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Influenza: Evolution in a Petridish

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

If you’ve ever gone to your local clinic or doctor’s office to get your annual flu shot, you know there is either a line or a few days wait before you can get poked by an ancient nurse with shaky hands and bad eyesight. The trouble of going there, waiting in an uncomfortable chair, and smelling her musty perfume every year tends to get old before your first time. You start to wonder, “Why do I have to come in every year, while other vaccines are guaranteed for multiple years, sometimes even a decade or more?” It must be the pharmaceutical companies wanting all of your hard earned cash or sucking your insurance dry. Wrong.

The influenza viruses are known for their ability to mutate. Any virus is highly capable of doing this at a fast rate, but the flu is infamous for its high rate of mutation, meaning your shot will be pretty much useless ten months from the day you got it. This is due to a virus’ ability to cut, copy, and paste their host’s and their own DNA practically anyway and anywhere they want it. They can swap genes with their host or even other viruses vacationing in the same organism. This means your immunities for last year’s virus is now out of style, and won’t protect you against the new strain. If you are a rich masochist, this is wonderful news. However, if you are like many others who fear pain and/or needles, getting the flu doesn’t sound like such a bad thing after all.

How is this related to evolution? It is the fundamentals of the process. Evolution occurs when one or more mutations change an organism. Over time, these mutations allow the animal to adapt. Some mutations are useful to finches in gathering certain types of food; other mutations help viruses spread faster. The influenza viruses are constantly evolving. Every year the common strain will mutate, leaving the previous vaccine moot and ineffective. Although it has a mutation that can drastically effect the way it works, it is still an influenza virus. This is known as microevolution. A mutation will change the organism’s appearance or function, but it will still be of the same species. Many skeptics of evolution typically have a hard time believing in giant leaps in the process, also known as macro evolution. What many fail to understand is that macroevolution is simply many micro evolutions over time in a population to evolve into a new species. In animals, the process of mutation takes much longer than a virus. It can take hundreds or thousands of years before enough micro evolutions occur and separate a group into its own species.

Viruses are constantly mutating and going through tiny microevolutions, but people hardly ever think of it that way. They just think their vaccine wears off and needs renewed. Remember the next time you go to the doctor to get your shot that it’s well worth the old lady musk and “bee sting” injection, because with every new strain your body has a lower chance of keeping the virus from running its full course.

Tags: evolution, influenza, science
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Pursuing The Eradication of Faith

Monday, January 5th, 2009

Whilst this has a bold title, the actual implications are mundane. Here at The Edger, we are in the process of assimilating the direct goals, discourse and method of various secular humanist enterprises. We wage war with approaches and two-pronged forks end up bleeding in one’s hands. Such is the dealings when it comes to ideas. And one idea which seems to sent quivers down the spines of spineless people is the eradication of faith.

Consider this recent comment from perhaps my favourite Chris Ray post. This is Comment #25, from BluffingtonBoast:

In all, the murders, genocides, starvation and killing brought about by atheists either trying to excise religion from the populace by sheer force, or by their own lack of moral compass easily approach the billion mark. And you call yourselves ‘humanists?’ Try putting the pre-fix IN when having the gall to breath the word. In fact, the Mickey Mouse poll you run at the top of this blog dispells [sic] any doubt. The great majority of your responders would prefer a world without religion at the same time they express they would pursue that goal actively. Which means exactly what…???

Not only is this insulting, saying we have “no moral compass”, it is also patently bizarre.

As many know, I find the term “atheist” unhelpful. We are all atheists but specifically Bluffington has focused on the god of the old testament as somehow more special than other gods. As if the god of the Bible is more reasonable or believable than Thor. I would speculate that Bluffington does not believe in Thor or Filli Mukullu, so he or she is also an atheist. His or her lack of belief in Thor is also responsible for the deaths and so on that the apologist sides love to bring up, in some sick blood-thirsty satisfaction. Yet somehow the nonbelievers in one particular group’s god is er more responsible than the nonbelievers in the other gods… IF you’re confused, then welcome to my club. It makes no sense to say atheist caused this or that, because we are all atheists.

I also find the word “humanist” unhelpful and do not call myself that (now at least). Regardless, let us question this fact further: Do BluffingtonBoast and others honestly believe that The Edger readers are going to murder, pillage and destroy churches, mosques and temples? And what of the excellent writers at Edger, who constantly talk about equality, liberty, justice and beauty – without the usurpation of religious bigotry to underpin such ideas to the blackboard of dogmatic truth. Whilst promoting such important (not even good) ideas, how is it that with a second blink they would destroy, hurt or promote destruction?

BluffintonBoast has set up a false dichotomy: either there is religion, with people tolerating it and being respectful or there is no religion which is brought about through destruction and pillaging. But that’s not true. Chemistry “eradicated” alchemy, astronomy “replaced” astrology – yet, were chemists grabbing their bottles of acid and tossing them into the homes of alchemists? Were astronomers taking their telescopes and bashing the heads of “seers” and their crystal balls? Of course not. That is patently absurd and an insult to human sensibility if one considers it as such.

The growth of ideas is simply the coming to fruition of budding knowledge. Old ideas and world-views, like astrology and religion, once shaded our eyes as we gazed into the beautiful, mad world around us. But soon, from the same roots as astrology and religion, arose better and more lucid ideas. The ideas we call astronomy and humanism. These grew higher and we could climb and see more of the world. But religion and astrology, blocked by the growing forms of these better ideas, should wither and fade back into the soil of the human past. But there are those who vilify and feed these old plants, keeping them alive, turning them into weeds. They crawl along the bark of these new ideas, trying to gain the light and pulling these better ideas down.

So when those of us who selected from the Mickey Mouse poll to “actively pursue this”, what do we mean? Our words are the length of our armory. Religion can be replaced by promoting better ideas and not respecting the ideas – forget the people, the ideas are what we are dealing with – of religion. We do not have to. So if we mock, chide and dismiss foggy notions of talking burning bushes and blood thirsty gods, it is not a precursor to destroying churches. I love churches, I love mosques and temples. I remove my shoes when I enter, I pray at friends houses when they ask me to. I respect the people but not the ideas.

Not only is it insulting to suggest we desire blood, it is a complete misunderstanding. As chemistry replaced alchemy, so will the wonder of the present moment, the beauty of science, and the love of fellow humans replace religion. It will eradicate faith. I doubt it will ever happen, but yes, Bluffington and others, I do plan on actively seeking that goal.

Tags: alchemy, Astrology, atheism, chemistry, dogma, eradication, Humanism, religion, science
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From Afar…

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008

From afar, our planet is tiny, blue and fragile, held in a fistful of darkness. Pockmarked by light emitted from surrounding stars, some of which have travelled billions of years to reach us. The silence of space eclipses the spinning globe, as a sun growls in the distance. The beauty of the earth’s blue and green face is veiled like a bride by white clouds. Its fragility quivers with a sense of surrounded silence, surrounded darkness and spiralling away from fellow planets. Utterly alone, it sinks like full-stop at the end of a muted sentence.

And its future is held within the palms of beings who could be bacteria: ourselves. Palms which have developed poor thumbs, bodies with over-sized adrenal glands and decaying eyesight. These are the creatures within this pale-blue beauty that will decide her future. Already fragile and temperate, it is us, her children, her keepers, her creatures who will decide her impact. In 6 billion years, that growling dog of a star will be let loose from its chain and devour the planet. Those same creatures, we with the poor digestive systems, will not be here. Those creature whose eyes will hold the exploding sun will be as different from us, as the first eukaryote from our evolutionary past. But our impact this century, in our lifetimes, can make our planet into an exclamation mark on the unending sentence, or the tapering off into ellipses…

The great philosopher AC Grayling poses a problem we all should contemplate. Suppose there is only one species in the whole universe which has advanced consciousness, to realise its presence, its future, its past. Suppose there is only one such advanced species: it would have to be us. This means, according to our view of happiness, we decide the happiness of this universe. We will decide how much happiness, fulfilment and liberty is accorded throughout the universe. The sentence is undeterred, the universe is indifferent and indifference is popularly known as the opposite of love. Even if the universe hated us – which, at times to our egotistical selves, seems to be the case – at least it means acknowledging us. Such is not the case. Therefore, we have the entire responsibility of the universe in our hands. How much happiness are we going to bring, how much of an exclamation mark can we make our existence into the quiet, cold universe? Are we to render our bride, our mother and our planet into a place of decay, madness and violence? Are we to view her as a necessary stepping-stone to “something better”, as many religious fanatics would have it?

Even if she is a stepping-stone, what a stone she is. A man himself is but paltry next to the unfathomable beauty on the earth upon which all men were born and all will die. King Henry the Fifth, in the Shakespeare play of the same name, says: “A good leg will fall, a straight back will stoop, a black beard will turn to white, a curled pate will grow bald, a fair face will wither, a full eye will wax hollow, but a good heart, Kate, is the sun … for it shines a bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly.” Even on this stepping-stone, which is to be our gravestone, nothing should detract us from loving our planet. Nothing should stop us from caring for it.

The maddening fact of life is that we are in it. The sobering fact of life is that we are on this great planet. Yet it takes a simple click of a button, or the turning of a page, to see her as no one before has. The simple fact is that we are part of the first group of humans to see the planet upon which we make our home. And what a home it is. If ever we feel ourselves consumed with rage, anger or absolute love or passion, we must simply remember: Spinning, slowly, calmly, held in a fist of darkness, surrounded by blinking eyes of stars, standing before a growling star, is a pale-blue dot we call home, veiled in white and awaiting the final placement by the actions of tiny creatures on its surface.

Tags: ac grayling, beauty, earth, ego, life, Meaning, planet, science
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Visions & Mind-Reading

Sunday, December 21st, 2008

My doctor (who happens to be my father) gave me a cold stare: He gave that infamous doctor’s look of being thoroughly unimpressed with my self-maintenance. His folded arms mimicked his frown. “If you want to have less headaches,” he said, “you have to read less!”

Read less? Why not ask me to severe my right leg, too? To be denied reading and comprehension would be my worst handicap. If that happens, I would start parking in the “disabled zone” and pushing myself around in a wheelchair.

Our bodies are our only access into the physical or phenomenal world around us, though they may simply be carriers for future progeny. Beside that, taking care of it is important. But one can’t help that when one is obsessed with words.

