24:00.006-10:00

The term "racism" is properly defined as the belief that "race" is the primary determinant of human traits and that those traits produce inherent superiorities between "races".

There is another term "racialism," defined as a theory that race determines human traits and capacities.

While contemplating the term races in a purely scientific matter, I have come to the conclusion that factually, "race" exists. The proper term "races" stands for the different sets of genetic variants that accumulate within a population. Neo-Darwinism can be defined as changes in gene frequencies within a gene pool.

It is not hard to come up with an example of differences between races. The most obvious difference being skin color, but an even more appropriate physical feature showing a physical advantage or disadvantage depending on a particular environment would be to compare pygmies average height with that of any other "race" (The average male height of pygmies being 150 cm and the average height of American males being 176cm.) But of course even skin color can defer an advantage or disadvantage in rates of tolerance towards sun exposure. Other genetic differences between races include Lactose tolerance, HIV resistance, Malaria Resistance, and a number of other genetic differences that have been shown to occur at different rates between the supposed races.

Now, back to the term racism. Racial differences exist, we as scientists should be honest with ourselves and stop fooling ourselves into thinking that they don't. Too many people forget that it is one thing to say that racial differences exist and it is a whole other matter when someone says that a particular race is superior to another therefore the other race should be discriminated against. But again the situation gets even more complicated, because couldn't a person make a case for the discrimination of pygmies within the NBA (National Basketball Association,) obviously, yes. Would an airport hire a blind air-traffic controller? But, this brings up a new problem, in that, are not all short people discriminated against in the NBA? I would like to call this concept justified discrimination as opposed to unjustified discrimination. An example of unjustified discrimination would be the practices of organizations which perpetuate inherent differences between races, not based upon any type of pragmatic concern, but would otherwise lay claim to and actively discriminate against others solely based upon birthrights (I'm sure the reader can think of one.)

Luckily if things continue the way they are, in a few hundred years the human race will be a semi-perfect mix of all the current races. I look forward to that future of a homogeneous society where only one race exists and justified racial discrimination can and will no longer exist on logical grounds. The only discrimination will be that of the luck of the genetic draw and the subsequent environmental effects that change a persons phenotypes.

Sexual Differences

2009-08-06T00:36:00.005-10:00

Two interesting papers. Come to your own conclusions...

Dunn, MJ & Searle, R (2009) Effect of manipulated prestige-car ownership on both sex attractiveness ratings British Journal of Psychology (In press) Pubmed

Abstract:
Previous studies have shown that male attractiveness can be enhanced by manipulation of status through, for example, the medium of costume. The present study experimentally manipulated status by seating the same target model (male and female matched for attractiveness) expressing identical facial expressions and posture in either a 'high status' (Silver Bentley Continental GT) or a 'neutral status' (Red Ford Fiesta ST) motor-car. A between-subjects design was used whereby the above photographic images were presented to male and female participants for attractiveness rating. Results showed that the male target model was rated as significantly more attractive on a rating scale of 1-10 when presented to female participants in the high compared to the neutral status context. Males were not influenced by status manipulation, as there was no significant difference between attractiveness ratings for the female seated in the high compared to the neutral condition. It would appear that despite a noticeable increase in female ownership of prestige/luxury cars over recent years males, unlike females remain oblivious to such cues in matters pertaining to opposite-sex attraction. These findings support the results of previous status enhancement of attractiveness studies especially those espousing sex differences in mate preferences are due to sex-specific adaptations.

Karremans, J., Verwijmeren, T., Pronk, T., & Reitsma, M. (2009) Interacting with women can impair men’s cognitive functioning. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(4), 1041-1044. DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2009.05.004

Abstract:
The present research tested the prediction that mixed-sex interactions may temporarily impair cognitive functioning. Two studies, in which participants interacted either with a same-sex or opposite-sex other, demonstrated that men’s (but not women’s) cognitive performance declined following a mixed-sex encounter. In line with our theoretical reasoning, this effect occurred more strongly to the extent that the opposite-sex other was perceived as more attractive (Study 1), and to the extent that participants reported higher levels of impression management motivation (Study 2). Implications for the general role of interpersonal processes in cognitive functioning, and some practical implications, are discussed.

A Decent Measure of The Harmful Effects of Drugs

2009-07-23T19:59:00.009-10:00

The following chart shows the classifications of drugs as proposed in the UK Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Class A substances being the most harmful and class C drugs being the least harmful. The penalties attributed to the drugs are also determined by the class of drug used.

The mean harm score based upon the scoring of independent experts is presented below. As can be seen, the current classes of drugs do not correlate with the scores attributed to the drugs by medical professionals and the scientific literature used in this meta-analysis.

The below chart is scored from 0-3, with 0 being no risk,
1 some, 2 moderate, and 3 extreme risk.

If we assume that the results of this study are an accurate representation of the apparent harm of the drugs studied, obviously, the current classification system is not objectively based upon the physical harm, societal harm, or addictiveness of the drugs.

Sometimes people are too quick to jump to conclusions when certain drugs are proposed to be legalized, cannabis being one example. What is needed are more objective studies that get rid of the political baggage so that we can actually make informed decisions about the dangers of drugs.

Development of a rational scale to assess the harm of drugs of potential misuse
The Lancet, Volume 369, March 24, 2007, Issue 9566, Pages 1047-1053
D. Nutt, L. King, W. Saulsbury, C. Blakemore

On the Topic of Intellectual Dishonesty

2009-07-21T18:50:00.012-10:00

Intellectual dishonesty sometimes creeps into the scientific world and should be squashed like bug whenever found. So, What is the problem with intellectual dishonesty?

A person may believe in something or hold a belief in something and be wrong without knowing, this is commonly referred to as "ignorance". But, when a person believes a certain thing, yet advocates the opposite point of view in order to obtain an educational degree in science, that is called "intellectual dishonesty".

Let's go through some of the positions that a Christian young earth creationist takes.

The earth is 6000 years old.
Noah's ark was around 4000 years ago and water covered the entire earth
Noah's ark contained all species minus salt water fish.
Species divergence occurred in 4000 years and 99% of all species went extinct in that 4000 years.
People somehow lived to the age of +900 years old
God created the universe with light already on its way to earth.
The central tenets of Physics, Biology, and Chemistry are flawed.
Evolution by natural selection doesn't occur.
Dinosaurs and people lived together. (the Flintstones was a documentary)
Not swayed by evidence, but convinced by poorly formed idiotic bronze age myths.
Blind Faith > Scientific Method

Well, guess what University of Hawaii, there are two creationists that I know of who want to obtain graduate degrees in natural sciences from your school.

YOUR SHIPMENT OF FAIL HAS ARRIVED!!!

Are orangutans our closest living relatives?

2009-07-05T23:06:00.002-10:00

Find the answer HERE:

John R. Grehan & Jeffrey H. Schwartz. Evolution of the second orangutan: phylogeny and biogeography of hominid origins. Journal of Biogeography, 2009 DOI:

Saltationist rubbish, put out by old farts who still don't understand molecular biology.

On my Personal Philosophy: Scientific Material Probabalism

2009-07-02T17:26:00.006-10:00

Written as a time-capsule on my current worldview, to be read over in subsequent years to examine how and when my philosophy evolves:

At the current date 7-02-09, my philosophy is one of my own making. I purport that the best way to view the world is through the universal solvent that is called modern science. How should we judge the validity of ideas? I propose that the only way to properly judge the truth claims made by others is to use the scientific method. When the scientific method is inapplicable or evidence is not forthright, healthy skepticism and logical rationalization followed by probabilistic approaches will suffice as tentative devices.

I feel it necessary to create a self-definition of what my philosophy is, so as to refer back to this definition in the future. I must admit that I am reluctant to use a word or concept that already has a school of philosophy tied to it, but perhaps a combination of terms will lessen the confusion of terms.

"Scientific Material Probabalism"

Science is the main theme of this philosophical worldview. By using the tenants of inductive reasoning and empirical testing, science has been the most successful tool in discerning truth claims from falsehoods. By taking the scientific method we come to an understanding that so far there is no evidence of supernatural events, hence the following of materialism. Probabalism comes into the picture when we start to talk about the limitations of scientific findings, knowledge and "proving" things. I propose (it has been iterated many times before by philosophers of science) that in science something can never be known to 100% certainty, therefore one has to look at the findings of science in a probabilistic fashion. e.g. Creationism 1.6*10^-35 % (this is made up and is actually the Planck length if you wanted to know where I got the number from) chance of being true, while evolution 99.9999...% true. But what about claims that are 50-50, or even claims with which we have no answers for? A tenet of the philosophy is the willing acceptance to say "I don't know". When "I don't know"'s are found, that is when you can do either of two things: be content with not knowing at the moment or actively pursue the answer to the proposed question.

A common criticism towards scientific findings is that "science changes and paradigm shifts occur which turns science on its head" or "look scientists said eating eggs is bad ->good -> bad -> good etc...." I propose that the pragmatic approach is best to deal with such statements. So what if our current understanding of gravity is wrong, will airplanes fall out of the sky if a specific type of quantum gravity is found to be more accurate than general relativity? Perhaps the best definition of science is found in the following book:

Sagan, Carl, "The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark". Ballantine Books, March 1997 ISBN 0-345-40946-9, 480 pgs.

Science is a process, a self-correcting process that changes, this is the beauty of science, the strength of science, and by no means a Weakness.

Now on to moralistic properties of this philosophy. Recently, Sam Harris, HERE, made comments on using science to compare political ideologies and practices in order to form a new political system that promotes social wellness, equality, while maintaining high levels of prosperity. (No, this is not communism or utopianism, it is a progressive stance) I would go one step further and compare cultural practices, I will state that different cultural practices are harmful to a society (nationalism, tribalism, harmful religious practices). The major stepping stone for this type of scientific social study would be, what combination of factors (social well being, equality, freedoms, happiness) should be maximized? I will not delve into the subject of social engineering as this is an extremely deep field, but I hope that the reader can understand the direction that i was going in with what is written above.

Now, what about individual moral actions or moral stances. I propose a new definition called "moral probabalism" (not to be confused with the 16th century catholic philosophy.) The main stance of this philosophy is that a moral action much be approached individually (every case is different) and judged based upon the context surrounding the action taken or being taken, with all of the information available at the time an action must be taken or not taken based upon the probability of the outcome connected to a certain value property. As to what the value property is it has to be defined at the moment, it could be for the good of an individual, for the planet, for the species, etc...

to be continued......

On the Word: Hypocrisy

2009-06-28T21:29:00.004-10:00

Hypocrisy is defined by websters online dictionary as:

"1: a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not ; especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion
2: an act or instance of hypocrisy"

I will freely admit that I have been wrongly using the word and also that this word could possibly be one of the most misused words in common language use in Hawaii. (Perhaps the US mainland also?)

A common misuse of the word hypocrite, directly follows. (Wiki)

"Hypocrisy is the act of pretending that one has beliefs, opinions, virtues, feelings, qualities or standards that they do not actually have; this is usually done in order to mask their actual motives or feelings; falseness.

Father: You know, it's wrong to swear.
Son: You hypocrite!
Father: How so?
Son: You always swear.
Father: That doesn't make me a hypocrite.

The father is correct, as opposed to the son, who isn't. Had the father stated he doesn't swear, (assuming that the son is correct in saying he always swears) he would have been a hypocrite. Had he not actually agreed with the statement, again, he would have initiating a hypocritical situation. The possession of the belief is what labels the situation, not the practice of the belief. Self-contradiction is not necessarily synonymous with hypocrisy."

Definitions of words are extremely important in facilitating proper communication with others. By misusing words when corrected as to what their proper definitions are, you are only facilitating and promoting further problems with miscommunication in the future. The misuse of words helps to destroy and muddle the evolution of the English language. If you want to convey your thoughts feelings or an object etc... either use the correct words that are in common use (if you find it necessary to be accurate look up the word in the dictionary) or if necessary make up your own word. (so as it could possibly be taken up and assimilated into the English language)

fractal wrongness: Concept of the day

2009-05-31T20:07:00.002-10:00

fractal wrongness

The state of being wrong at every conceivable scale of resolution. That is, from a distance, a fractally wrong person's worldview is incorrect; and furthermore, if you zoom in on any small part of that person's worldview, that part is just as wrong as the whole worldview.