There are two things I always carry with me, as much as possible: A bottle of water and a paperback. I believe this is one thing that if everyone did, we would live in a world of less suffering. It would be healthy physically and mentally. As Rousseau said in his Confessions: “We are so little formed for happiness in this world, that of necessity the soul or the body must suffer, when they do not suffer together, and a happy condition of the one nearly always injures the other.” Healthy people, then, means a clarity for good thought to flourish This is just my opinion but one I find reasonable. However, there does seem to be the downside to reading copiously: A rising headache-rate.

Consider your eyes: Light hits an object and is projected, by criss-cross intercessory pathways, into your eyes. The light is caught by the retina; an appropriate name since retina is derived from rete, ‘net’ in Latin. In contrast to insects’ compound eyes, which are incredibly sensitive and able to take in a great amount of the environment onto the smallest number of cells (therefore without the creature moving its head), human eyes are bulbous and accord greater ‘resolution’. The images travels through all parts of the eye, like the cornea, lens, etc. only to be upside down. It is then ‘flipped’ – an incredible array of neural activity occurs during this time. Our knowledge into vision gives us great insight by manipulation. Us social scientists, especially psychologists, are famous for our conjuring tricks to discover a part of human processes.

The psychologist Peter Wason had a test, which I would like you to look at. And what’s interesting is that this test is mostly not about vision at all. But have a look:

You are given four cards. The cards have a number on the one side and a letter on the other. Two of the cards facing you have a letter facing; the other two have the number facing. The cards you see are:

[D] [F] [3] [7]

You are given a rule: “If a card has [D] one the one side, it has a [3] on the other.” A simple if-then statement, if you will. The question is this: Which cards would you turn over to see if the rule is true? Have a think, then read on.

Wason found that most people choose simply [D]. Or perhaps [D] and [3]. The correct answer is to turn both [D] and [7]. If you turn [7] around, it would falsify the proof if you found [D] on its reverse. This is where the great Karl Popper’s influence shows, in this test.

What has this to do with vision? Aside from the nauseatingly obvious answer that you looked at the cards (nothing stops the test from also using other senses!), it reminds one of the development in children. We are not psychics, we have no extended vision wafting like ethereal pipelines to journey through space and time. For most of us, the most important position of according possible psychic abilities would be with other people: What they are thinking, what they are going to do, what matters to them, etc. We imagine that the ‘psychic’ thoughts would be like hearing our own thoughts. Or perhaps your ‘reader’s voice’ that you have whilst reading this article.

Yet, everyone has this ability!

A child, for example, learns to mimic the actions of mouths, hands, eyes, words. It notices the tongue and the light changes. As we grow, this is where ‘reading’ people comes from: Our vision. It is a pity that such a beautiful word is sometimes usurped by the demagogic legion of superstitious quacks. We learn about people from their nonverbal communication – it’s why people move their arms, even when talking on the phone. It helps clarify the visual ideas into a physical format: the vibrations from their vocal chords and movement of limbs. When giving people directions, we point with our fingers, we wind them through pathways unseen. When people greet each other, we can tell a lot from their nonverbal gestures: Consider two men in business suits, shaking hands. Now, consider a casually dressed man and a casually dressed woman embracing, holding each other for a long time, caressing each others’ backs. Now, consider a suited man shaking hands with a casually dressed woman, perhaps pecking her on the cheek. There are many inferences you can make, no doubt you are doing it automatically right now.

We are incredible creatures, learning and knowing intricate details from simply watching. From the use of our eyes. The stimulation accorded to the fluctuations of light, bouncing off the skin of other humans, as their bodies fluctuate to the dictates of their brains is the most important form of learning we garner. Being psychic is a cop-out; learning to read people, to heighten their experience of social interaction, is a true gift. Don’t fold your arms, don’t look away to often, lock their eyes and blink every few seconds – occasionally glance away when you speak. These are pieces of advice many body-language consultants give and they can enhance our interactions. But it all comes from watching, from being alert and from vision.

So, no. We do not have ‘psychic abilities’ but we can achieve the same results: We can infer from their appearance, their disposition, their body-language. And then we can just simply ‘ask’. The information is transferred, as we lock gazes and inquire as to the well-being of a fellow human. No psychic additives or preservatives needed to maintain a conversation or interest.

And this is why I read. My vision extends further, I feel my empathy expand upon contemplation of even fictional characters. My knowledge of our beautiful planet and our troubled species is minuscule – and it will always be so. One can not be aware of the extent of one’s ignorance but one can be aware of ignorance itself. This surely is a virtue. Books humble us, as words slide into our eyes. The feel of a soft page turning, as our brains are nourished. These are important. And it is a sad fact that my headaches will continue because I just can not stop reading.

“You read too much,” people tell me, with a kind of accusatory stare. How much is too much? What does that even mean? Life is short, Milan Kundera wrote, reading is long: the paradox is that I will never be able to read everything I want. Confound mortality for that and that alone. Perhaps my own Mephistopheles will arise from the ashes of my forsworn hellish domain to proffer a bargain. If so, I need to do some reading now to make sure I don’t sign anything too valuable away.

How interesting: Apparently, you only need one kidney….

Tags: interaction, mind-reading, people, peter wason, psychology, reading, rousseau, science, vision, words
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Mutiny on a Chromosome

Saturday, December 20th, 2008

In Darwin’s time, it was believed that selection occurs at the level of an individual – that an entire creature is either selected or not. But as we learn more about what we are made of, we realize that the entire concept of an individual is somewhat illusory. Every macro-creature is not a stand-alone individual but rather a construction of millions of smaller transitory creatures that use its body as a vessel. The only way in which these creatures are working towards a common goal is in protecting this body from foreign invaders. The genes, the true residents of the body, are here only to make it to the next generation. They don’t necessarily care if other genes on parallel loci make it with them or not; they simply care about themselves.

To accomplish their goal, they network with each other in a complex hierarchy. We can compare the workings of this network to that of a corporation. Just like companies have CEOs, executives, managers, and workers to look after their daily operations, the body has various genes working at different levels of control. This hierarchy in the body is called its pleiotropy. The senior genes have the power to shut down, change, suspend, or accelerate operations based on the needs of the body. This system allows the “critical stages” of development as discussed in a previous article.

In corporations, several people work together to accomplish something an individual cannot accomplish by themselves. These genes in our bodies are doing the same thing. By working in a network, the composite bodies of these genes accomplish seemingly magical tasks – such as thought and communication. On a broad scale, all bodies involved in the network affect the workings of all other bodies surrounding them, quite intimately.

The nucleus of all somatic cells in the body contain two pairs of genes – they are diploid. One pair from the father and one from the mother. The only cells in the body that are haploid (one set of genes) are the sex cells. Textbooks teach that the genes that make it to these cells are there by “random selection”. But of course we know that is not how it works. In reality, every gene is fighting for its place on a chromosome. This is called it’s ‘meiotic drive’ – it’s drive to be included in the process of meiosis.

The fight can rise to such dramatic proportions that some genes could even take a position that is damaging to other genes, or even the rest of the cell. In “The Extended Phenotype”, Richard Dawkins calls such genes ‘outlaws’ (not his term originally). It is in the interest of the rest of the genes of the cell to subdue this outlaw. So here, we see a collective effort emerge between genes at other loci to make sure that the outlaw is not selected. But on the other hand, any outlaw that can somehow beat the system is greatly increasing its chances of making it to the next generation, so selection would certainly favour it greatly.

Things become more interesting however when outlaws appear on sex chromosomes. Any driving gene on an X or Y chromosome, could easily alter sex ratios drastically and hence even lead a population to it’s demise. If a Y-driving gene is successful enough, the next generation will see only males being born (in mammals for example) leaving them no one to mate with. This method has also been tested as a weapon against pests. In labs and simulations, the introduction of an intentional outlaw driving towards a particular sex, destroyed the entire population in as few as four generations.

Mud Dauber Wasp The workings in nature of one such outlaw have been witnessed in mud-daubing wasps. The females of this species build their own nests, lay a prey in it for their new-borns to feed upon, lay their eggs on the already dead or dying prey, seal the nest, and then begin the cycle again. As opposed to most other wasps, the males here are also present at the laying and in fact, during it, force the female into a strange ritual dubbed ‘holding’. The whole process begins when the female, having already laid the prey in her nest, goes head first into it with her abdomen facing outside. The male, who is outside, then copulates with her in this position. Then the female turns around, pops her head outwards from the nest and faces her abdomen inside it. She feels for the prey with the tip of her abdomen as if about to lay her egg. At this point, the male grabs her head with his forelegs and proceeds to pull her antennae outwards for about half a minute, to prevent the lady from dropping her egg just yet. Then the female again turns around and copulates with the male, only to turn around again and make another attempt to lay her egg. The male does the same thing. This repeats several times until the female finally gets to lay her egg.

It is hypothesized that the male here is trying to influence the sex of the egg. In Hymenoptera, unfertilized eggs usually result in males and fertilized ones in females. So perhaps by not letting the female lay her egg immediately, the male is trying the make sure it has time to fertilize in the oviduct, or perhaps he is trying to overflow her internal tracts with sperm, so the egg has more of a chance of fertilizing. Both of these actions would lead to a greater chance of new born being a female, giving the male more mating opportunities. Of course, the resistance of the female is necessary, not only because more unfertilized eggs mean more males for her, but also because without it, the entire population might perish.

In ways like these, outlaw genes and other interesting types (segregation distorters, other germ-line replicatiors) cause strange behaviours in our world, and make evolution seem even more implausible. But as always, there are breakthroughs and paradigm-shifts in Science that show us the way. “The Extended Phenotype” is a brilliant book, and deals with several such cases, and all in all, gives one a wonderful perspective of genetics. Dawkins had said before that he considers this book to be his best work; I don’t know if he still considers that true, but if you’re looking to do some interesting reading on evolution, there is no better book I could recommend than this.

Tags: biology, chromosome, dawkins, extended, genes, outlaw, phenotype, science, wasps
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Will Mumbo-Jumbo Come Back To Haunt Us?

Monday, November 17th, 2008

Dedicated to the 18,901 people, including children, harmed by those not thinking critically.

Goya’s famous painting should be the siren to our sensibilities. “The Sleep of Reason Brings Forth Monsters” is written in an effort to engrave it in our conscious. The great Carl Sagan seemed to carry this idea forward, holding the tiny flame of reason forth in the wild-winds of absolutist ideologies: “The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.”

Warnings to us all, yet not easily embraced. Whilst the sirens blare, most do not heed its call. We are like villagers who set up our watchtowers to crumble; who create warning-bells of cloth; and who sleep blindfolded whilst the village burns to cinders.

I am not focused on religion or faith. Perhaps some could be ascribed to the same inherent need that most have for religion or faith; but this affords a different place in our investigations. I am speaking on the vast array of absolute nonsense, which describes itself as “science”, “medicine”, “therapy”, “health”, “philosophy” or some such vagary of truth. My friend, Damian Thompson, dubs these and the language used to deal with it “Counterknowledge”. His (and his punchy writers) excellent website brings howls of consternation and tidbits of admiration, yet never ceases to get people thinking. Damian is fast becoming bullshit’s greatest enema inducer.

Yet, why do we as sceptics (or skeptics – curse Americanese!) seem to offer nothing but negative viewpoints with regards to things that are for “entertainment purposes only“? Isn’t it immoral or wrong to remove something which makes people feel good? It’s not like its hurting anyone!

Wrong.

If you don’t believe bullshit can hurt you, consider this website. Even the seemingly simple things can get us killed. By process of induction – which none other than the great sceptic himself, David Hume, warned us about – we must be wary to blame purely the quack treatment. You’d probably associate Ayuvedic “treatments” as another silly quackery – but… Consider the case of David Flint. “David sought out ayurvedic treatments from (among others) Deepak Chopra. At one point he was told his leukemia was gone. It was not. David died four months later.”

Now, did the treatment kill him? No. But that’s not what we should be concerned about.

What about the now infamous destruction of Myanmar’s economy? The summary on Whatstheharm:

General Ne Win’s astrologer and numerologist told him his lucky number was 9 and he would live to be 90 if he was surrounded by 9s. He reissued the currency in multiples of 9 causing mayhem and new insurgencies. He resigned within a year.

Do we blame astrology for it? No.

But, what we do blame are those who peddle these things, astrology, ayuverdic medicine, Christian science and so on – as actually yielding scientifically positive results. And by that, I mean the notion of the scientific method which,

can teach us nothing else beyond how facts are related to, and conditioned by, each other

In the same paragraph, Einstein writes “It is equally clear that knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.” It has a nice subtle echoing ring off and of Hume’s Fork:

All objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds …Relations of Ideas, and Matters of Fact. Of the first kind are the sciences of Geometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic; and in short, every affirmation which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain. That the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the square of the two sides, is a proposition which expresses a relation between these figures … Propositions of this kind are discoverable by the mere operation of thought, without dependence on what is anywhere existent in the universe. Though there never were a circle or triangle in nature, the truths demonstrated by Euclid would for ever retain their certainty and evidence.

Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are not ascertained in the same manner; nor is our evidence of their truth, however great, of a like nature with the foregoing. The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible; because it can never imply a contradiction, and is conceived by the mind with the same facility and distinctness, as if ever so conformable to reality. That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction than the affirmation, that it will rise. We should in vain, therefore, attempt to demonstrate its falsehood. Were it demonstratively false, it would imply a contradiction, and could never be distinctly conceived by the mind. [emphasis mine]

My apologies for the extensive quotation but, where a better writer can say his or her thoughts, I must give way. In this sense, we must question and attempt falsification (Indeed, such is the basis for Karl Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery). Why then this focus, from matters which we can know and matters which need to be falsified? Why apply this to quackery and snake-oil merchants?

As sceptics we must use the power of reason, the weapon of Ockham, and the open-mindedness of a teetering cup: just open enough not to let the contents spill. But the question arises, again, why should we critique or stand against charlatans?

People lose money, lives, health and gain suffering, debilitation and overall a nuanced view of life. There is much beauty in the scientific world, in the materialistic “mundane” potentially evidence-based world we sceptics live in. We are proud to defend reason and fight for truth. We do not accept things as a given, but judge them according to their claims and whether they live up to them.

Even now, one might dismiss this ideological notion. Where does our complacency come from? I believe, it comes from scepticism itself. As AC Grayling, in his book Scepticism and the Possibility of Knowledge, says:

The sceptic, in other words, has adopted the habiliments of relativism. Relativism, indeed, is the ultimate form of scepticism, because it challenges us to justify, as a whole, the scheme within which mundane judgments get their content and have their life.

Grayling is focused on the subtler pretext of philosophical implementations of scepticism. But, we can for our use perhaps extend this to our view of adopting strategies that we would otherwise think idiotic! The position of the stars, moon and planets can tell us something about your personality, your future, your life, your beloved? Hogwash. By looking at the lines and marks of your palm, we can tell everything about you. Further hogwash. These beautiful cards each represent an aspect of you. We can try detect your angel-guide, who is with you and protecting you… And so the list grows, like weeds blocking out the little flame. Wouldn’t we all love Ockham’s Razor to slice them down?

I recall a parable of Schopenhauer’s: “A rose always has thorns, but a thorn does not always have a rose.” Indeed, some idiotic schemes in the past may have led the way to beneficence. But now, we understand the methodologies to test whether the claims are true. We can say whether these crystals work. We can test astrology, as has been done many times.

We disprove these things – to a great degree – but people continue to use them, listen to the advice of “sages” who know nothing about medicine or nutrition (need I remind anyone of Patrick Holford?), and ignore our warnings. Niall Ferguson also questioned this, in his treatise on the evil of the 20th century. He says, in The War of the World: “Megalomaniacs may order men to invade Russia, but why do the men obey?”

And I think it is our horrid past of relativism. The paradox of being sceptical of the sceptics: How can you know it doesn’t work for them? Maybe their ancient art of x, y, or z, does work for them, but your scientific/materialist/Western/colonialist view is simply arrogant if you think it’s better.

Well I think its high time we do away with this silly notion. I think it’s high time we actually “stick our noses in” and point out the man behind the curtain. I think it’s time we continue to fight against the purveyors of Counterknowledge and bullshit. To quote Ibn Warraq on the notion of interfering with “alien” or other cultures:

The British intervened in the affairs of an alien culture and abolished the ancient tradition of suttee, whereby a widow had to throw herself on the funeral pyre of her husband. This must be considered a step forward in the lot of the women and the moral progress of mankind.

Some intelligent critics might say it was not better at all to intervene. The woman might face scorn, rejection and so on for not performing suttee. Thus her life is actually worse – but I say, it’s life nonetheless. The potential is snuffed out by the fires of her husband’s pyre. But I’d be interested as always for responses to any of the claims I make.

It seems then, that our natural past in leaving the “natives to their native traditions” or the savages to their savage views, is now long dead. We have means of repeating objectively verifiable data in the world. We can get to the truth, in a way that can benefit our fellow man. One might hasten to call it truth and Truth – but I don’t really care what you call that which is repeatable and demonstrable to everyone.

Claims of the charlatans are not true. And we should not be treating or paying for something which is packaged as true, but which demonstrably is not.

These charlatans and the snake-oil merchants and the quack-doctors and the bullshit merchants, need to come under the gaze of those who care about humanity. We need to stop allowing people to think Tarot readings are true in the same way Einstein’s prediction’s were true; we need to alert them to the better, broader world which awaits their grasp. This is not arrogance and I don’t mean us to charge into every person’s house who gazes into a crystal ball; or rob every one who loves relaxing with acupuncture. I simply mean we should not be afraid to point out the green man, with the smoke, making the giant head. We, as sceptics, do this for the benefit of all. Indeed, I would love nothing more than for there to be psychic powers that heal. How great would it be to utilise it … for science and medicine! It would just become another scientific method. Therefore, even those who are “against” science because they believe in psychic powers, etc. can benefit from helping to galvanise their position in the light of reason and science.

For that light is the light of all good. All the good that can shine humanity’s happiness forward. We are a young species, but we are a growing one. Every hand should be used to raise that flame of reason a little higher. It can only shed its light on us all.

Tags: alternative medicine, Astrology, ayuverdic medicine, carl sagan, counterknowledge, damian thompson, humanity, ibn warraq, niall ferguson, palmistry, patrick holford, quackery, science, Tarot cards
Posted in Commentary | 5 Comments »

Two Ways of Looking at the World

Sunday, November 9th, 2008

One in search of answers through eyes of wonder, joy, and fulfillment:

One in search of answers through eyes of fear, conspiracy, and negativity:

Tags: anti-christ obama, discovery channel, science
Posted in Media | 3 Comments »

More data is needed to confirm Bloom’s hypothesis about why American atheists are so mean

Friday, November 7th, 2008

Paul Bloom, an extraordinarily erudite cognitive scientist and Professor of Psychology at Yale, has just published a piece on Slate defending atheists against data suggesting that (American) secular types are less “nice” and less charitable than their religious counterparts. After giving a rough sketch of data suggesting that people who are psychologically primed to think they are being watched at all times (in this case, by God) are more likely to be charitable (alternatively, I read this as religious people are easier to coerce…) and that atheists give less blood and less money to charity, Bloom explains:

Humans are social beings, and we are happier, and better, when connected to others…. The Danes and the Swedes, despite being godless, have strong communities. American atheists, by contrast, are often left out of community life. The studies that Brooks cites in Gross National Happiness, which find that the religious are happier and more generous then the secular, do not define religious and secular in terms of belief. They define it in terms of religious attendance. It is not hard to see how being left out of one of the dominant modes of American togetherness can have a corrosive effect on morality. As P.Z. Myers, the biologist and prominent atheist, puts it, “[S]cattered individuals who are excluded from communities do not receive the benefits of community, nor do they feel willing to contribute to the communities that exclude them.”

This is an explanation that is intuitively quite satisfying, and one with a great deal of emotional appeal to secularists who are being tired that their bitter despondence towards life is because they have no God (or vice versa). Mr. Bloom, who by eerie coincidence I just happen to have met in person literally minutes before reading the Slate article, considers himself to be a mind-body materialist (he didn’t say if he was an atheist or not, but he does say that he has never held any strong religious views despite being raised Conservative Jewish) and so we must be wary of the potential emotional appeal his hypothesis both to ourselves and to the hypothesizer.