Debating with a person who is fractally wrong leads to infinite regress, as every refutation you make of that person's opinions will lead to a rejoinder, full of half-truths, leaps of logic, and outright lies, that requires just as much refutation to debunk as the first one. It is as impossible to convince a fractally wrong person of anything as it is to walk around the edge of the Mandelbrot set in finite time.

If you ever get embroiled in a discussion with a fractally wrong person on the Internet--in mailing lists, newsgroups, or website forums--your best bet is to say your piece once and ignore any replies, thus saving yourself time.

Courtesy of http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Fractal_wrongness

As for whether or not this is a recognized standard word, I cannot find reference to it in mainstream dictionaries, but it is a play on the mathematical concept of fractals.

Commenting on The Moral Sense

2009-05-26T19:25:00.005-10:00

Often in the discourse between the irreligious and religious the topic of morals is brought up. The most common question put forth by religious people towards secularists is the idea that without a moral law giver (GOD) morals wouldn't exist. Thereby following that previous question with, if god doesn't exist where do you get your morals from or what stops you from murdering other people.

There are many different ways to approaching the problem of solving where our morals come from and I shall be covering several aspects of the moral argument.

Evolutionarily it is hard to think up if not impossible to imagine a species that could have evolved with a moral code of conduct that would permit the murder of their fellow members of their species. By looking at nature we would be hard pressed to find a species that performs murder of its fellow in group allies. What we see in nature are battles for territory, sex, food, and position which rarely lead to the murder of the participants. Battles are wrought in a variety of ways such as the innocence of a peacocks tail to the violent clashing of rams horns. A traditional view of the evolution of intraspecific battles are circled around the idea of ESS (Evolutionary Stable Strategies) opportunity costs and utility. If a specific player were to attempt to murder another, the cost of the murder will affect whether such a behavior will be passed down to that performers progeny. The cost of murder is obviously high in most cases, especially within the animal kingdom. If a murder is attempted the victim will most likely fight back, serious injury could occur or even death, revenge comes into play in human societies which could lead to endless vengeance and rivalry. Looking back into the evolutionary history of mankind any type of injury occurring outside of the past 100 years would be life threatening. If murder were performed before reproducing and resulted in the murderer being murdered in turn, those genes for "that behavior" (behavior and the linkage to genes is not a simple matter but the link between genes and behavior has been established) would simply not be passed on.

We can look for examples of intraspecific "murder" in nature for a better understanding of when and how it takes place. A female prey mantis can be commonly seen biting the head off of its male mate during sexual intercourse. This act of cannibalism has been shown to boost the sexual potency of the male conferring a big selection pressure on the practice. Wars between rival insect factions have been seen in nature, but such events can hardly be called senseless murder. The closest example that compares to human murder can be found in our nearest relatives the apes and monkeys. Chimps have been seen to brutally murder children of rival alpha males after taking power and have been seen murdering in group dissidents. The cost of murdering rivals children is low as they cannot protect themselves and after such murder has taken place the females begin to ovulate allowing for sexual reproduction to occur under the new alpha male. The murder of dissidents in chimp culture can be seen as a way to maintain the power structure. To my knowledge there are no known cases of serial killers in ape societies other in humans.

I will appeal to common sense and ask the reader to imagine a species that freely commits murder of its fellow kind and imagine if such a species could have survived the war of nature without succumbing to extinction.

Now on to the aspect of how our genes can control our behavior. Genes affect behavior in humans through the reward systems, empathy centers, mirror neurons etc.. (performing a deed can make us feel good or bad internally) Most people have a tendency to feel queasy when even thinking about killing other human beings. The exception to the rule are psychopaths who feel no emotions towards others due to brain defects either genetic or onset due to some form of brain damage.

Since genes have been selected against murder it is easy to see that humans are hardwired against performing murder in normal circumstances and are internally awarded to do so. Now that I have described how the moral sense against murder has been evolved naturalistically I want to continue on to the subjective realm of morals.

Laws are put in place to deter criminal acts. If a person were to commit murder there is a sufficient punishment that will be placed upon that individual if caught and convicted. A common issue with people is to say that "you are not moral if all that is keeping you from murdering is the fear of punishment", which is valid but detracts from the issue. If there were no punishment for murder would the murder rate go up, down, or stay the same? I doubt that I would have to argue that the murder rate would rise significantly. Obviously the laws and punishments are sufficient to keep a certain number of people from murdering.

The cost of murder is high, as the murderer risks severe injury or death by performing their actions. What are the benefits of committing murder? In a situation where someone was going to murder me and I had to protect myself in self defense I would kill the attacker, thereby giving me the benefit of life.

I would ask the reader to answer the question as to whether or not they would not commit murder in any and all situations and consider whether murder in self defense is moral or not. Most religions sanction certain forms of murder with the exception of Jainism and other pacifistic religions, so a devout christian or muslim could not claim murder as being immoral in all circumstances. State sanctioned murder occurs in several forms, such as self defense, war, and capital punishment. To address the extremely pacifistic religions, I would like the reader to think about this statement "a lack of action can be just as immoral as an immoral action because of the opportunity cost of inaction." A simple thought experiment can be performed here to show my point, if a known terrorist had access to a nuclear bomb and set it up in new york and had the trigger near him but you had the chance to kill him before he would take the trigger and end the life of millions, what would be the correct moral choice of action?

I have not addressed whether or not murder during war or capital punishment are moral but that topics need to be looked at individually and are not needed in this particular argument.

To answer the beginning question as to where I get my morals from and what stops me from murdering others. It is simple, all the factors that I have outlined above. By our nature we are hardwired to avoid murdering others, there are significant costs to committing murder including risks to self, a society could not function and would most likely lead to extinction if murder were permitted freely, and in some circumstances I would murder if the benefits far outweighed the costs, an example being self-defense or in the defense of others.

I don't want to typecast as a utilitarian but my morals do tend towards utilitarianism.

I am sure that some things have escaped me while I wrote this so I may add addendums to this as new ideas come to mind.

My views on Libertarians

2009-05-02T21:06:00.006-10:00

Note this post may be incomplete:

I have recently come across a group of libertarians on YouTube and have been thoroughly perplexed by a large majority of the economical and social stances that they take. While being superficially similar to the stance of most moral objectivists, I find that the subtle differences make a huge difference between the two.

Perhaps it is best for me to present my position on politics and economics. I am not affiliated with any party and choose to vote for the candidate that 1) has a chance of winning. 2) best represents my views on science, science funding, education, stance on social freedoms, then economics. But due to the nature of the US political system at this time in history, we essentially have a two party system. Yes, there are two other party's Libertarian and Green but they usually garner <2% of the vote. (maybe up to 3%)

The Libertarians, if I am to take Ron Paul as an example, seem to not be a party with matters of social or scientific consensus. Ron Paul is against abortion, highly religious, doesn't believe in public education and he doesn't believe in evolution. Of course I have come across other libertarians that lean more towards a moral objectivists point of view and are for gay marriage, abortion rights, science, and highly anti-religious. The thing that seems to hold the political group together is their consensus on economic policy. I have been pointed to a school of economics called the Austrian school of economics an economic school of thought promoting a kind of laissez faire capitalism that Libretarians across the board subscribe to.

When presenting arguments the Libertarians seem to fall back on getting rid of the "Fed", which interpreted shows there utter disgust for any type of monetary policy being in effect. It seems that the Libertarian chooses to describe the cause of most economic recessions to failed inflationary monetary policy, which consists of any increase in the money supply that they say will produce a bubble economy resulting in a recession. Most common Libertarians seem to produce negative reactions to any type of monetary policy (expansionary or contractionary), while some big name libertarians such as Milton Freedmon while disagreeing with the existence of monetary policy have chosen to give advice on how to stabilize the economy through its use.

I must admit my own personal bias and skepticism towards the Austrian school of economics as it is not a mainstream idea. I do have degrees in finance focusing on market valuations and derivatives and international business focusing on economics, but as do most universities they do not cover the Austrian school of economics readily in classes. What is taught first is a modern Keynesian view of economics with reference to capitalism. Socialism is not thoroughly discussed except in a negative sense, but the ideas of communism were discussed and so were theories as to why it failed to produce goods and services. In later courses we learned about modern economic theory and monetary policy, along with government regulation due to the Enron fiasco. I personally came to the conclusion that the efficient market hypothesis runs relatively true and that investors are not rational when information is scarce and the best way to make money from the market was either to acquire information before it is disseminated through the public and to value companies based on rational speculations of probabilities of future income base upon past trends and trying to predict market speculation….etc.etc. (most of which would have been spent on staring at graphs) But of course this has nothing to do with how to make economies work, but deals with how to profit in the existing system.

The non-intervention monetary policy is an intriguing hypothesis, but every alarm in my head screams it is bound to fail. But, of course as the rational skeptic I must be open to consider new ideas so I took today out to looking through what the Libertarians propose. One trend that I found very disheartening was a very dogmatic view from libertarians. I had a feeling that standards of evidence were differing between me and the people I came across right off the bat. I came across some very funny quotes right after a Libertarian told me that not believing him was akin to disbelief in evolution, and the link between AIDS and HIV and a rejection of science.

“Austrian economists reject empirical, statistical methods and artificially constructed experiments as tools applicable to economics, saying that while it is appropriate in the natural sciences where factors can be isolated in laboratory conditions, the actions of human beings are too complex for this treatment"

“The main criticism of modern Austrian economics is that it lacks scientific precision. Austrian theories are not formulated in formal mathematical form, but using verbal logic. Mainstream economists believe that this makes Austrian theories too imprecisely defined to be clearly used to explain or predict real world events. Economist Bryan Caplan noted that, "what prevents Austrian economists from getting more publications in mainstream journals is that their papers rarely use mathematics or econometrics." This criticism of the Austrian school is related to its rejection of the use of the scientific method and empirical testing in social sciences in favor of self-evident axioms and logical reasoning.”

As far as I could find there are not that much papers from economists purporting the Libertarians view of economics. The above quote is actually from a Libertarian and the other is one of their basic principles of the moral absolutes or praxeology. As the libertarian view point is obviously nothing like the scientific method, I have to conclude that analogous features between the Austrian school of economics and science are few and far between. The view that logical absolutes and the axioms of human nature are self evident seems to have been derived from Aristotle’s Greek school of thought. If my mind is not being forgetful, I seem to remember the pervading view of Aristotle was that logical statements did not need to be proved. The Austrian school of economics seems to have taken up the position that proof in terms of statistics and mathematics is unnecessary in the formation of its economic theories. The scientist inside of me does not agree with the prior statement, as nature has proved to defy human logic, only through statistical means have we been able to make advances in science compared to our ancient Greek counterparts.

As there are no fully free market capitalistic Austrian economics school of thought countries, there is no empirical evidence that this system can and does work. But, there also has never been a fully communistic society either. So these two extremes have not been fully tested. As for anyone claiming that either one of these economic systems works there simply is not enough evidence to support that view. I am certainly skeptical that a fully free market could exist without turning into a corporatist monopoly system, but of course I could be wrong. But as a realist I simply do not see a theory not based upon empirical evidence taking over a majority of the public so that it will ever be instated in the US. My final conclusion is that I remain unconvinced of the claims made by Libertarians.

(Note may be incomplete)

My exchange with libertarians

2009-05-02T20:47:00.005-10:00

These are my responses to several libertarians from this video

What should be done about the economy?

Not all In order

kintarocrab (1 day ago) Show Hide

There are different types of investment, short, longterm, bad/good. What about government spending being apart of investment, which large portions of the bailout are, I don't think you addressed these things in your video.

Surhotchaperchlorome (1 day ago) Show Hide

Because he addressed it in other videos.

kintarocrab (1 day ago) Show Hide

Which one, there are 160 too look through.

Surhotchaperchlorome (1 day ago) Show Hide

"Um no re: how to lose a trillion dollars"
for one.

kintarocrab (1 day ago) Show Hide

That video did not address the issue that I wrote. Some types of government spending have the same effect as investment. the bailout was a type of loan, that was used to invest into the economy. It is not applicable to call the deficit G-T in the short run on that graph. The effects of the deficit spending are drawn out, as it is an attempt to improve the economy so that at that time the loan can be paid back.

Surhotchaperchlorome (1 day ago) Show Hide

I think I see what you are talking about.
But even if the bailouts were investment (which they weren't) they would have been a bad one at best because they went into failed banks...
Government spending is NOT investment though, even if its in infrastructure.
That's why they are separated.
Investment is done privately without government.

kintarocrab (1 day ago) Show Hide

As these bailouts are a new thing, I don't think that there is proper precedent to say whether or not before hand as to what there effects are going to be. I remain skeptical as to whether they are a good idea or not, but I refuse to take a presupposition in the light of the lack of evidence to support the position taken by this video.

Surhotchaperchlorome (1 day ago) Show Hide

"As these bailouts are a new thing,'
No they aren't.
I may be wrong, but I do believe the S&L crisis would be an example of this....

"but I refuse to take a presupposition in the light of the lack of evidence to support the position taken by this video."
He provided evidence, in this video, and in others.

kintarocrab (22 hours ago) Show Hide

As I remember the economy was doing quite fine during the 90's except for the dotcombubble (which was not caused by bailouts, if you have evidence that it was pls. present). The scale is also different than the S&L crisis. bad evidence is not good evidence.

Surhotchaperchlorome (21 hours ago) Show Hide

"As I remember the economy was doing quite fine during the 90's except for the dotcombubble (which was not caused by bailouts, if you have evidence that it was pls. present)."
No, it was caused by the Fed pumping too much many into the system.

"The scale is also different than the S&L crisis."
Why does this matter?

"bad evidence is not good evidence."
Tautology.
What evidence are you referring to?

kintarocrab (21 hours ago) Show Hide

Damn i wrote out a long res. but it was deleted, anyway. Dotcom bubble not caused by fed, but by bad investments, and non producing companies. The swedish bailout seemed to work out fine. The video improperly caricatures what is actually going on in the economy and is highly speculative on a subject that the author cannot change, but if the bailouts do fail I will reconsider my position. END

kintarocrab (21 hours ago) Show Hide

addon: after S&L the economy improved during the 90's that was the reason for the first sentence int he other reply.

shanedk (18 hours ago) Show Hide

"Dotcom bubble not caused by fed, but by bad investments,"

Bad investments are ENCOURAGED by the Fed's inflationary bubbles. That's how it works! The increase in the Supply of Loanable Funds results in a drop in interest rates, which makes banks and investors less risk-averse. It's been shown over and over and over again.

kintarocrab (7 hours ago) Show Hide

Irrational investments into companies that didn't produce goods or had sub par services was the reason for the bubble burst. Market speculation was irrational for that period of time due to the emergence of the new techno bubble that popped up. The fed may have made investing easier but the bad investments were still made by individual investors. Not the CAUSE but a contributing factor.

shanedk (7 hours ago) Show Hide

"Irrational investments into companies that didn't produce goods or had sub par services was the reason for the bubble burst."

And the reason for the irrational investments was the false signals sent into the market by the inflationary monetary policy.

kintarocrab (7 hours ago) Show Hide

No the irrational investments were made due to the lack of information and overconfidence in the new emergent market, the investors were making short term profits on there investments(due to pyramid scheme like companies). Once the investors realized that the companies did not produce they started pulling out.

Virgil0211 (6 hours ago) Show Hide

And the only reason they were able to do this was because of the inflationary monetary policy. Had this policy not been in place, the investments wouldn't have been made. For example, we had no recessions or depressions during the free banking era.

kintarocrab (5 hours ago) Show Hide

oh man, you would use the free banking era as evidence? you are insane. Its not even applicable to what we were discussing.

Virgil0211 (5 hours ago) Show Hide

Yes. Use an ad hominem instead of actually discussing the topic.

Yes, I would use the free banking era as evidence. You were trying to imply that our current economic crisis was not due to monetary policy. I pointed you to an example where such monetary policy wasn't present, and the result was not malinvestment.

Get over it. Our monetary policy led to this recession. It enabled, encouraged, and protected the malinvestment that caused it. To deny this is akin to denying evolution or gravity.

kintarocrab (4 hours ago) Show Hide

Ya, but I wasn't arguing for the cause of the current recession. We are not talking about the same thing. So pls. retract your original statement.

shanedk (4 hours ago) Show Hide

It is! You were talking about the dot-bomb, which has the same cause! It's all due to our inflationary monetary policy.

kintarocrab (4 hours ago) Show Hide

That is a pretty big claim to be making "All of our economic problems are due to our current monetary policy post 1862". Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Evolution is agreed upon by 99.9999% of biologists and by vast amounts of evidence. As for your claims I have never come across an economist sharing that point of view. I'm sry but if that is what you are touting I don't buy it for a second.

Virgil0211 (4 hours ago) Show Hide

Actually, we have provided evidence. We've laid out how it occurred and provided an example of how things were prosperous back during the free banking era without such monetary policy. This runs quite counter to your implication that these events would've occurred even without government intervention. If you have some evidence to prove it, go ahead and present it.

And quite a few economists DO share our position. Ignorance is not a valid defense.

Virgil0211 (4 hours ago) Show Hide

And by the way, we weren't saying that all of our economic problems were due to the current monetary policy. Just the problems in question.

Next time, try not to misrepresent your opponent's side when you develop a counter-argument. It just makes you look stupid.

kintarocrab (4 hours ago) Show Hide

"It's all due to our inflationary monetary policy." I was not taking this out of context. Don't call me stupid when you didn't even have the brains to look at what I was writing in the first place. Ya I am sure you can find some obscure economist that shares your views, just as creationists can. But you can't argue that the vast majority 98+% of all economists think having some form of a controlled monetary policy is how the economy should be run.

Virgil0211 (4 hours ago) Show Hide

A similar problem having a similar cause? Oh, perish the thought! Next thing you know, they'll be saying that the majority of AIDS cases result from an HIV infection.

It wasn't a matter of brains. It was a matter of looking at the latest comments you had made, keeping the subject of the video in question, and replying. Don't blame me for the fact that Youtube's comment system is screwed up.

Milton Friedman, Adam Smith (the man whose writings inspired Darwin's T.O.S.), Peter Schiff... (cont.)

kintarocrab (4 hours ago) Show Hide

For one, how in the hell can you take adam smith as a proponent of libertarianism? Anyway you obviously won't admit that your ideas are an extreme minority and you show the tell tale signs of extreme dogmatism towards your point of view so forget it. Believe what you want based upon shoddy evidence and bad theories. I wish you guys could get your own country to try out your economic policies so people could be done with this debate, but whatever.

Virgil0211 (3 hours ago) Show Hide

He was a proponent of limited government intervention into the market. Sound familiar?

Argument from authority? Is that all you have now?

You've asserted that these recessions would happen whether or not monetary policy was changed. This has been proven false.

You've asserted that we blame all economic problems on our monetary policy. This has been proven false.

You've asserted that our opinions are only held by a minority of "crackpot" economists. This is demonstrably false.

Virgil0211 (4 hours ago) Show Hide Ludwig Von Mises, Friedrich Von Hayek (Who, like Friedman, won a nobel prize in economics), Joseph Schumpeter, Henry Hazlitt, Murray Rothbard.

Von Mises and Milton Friedman both warned about the Great Depression some years before it happened, and Peter Schiff warned about our current recession when other economists were predicting that such a recession couldn't happen.

These are NOT obscure economists. These are brilliant men whose boots you are not worthy to kiss. Your fallacy is revealed.

Virgil0211 (4 hours ago) Show Hide

I apologize. I misinterpreted the conversation. However, replace "our current economic crisis" with "the dot-bomb" and it still applies. So, no, my original statement will not be retracted. Simply modified. Happy?

kintarocrab (3 hours ago) Show Hide

None of those points have been proven false. I never used the word crackpot, don't put words in my mouth I said minority and obscure. Argument from authority you are the one pulling out names. My position doesn't need to pull out names, since I have 100+ years of economic papers written on monetary policy for you to look through and every text book written on the subject. i don't understand why you would limit yourself to a political allegiance, why don't you try being a freethinker instead.

Virgil0211 (3 hours ago) Show Hide

Your first point was proven false through an explanation of how monetary policy affects investment and the example of the Free Banking Era.

Secondly, we never said all economic problems were caused by our current monetary policy. We stated that our monetary policy has a specific effect on our economy that leads to this cycle of expansion and recession.

Minority, maybe. Obscure, definitely not. We also have 100+ years of economic papers and several accurate predictions under our belts.

Virgil0211 (3 hours ago) Show Hide

If you knew anything about scientific theories, you would know that the purpose of a theory was to make accurate predictions. Austrian theory predicted the GD, the dot bomb, and our current recession. Keynesian theory did not. It doesn't matter how many people ascribe to a model if said model doesn't make accurate predictions.

It wasn't an argument from authority. You said it was held by an obscure minority. The names were in response to that. You challenged the authority itself.

kintarocrab (2 hours ago) Show Hide

Here's a quote for you "Austrian economists reject empirical, statistical methods and artificially constructed experiments as tools applicable to economics,." and "The main criticism of modern Austrian economics is that it lacks scientific precision." I read up on your austrian economics since it is not taught readily in schools. Some interesting things but that just poked out like a soar thumb.

kintarocrab (2 hours ago) Show Hide

"his criticism of the Austrian school is related to its rejection of the use of the scientific method and empirical testing in social sciences in favor of self-evident axioms and logical reasoning." Maybe I have found my problem with your way of thinking. The quote above kind of summed it up. But it could be a conspiracy of us monetarists plaguing your wiki page.

Virgil0211 (2 hours ago) Show Hide

Check the source from the page. It's not a quote. The terms "self-evident", "social sciences", "logical reasoning", and "axioms" don't even show up in the source referenced.

Virgil0211 (2 hours ago) Show Hide

And by the way, the paper referenced for that section was written Bryan Caplan, a member of the Cato Institute (Libertarian think tank) and a Chicago School economist, which was based on the Austrian School. He would agree that monetary policy such as ours leads to these recessions.

Virgil0211 (2 hours ago) Show Hide

Ah, yes. Wikipedia. That's a wonderfully accurate resource right there. Never mind the accurate predictions made by Hayek and Schiff. Yes, Wikipedia's "criticism of Austrian School" section is the place to get your information about how accurate it is. Did you even read the rest of the article, or did you just jump to the criticisms section scrambling for a quote to use?

Whatever the case, the fact that the theory predicted these circumstances vindicates it beyond the edit wars of wikipedia.

kintarocrab (2 hours ago) Show Hide

Nah I read the whole thing, like I said kind of interesting, but the rejection of mathematics and statistics doesn't go well for me.

Virgil0211 (2 hours ago) Show Hide

They aren't rejected outright. They're taken with a grain of salt as it's very difficult to isolate variables with economics. Watch a youtube video with Peter Schiff's appearances on CNBC and see how often statistics or mathematics come up.

kintarocrab (2 hours ago) Show Hide

Peter schiff may use mathematics but that is going against the austrian school of economics. The general principles are similar to those of ayn rand. And as for him predicting the bubble bursting, there were a lot of people who thought the economy was going to tank. I myself thought the real estate bubble was going to burst back in 2005 without even looking so much into the economic debacle.

Virgil0211 (2 hours ago) Show Hide

I repeat: Austrian school takes these with a grain of salt. It doesn't discard them entirely.

An objectivist may follow the austrian school, but one who ascribes to the austrian school may not be an objectivist.