This piece has already been circulated on Pharyngula, but at this stage Bloom’s work is still preliminary. His hypothesis is good, however, in that it makes testable predictions; there are certain things we should expect if Bloom’s hypothesis is true:

Any social group that is discriminated against routinely ought to have lower rates of charitable giving, blood donation, or other measures of “niceness.”
Any majority social group that enjoys any kind of de facto or de jure privilege in a society ought to have higher rates of those same measures than the discriminated minority.
Groups that become more tolerated over time ought to, ceteris peribus, have increased rates of charitable “niceness.”

I do not have any of the data on those three predictions, if indeed such data exists. I invite anyone who is both interested and knowledgeable in this line of reasoning, please drop a link to some relevant research in the comments page to see if we can confirm Mr. Bloom’s promising, and optimistic, hypothesis.

Tags: morality, Paul Bloom, science
Posted in Commentary | 1 Comment »

Apply science to colloquialisms

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

Shalini’s latest post got me thinking. Not about Stalin, communism or even atheism, but about the Annals of Improbable Research (the best articles are linked on the Wikipedia page).

Specifically she mentioned the familiar saying “like comparing apples and oranges” in an effort to imply that her critics were attempting to compare two completely unrelated things.

But let’s let science do the work for us!

In 1995, Scott Sandford, of the NASA Ames Research Centre, provided a detailed fourier-transform infrared spectroscopic (FTIR) analysis of both apples and oranges. Their findings? Apples and oranges were “very similar” and the comparison was “easy to make.”

But if you don’t have access to FTIR equipment, you can still do scientific comparisons between the two objects.

First, by inspection, both are somewhat sphereical, roughly the same size (within the same order of magnitude, varies by species), one is red while the other is orange, both have peels, although the orange has a thicker peel that is typically inedible, and both are seeded fruit. When sliced open we find the orange is more liquidy and comes in pre-sliced convienience (like it was deisgned… no jk), wheras the apple is crispier and has a core.

You can weigh the two fruit and find they have a similar mass (again, to an order of magnitude – I am in physics, this is all that matters to us). You could also drop them from baloconies to see which makes the bigger mess.

In fact, I imagine you can construct countless, controlled, scientific tests to compare apples to oranges.

Taking the conclusion of Dr. Sandford’s paper:

Thus, it would appear that the comparing apples and oranges defense should no longer be considered valid. This is a somewhat startling revelation. It can be anticipated to have a dramatic effect on the strategies used in arguments and discussions in the future.

Let’s go a bit further.

In 2003, inspired by Dr. Sandford’s findings, Mark Fonstad, William (Pugatch) Flynn, and Brandon Vogt decided to do a topographical geodetic survey to determine the validity of the statement “Kansas is flatter than a pancake.”

By grabbing some “samples” from the local IHOP (I’m not sure why they call them international, we don’t have any IHOPs in Canada) and calculated the surface topography of both the pancake and of Kansas.

Their findings were that the “flatness” (with 1 being perfectly flat) of Kansas was 0.9997 while the pancake was 0.957. They concluded, scientifically, that Kansas is truly flatter than a pancake.

So go out, find some familiar saying, like “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” or “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” and do some science.

Tags: annals of improbable research, apples to oranges, sayings, science, scientific method
Posted in Feature | 4 Comments »

Science Types and Their EQ

Sunday, November 2nd, 2008

PZ was in Toronto this weekend. (Actually, he still is in Toronto as I write this, but I am not.) Much to my surprise he didn’t make me any level of livid or even angry. I got disgruntled by a few of his points here and there – but overall I found on the topic that he was speaking to (education + science + religion) I generally agreed. But his talk spurred a discussion between me and a couple others about “those science types” and their “emotional intelligence”…or generally…lack there of. (I can hear teeth grinding already! Where’s the love?!)

I’ve read a crap load of books on “emotional intelligence”. Most of them I find to be a bit shaky and questionable, but I see some validity in the arguments and ideas that are being presented in a general term. Emotional intelligence, in very simple terms is one ability to interact with people, gage their emotions, have an idea about social discourses and the effect that their inputs will have on the overall social feel. One gages their own, and other’s, emotions and make what they deem to be appropriate judgments on how they should react. There are three main models that I’m not going to explain in any sort of depth. I imagine if you wikipedia it you’ll find them all nicely laid out for you.

In general they all have the same premise: see the emotion, capitalize on the emotion, understand the emotion and properly manage the emotion. Some say its the ability to fit into social groups and adhere to social norms, other say its the ability to manipulate and use people in those social groups. Either way, it all starts with those four basic function of using emotion.

Just as I am aware of what EQ is, I am also fully aware of all the problems that other people have pointed out in the philosophies, models and theories… so you don’t need to explain them to me. What I want to be clear on, for the purposes of this post, are what *I* mean when I say “EQ”… I mean having the skill to read, interact and appropriately mingle with and manipulate individuals or groups. I think that’s pretty straight forward… I am not claiming that we could call it a form of “intelligence” or that it is measurable or denying that there is an ability to fake this type of “intelligence very easily”… etc. There simply exists deep social skills that allow a person to literally read and gage the emotions of a person and use those to their advantage or use them to approach situations appropriately.

This is the part when you all start to get mad at me – all these “science types” have very little of this EQ. I will admit, up front, that some of them aren’t missing this important social quality but most indeed are. The sort of group we get at CFI, the people I knew in my physics program in first year, the types that talk to me after our science lectures… etc all have this shocking inability to blend into social settings. Not only that, but when I talk to them its as if they’re not registering any of the emotion that is attached with my words. If I’m joking, they don’t get it. If I’m being sarcastic, trying to get a serious point across or getting really angry – they don’t react. And it’s not like I’m an emotionally blank person…You can tell very clearly when I’m happy, sad, joking, angry… etc. well, if you’re able to gage emotions you can, anyway.

Not only does this make conversations that aren’t about science, rationality or critical thinking a total snorefest and completely awkward, but it’s also…why I think… it’s difficult and almost impossible for them to grasp the emotional happenings of the other side of things. Such as cultural relativism, (I’m not saying things like the definition for the word “book” should be accepted as relative, but things such as a definition of spirituality and religion…could very well be…or something) or seeing religion as something valuable to someone else. This is a problem because it’s a whole new area of narrow mindedness. The only things that are valid to them are what they have empirical evidence for – the emotional arguments for things are just not understood…instead, because they have a lack of understanding about science they’re just seen as carbon blobs. And when they attempt to make philosophical arguments it has to be totally logically sound instead of adding in some emotivism.

The lack of understanding of emotions, (or …as I learned from Larry Moran not too long ago – he just doesn’t care about emotions…) and inability to put themselves in the mindsets of other gives them no consideration of the effects that could be happening as a reaction of their actions toward others. Calling their entire value system and view of life as “ridiculous”? That’s just not acceptable, it hurts people. If they’re choosing to live the way they are, the most we can do is offer services, lectures and educational programs for them to be exposed to. If they choose not to use these resources, that’s fine. We don’t need to destroy their religions, we just need it out of the public sphere. There is a time and a place for emotional decision making such as creativity, empathy and comforting…, just as there is a time and a place for empirical/scientific or statistical decision making such as in the lab, school or when you’re attempting to find the scientific truth to life.

I’m sorry – but not everything in life can have science trailing right behind it, and just dismissing the emotions of people doesn’t make them disappear.

Tags: emotion, philosophy, religion, science
Posted in Feature | 20 Comments »

Hitchens on Palin

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

Following in the footsteps of Jeffrey Sachs and Sam Harris, Hitchens throws in his tucents with this article attacking Palin’s religious bent and anti-science outlook.

Tags: hitchens, Palin, science
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Friday Five

Thursday, October 23rd, 2008

Every Friday the crew here at Edger will rank the top five blog posts, videos, science news, and anything else of interest to the freethought community.

5. On the Evolutionary Origins of Religion

The cultural naturalism report brings us this descriptive post on the debate over the evolutionary origins of religion.

“The divide on the question of the naturalistic origins of religion is between the adaptationists and the by-product theorists. The adaptationists are led by David Sloan Wilson and Jonathan Haidt, while Daniel Dennett is the major proponent of the religion-as-a-by-product hypothesis. In this essay, I outline the issue briefly and mention some implications of these ideas.”

4. Daylight Atheism: Advice to an Atheist

Deacon Duncan from the evangelical realism blog gives us this well reasoned and contemplative analysis of how an atheist should act during a particular case of public prayer.

“By standing during the prayer, and visibly pledging to support the community without sacrificing their personal principles, atheists can lead by example, demonstrating that tolerance can be helpful, non-violent, and principled.”

3. Why ‘Stayin’ Alive’ could literally save your life

In another awesome mix of science and music, scientists at the university of Illinois have discovered an ingenious way to ensure people conducting CPR achieve the ideal number of compressions per minute to resuscitate the heart.

“Nadkarni said he has seen ‘Stayin’ Alive’ work wonders in classes where students were having trouble keeping the right beat while practicing on mannequins. When he turned on the song, ‘all of a sudden, within just a few seconds, they get it right on the dot.’”

2. All aboard the atheist bus campaign

The Atheist Bus Campaign finally got underway this week in London, with Richard Dawkins matching donations. Ariane Sherine wrote about the campaign in the Guardian. This was definitely worthy of the number one spot this week, simply because of the exposure and controversy it will generate.

“Your donations will give atheism a more visible presence in the UK, generate debate, brighten people’s day on the way to work, and hopefully encourage more people to come out as atheists. As Richard Dawkins says: “This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think – and thinking is anathema to religion.”"

1. CFI Pushes Back Against Religious Restrictions on Free Expression

And Edger’s number one spot this week goes to Austin Dacey and the Center for Inquiry, who represented those who believe in freedom of speech at the ninth session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. CFI has been working alongside the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) to combat the defamation of religions enactment.

“Austin Dacey drafted and read a statement urging the Council to abandon the dangerous notion of the defamation of religions, asserting: “Rights belong to individuals, not ideas. . . . Belief depends on the freedom to doubt, to dissent, to discover.””

Tags: atheist, cfi, demation of religion, edger, freethought, science, Stayin' Alive, UN
Posted in Feature | 1 Comment »

Tauriq on eSkeptic

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

I’m pleased to say our very own writer, Tauriq, is the featured writer of this week’s eSkeptic from the Skeptics Society. Tauriq wrote a review of Michio Kaku’s book Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration of the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation and Time Travel. (Allen Lane/Penguin, 2008, ISBN 9780715999921).