The point is why they thought the economy would tank. The keynesian economists basically predicted that so long as the government kept spending, our economy would do well. Schiff predicted that if we kept up our monetary policy, we'd experience a recession. Guess who was right.

kintarocrab (1 hour ago) Show Hide

look again with the monetary policy thing. You do realize that "Modern" economists (Keynesian isn't applicable anymore ) argue all the time about what type of policy (expansionary contractionary) should be kept at different times right? I was going to point this out to you earlier, but not all economists (who are not libr.) think the same about when and how to adjust the monetary supply.

Virgil0211 (1 hour ago) Show Hide

Perhaps, but the general trend was to predict that the economy would do well under our current monetary system. There were some non-Keynesian economists who were also predicting prosperity. I saw an interesting debate between Schiff and Art Laffer back in 2006 over that same subject. Laffer was more of a supply-side economist in the Reagan tradition.

Virgil0211 (3 hours ago) Show Hide

Finally, it's not about a political allegiance any more than your acceptance of the Theory of Evolution is a political allegiance. It's about which model makes the most accurate predictions and best applies to monetary policy. My "allegiance", if you want to call it that, is based on the fact that the libertarian party follows this model and falls in line with what I view as appropriate social policy. Should this change tomorrow, I would change my affiliation.

Virgil0211 (3 hours ago) Show Hide

Now, you're re-asserting your original claim, accusing your opponent of being extremely dogmatic, basing conclusions on shoddy evidence, etc, when every claim you've made has been falsified, every conclusion you've presented has been wrong, and your reasoning shown to be utterly flawed.

You're behaving almost exactly like a creationist, right down to throwing insults as you leave in disgrace.

I wish you well. I hope you one day learn to apply reason to economics as well as science.

kintarocrab (3 hours ago) Show Hide

The first insult was merited as you were wrong and I properly pointed out your failure. The second insult came from you, also when you were wrong. Misuse of ad hom and misuse of arg from authority from you, that is more a kin to creationists than I am.

Virgil0211 (3 hours ago) Show Hide

Your first insult may have been warranted before I corrected myself, but not after. Any ad hominem attacks I made were in conjunction with, not instead of, my arguments. The only time I may have ventured close to "argument from authority" was when I responded to your argument that Austrian economic theory was only held by an obscure minority of economists. It was an appropriate response to that fallacious assertion. The fact that you can't or won't tell the difference says alot.

Re: 5 Questions for Atheists

2009-04-03T23:08:00.001-10:00

Original Video

1. Where did we all originate?

2. Are humans of more intrinsic value than animals? Why or why not?

3. How do you determine morality?

4. Why do you feel so strongly about making people believe as you?

5. Is an atheist's lack of experience more relevant than a believer's claim of experience?

6. (Sort of)
Are you content with your life?

My answers:

1) The big bang, the origins of self replicating molecules, and evolution "change with modification" by natural selection, are three different topics.
The big bang occurred, we have evidence for this, but we don't have evidence of what came before the big bang god or no god, this question is still up for debate.
Autocatalytic Self replicating molecules need no creator, but can occur if the right chemical elements and compounds are put in the right place together, with sufficient energy to complete the reactions
Evolution through natural selection and genetic drift occurs, this is a fact, further information on the subject can be learned through the study of biology and medicine which are both based upon this fact.

2) This is my own opinion on the subject, think of something only having a value if it is in the right configuration. An empty canvas and a couple of paint buckets have little intrinsic value, but in the proper conformation you can have the Mona Lisa. So yes the specific conformation of humans who have the superior mental capability of self reflection and self retrospection as compared with other organisms that do not share these capabilities are intrinsically special.

3) Evolution solves a large part of the problem of how the “moral sense” comes about. In order for a species to survive, it has to play a game of helping others of its kind to survive long enough to mate and propagate the species, or else that species would go extinct. It is well known that specific behaviors can be influenced by natural selection and become instinctual so that they do not need to be taught. Other factors affect people’s moral judgments such as mutation and environmental factors, which could lead to good “extra philanthropic” or bad “psychopath”.

4) What people believe while they live, affects their behavior towards others. If said belief was negative, such as in the case of most dogmatic religious beliefs and failed political ideologies, that belief would be destructive to the people exposed to them. Sharia law, forced banning of gay marriages, slavery, stoning disobedient children, the casting out of demons, and witch burnings are all good examples of this. Beliefs matter, especially when try to outlaw or ban certain freedoms given to us by the constitution and change or create new laws.

5) You can’t expect people to believe in something that you have no proof of outside of your own subjective experiences. If you expect people to take you by your word that magic, aliens, Jesus, Atlantis, and big foot exist without providing any type of substantial evidence then I would consider you insane. There are billions of people who believe in different GODs around the world based on their own subjective experiences, why should I choose yours when you have no better evidence for its existence then the next Joe Schmo?

6) At the moment I am happy, I am not starving, I have a nice apartment, I was accepted to graduate school in Cell molecular Biology, I am doing pretty good. But of course things can always be better, I could win the lottery, and things could always be worse, I could get hit by a car. Ya, I would like to extend my life as much as possible, but the probability of me dying in the next 60 years is very high, so what all the rest of my ancestors have died so far.

Religulous: short review

2008-12-27T20:11:00.002-10:00

I saw the movie Religulous today and I was actually pretty impressed. The information content on first glance in this movie was accurate and supportable by evidence. Maher's interview style was a little sloppy and several obscure people were interviewed but the overall message of the film was not negatively affected by these things. I did notice the use of the so called "Lord privy seals" which try to evoke emotions in the viewer, but whatever I don't like them but they weren't overly used in my opinion. Maher's agnosticism and unchallenging nature may help to further expose the public to the ideas of questioning their religions, but considering that it doesn't give answers to questions such as science would, I am sure if this movie were to change peoples beliefs they would probably quickly fall into the pseudoscience realm as plagues much of Europe, or perhaps I am being to pessimistic.

This movie actually had the same feel to it as Prof. Dawkins documentary "Root of all Evil" with a trip to the gaza strip and the interview with an evangelical (although he was a black televangilist type).

Overall I give the movie two thumbs up and would reccomend it to most of the people that I know.

Various Papers from Science and Nature

2008-12-17T16:15:00.005-10:00

This week has some great papers published and featured in Science and Nature.

here's the list

D. Lisch

A new SPIN on horizontal transferProc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2008 105:16827-16828

About horizontal gene transfer in the Rotifers and how this may explain their Asexual behavior.

From the Cover: Repeated horizontal transfer of a DNA transposon in mammals and other tetrapods.: J. K. Pace II, C. Gilbert, M. S. Clark, and C. Feschotte (2008)
PNAS 105, 17023-17028

General info about horizontal gene transfer by transposons in Eukaryotes.

Nature 456, 841 (18 December 2008) | doi:10.1038/456841a; Published online 17 December 2008

Genetics: Many but rare

Science 320, 539–543 (2008)

Article about schizophrenia; genetic causes and mutations that lead to schizophrenia in childhood onset and young adult onset schizophrenia. Really interesting read.

Nature 456, 840 (18 December 2008) | doi:10.1038/456840d; Published online 17 December 2008

Zoology: Queen Bee

About epigenetic factors that contribute to the genetically identical bees differentiating into queen bees or workers from feeding on "royal jelly", by way of using RNAi to interfere with specific proteins during development.

Nature 456, 840 (18 December 2008) | doi:10.1038/456840c; Published online 17 December 2008

Neuroscience: Glia on fire

About specific types of Glial cells that fire neurotrans. signals, Glial cells were long thought to not have a direct role in neuro signals, so this is something new and exciting.

Nature 456, 840 (18 December 2008) | doi:10.1038/456840b; Published online 17 December 2008

Biophysics: Mob rule

Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 105, 11754–11759 (2008)

About how protein structures can be modified in-vivo if the amount of space in a cell is limiting or available, very interesting stuff.

And I am not even done reading past the highlights. Check the papers out and I would like to encourage everyone to listen to the Nature podcast and read Nature every Wednesday for free if you attend University or are a faculty member.

On the central Dogma of Molecular Biology

2008-09-12T18:32:00.008-10:00

READ THE PAPER SCIENTISTS BEFORE YOU START SAYING IT HAS BEEN REFUTED!!!

Crick, F. (1970): Central Dogma of Molecular Biology. Nature 227, 561-563. PMID 4913914

The central dogma of molecular biology deals with the detailed residue-by-residue transfer of sequential information. it states that such information cannot be transferred from protein to either protein or nucleic acid.

The Central Dogma. This states that once “information” has passed into protein it cannot get out again. In more detail, the transfer of information from nucleic acid to nucleic acid, or from nucleic acid to protein may be possible, but transfer from protein to protein, or from protein to nucleic acid is impossible. Information means here the precise determination of sequence, either of bases in the nucleic acid or of amino acid residues in the protein.

Crick, F.H.C. (1958) On protein synthesis.

I just sat through two classes today where the lecturer made comments about the central dogma and was Wrong. The central dogma proposed by Francis crick is not the same as the positive statement put out by Watson in his book genetics.

Watson’s version of the Central Dogma. This figure is taken from the first edition of The Molecular Biology of the Gene (p. 298)

Here is a quote from Larry Moran (Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto) who knows what the central dogma is actually about. (link)

So, how do we explain the current state of the Central Dogma? The Watson version is the one presented in almost every textbook, even though it is not the correct version according to Francis Crick. The Watson version has become the favorite whipping boy of any scientist who lays claim to a revolutionary discovery, even though a tiny bit of research would uncover the real meaning of the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology. The Watson version has been repeatedly refuted or shown to be incomplete, and yet it continues to be promoted as the true Central Dogma. This is very strange.

The Crick version is correct—it has never been seriously challenged—but few textbooks refer to it. One exception is Lewin’s GENES VIII (Lewin, 2004) (and earlier editions). Lewin defines the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology as,
The central dogma states that information in nucleic acid can be perpetuated or transferred but the transfer of information into protein is irreversible. (B. Lewin, 2004)
I recommend that all biochemistry and molecular biology teachers adopt this definition—or something very similar—and teach it in their classrooms.

Crick, F.H.C. (1958) On protein synthesis. Symp. Soc. Exp. Biol. XII:138-163
Crick, F. (1970) Central Dogma of Molecular Biology. Nature 227, 561-563. [PDF file]
Watson, J.D. (1965) The Molecular Biology of the Gene. W.A. Benjamin. Inc. New York

It is time to vote!

2008-09-09T21:42:00.003-10:00

I thought I wasn't going to be convinced to vote this year, but holyshit I was wrong. Sarah Palin is sciences worst nightmare. I can't stand the bitch, so it is time to cast my ballot against that hypocritical bitch.

Abstinence only education = Palin's 17 year old daughter being pregnant (link), perhaps she found her future baby's daddy at church like Britney Spears younger sister. (link) I wonder how many attempts at the poophole it took before Palin's daughter decided to take in the otherside. (abstenence only pledgers 6x more likely to have anal sex link) Not to mention anal sex increases the risk on STD's, HIV for example 5x as high for receieving it in the poophole.

There is a 15% chance of McCain dieing in his first term of office. I sure as hell don't wanna take that risk.

Hallmark Refused to Sell Me Gay Wedding Cards and Comming Out Cards

2008-08-30T15:23:00.006-10:00

Damn homophobes at Hallmark Ala-moana refused to sell me any cards from their gay series today, even though they admitted that they had them in the back of the store in stock. Fuck Hallmark! On another note, why don't they have any type of Atheist cards?

Extension:
OK, to the person who commented on this. I am not saying that it is not within the rights of that particular Hallmark store to sell whatever cards they want, neither am/was I trying to force them to sell me the cards. What happened is an observation on my part that the manager at Hallmark first lied to me claiming there were no such things then told me "We are not selling those cards during the holiday season" (even though it is august and nowhere near the holiday season) and would not sell me the cards even though they had them in stock and in their store and my reaction to that. It is the same as lets say an individual McDonald's would start to refuse to serve minorities or blacks, if that were the case I would say Fuck McDonald's. Perhaps, you are familiar with small pharmacies in the middle of nowhere refusing to sell contraceptives. Some small towns only have one pharmacy or one place where they can buy contraceptives from, if that were gone would you not object to such vile practices?

The reason why I brought up the Atheist cards thing was just because, I found that almost all of the worlds religions were being represented in every single section through out Hallmark. So why not sell atheistic cards, this is not a demand, just a suggestion.

On a side note, a friend of mine bought some of the cards the weekend before, at that same shop. But this was before Hallmark gave in to the complaints of Religious groups

The following is from a blog found here, which is along the lines of how I feel on the topic.

I'm all for Hallmark deciding to have cards honoring the marriages and commitment ceremonies of gay people - after all, it is the law in California and Massachusetts that gay couples can legally wed. But I do have a problem with Hallmark saying it's okay for it's stores to not carry the new gay wedding cards because, you know, some local Hallmark stores don't like homos. Would Hallmark headquarters let local stores pull cards that are geared to the black community because, you know, some local Hallmark stores don't like black Americans? Hallmark though it had a problem with the religious right, that's rabble-rousing to try to get stores to the pull the gay cards. Honey, you ain't seen nothing yet. It's one thing for a religious right person to be offended that Hallmark offers gay cards. It's another thing for gay people to see Hallmark engage in blatant bigotry against gay people. That's an attack on their own customers. Most religious right nutjobs couldn't care less about the gay cards, but every gay person will be offended to their core that Hallmark is tolerating bigotry.

Here is a news link talking about how individual stores won't carry the cards.

Choice Clips of Prof. Dawkins Reading his fan mail from loving Christians

2008-08-20T00:10:00.003-10:00

From part 3 of Prof. Dawkins BBC special on the Genius of Darwin, 2008.

Benny Hinn Brings the Feuer Frei!

2008-08-17T16:33:00.000-10:00

I made this video today.

New video "Religious Dance Party"

2008-08-14T21:02:00.001-10:00

Here is a video I made today.

1.21 gigawatts?

2008-08-14T17:33:00.004-10:00

you need ~15mg of U 235 to reach the 1.21 gigawatts of energy required to activate the flux-capacitor, in order too travel back in time to the year 1955.

Unless my math was wrong.

joules needed/( fission energy of a single U235 ~200MeV * conversion factor to joules 1.6 x 10^-19 J/eV) = x Kg

x * (235mp) = x' Kg

10 things people say to Atheists that show that they are scientifically illiterate and mentally challenged

2008-08-13T13:24:00.009-10:00

10)You are going to HELL! But Jesus loves you and I'm praying for you.
I actually find this one funny.

9)Why do you worship the devil?
Apparently people don't even know what an Atheist is.

8)America is a christian nation!
Perhaps there is a correlation between religiosity and a lack of historical knowledge.

7) Anything to do with fruits or bananas in an argument against evolution
This one usually makes me laugh and sad at the same time.

6)You are close minded and will never change your mind!
This is the usual projection that theists prescribe too. They are close minded so they somehow think that you are close-minded too. Damn those mirror neurons.

5)If you don't believe in GOD, where do your morals come from, what is to stop you from raping and murdering people?
It is called the law, if I rape or murder someone, I have to go to jail where I will be raped and possibly murdered, which are things that I sure as hell don't want done to me.

4) You are an atheist so you don't believe in anything!
That is a Nihilist not an atheist, on the opposite side you have the post modernists and cultural relativists(ewwwwwww).

3)You atheists actually believe in a GOD but you deny him!
I find this one the most annoying. The Christian idiot who states that one is one deluded person with major mental issues. A improper rebuttal would be "You theists actually don't believe in a GOD you just do it cause it makes you feel better!", but it sure would be funny to see the look on their faces.

2) Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Kim-jung-il were all atheists and atheists were responsible for all the horrible things they did.
Nazi's wore belt buckles with "GOD with us" written on them. Atheism is simply a disbelief in GOD it is not a group of people with similar tastes, culture, or philosophical backgrounds.

1)What if you are wrong? (and all permutations of Pascal's wager)
This one is tied with the other #1 so there are two #1's because they are equally as annoying.
Answered simply by saying what if you are wrong! Then a list of religions follows.

1)You can't prove there isn't a GOD!
And I can't prove that ghosts are not performing ectoplasmic orgies in my apartment, doesn't make it true.

Eucharist Miracles: Miracle of Lanciano "Update"

2008-08-12T16:32:00.021-10:00

I have received the paper by Dr. Linoli. And the data and results are both Unsurprising and Uninteresting. That's right scientists you can keep your hats on because miracles still don't have any type of scientific proof of ever occurring.

I will examine parts of the paper by Linoli, in terms of the claim that the blood and flesh are somehow miraculously preserved and fresh.(miraculously preserved and fresh for the means of this write up will be defined as follows: shows no signs of decay, tested for biological activity, presence of proteins and minerals in equal amounts to those present in fresh human blood.)

The flesh was found to be of human cardiac tissue, which is not surprising. But what of the claim that this was miraculously preserved.

At last, the action of long centuries on the Miraculous tissue, provoked the loss of anatomic pieces and consequently only one cavity was formed.
Therefore, it is evident that without any cover, all the fluid phase inside the tissue was lost, making it mummified and reducing its size, that results lower compared to a normal heart.
The surface is smooth, never raised or chapped or carved. We can widely notice little white spots strewn sometimes chapped, or like millet-seed, often flowing, soft, detachable, not belonging to any tissue trace, hardly diluted into a physiological solution (the microscopic investigation, revealed hyphomycetes colonies, from evident contamination). On the peripheral side of the tissue round sheet there are little holes, ancient signs of nail crossings.

The tissue structure appears markedly abnormal due to the lack of histochemical detectability of nuclei and to some degree of global homogenization.

Considering the nail holes in many points of the frame, we must conclude that the Miraculous Heart fragment which appeared on the altar of the little Church in Lanciano consisted of living material therefore tending, due to subsequent "rigor mortis", to concentrical retraction; the Basilian monks tried to prevent it, by nailing the Heart Fragment on a wood piece, and this, already small, retracted again in centrifugal direction, finally tearing up

The above are direct quotes from the journal article. Rigor mortis does not set in on fresh tissue samples! I don't think that I even need to rebut the claims that this is fresh tissue samples, it even had saprophytes growing on it.

Next the blood, as I quote again.

A minute Blood fragment has been included in paraffin according to Lenzi's technique.
At the Emallume-Eosine staining, no cellular element can be detected, with the exception of a yellow-dark-green granular material with foreign bodies of vegetable origin.

That means that no cellular structures were identified, meaning no recognizable cells were left in the sample. Fresh blood contains blood cells, it is a contradiction to say that something is miraculously fresh when cellular structures and cells are no longer present. Foreign bodies of vegetable origin? The samples were contaminated also with an untested foreign vegetable.

Teichmann's reaction modified by Bertrand with hydrochlorate hematine and Takayama's reaction with hemo-chromogen, have been carried out on the ancient Blood in Lanciano with negative results, together with human Blood samples normally dried, which gave positive results.

The negativity of Teichmann-Bertrand's test and Takayama's test does not exclude the presence of Blood, as these tests can become negative due to sample denaturation.

This test showed negatives on both Teichmann's and Takayam's reactions, while showing positives on the dried control (lab blood). These tests don't work when the blood being tested is extremely decayed or contaminated. (Note how this also shows that the blood samples are not fresh or preserved miraculously, the article even states that the sample was denatured).

The percentage composition of proteins in the liquid tested is similar to that known for human normal Blood serum (Henry).
The protein content is as follows: albumin 61.93 % (normal values 52-68%). Alfa 1 globulin 2.38% (normal values 2.4-5.3%), Alfa 2 globulin 7.14% (normal values 6,6-13,5%), Beta globulin in 7,14% (normal values 8.5-14.5%), Gamma globulin 21.42% (normal values 10.7-21%).
Globulin-albumin ratio is of 1.62 the normal value being 1.13-1.73.

This study confirms the possibility that organic material (such as proteins) may be kept for a very long period, as if the fatal destiny of Flesh could be overcome.
The discovery of blood group AB proteins and antigens in the ancient Flesh and Blood in Lanciano after 1200 years, is in agreement with the discovery of proteins in Egyptian mummies dated since 4000 years (Hanseman), and since 5000 years (Meyer),

This study was done in the 1970's, today we find that serum proteins can and have been easily preserved under harsh circumstances. Proteins were extracted from samples over 4,000 years old and even from 100,000 year old from blood on tools that were exposed to nature and not kept inside a church.

The paper even concedes on the point that organic materials may be kept for a very long period, as has already been observed in mummies at the time, where the techniques used in Linoli's experiments were developed.

While calcium was markedly increased, in the blood we found reduced levels of phosphorus, potassium and sodium. This mineral reduction can be ascribed to ageing processes or the progressive loss of tissue contents during the centuries, or to exchange of minerals between the tissue and the glass tube wall; to avoid this, in modern times, inert material containers are used for precious solutions.

The discovery of reduced elements within the sample are a direct result of the aging process, as is described within the paper. Note that the following assumptions by Linoli were neither tested or verified.

The increase in calcium levels (mg. 114,29%) in the ancient Blood in Lanciano can be related to falling into the goblet of building powder enriched with calcium salt, or to the vegetable fragments (flowers) found during the histological study of Blood.

The calcium levels are through the roof, (11times the normal amount, Did GOD have cancer? Or was he even human?) Also this is in obvious conflict with Linoli's recent assertions that the blood is the same as fresh human blood. Humans don't have these levels of elements in their blood!

I feel it necessary to address one more point before closing the case on this non-miraculous occurrence.

Supposing that the heart was taken from a dead body, we have to consider that only a trained hand in anatomic dissection could have obtained, with no difficulty, from a cave organ an "even and continuous slice" considering that the first anatomic dissections on human body, have been made after the 14th century (Diagnosis is fully confirmed by Prof. Ruggero Bertelli, Professor of Human Normal Anatomy at Siena University, whom I gratefully thank).

The case was made that this heart piece could not have been cut by man. Taken from his very own paper. He says that someone needs to be trained in order to cut the piece of heart. Subjectivity at its best. Note how he does not assert that this task cannot be done by human hands, because your average med. school student could have cut the heart out better. Not only does this statement not belong in the paper it is outrageous, Linoli only examined a small fragment of the heart tissue, I guess they decided to neglect the holes made by nails in this decision.

In conclusion, I would like to say that this is a very poor excuse of a paper to be tauting around as scientific evidence for a miracle. Not only does the paper repeatedly say that the samples were decayed, but nowhere within the paper is anything miraculous. A piece of rigor mortis human tissue and some decayed blood samples remnants were examined. This paper in no way proves that the flesh is somehow GOD meat. If you do not agree with my interpretation of the paper you are welcome to it yourself as I have uploaded it at the bottom.

Warning Amateur psycho analysis incoming:
I think I know the problem with a large portion of religious people. They fail to question the things told to them by authoritative figures. When priests or their parents tell them "miracles exist and we have great evidence to back up all of our claims" I find it very sad that these people fail to ever actually critically exam what they are being told. Santa Claus is a fantasy for little children, GOD, religion, and miracles are the fantasies of grown-ups who never found reality.

A word of advice to any religious person who actually made it through my poor writing skills, check up on everything that is told to you as being true. The best advice anyone ever gave to me was this. During a conversation I had with an old friend from Denmark whom I met in my first semester of college. We were watching television and a preacher came on claiming that he could heal the sick, but he needed our money to continue doing it. My friend told me "look at that, religion is a joke" to which I replied "ya some of the things in the bible probably never happened", to which he replied "some things? The whole thing is bullshit, its all made up fantasy" and a light flashed in my head, "and I decided to check on the bible and guess what. Reading the bible made me an atheist. So I urge all of you to start reading bible, because reading the bible is probably the number 1 cause of Atheism.

Reuploaded this shitty paper since I see that people can't get it still: http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B9kNbgL3NNN1YTdmYzQ0ZTUtNjAxMS00NWI3LTgwOTgtOWMyNzgzOGY4MTNj&hl=en

The tyranny of scripture

2008-08-07T17:30:00.002-10:00

One of the funniest videos I have seen by Pat Condel.