Like all of Tauriq’s writing, the review is informative and most importantly, it makes we want to read Kaku’s book.

If you aren’t subscribed to eSkeptic yet, do so here. I highly recommend it. It is a great dose of skepticism, science, and rationality in your inbox, weekly.

Tags: Book Review, eskeptic, michio kaku, science, Skeptic, skeptics society, tauriq
Posted in Media | 1 Comment »

Fundamentalist Theatre 3000 BC – Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (Part 2)

Sunday, October 12th, 2008

Here it is, Part II of my grand, time-wasting refutation.

31:22 – A cell could not have been the result of Darwinian evolution because it is a machine of at least 250 perfectly ordered proteins, each of which has to work to maintain a lifeform. Therefore there must be an intelligent design to make something this ordered and precise.

That’s assuming that proteins have all-or-nothing function, which is COMPLETELY false. There are countless mutants of even just one protein and different mutants of different proteins have different catalytic efficiencies. Most mutations don’t even have an effect on fitness, and are silent due to the degeneracy of the genetic code (multiple codons encode for the same protein). And different cellular structures can be analogous but not homologous, meaning that they have different evolutionary bases but the same function, just as with the flagella of the archaea, bacteria, and eukaryotes – demonstrating that there are multiple pathways to adaptations that essentially do the same thing.

Furthermore, the longer back a protein’s lineage is, the more conserved (unlikely to change over time) it is since said protein has undergone selective pressure and any new non-silent mutations would be even more likely to be catastrophic to function. This can lead to some very inefficient proteins, such as Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase (Rubisco), which has enzymatic activity of only 4 molecules per second (most enzymes have activities of hundreds or thousands per second) but is critical for the carbon fixation cycle. If everything were so intricate and intelligently designed, Rubisco would be far more efficient and not have to consist of 40% of total proteins in the cell NOR would it be sensitive to something as simple as oxygen.

Rubisco. If it were intelligently designed, God must really have been on something.

Life can loosely be defined as a structure that is capable of metabolism, can self-replicate, and can regulate its own environment. There is strong circumstantial evidence that all three can occur individually even through very simple, immediate phenomenon; lipids, which were created by the Miller-Urey Experiment, can spontaneously form into micelles given a certain concentration of lipids (the Critical Micelle Concentation). These micelles are enclosed structures capable of forming a basis of a micro environment.

Abiogenesis Goes Far Beyond “Lightning Striking a Mud Puddle” – Thomas Cech’s Experiments

Nobel Laureate Thomas Cech showed through a fragment assay where he stripped away various portions of the bacterial ribosome that if 95% of all proteins were stripped away, the ribosome would still be capable of peptidyl transferase activity. He also found that the protein did not exist around the active sites of the ribosome. Through this and various other experiments, Cech demonstrated that RNA functions as both an encoder and a catalyst (a catalyzing RNA is referred to as a ribozyme).

Cech further demonstrated that such an RNA molecule can be relatively simple and can form through a variety of pathways. Cech sequenced random RNA sequences and found that out of a total of 10^85 possible molecules with just 172 bases, around one per 10^15 molecules was capable of some peptidyl transferase activity. Thus there are 10^70 different molecules with different bases capable of PT activity – and just for those molecules with 172 bases! Thus, one does not need a intricately and intelligently designed ribozyme to perform seemingly advanced metabolic activities – random polymerization and then selective pressure for those molecules best able to self-replicate will suffice.

39:31 – Ben fawns over Capital Hill town idiot Congressman Mark Souder (R-IN), who has proposed a bill preserving “academic freedom” at the Smithsonian in response to Sternberg’s “persecution”. This is just one of many examples of “The Academy”, a shadowy organization dedicated to eliminating God from the science lab.

Congressman Souder’s admits that he is from a district where the Democrats need to be conservatives to survive and the Republicans are even more far to the right. Belief in the literal truth of the Bible hardly makes him some sort of nonpartisan arbiter in the Evolution-ID debate. Oh, and parroting the Expelled movie ON his house website doesn’t really help.

41:29 – The National Center for Science Education is at the forefront of keeping Darwinism in power. They are one of many watchdog organizations, along with that demonic ACLU, which is in cahoots with The Academy.

And there are numerous watchdog organizations that do exactly the opposite. To imply some sort of liberal conspiracy theory is one of the many disingenuous claims this movie makes.

James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family and more guilty of spamming peoples’ e-mails than half of Nigeria

43:35 – Darwinism turns goodly, God-fearing Christians into Atheists! Just look at Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers! Beware!

(See 57:22 for more)

Although the percentage of Americans who believe evolution stand at an appallingly low 40% (only several percentage points above hardcore creationism), almost 80% of Americans consider themselves Christians… meaning that even if we assume that everyone in the remaining 20% believed in evolution, 50% of evolutionists would have to be Christians. I’m sure that they are Christians In Name Only, because they probably belong to some liberal church that supports gay marriage or is maybe just a front group for *gulp* humanism.

44:18 – Ben uses the example of the Abrams Report on MSNBC (now Verdict w/ Dan Abrams), who absolutely dismantled a lawyer from the Thomas More Law Foundation representing the defendants of the Dover School District Trial to show that the media is firmly in the hands of Big Science.

Kudos to Dan Abrams; he called out the IDers for what they really are – closest creationists. And while Abrams, Keith Olbermann, and maybe even Chris Matthews on MSNBC lean to the left, there have always been more conservative pundits on cable TV. Right-wingers Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck all gave the Expelled movie itself glowing reviews. I also have yet to see an unabashedly far-left organization that masquerades itself as “News”, just as FOX News does for the right.

45:41- Pamela Winnick “refused to take sides” in an article on the evolution-ID debate. But the Darwinists still persecuted her because she refused to show enough deference to evolution.

This is actually one area where Ben Stein gets it partially right. Winnick’s original article does try to set a neutral tone between the evolution-ID debate… although it does make the false assumption that ID is a serious theory that needs to be debated. But Stein gives no examples of how she was “persecuted”. And now Pamela Winnick cannot be considered a non-partisan journalist – her new book “Science’s War Against Religion“.

46:36 – Darwinism has infiltrated the courts in a last-ditch attempt to stop Intelligent Design. Representing the vanguard of the effort is the ACLU.

A court is a forum where all the evidence for or against Intelligent Design and/or the Theory of Evolution can be debated, discussed, and refuted. Oh wait, I forgot you don’t have any evidence – maybe that’s why you’re so afraid of the judicial system.

49:44 - Darwinists have given up on defending their own theory, and have simply resorted to attacking their opponent (religion and intelligent design) like a dirty politician.

On the contrary, this film and the IDers do the very same thing you’re decrying, and I have the liveblog to prove it.

53:12 – There have been plenty of religious people who are also scientists like Isaac Newton and Galileo. Darwinists don’t have a monopoly on good science.

No one said they did except the film, which is just used to build up a persecution complex. Francis Collins is a relatively conservative evangelical Christian and a very accomplished scientist who worked on the Human Genome Project – but the difference between him and the ID people is that the ID people use religion to manipulate science despite the overwhelming evidence.

57:22 – PZ Myers was not only converted to atheism through Darwinism, but now also actively seeks to marginalize religion, bring it down, and make it irrelevant in the public sphere.

Just one in a long line of fear-baiting arguments that this film makes. There are plenty of religious people who believe in the Theory of Evolution; even the Catholic Church and the very conservative Pope Benedict XVI’s doctrine (while not altogether rational) claim the theory as valid and leave it up to the (real) scientists.

Furthermore, Stein is insinuating that atheists are out to overthrow Christianity or something, which is completely false. This is to suggest that atheists are one monolithic force that is “out to get religion”, whereas in reality atheists are just as diverse in world view as the various Christian, Jewish, Muslim or other religious denominations. There are atheists like myself who are more or less content with keeping the separation between Church and State, and more “hardcore” atheists who seek actively to challenge the views of religious people just as Christian evangelicals do the same to nonbelievers.

The EVIL ATHEIST CONSPIRACY is coming! Watch out, or you may become one of “Them”.

There is also no conflict between religion and the Theory of Evolution as long as one sees The Bible and other holy books as a damned (pardon my language) allegory rather than word-for-word truths – as many moderate and liberal Christians have… not to mention that France during the Enlightenment experienced an upsurge of atheism up to a point in time where even the famous Cathedral of Notre Dame ceased to be a religious institution for a time – all of this before Darwin was aboard the HMS Beagle.

Finally, the context of the question posed to PZ Myers is also severely lacking – if you were to ask an evangelical Christian what would be their ideal world, it would almost certainly be a monotonous one where there might not be homosexuality and every single individual were an evangelical Christian who adhered to the same brand of Christianity and was “saved”. It was obvious that PZ Myers would say that he preferred a world where scientific research would marginalize in all aspects of life.

Tags: ben stein, evolution, expelled, intelligence, intelligent design, science
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Reading Your Antagonist

Thursday, October 9th, 2008

Many would suppose that the proper title for this article should be: Know Your Enemy. In fact, Bertrand Russell advises us to use reason when dealing with those we hate, whilst “safely leaving” emotion and intuition for those we love. Often this is forgotten, as sceptics (or “skeptics”, depending whether you speak proper English or Americanese), nonbelievers and scientists are protracted against a wall of emotion, their ideas and personalities the target of incessant emotive attacks. But scientists and skeptics themselves are guilty of being angry, hostile and patronizing to those who disagree with them.

This tells us something, namely: It’s very horribly human.

But, consider the maxim of leaving reason for antagonists and intuition for loved ones – and surely a balance could be struck. An ideal no less for being asserted. I do not think it’s perfect – however this idea is not meant to be. I view it as a foundation from which thought may spring, reason may flow and truth may prosper.

You would never rest a building on a single brick, but many bricks like it! Similarly, if we find other ideas, catering for reason and emotion we have an advantage of advancing our investigations into the supernatural, the non-science and the plain stupid (you can decide which category to slot creationism, Tarot cards and astrology).