Short quote: "Creation museums-- are places of education, where children can go to learn the truth, that their parents are morons, and quite possibly insane"

"Talk to the scripture, cause the brain ain't listening"

Eucharist Miracles: Miracle of Lanciano, The Story So Far

2008-08-05T18:00:00.005-10:00

Alright I have been in a big debate on youtube concerning the alleged miracle of Lanciano, in Italy. As I can not find any good write up on the web about this particular miracle from a non catholic based perspective, I will do my best and show why I feel that this miracle is a fraud.

The miracle goes as follows, taken from the wiki:

In the city of Lanciano, Italy, around A.D. 700, a Basilian monk and priest was assigned to celebrate the Eucharistic sacrifice in the Latin Rite in the small Church of St.Legontian. Usually celebrating in the Greek Rite and using leavened bread and having been taught that unleavened bread was invalid matter for the Holy Sacrifice he was disturbed to be constrained to use unleavened bread and had trouble believing that the miracle of transubtantiation would take place with unleavened bread. During the Mass, when he said the words of consecration (This is my Body...This is my Blood), he saw the bread change into live flesh and the wine change into live blood, which coagulated into five globules, irregular and differing in shape and size (this number corresponds to the number of wounds Christ suffered on the cross: one in each hand and foot from the nails, and the wound from the centurion's spear). He was frightened and confused by the miracle, and stood a while as if in divine ecstasy, but eventually he turned his face to the congregation, and said "Behold the Flesh and the Blood of our Most Beloved Christ." At those words, the congregation members ran to the altar and began to cry for mercy. This miracle proved to him that unleavened bread was acceptable matter for the Holy Sacrifice. Years later other Basilian monks stole the documentation that was in the archives of the parish church. The Byzantine rejection of unleavened bread eventuated in the schism of 1054 that started out as a disagreement concerning the "azymes" between Patriarch Michael Keroularios and Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida acting for the already deceased Pope Leo IX.

Various ecclesiastical investigations have been conducted upon the miracle since 1574, and the evidence of the miracle remains in Lanciano to this day. In 1970-71, Professor Odoardo Linoli, eminent Professor in Anatomy and Pathological Histology and in Chemistry and Clinical Microscopy, and Professor Ruggero Bertelli of the University of Siena, conducted a scientific investigation into the miracle. The report was published in Quaderni Sclavo di Diagnostica Clinica e di Laboratori in 1971, and reaffirmed by a scientific commission appointed by the Higher Council of the World Health Organization in 1973.[1] The following conclusions were drawn:[2]

The Flesh of the miracle is real Flesh and the Blood is real Blood.
The Flesh and the Blood belong to the human species.
The Flesh consists of the muscular tissue of the heart, which would be highly unlikely to "fake", given that only an expert hand could have done it, and not without serious difficulties.
In the Flesh we see present in section: the myocardium, the endocardium, the vagus nerve and also the left ventricle of the heart for the large thickness of the myocardium. The Flesh is a heart complete in its essential structure.
The Flesh and the Blood have the same blood type, AB, which is also the same blood type found on the Shroud of Turin and all other Eucharistic Miracles.
In the Blood there were found proteins in the same normal proportions (percentage-wise) as are found in the sero-proteic make-up of the fresh normal blood.
In the Blood there were also found these minerals: chlorides, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, sodium and calcium.
There is no trace whatsoever of any materials or agents used to preserve the Flesh or Blood.

The Flesh and Blood of the miracle can still be seen today. The Host-Flesh, which is the same size as the large Host used today in the Latin Church, is fibrous and light brown in colour, and becomes rose-coloured when lighted from the back. The Blood consists of five coagulated globules and has an earthly colour resembling the yellow of ochre.

Let me start with the main claim that a cracker and wine turned into the actual flesh and blood of GOD. No witnesses to this event can be found, other then the originator of the claim in the 8th century(dark ages).

The story seems to tell of a schism in the catholic church about what kind of bread they should use, leavened or unleavened. It is very suspicious that a miracle would just suddenly happen at that particular time showing that unleavened bread was pleasing to GOD.

Evidence so far: one priest eyewitness account during the 8th century (Dark ages)

Now on with the story a supposed Dr. Linoli did a study on the magic meat and flesh showing the following:

The Flesh of the miracle is real Flesh and the Blood is real Blood.
The Flesh and the Blood belong to the human species.
The Flesh consists of the muscular tissue of the heart, which would be highly unlikely to "fake", given that only an expert hand could have done it, and not without serious difficulties.
In the Flesh we see present in section: the myocardium, the endocardium, the vagus nerve and also the left ventricle of the heart for the large thickness of the myocardium. The Flesh is a heart complete in its essential structure.
The Flesh and the Blood have the same blood type, AB, which is also the same blood type found on the Shroud of Turin and all other Eucharistic Miracles.
In the Blood there were found proteins in the same normal proportions (percentage-wise) as are found in the sero-proteic make-up of the fresh normal blood.
In the Blood there were also found these minerals: chlorides, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, sodium and calcium.
There is no trace whatsoever of any materials or agents used to preserve the Flesh or Blood.

Notice how the shroud of turin is referenced, The supposed blood from the shroud of turin turns out to be nothing more then red ocher and vermilion tempera paint. Is it possible that Dr. Linoli used the same crappy methods as in all the other catholic blood tests used? (I requested the paper at this point in time so I can further evaluate these claims)

In the Blood there were also found these minerals: chlorides, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, sodium and calcium. These minerals are normally found in blood but also combination's of them are also normally found in solutions made to preserve blood.

The Blood consists of five coagulated globules and has an earthly colour resembling the yellow of ochre.

In light of recent findings on the debunked shroud of Turin(red ochre), isn't it funny that this one resembles yellow ochre?

Also nothing out of the ordinary is found, a piece of heart flesh, and some blood. The only things out of ordinary are the inferences that are being made by Dr. Linoli. Question, was blood available at the time? Yes, the priest has blood in his body. Did the priest in the 8th century have access to dead bodies? Yes, the catholic church killed many people during that time. Can blood and flesh be kept in good condition for 12 centuries? Yes, many techniques were available to the catholic church during the 8th century, to think that a supposed miracle occurs and the miracle objects are thrown around and not taken extremely good care of is unheard of.

The original miracle is not even mentioned in Linoli's findings, so this paper does nothing to validate the original claim that this flesh and blood was originally a cracker and wine.

While studying this, I have found that it is incredibly difficult to obtain the original paper by Linoli and the paper from the World health organization. Neither is it possible to find any quoted information on what types of tests were performed on the samples, which puts major doubt on the validity of his findings. If his experiments were so rock solid, why are they no where to be found? The Vatican has billions of dollars, they could exploit this miracle like crazy if it were so bullet proof, they have nothing to lose and everything to gain in converts. (they are probably to preoccupied with gay pedophilia to bother)

The WHO report photo does not explain how the experiments were done, it was just a reiteration of what Linoli previously said. It is just a long "we found the same thing", perhaps the same faulty experiments were performed? Considering how hard it is to find any type of documentation of the study done by the WHO I doubt it was anything special. ( I am still looking for the actual data from them if anyone knows where I can find it let me know)

One paper in an obscure journal is hardly proof of anything. Misinformation (albeit unintentional, most of the time) escapes the peer review process and is often published in journals, especially obscure journals such as the one Linoli published in.

These claims need to be rechecked with new modern techniques and unbiased scientists. The claims of previous supposed miracles when put under high scrutiny have yet to hold up to any type of scientific validity. (e.g. Shroud of turin, other blood miracles)

Ad hominim attacks just for reference: Dr. Linoli is apart of the catholic congress on eucharist miracles. Is he really an unbiased source of information that can be relied upon? The study was supervised by the Vatican and everything was done in Italy.

Links:
Linoli's report can be found at
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4950729
http://cat.cisti-icist.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/search/a?searchtype=i&searcharg=0033-4979+&searchscope=1&SORT=R

other websites about the supposed miracle
http://www.catholicherald.com/saunders/97ws/ws970911.htm
http://www.doxa.ws/other/Miracles3.html
http://www.zenit.org/article-12933?l=english
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucharistic_miracle
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Eucharistic_Miracle_of_Lanciano

Book reviews

2008-08-04T20:02:00.004-10:00

I've decided to review some of the books that I have read recently.

here is the list:

Carl Sagan - The Demon Haunted World - Science As A Candle In The Dark
Charles Darwin - The Origin of Species
Christopher_Hitchens - god_is_not_Great
Dreams of a Final Theory (Steven Weinberg)
Genius - Richard Feynman
God - The Failed Hypothesis - How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist
Jared Diamond - guns, Germs and Steel by
Jared Diamond Collapse
Neil Shubin - Your Inner Fish
Pale Blue Dot -- by Carl Sagan
Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku
Pollock, Steven - Particle Physics For Non Physicists - 24 Lectures
Richard Dawkins - River Out of Eden
Richard Dawkins - The Ancestor's Tale by
Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion -
Richard Dawkins~ A Devil's Chaplain
River out of Eden (Richard Dawkins)
The End of Faith (Sam Harris)
The Language Instinct (Steven Pinker)
Sam Harris - Letter To A Christian Nation

I am thinking, one review every week or so. (I got lazy :( )

PZ Myers Desecrates cracker

2008-07-24T11:39:00.002-10:00

It has been a long time since my last post. Here is PZ Myers desecrating the Koran, the Eucharist, and the god delusion.

I made this video, hope someone likes it.

Dave

Short Rant: Why do people criticize things that they know nothing about, then expect to be taken seriously?

2008-05-20T10:59:00.005-10:00

Alright, why is that people seem to think that making this statement "I'm not an expert on -insert (Biology, Physics, Politics, History)-" before going on to criticize those fields or topics think that they are making good arguments? They already admitted defeat by saying that they don't know a single thing about what they are criticizing.

Here is a poor example that I came up with, "Oh, I don't know anything about calculus but there is no way that you can calculate the escape velocity using calculus."

I am sure that many people have come across this before, it just really ticks me off that people think that this is somehow a good argument.

Another thing that ticks me off are people who criticize things without knowing anything about what they are criticizing. This is very similar to the scenario above, except that in this case the person doesn't bother with telling us that he is fool before he opens his mouth, you have to find this out after the fact when you get a statement like e.g. "Then why is evolution not happening anymore? Then how do you explain ghosts? Or, then how do you explain magic?" In both these scenarios the person has lost touch with reality and is depending on the fantasy world that has been built up in their own brains. Sorry to say this but ghosts, magic, anal probing aliens only exist in your imagination, not in reality. As for the statement of why evolution is not happening now, this is a problem of making up a fantasy version of evolution in your own head, no scientist thinks that evolution is not happening, the statement that it is no longer occurring doesn't even fit the definition of evolution, let alone have anything to do with the theory.

Just as it does not make any sense to make up your own definition of gravity, then go on to say that since your fantasy version of gravity does not work, this somehow proves modern physicists wrong, the same thing applies for everything else.

The Idea Machine

2008-05-07T08:09:00.007-10:00

I plan to write an article on the evolution of innovative thinking. I have some great ideas as to how new ideas are formed and would like to get them out in writing.

Isaac Newton once said this:

"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

My main hypothesis is this, the main way that most new innovative ideas are formed is by a synthesis of first understanding preexisting ideas, then the human brain forms new patterns of thought, resulting in a sort of a 'snowball' effect. In other words, once you have a foundational base of understanding the human brain can then form new correlations between those ideas, resulting in the formation of new ways of thinking and approaching problems.

More to come..... Off to class

My New Video: 7 Year Old Ghostrides Grandma's Whip

2008-05-04T21:18:00.005-10:00

One of the most disturbed 7 year olds in all of America, no respect, no morals, and no intelligence. Black Community Church + GTA = bad combination.

Meet Latarian Milton, a 7-year-old South Florida boy who faces grand theft auto charges after he stole his grandma's Dodge Durango for a joyride with a buddy of the same age (who smokes cigarettes) in which he smashed into mailboxes, other cars, and street signs until the front wheels fell off. Why did he do it? "I wanted to do hood rat stuff with my friend." Seriously! Get a load of him and his swagger in the clip above. The best is what Latarian thinks his punishment should be totaling his grandma's car and nearly killing others: "No videos games for an entire weekend."