The central way I believe we can promote reason in this Discourse of Difference is through the interaction of intelligent antagonists. For example, I am a big fan of the work of Alister McGrath – except for his The Dawkins Delusion? Reza Aslan’s book, No God but God, provides a beautiful history of Islam for the average person. Reading these books, gives one a sense of the numinous and transcendent, longed for by nearly all of us. We are beings capable of the greatest usage of reason, of galvanizing truth into a spurious waft of beauty. We should never limit our approach to using only confirmatory writings, but be willing to test our reasoning against those who are equally charged in their own defenses.

This is why I enjoy public debates and gladly participate in them. I do not like saying “know your enemy” as being central to this piece because they are not our enemy. I hate the label of “enemy”. It retracts from the position of making them into friends, allies or, at the very worst, acquaintances. Be not afraid to read why Francis Collins is able to bifurcate the need for evidence in one area, yet gladly give over to a frozen waterfall for the belief in the monotheist god. Sure, you might laugh at this – but I believe Collins believes (with bad reasoning, but nonetheless I can tell you why only after reading his book The Language of God: A Scienist Presents Evidence for Belief. He does not.) Perhaps my interest in people’s minds disposes me to be interested in difference and needing to quantify world-views into singular paradigms. Regardless of this, I do think that it important for us to read antagonists’ books, no matter how silly they may initially appear.

Be secure: There is no such thing as too much knowledge, too much information and, when reading a book, NO information. You might pick up a copy of John Lennox’s God’s Undertaker and be able to refute all his arguments – but it doesn’t stop you from enjoying his writing style, his explanations of mathematical concepts and his knowledge of David Hume. As a book reviewer for Skeptic magazine, I have to read books that I do not necessarily want to but have often had my mind changed.

And yes there is quite a lot of nonsense, set as an affront to sensibilities; Sylvia Browne comes to mind. This should not stop you from investigating her, finding out why she’s a fraud, a hypocrite, a morbid pestilential old bat^*. Nonetheless, find out why people love/hate her. This is my appeal to everyone, believer or none, psychic or Truther, astrologer or mediums – to investigate all claims surrounding your views. The best defenders and communicators of atheism, scepticism, science, humanism and naturalism (like Michael Shermer, for instance), are always those who know the antagonist’s viewpoints as well as their own. Sometimes, the very reason why you are an atheist, for example, is because of how well you know your opponent’s minds and points. But never stop investigating.

We have entered and engaged in a dialogue, not a shouting match. The yelling from pulpits is dying, the choirs are becoming silenced and belief without evidence is not standing up to the scrutiny of avid investigators. The point is to end this shouting match and begin a conversation, based on the long abandoned fragile animal called “reason”. Let us begin that conversation now…

_________________________

*I am aware this is namecalling, but it was done deliberately

Tags: Alister McGrath, atheism, Humanism, michael shermer, religion, science, Skeptic, supernatural, Sylvia Browne
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Nerds and Sex. There’s a Trend.

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

THE Article

So girls with any intellect have always thought that while the quarterback is drool worthy, the captain of the chess team was by far more date worthy if there was ever any hope for a conversation. Finally, science proves that women really aren’t as shallow as everyone seems to think. Albeit, we still would probably pick Mr. Muscles for a one night stand, but intelligence is definitely making a come back. And why not? Trying to talk to an attractive dim wit gets old after he asks you to explain the meaning of every word over two syllables. Suddenly he loses his appeal, and you want an excuse to run in the opposite direction. Or when they can’t seem to follow you. When you mention the word science or politics and they think of a monkey named George…well they weren’t too far off.

The article is about a research study showing that women are obviously more attracted to men with intelligence than stupidity. Who would have ever thought, huh? I mean, they have to be good for something other than opening pickle jars.Biologically speaking, this is because the intelligent man would have better luck with helping a family survive. Not to mention passing those smart genes down to future offspring.

Personally, I’m drawn to geeks and nerds. When a guy can “use big words” and make a logical point based on facts, my heart melts. Being able to discuss things in science, politics, literature, art, anything that would make my brain work seems to produce more oxytocin than if we had spent the past hour in bed. This is especially if they can manage to kick my ass on Counter Strike or Halo, or any RPG or RTS for that matter. And being a fan of Star Wars or at least another awsome science fiction show/movie. That’s what this nerd looks for, a fellow nerd who can discuss intellectual topics just as well as he can wield a controler or mouse.

Tags: science, sex
Posted in Commentary | 8 Comments »

DaveScot needs to stop failing

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008

Just when we thought that DaveScot may have finally decided to make a teeny bit of sense after all, he ends up crashing our hopes to the ground by posting something so mind-numbingly ridiculous; making us realize that his drama is a train wreck that we simply cannot stop watching. Over at Uncommon Descent, he decides to have a little fun with Google Trends:

He triumphantly posts:

Blue: Intelligent Design
Red: Darwinian Evolution
Orange: Scientific Creationism
Green: Theological Evolution

Any questions?

Yeah, DaveScot. Because, you know, your average Googler would use the term ‘Darwinian Evolution’ when looking up information on evolutionary biology.

Good to know.Looking at the graph, we see ID getting lots of attention in 2005 at the time that the Dover trial was talking place and when the IDists were whining about being trounced in court. However, notice that there apparently has been hardly any interest in ID before Dover, and still hardly any after the dust from Dover settled. For all the books the IDists have been writing, for all the propaganda they have been spewing, for all their bleating over Expelled – people are simply not paying attention. Yes, the scientific community already knew long ago that ID was a crock, but apparently nobody else has been paying attention either. Funny how DaveScot chooses not to mention this (which would have been plainly obvious by even a cursory glance at the graph), don’t you think?

Now, let us use Google Trends to get a graph for people searching for ‘evolution’, which would obviously be the choice for someone looking for information about – gasp – evolution. To be fair, I will also use ‘creationism’ instead of ’scientific creationism’. We get this:

Ouch. That must hurt for DaveScot who just a moment ago was arrogantly asking for questions. When asked why he used the term ‘Darwinian evolution’ instead of just ‘evolution’, he responded:

ID doesn’t dispute all “evolution”. It disputes Darwinian evolution.

Just…wow. Despite the fact that the IDists have never been able to come up with an actual answer to what ID actually is and despite the fact that they have never been able to agree on what part of ‘evolution’ they actually accept (Behe accepts common descent and human evolution, Dembski does not, etc.), DaveScot is now fudging and shifting the goalposts again in an effort to have his cake and eat it too. What makes this whole situation even more hilarious is that based on the very graph that he posted, most people not only do not buy into the ID nonsense, they do not even seem to care! The IDists have failed at convincing the scientific community to give their unscientific dogma the time of the day and they have apparently not made much headway in the court of public opinion as well, even with all this fudging and hedging.

I am really curious as to what ‘evolution’ the IDists accept. The Lamarackian version?

He continues:

When I say Darwinian evolution I mean the term writ large accounting for the entire history of life on earth. Do I really need to tediously qualify it at every mention? I don’t think so. Most of the subscribers and audience here recognize by now that micro-evolution by chance & necessity is not being disputed. We don’t dispute facts. We dispute theory.

Uh…what? ID does not accept evolution that accounts for the history of life on earth but accepts micro-evolution, which somehow does not qualify as ‘Darwinian evolution’? Why wouldn’t micro-evolution qualify as being ‘Darwinian’, but somehow explaining the history of life counts as ‘Darwinian’ evolution? What is the imaginary barrier separating the two? At this point, we can safely say that DaveScot does not have a clue and is making it up and fudging even more in an effort to blunder along.

Maybe, DaveScot, it is time for you and the rest of your ID propagandists to stop failing. Just…stop.

Tags: creationism, davescot, evolution, ID, science, uncommon descent
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Sachs Echoes Harris on Threat of Anti-Intellectualism

Friday, September 26th, 2008

Jeffrey Sachs seems to be echoing the words of Sam Harris in his most recent opinion article.

While many factors contributed to America’s destabilising actions, a powerful one is anti-intellectualism, exemplified recently by Republican vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin’s surging popularity.

Earlier this week, Harris wrote an article bashing America’s desire for anti-intellectualism. Sachs has jumped on the bandwagon of defending intellectualism and elitism in politics by taking a Saganistic approach to the issue by showing how in an age of Science, anti-intellectualism and disdain for Science are the last things we should be preaching.

The problem is an aggressive fundamentalism that denies modern science, and an aggressive anti-intellectualism that views experts and scientists as the enemy. It is those views that could end up getting us all killed… The challenges faced by a major power like the US require rigorous analysis of information according to the best scientific principles.

This is a great article by Sachs, and coming from probably the word’s leading Economist, his words should resonate outside of the science-minded community.

As for what I think, I’ve also noticed that it’s the parochial, the religious trump card, the in-group behaviour that ties itself to an anti-intellectual nationalism that is stunting the growth of the global community. If only people could get over themselves, over their Gods, over their tradition, over their dogma, over their disdain of modern science, and over their disdain for intelligence, then we could mature as a civilization and realize that in this day and age we need to rely on eachother to survive.

…Apparently I can take a Saganistic approach as well.

Tags: anti-intellectualism, elitism, harris, Palin, Sachs, science
Posted in Commentary | 10 Comments »

Did Neanderthals Pray? – Part 2

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008

This article is a continuation of the post located here.

So the question boils down to: what are the minimal mental requirements for the software religion? As I stated in a comment to the previous part, the purpose of religion is to communitize. Religions discriminate because they don’t want their youth marrying into another population. Why should you give their genes free access into another generation? If you reproduce with one of us, then the relatedness of your baby with us will be closer to one. No one says this consciously of course (imagine if they did!) but this is the underlying structure of all discrimination. This further leads to creation of myths and taboos.

Muslims and Jews must not eat pork; originating from the same part of the world and the same tribes, the early populations of these religions were threatened by the attacking Romans. The Romans of course were hedonists. Imagine a common scene where the invading population would gather around all the meat shops (primarily pork for the Romans). An undeclared rule would prevail forbidding the early Jewish children from the pork markets. A few generations down, this would become a communal law. Similarly the Hindus don’t eat beef, even though it is well known that they did till about 1000 A.D. This was the exact time the Muslims invaded. Practicing Hindus today find the consumption of beef and meat in general to be literally “disgusting”, and by the rules of hereditary, all people who consume something disgusting must acquire the same properties. It can also be noted that South Indians (a region the attackers did not reach) continue to consume this meat. So in these unsaid and undeclared ways, taboos emerge. And this is the essence of religion. Even moderate populations today do eventually marry into their own religion and race. Even if you don’t discriminate, that familial instinct remains, and indeed it has its roots in our ancestral societies.