Myers Briggs

2008-05-04T19:32:00.006-10:00

INFJ 1-3% of the total population (The Rarest Type)

(Introversion, iNtuition, Feeling, Judging)

Myers-Briggs characteristics

According to Myers-Briggs, INFJs are conscientious and value-driven. They seek meaning in relationships, ideas, and events, with an eye toward better understanding themselves and others. Using their intuitive skills, they develop a clear vision, which they then execute decisively to better the lives of others. Like their INTJ counterparts, INFJs regard problems as opportunities to design and implement creative solutions.

Keirsey characteristics

According to Keirsey, INFJ Counselors are quiet, private individuals who prefer to exercise their influence behind the scenes. Intensely interested in the well-being of others, Counselors prefer one-on-one relationships to large groups. Sensitive and complex, they are adept at understanding complicated issues and driven to resolve differences in a cooperative and creative manner.

Accounting for 1–3% of the population, Counselors have a vivid inner life that they may be reluctant to share with those around them. Perceptive of the emotions of others, Counselors are themselves easily hurt, though they may not reveal this except to their closest companions.

INFJs are affable people. They are generally well-liked by their peers and are thought of as close friends and confidants by most other types. Nevertheless, it is difficult for INFJs to let their guard down, which in turn makes it difficult for them to establish close relationships with strangers and new people.

Not that I take any stalk in this social science bullshit, but I thought it fun to participate. Seems like my personality type changes every two years, too bad I don't recall what it was the last time.

Test can be done here first link on a google search

Iron Man

2008-05-04T13:48:00.006-10:00

I enjoyed the film, I thought that contrary to how most Hollywood movies disregard science or somehow show how science loses when faced with supernatural explanations, e.g. every single horror flick, this movie actually showed the power of science and a brilliant mind, even though it was mostly fictitious science (90% science that is not currently available, 9% defying the laws of Physics). This is a step in the right direction.

Good action scenes, nice graphics, no nudity, or sex scenes, some violence, some deaths, typical hero love story, typical villain, somewhat predictable, better then average. Overall I give it 3 1/2 stars out of 4 when compared with other films of its genre.

SPOILER ALERT: (Highlight to read)
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Snape kills Dumbledore

I Found The Cure for all Rust Diseases I'm Going To Be Famous

2008-05-01T17:31:00.008-10:00

While reading through one of the labs books on plant pathology. I came across a passage referring to an ancient Roman GOD named Robigus (The GOD of plant rusts). Now all I need to do is perform an ancient Ritual celebration called Robigalia, where I take one sheep, one cow, and one pig and cut their heads off. This practice is rightly called "The Triple Sacrifice."
<----- As seen here.

Bwahahaha, watch out fungus, the GOD Robigus is pleased with my offering and will now show his mercy upon the infected Rose Apple and Ohia trees all over these Hawaiian Islands. What a great way to celebrate National Prayer Day. Robigus is a GOD of hate and vengeance, a GOD of action, he will come for you in the night, for he is an Indian who can turn into a wolf, yes, the wolfen will come after you, with his razor.

Secrets to the 'Good Life'

2008-04-29T21:37:00.003-10:00

Take care of your body, work hard, exercise, learn about science and the world around you, think problems through, eat good food, talk to others, make friends, fight for justice, find something to care about, and be passionate.

Cornelius

2008-04-29T00:26:00.011-10:00

Cornelius here, decided to take up spear fishing in his spare time. This is the first time that a primate, other then ourselves, has been seen using a tool to hunt.

Orangutans are known for their strength >7 times of a normal human man, at the local zoo one of the former orangutans play toy was a 150kg log that she would toss around with one hand.

Ronnie Coleman Commented saying:
"Ain't nothing but a peanut"
and
"YEAH BUDDY"

The image is part of a series taken for a new book, The Thinkers Of The Jungle, which also includes the first photograph of an orangutan swimming.

Thinkers Of The Jungle, by Gerd Schuster, Willie Smits and Jay Ullal, is published by Ullmann Publishing on May 5, RRP £29.99.

Since I am on Prank Calls

2008-04-27T20:26:00.003-10:00

Here is a really funny video entitled: Epic Crazy Lady VS Charlie the Christian Hotel Guy

Here is a classic Arnold Prank
Terminators Seek John Connor - Crank Call

Here is another one of my favorites WARNING NSFW:

The Springfield Pervert - Crank Calls (Discretion Advised)

The Ultimate Warrior Calls WWE

2008-04-27T11:08:00.004-10:00

Here is my new video. I thought this was one of the best crank calls ever made, so I took the mp3 from celebrity prank calls and made this video.

Call made originally by (xaozzz)

Who Are You Going To Vote For?

2008-04-26T22:46:00.004-10:00

I plan to vote for...... No one, they all suck ass.

Actually I may vote, if McCain chooses a horrible running mate, then I am going to vote for Obama. In all it doesn't really matter, I don't agree with any of the candidates. McCain, if he wins isn't going to do jack shit. On the other hand if Obama gets in, all I have to say is Good Luck keeping that guy alive.

Random Facts

2008-04-26T21:10:00.009-10:00

Your Genome is not deterministic only probabilistic.

You can't divorce environmental factors from your genome.

Knowing your entire genome does not reveal everything about you.

Specific traits can be selected for only on a probability that environmental factors will be ideal for that specific trait.

Traits, such as intelligence can be improved upon throughout ones life, the human brain can and does build new neural pathways even in adulthood.

Global warming is occurring. A common hypothesis that people usually try to counter global warming with is this "Doesn't the world go through climate change cycles of warm then cold, and this is shown to be the case throughout history?" Answer: Yes, the world does go through climatic changes due to many factors including solar variations, volcanic eruptions and orbital changes, BUT NONE OF THOSE FACTORS ARE AFFECTING THE CURRENT CHANGE, the rise in temperatures is directly the cause of humans releasing green house gases into our atmosphere. more info here and here

(Opinion)
Societies problems are not due to science, societies problems are due to a misuse of technologies mixed with idiotic stone age philosophies such as nationalism, racism, and religious dogma, along with frontal lobe disorders. <-----Abiotic causes not included.

Dr. J. Craig Venter: A DNA-Driven World ,The Richard Dimbleby Lecture 2007

2008-04-26T19:51:00.003-10:00

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Awe Inspiring, Humans need to wake up to reality. Over 50% of Americans think that the earth is less then 6000 years old, 25% of Americans don't know that the earth rotates around the sun. There are still many humans who think that global warming is a conspiracy. Humans in third world countries have never even heard of global warming.

Science is not only for scientists, without a proper understanding of science (reality) humanity is at a large risk of killing itself off. How many people need to die from an ignorance of science? Wake up!

Guitar Idol 2008

2008-04-24T19:07:00.005-10:00

A great contest called Guitar Idol has been started on the internet here. This contest is crazy, the best underground guitarists have shown up to display their skillz, but just like in Highlander "There can be only One!". The winner gets to play in front of thousands of guitar fans AND open up on the main stage for JOE SATRIANI at the London International Music Show.

Here are a couple of my favorite guitarists in the competition:

Gustavo Guerra - Brazil <----the best

Cesar Huesca - Mexico

Ginjineko - Japan

MattRach - France

If you like one of em sign up and give em a vote.

I Emailed Berkely

2008-04-22T23:05:00.004-10:00

I emailed a couple of the deans of the college of Natural Resources at Berkley about Dr. Pangs closing statement at the recent Anti-GMO rally and I quote: "you students here are lucky this is Hawaii, when I gave this talk (ref. to his Anti-GMO talk) at UC Berkeley afterwards I was approached by students who said that their professors had told them that if they attended my talk they would receive D's for their final grades". Now we wait and see if I get any type of response.

I am really worried, the public is so misinformed about GMO crops it is not even funny. How in the hell am i going to be able to genetically engineer humans when we can't even get anything done in plants?

News Flash Miracles Exist: Priest attached to party balloons mysteriously vanishes

2008-04-22T00:35:00.009-10:00

OK I know my new video is of bad taste, but come on the guy was dumb enough to try this stunt. Enjoy... :)
Original story: here

WOW Update: I'm up to around >84,710 views on this video in little over a day, I am well on my way to YouTube stardom haha.
#5 - Most Viewed (Today) - Comedy
#25 - Most Viewed (Today)
#28 - Most Viewed (This Week) - Comedy

What an unexpected turn of events, I never thought my video would become so popular. This video was made as a joke for the members of PZ Myers blog. This is great

I got best undergraduate oral presentation from PEPS

2008-04-21T22:19:00.003-10:00

Now I get to attend some sort of banquet. The person who won best overall gave a presentation on Determining the sub-cellular locations of Cyclic Nucleotide Gated Channels 19 and 20 in Arabidopsis plants. It is a bit odd though, I thought her presentation was the most boring, uninteresting and without purpose. I enjoyed the person after her the most, whose talk was about Canopy cover and understory clearing affect survival and growth of the invasive plant Ardisia elliptica.

A-well who really knows what the judges were thinking.

Great Trance YouTube poster

2008-04-20T18:51:00.004-10:00

Here is a nice video from a YouTube poster TranceDevotee. His videos are made up of great trance songs. This one has a ton of quotes from notable Atheists throughout human history. I've been a real fan of his work if you like trance check it out.

Presentation From the 20th Annual CTAHR Student Research Symposium - April 11-12, 2008

2008-04-19T09:49:00.004-10:00

Additional comments later, I'm going to the gym...

The Problem With/Of Social 'Scientists'

2008-04-19T07:40:00.008-10:00

I have recently been noticing a worsening trend within the social 'scientist' community. A trend of a complete and utter lack of understanding of the natural sciences or what I like to call 'REALITY'. Why is it that whenever I hear a anthropologist or a political 'scientist' speak they seem to defend their views with "you need to respect my view", "you need to respect other peoples views", "you need to be sensitive to indigenous cultures", "I don't need to back up my claims with evidence I can just bullshit away until people believe me", "knowledge is democratic".

No person should respect false information. If you make a blatantly false statement, why should I or anyone else have to respect that? If you say that the earth is flat I will laugh in your face show you why it is a spherical structure and call you an idiot all at the same time.

I think its about time that scientists stop being nice about important issues, it sure as hell has not worked for 149 years of evolution by natural selection, stem cell research, GMO's, etc.. I feel that the public has gotten away with a misunderstanding of science because there are little or no social consequences. Ridicule can be very effective at making people change their views on issues. If we as scientists stop being nice to these idiots and call a spade a spade, maybe they will realize that something is wrong with the stone age ideas they hold.

Evolution

2008-04-18T14:06:00.006-10:00

Alright, what the Hell is Wrong with IDiots who think that evolution is 'just another theory'. Do you people just blatantly ignore evidence? Do you already come in with a false conclusion hammered into your brains?

Viruses and Bacteria easily mutate into different strains; does this knowledge that should be considered common sense somehow become compartmentalized in peoples heads? All organisms have a rate of mutation per base pair of DNA before they replicate or 'have sex'. The change in the frequency of alleles in the populations of the organisms can change depending on whether or not those mutations result in increases to fitness (ability to reach sexual maturity and reproduce) or decreases in fitness. Helpful mutations normally propagate, leading to changes in the frequency of the alleles in the population. Bacteria and viruses when subjected to medicines that kill them off, are subject to a form of artificial selection, resulting in the increase in the population of bacteria or viruses that hold genes that when expressed allow the organisms to survive. These changes in the genes are due to random mutation and if the organism with the helpful genes is able to reproduce, then the genes begin to propagate in the population. If the random mutation in the population does not produce the genes that protect the organism from medicines or other harmful effects that organism goes extinct.
^^^^^this is Evolution^^^^^^^

Freedom Of Speech

2008-04-16T19:44:00.003-10:00

I've had it up to here 'insert gesture' with people saying we need limits on freedom of speech. The entire definition of freedom of speech loses all meaning when you put restrictions on it. Freedom of speech with restrictions is not Freedom of Speech!!!