We can prove this by showing that taboos are not static, but variable to communal pressures. Incest is the best example that comes to mind. A serendipitous experiment Napolean Chagnon conducted with the Yanomamo, shows us how shaky the rule can be. In isolation, himself and a friend interviewed men and women about their phylogenic tree. Many tribal cultures have strong taboos against naming the dead (with fear their ghosts might return or something along those lines); so it was very hard to get them to name the deceased relatives. But the purpose of the experiment was not to test their knowledge of the subject, but to see how quickly could men return the correct answer as opposed to women. And the initial assumption that gave cause to the experiment was found true. Men did answer more questions significantly faster with more accuracy. This shows that men (in tribal societies) are much more aware of the distance that exists between themselves and any given female. They have to know this better to be able to draw the line of incest in their minds. With abundance of women and low competition (like our societies), the incest bar is set very high. No one crosses it, and if they do, they are looked upon with the utmost contempt. But when your village has only about 10 or so people remaining, that bar is suddenly lowered. A chart in a 1973 publication shows what Chagnon thought the society of all our ancestors looked like. It is a great chart to look at, but I don’t have access to it right away. It showed how rare it was for all members of a family to be alive all at once. If mother, daughter and son were alive, then father might be already dead, or some iteration thereof.

So we can begin to surmise the reasons religion might have evolved: the necessity of promoting our own genes over other populations’. But these communal pressures do not belong only to humans, but all social animals. So why don’t we see capybaras and vervet monkeys adhering to strange societal laws? Well who says we don’t? They don’t pray but they certainly do discriminate. Gang warfare is common amongst primates. Rodents are often known to be stingy with resources. All other social animals also follow this pattern. But the major distinguishing factor between our religions and theirs is that of language. We have it, they don’t. We set rules and pass them on through generations, they don’t. And recently, since we started writing, our rules have gained the ability to remain verbatim through several generations. This also allows for gross misinterpretations by it’s modern followers.

So now our job is to draw a separator at the point at which modern language evolved and then we could answer the title-question. But this is where the problem arises, we don’t know when language evolved, and we are not even sure how it evolved. Christine Kenneally gives a very nice history of the field in her book “The First Word.” She draws up the political chart with Chomsky at the right and Sue Savage Rumbaugh at the left. Steven Pinker lies somewhere between Chomsky and the mid point, and Philip Liberman at the symmetrically opposite. Some on the left insist that language comes from many different parts of the brain, and it emerges not as a single object but rather more like an illusion formed by many functioning parts. With this they suggest that it is futile to search for an evolutionary point for language, because it does not exist. Those to the ‘extreme’ right suggest that all language evolved with a single mutation. Though there are less than a handful of people that share this view, most on this end believe that some mental faculties did evolve for the specific purpose of language. It is now well known that there are no specific language organs, but I think the evidence also shows us that there are some “key” language centers in the brain. The function that they serve is so specific, it is difficult to explain their history if we do not assume they evolved for their namesake.

The most convincing argument I have heard towards the left is that regarding “recursion”. Recursion is that property of our language that sets it apart from everything else that exists; it is the ability with which we can make sentences infinitely long. By embedding one phrase into another, we can produce sentences like “Mary thought that Harry thought that Larry thought…she liked him”. We can replace ‘…’ with any number of phrases. The right requires recursion to have evolved for the specific purpose of communication, but the argument sets-up a scenario where even without language, recursion could be used to keep social networks in mind (like suggested above). For reasons like this, I lie close to the center-line, though on the right side.

Many researchers like to stress that we are not thinking machines, but feeling machines that think. Our emotions precede our words, but that does not mean our words do not have any domain over our emotions. Types of swearing demonstrate just this. Calling someone a “piece of shit” does nothing more than remind them of something unpleasant, something their brain is programmed to respond to with “disgust” for any number of reasons (hygiene in this case.) So in this way, words could be an immensely powerful weapons. From kindergarten schoolyards to Mccain-esque politics, words govern the largest aspects of our social lives. They can inspire life-long embarrassment and bring a lack of other human qualities into power (most headmen in tribal societies are accomplished orators). So is it so hard to imagine that there is a survival advantage to language organs? To those who say there is little evidence to support this view, I say be patient. The last few years have brought in a flurry of achievements in genetics, and the whole FOXP2 extravaganza symbolizes just this.

Artifacts such as the Lascaux paintings and the Venus of Willendorf are evidence enough to show that humans of 30,000 years ago were genetically modern. They probably did have language, even if it was not as rich as ours*. Before that, the neanderthals survived a period of 600,000 years hunting and gathering lacking the tools other carnivores had (sharp claws and immense strength). So they must have had a secret weapon that made them so successful, and I propose it might have been an elementary form of language. It might have been perhaps based more on pantomime than vocabulary, but certainly capable of a rich syntax, and fancy features such as recursion. Nothing else I can think of could have made them so successful. But hominids that lived before them also did so for long periods. Some of them were the pioneers who discovered and rediscovered new continents and ecosystems. To prevail in these could not have been an easy task.

If the abilities with which are our extant cousins communicate are homologous to those of our common ancestors, then we can even suggest primitive linguistic abilities must have evolved over 6 million years ago. The question that still completely eludes us though is that of the evolution of completely human linguistic abilities. Though that can be left for another debate.

If we are creative enough, we can imagine the neanderthals and homo ergasters conquering new lands (and consequential challenges) with group dynamics. They would then meet new groups and control their own expansion with primitive creoles. And when the problem would get large enough, there is a good chance, they must have prayed.

*The only reason I suggest it might not have been as rich as ours is not because they had an inferior brain, but because language is ultimately a meme that grows through use. English is the perfect example: it is a rapidly changing language that has morphed into many forms before. And it continues to do so because of the vast number of people today that speak it. These memes are so heavily animated today because of the many networks we use to communicate.

Tags: anthropology, culture, homo, linguistics, paleontology, science
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Creationists and the good old hominid fossils

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

When it comes to the issue of transitional fossils in the case of human evolution, creationists often claim that none of the hominid fossils discovered are transitional fossils at all, insisting that they are either all-ape or all-human (and thus can be easily classified into ‘ape’ and ‘human’ categories). Scientists disagree, and point out that the fossils are from a number of closely related species intermediate between apes and humans.

Creationists also claim that evolution is somehow weakened by the fact that scientists often disagree on the classification of hominid fossils, failing to realize that in evolutionary theory, one would expect to find the fossils hard to classify, and that if the fossils could easily be placed into clear-cut categories, it would lend credence the creationist story instead.

Ed Brayton has a post up where he includes the following chart (by Jim Foley) that shows several of the major hominid specimens and how the major creationist writers classify them:

If the fossils are easily classified into ‘ape’ and ‘human’ categories, why do creationists disagree so much on how to classify them? If the lines dividing the fossils into neatly packaged categories are indeed as clear as they would like you to believe, why can’t the leading lights of ’scientific creationism’ see those lines and agree on them? Don’t the creationists realize that, contrary to their pet story, the difficulty of classifying the hominid fossils is due to the fact that the fossils are intermediates and not all-ape or all-human as they like to claim? Again, the confusion and disagreements are simply what we would expect if the evolutionary explanation, and not the creationist one, were true.

Without even realizing it, the creationists have made our point for us yet again. If only the ’scientific creationists’ were open-minded and scientific enough to fully comprehend the implications of this, they would realize that their creation myth has more holes than a porous sponge and decide to join the rest of us in reality.

Tags: creationism, evolution, science
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Did Neanderthals Pray? – Part 1

Saturday, September 20th, 2008

Controversies abound in the homo-fossil record. There are those that argue Homo floresiensis was a microcephalic Homo sapien, and there are those that argue that Homo rudolfensis does not even belong to the genus. We haven’t even agreed upon the chronology of our emigration from Africa, upon how it occurred, and why it occurred. But as the genetic record becomes clearer (thanks to new technologies), these questions have taken a back-seat, and arguably, much more interesting ones are being raised; for example, did Neanderthals have a religion?

I use Neanderthal here as a general term to refer to many of our uncles and aunts. The mystery is the evolution of culture. When did it evolve? Was it a sudden large mutation that brought about the change as many argue, or was it a slow and predictable process caused by multiple factors?
I’m going to try and convince you that it was a little of both. But first, for those who are not familiar, a very brief history of our descent is in order.

I’ll begin the story at Homo hablis (2.2 mya – 1.6 mya), the first non-Australopithecine relatives of ours. Some of these guys are believed to have left Africa about 2 million years ago to spread into Asia and Europe. Their encephalization is known to be about 53% of modern humans. Until recently it was believed that they were human ancestors, but a study published in 2007 presents a strong case to the contrary. It is now believed that they and Homo ergaster are descended from a common ancestor. Homo Ergaster (1.9 mya – 1.4 mya ) is the the first creature that looks similar to us. It stands almost completely upright, has a much more flat-jaw, and has an encephalization of about 70 – 72% that of humans. The very famous Turkana Boy is a specimen of this species. Nicknamed “working man”, H. Ergaster were skilled tool makers. H. Habilis had previously been using some basic flints, but Ergasters developed the very popular hand-axes and cleavers. In the latter part of their existence, those populations that emigrated early from Africa are referred to as Homo erectus. Again, as in every other step of the way, great controversy surrounded the classification of these beings. It is today generally agreed that Homo Erectus are not our ancestors. This idea is completely compliant with the Out-of-Africa hypothesis. So the Ergasters were eventually replaced by Homo heidelbergensis (0.6 mya – 0.4 mya). These creatures with an encephalization of 82% – 104% stood on average taller than modern humans. Three lines descend from the Ergasters – Homo neanderthalensis, Homo floreneisis, and Homo sapiens. H. floreneises, or the hobbits are not universally accepted to belong to this lineage. In fact and oddly enough, a Smithsonian Institute graphic completely excludes them from the Homo Family (perhaps it is simply outdated.)