If someone wants to deny the holocaust, say that gays are an abomination, say evolution is a lie, say that trolls are stealing their underpants, say that cigarettes are good for you and don't cause cancer, say that science disproves science, say that big foot exists, say that Atlantis was the first civilization, say that aliens are abducting them and force impregnating them, say that black people are inherently stupid, say that white people are the devil, say that Mexicans are lazy, say that Asians all have small dicks, say that 9'11 was an American conspiracy, say that China is the cleanest country in the world, say that Hitler was an Atheist, say that the earth is 6,000 years old, say that coffee enemas are good for your health, say that they can cure your disease and that you should throw away all of your medicine, say that you should give them money for you to go to heaven.

^All of that ignorant stupid shit, should be allowed to be said in a society that upholds freedom of speech. And anyone who believes any of that crap I listed above should say it out loud in public, so that I know where ever I go who the dumb fucks are.

I will go even further and say that death threats, inciting violence, and hate speech should be allowed in a country that upholds freedom of speech.

I will now go on to defend my position. If someone issues a death threat to me or someone else, then goes on ahead and attempts to murder me, I will be better prepared knowing ahead of time that that specific someone wants to kill me. After the attempted murder takes place, then that person will be sent off to prison. I would even thank someone for telling me ahead of time that they were going to kill me, it sure is a hell of a lot better then a gun being shoved into my face randomly. For anonymous death threats I would say the exact same thing.

Now why do I say that inciting violence in speeches should be allowed? Well not only was this entire country based on an incitement of violence against oppressors, but if the forefathers of the American revolution said "oh no, we can't incite violence, it is not proper". There sure as hell would have been no revolutionary war and no America to boot. If someone tells a crowd of people to kill someone, and that person is killed, the person who made the command should be charged for murder along with anyone else who was involved, this will help to weed out the loonies from society.

Now I want this to be clear so no one misunderstands me, if violent acts are done they should be punished along with the inciter of the violent acts.

Hate speech should be allowed. If someone is a hate mongering bigot, it doesn't make a damn difference if they are a closet hate mongering bigot. The punishment for hate mongers should be a shunning from the people around them, the loss of jobs, the loss of status, and the loss of a place in society is punishment enough.

For a rebuttal you might say, what about people who are planning terrorist attacks? If you are planning terrorist attacks buy a load of guns, gather up dynamite and plastic explosives, take flight classes, obtain a nuclear weapon and are stupid enough to tell everyone about it. Does anyone think that the terrorist attack would succeed? I rest my case, with no need for further explanation.

Heaven on Earth?

2008-04-14T22:23:00.004-10:00

North Korea is a state in which you spend every waking moment in constant praise of the dead father of Kim Jong-il, Kim il-Sung the 'Eternal president of the Republic' .

“(Religion) is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave (to someone) who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep,” “Unless you’re North Korea, who wants this to be true? "A heavenly dictatorship would be like living in a celestial North Korea, At least you can Fucking die and leave North Korea. Does the Quran or the Bible offer you that liberty? No. The tyranny, the misery, the utter ownership only begins at the point of death. This is evil.”

Quotes: Courtesy of Christopher Hitchens

Misc. thoughts

2008-04-14T21:40:00.009-10:00

Years back, as a child I was forced to attend Sunday morning and night services, I can only remember excruciating boredom, hunger "food wasn't allowed inside", and the glaring eyes of disapproving church members, who would talk behind my back while I would draw pictures all over the sermon program I was given.

Now as an adult I have an unquenchable anger at my wasted Sundays, sitting in a church where hate and bigotry was taught every week, and is still being spewed forth from that same pulpit. I cringe when my father tells me that he wishes that Huckabee had been the Republican candidate.

Here are some of Huckabees words of wisdom:

I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And thats what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than trying to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family

God's standards eh. Let's review those standards:

The Ten Commandments: Punishment for breaking any of the laws is death by stoning

You shall have no other gods before me

I wonder what GOD this refers to? I guess all the other faiths except Christianity have to be killed, right.

You shall not make for yourself an idol

Now what is the use of this cherry? WTF!? Idol, whats that used for. To an Atheist idols have no meaning, who cares, really.

You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God

Fuck God, he doesn't exist, blasphemy is a victim less crime.

Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy

What church holds service on Saturdays?

Honor your father and mother

Sorry, but some fathers are child abusers and some mothers are crazy bitches, neither of the prior mentioned should be honored.

You shall not murder*

This didn't seem to stop the 'imaginary' Israelites, but I'll bite, although I do see certain situations when murder might be permitted, e.g. someone who is trying to kill me, I would definitely kill them before they get me.

You shall not commit adultery

Marriage is overrated, relationships are overrated, outside of reproduction, imaginary bonds hold no ground in reality. (you don't have to agree with me this is just my opinion)

You shall not steal***

If I was faced with death from hunger or stealing I sure as hell would steal. I can come up with an infinite other hypothetical situations where stealing would be beneficial.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor

This one is ok, but why would you be put to death over breaking this one?

You shall not covet your neighbor's house

If your neighbor has a better house then you and you are not happy with your current situation, why not covet his house? I could see coveting leading to an increase in ambition and a better contributer to society as a whole.

Seems like God's standards are outdated. Now why the hell would anyone want this crap in the constitution?

Ben Stein can Kiss My Ass!

2008-04-14T20:49:00.004-10:00

This is an excellent film showing the idiocy of the IDiots.
Expelled

Presentation tomorrow at 20th annual CTAHR Research Symposium

2008-04-11T23:54:00.005-10:00

I am giving a presentation on:

Brush cherry (Eugenia paniculatum): a new host for ohia rust (Puccinia psidii). David Simmons*, Chris Kadooka and Janice Uchida. Department of Plant and Environmental Protection Sciences.

Puccinia psidii was first found on potted ohia (Metrosideros polymorpha) on Oahu and has been severe on rose apple (Syzygium jambos). In Kamuela, brush cherry (Eugenia paniculatum) is infected with a rust disease and it would be a new record for this host in the family Myrtaceae. Brush cherry is widely used as a landscape plant, hedge, or potted ornamental. Our objective was to confirm the identity of the rust. Diseased plants were collected and examined microscopically. Typical urediniospores were found, which fit the description of P. psidii. In 2007, molecular analysis showed that only one strain was present in Hawaii on several hosts tested. Molecular analysis was completed for the brush cherry rust and it is similar to the other P. psidii strains collected in Hawaii. There are at least 8 strains of P. psidii known in the world and each strain is believed to attack different hosts based on early studies. The Hawaii strain causes severe disease on rose apple. Categorizing and monitoring the movement of P. psidii in Hawaii and globally will help to understand the distribution of this rust in different temperatures and humidity levels.

I am up at ~12:00pm, agriculture science bldg. room 204 University of Hawaii.

I'll post my presentation after I make a movie out of it.

Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago)

2008-04-07T21:51:00.004-10:00

I made a video, it is so reassuring to know that we have such good representatives of the people in office.

original story here.

If you live in Illinois please let this representative know what you think about her.

Contact the Democratic Party

Contact Rep. Davis
Rep Davis' email: mdavis2147@aol.com

Contact the Illinois State Democratic Party

Davis' Springfield Office:
241-E Stratton Office Building
Springfield, IL 62706
(217) 782-0010
(217) 782-1795 FAX

Davis' District Office:
1234 West 95th Street
Chicago, IL 60643
(773) 445-9700
(773) 445-5755 FAX

Emails of Rep. Davis' committee members:
jack@jackfranks.org, lisadugan@sbcglobal.net, 70thdist@pritchardstaterep.com, repjohnbradley@mychoice.net, annazettec@aol.com, statereppaul@sbcglobal.net, staterepgordon@sbcglobal.net, repkrause@aol.com, repmyers@macomb.com, poer@housegopmail.state.il.us, statereprramey55@aol.com, jimwatson@localnetco.com

Pregnant Man On Oprah

2008-04-04T18:19:00.013-10:00

Alright, so this guy is pregnant? But wait, he used to be a girl from Hawaii.

<-- article link

Beatie wrote an article for The Advocate, a magazine for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender readers. In the article Beatie wrote that he went through a sex change, but decided only to have chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy. Beatie was able to keep the reproductive organs he was born with, according to the story.

So apparently this person went through a 'sex change'. How you can call a sex change taking some pills and cutting off your breasts is beyond me, but more importantly is, why the FUCK is this in the news? This person started off as a female with functioning female reproductive organs, wasn't satisfied, so she took to the knife, started pounding pills and changes her sex without removing any of her reproductive organs? Apparently Americas news media and Oprah consider someone a man/woman based upon whether or not they call themselves one.

Although there is no clear definition as to what is considered a male, female, male/female, or no sex. I think that a proper list can be constructed from highest priority.

1) Functional sexual organs at birth coded by by available genes and gene regulatory factors by expressed phenotype with environmental consideration.
2)Are the functional sexual organs still present in the individual?
3)Selective choice in the matter/Personal identification.

So in the case of this person I think the he, still falls under the she, due to the retention of the female sexual organs. If this person had no functional sexual organs then it would just be considered no sex. As of yet scientists cannot graft on functional reproductive organs to a human body. Female reproductive organs resulting in a pregnancy are no big news, it happens every day.

Recapitulations on the Descent of Man

The "Evilution" test

Work

Transformer War for Cybertron

This looks Awesome

Brian Greene Talks About The Beauty of Science

Can a Christian believe in evolution?

Fucking Magnets How Do They Work?

Where the Wild Irritating Things Are

In Defense of Evil

On the Evolution of Cooperation

Why is this in Nature?

Miracle of Lanciano Again, 2 years later....

The Accomodationists Divide

On the Intellectual Stance of Bible Literalists

My New Best Friends

A Rebuttal to a Poor Argument

Delayed Darwin Day Post

Are the terms Atheism and Theism Mutually Exclusive?

The Misuse of the word "Faith" Reproduced

Look at this Adamant Atheist Scientist

How low can you go?

One of the Dangers of Pseudoscience

WTF!?

A Cause Worth Donating to

Non-Believers Giving Aid

A Whole Lot of Nothing

My New Hero

Learn Something New

The earliest Tetrapod

What motivates students to study science?

Who cares?

Beauty

A Beautiful Letter from Einstein

Correlation With Increased Teenage Birthrates and Religiosity

Stairway to Heaven

The Bible: Reality Version

Synaptotagmin

On the Intellectual Stance of Atheists Before Darwin

The Disparity of the Intelligent and the Ignorant in the USA

Darwin Was Right!

On the Concept of Racism

Sexual Differences

A Decent Measure of The Harmful Effects of Drugs

On the Topic of Intellectual Dishonesty

Are orangutans our closest living relatives?

On my Personal Philosophy: Scientific Material Probabalism

On the Word: Hypocrisy

fractal wrongness: Concept of the day

Commenting on The Moral Sense

My views on Libertarians

My exchange with libertarians

Re: 5 Questions for Atheists

Religulous: short review

Various Papers from Science and Nature

Genetics: Many but rare

Research Highlights

Zoology: Queen Bee

Research Highlights

Neuroscience: Glia on fire

Research Highlights

Biophysics: Mob rule

On the central Dogma of Molecular Biology

It is time to vote!

Hallmark Refused to Sell Me Gay Wedding Cards and Comming Out Cards

Choice Clips of Prof. Dawkins Reading his fan mail from loving Christians

Benny Hinn Brings the Feuer Frei!

New video "Religious Dance Party"

1.21 gigawatts?

10 things people say to Atheists that show that they are scientifically illiterate and mentally challenged

Eucharist Miracles: Miracle of Lanciano "Update"

The tyranny of scripture

Eucharist Miracles: Miracle of Lanciano, The Story So Far

Book reviews

PZ Myers Desecrates cracker

Short Rant: Why do people criticize things that they know nothing about, then expect to be taken seriously?

The Idea Machine

My New Video: 7 Year Old Ghostrides Grandma's Whip

Myers Briggs

Myers-Briggs characteristics