Neanderthals were the accomplished creatures about whom we produce theories after theories. Like the latter Heidelbergensis, their cranial capacity was larger than ours, and they were physically bigger. They lived on this planet for about three times our current measure and showed a panoply of abilities we consider modern. Earlier Neanderthanls lived pretty slow and steady, but those that lived with us are thought to have borrowed our advanced tools, and used them by mimicking us. Whether or not they developed these tools themselves, (or perhaps we learned some things from them) the fact that they could use them as skillfully proves the presence of some key mental faculties. Homo Sapiens, making an appearance about 200,000 years ago, emigrated from Africa in two waves. There was the ancient lineage that left the motherland more than a 100,000 years ago, and there was the tribe from which all living men and women are descended that emigrated about 40,000 – 50,000 years ago (some believe that some of the aboriginal populations alive today are a mix of the new lineage and the old – I find this somewhat fanciful.) But then about 30,000 years ago, we find a burst of what we call culture: wall paintings in French Caves, religious buildings in Gobleke Tepe, sculptures and symbolic objects traveling through bands of tribes.

So what led to this sudden burst? There are theories in the air proposing the complete evolution of the modern mind as being very recent, about 10,000 – 15,000 yrs. But can that be right? Can it be that only in the last ~250 generations have we been selected for what allegedly differs us from Cro-Magnons? Perhaps these theories are a little short-sighted. We can plainly see that technological advancement is not linear, but exponential, so maybe our ancestors just had a slow start. The glaciation periods that shadowed most of the 190,000 years of their existence must have made long-distance traveling, communication, and general survival very difficult. So maybe their everyday problems did not involve developing faster virtual networks, and discovering the secrets of higgs fields, but instead finding fresh food, and maintaining social structure. And in all honesty, these are not the concerns of modern tribal societies either. If people that are genetically the same as us can live in such a radically “primitive” world, then what more proof do we need?

But we can’t just proceed on such a simple basis, we must have a look at other creatures alive today who are also of the same family. Chimpanzees, Bonobos, Gorillas, and other primates are all part of the much larger family that connects us. Ourselves and chimps had a common ancestor 6 million years ago. And chimps don’t have any culture, do they? Several researchers are studying just this. We have found that many of the “lesser apes” live in harsh hierarchical societies. And we have also seen that the “greater apes” can cognate many parts of our world. They might not be able to speak or pantomime effectively (also a matter of debate as discussed in an older post) but they have certainly convinced us not to overlook their abilities.

But before we address the question of culture/religion in their societies, we have to first agree that religion cannot exist without language. So let’s try to connect linguistic abilities in humans to their counterparts in the living natural world. Now there are waaaaay to many papers and studies that can be covered in this subject, so I’m going to try and stay modest, and mention only those two or three that I find the most striking.

But first it should be noted that vocalizing animals are not evidence of “speaking” animals. Lots of creatures (mammals/birds) are known to have multiple noises in their vocabulary, each meaning something different, and often further constructable. For example, the calls made by male putty-nosed monkeys in case of an aerial attack are different from those made in case of a ground attack. This is very important, but it has been found that creatures like this make these sounds universally. They make them in the absence of other members of their species; they learn these sounds not from their parents and surroundings (like we learn our words) but from genetically coded information. Their so called “words” are more like our audio expressions – laughing, screaming – and other things we do universally, things that do not differ culture by culture.

… this article continues here.

Tags: animals, apes, culture, evolution, homo, linguistics, science
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An Epic Post by Greta Christina

Thursday, September 18th, 2008

Over at Greta Christina’s blog there is an epic two part post called the ten main reasons why i don’t believe in god one and two. Here – collaborated from the two – are her 10 reasons:

1: The consistent replacement of supernatural explanations of the world with natural ones.

2: The inconsistency of world religions.

3: The weakness of religious arguments, explanations, and apologetics.

4: The increasing diminishment of God.

5: The fact that religion runs in families.

6: The physical causes of everything we think of as the soul.

7: The complete failure of any sort of supernatural phenomenon to stand up to rigorous testing.

8: The slipperiness of religious and spiritual beliefs.

9: The failure of religion to improve or clarify over time.

10: The complete and utter lack of solid evidence for God’s existence.

I like how her list touches upon all of the ways people attempt to frame god, from the man with the grey beard type to the “god is love” type. Usually, while trying to show people why god likely doesn’t exist, atheists will focus on one particular example, like showing how the soul doesn’t exist, or showing the logical fallacies that are apparent in theology. What Greta does is posit the arguments against god into broader categories, which begets the ability of the reader to easily connect several examples together to solidify a point; this makes her post especially cogent.

Also, many of her examples are contemporary. In a debate over the existence of god, all of the old arguments are regurgitated by both sides, which just ceases to the point of preaching to the choir – or in atheist terms, talking rationally to the herd of cats.

Speaking of herding cats, the reason I post Greta’s list is not only because I greatly appreciate it, but I believe that if it’s stripped down to be a tad shorter, it could make a great addition to a campus atheist club’s brochure. I’ll surely be doing it.

Tags: atheism, god, Greta Christina, religion, science, soul
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The Art of New-Atheism

Monday, September 15th, 2008

After two frustrating days of visiting local gaming stores, I’ve given up on trying to find a copy of Spore for the moment. For those of you who’ve been living under a rock, Spore is the new epic evolutionary based strategy game by Sim City and The Sim’s designer Will Wright. You get to take a living cell all the way through the chain of evolution- where you actually build your character to adapt to the environment- from a single-celled organism to a galaxy-faring explorer.

As frustrated as I was, I cooked some breakfast and sat down to watch one of my favourite shows here in Canada, Daily Planet on The Discovery Channel. To my hasty amazement, they were doing a week-long feature on the science behind the Burning Man festival in Nevada. What was Daily Planet, a show that focuses on science, doing at the world’s biggest hippy festival? They were doing exactly what is often overlooked in science…art.

Art, Science, Art, Science…. The word’s from an article I read about Spore came to mind “Spore is a work of art.” A quote from Will Wright crawled up from the deep reaches of my mind.

““There were deep motivations in the early phase from the work of a lot of evolutionary biologists, like Richard Dawkins and Edward Wilson.” And “We wanted to convey the sense that evolution can bring up a surprising diversity of weird, interesting, strange things.”

Spore, a game based on science, is art. The artistic installations at Burning Man can only be built with a deep knowledge of science.

In a way, science is an art in itself, but I want to look at the more common definition of art.

the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance. It often elicits a specific human emotion or response desired by the artist. In this respect, an artist is always trying to convey something through their art.

I want to take this idea of Art is Science, Science is Art, and apply it to atheism. People often complain about the lack of atheist inspired art, but when you ask them what they would consider atheist art, a few muddled words are the only sounds that follow a long mournful pause. Since atheism is simply the non-belief in God, I want to focus on art that represents the new-atheism. That is, atheism as an end result of the methods of scientific naturalism, inquiry, and skepticism. Here – with examples – are what I consider to be the different ways that art can be classified as new-atheist art:

1. Art that is made for the purpose of expanding knowledge and/or visually experimenting with representations of science.

This section rejects art based on appeals to faith or tradition. Rather, it focuses on the future. Often, the art is the end-result of a specific tool, developed by science.

2. Art that is made for the purpose of representing a passion for science and its promotion.

Most often, the science is biology.

A subsection of the first two sections can be the art on the covers of science-fiction novels. Why? Because they often represent scientific ideas, and they are meloreolistic.

3. Art that is made for the purpose of representing non-belief and the philosophy behind it.

The text in the picture below reads “Russel’s Teapot”

4. Art that is made for the purpose of representing and romanticizing a skeptical outlook.

5. Art that is made for the purpose of iconically depicting giants of science, skepticism, and atheism.

6. Art that is made for the purpose of satirizing religious art.

Often, religious art doesn’t even need to be changed – Poe’s law personified in art.

7. Art that is made for the purpose of promoting secularism.

8. Art that glorifies the exploration and understanding of the cosmos

(could be classified as a subsection of the 2nd category, but I figured it was so widespread that it merited its own number).

This post has only shown visual examples. I understand that I left out music, sculpting, architecture, literature, comics, and anything else you would consider art.

I have seen atheist poems and poetic atheist quotes that could be classified as art, but what about books promoting atheism and science? There is much merit in disseminating the ideas of atheism and science in a way that influences people. Carl Sagan’s work often borders on poetic. He uses writing skills and a creative imagination to create metaphors of science that are appealing to a wide audience. I think this constitutes art. And Christopher Hitchens is an exemplar of fine literary talent, while Richard Dawkins holds his own with his metaphors and literary talent. What do you think?

But then, what about more rigorous scientific works like peer reviewed journals? Surely they are not art. They have no appeal to human emotion, no poetic literature, and no aesthetically appealing visual representations that convey anything more than the intent of the paper. Peer reviewed journals are cold, rigorous, and precise. Within the scientific community this is ideal, but a general populace wants an appeal to emotion. It is the job of the science journalist to promote science with a human edge. It is the job of the science journalist to be an artist.

…I look forward to hearing your ideas on this.

and please, share this story with others by using the share button below.

Tags: art, atheism, naturalism, new-atheism, poe's law, science, skepticism
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A quick note to creationists

Sunday, September 14th, 2008

Dear creationists,

As much as I love you all to death for making it clear why good science education is an absolute necessity, I have recently come across one of the most irritating straw man arguments I have heard from you, namely the misconception that evolution is atheism. I know that although not all of you think that this is the case, a lot of you do – enough to make me decide to write this quick note.

The simple fact is that you creationists need to understand that the theory of evolution has nothing to do with atheism or even religion for that matter. Failing to understand this makes us skeptical people want to smash our heads on our desks in frustration, and I don’t think that you want to be responsible for any injury sustained by another human being, do you? I have noticed that whenever I pose a seemingly simple question to you creationists along the lines of “Where in the theory of evolution does it say that there is no god?”, most of you start fumbling, fudging, preaching or quoting from the Bible. This does not help your cause, creationists. This makes you look really ignorant. Just so you know.

I’ll set it straight once and for all: The scientific theory of evolution is not atheism. Understanding the theory does not require atheism. The theory of evolution is silent on the issue of the existence of an active deity, and it is no different from the other scientific theories in that it does not make any claims about anyone’s pet religious ideas. The debate on the existence of an active deity is not a part of the scientific theory of evolution. Evolutionists do not bring God into the facts supporting evolution; rather, it is usually creationists who start the old straw man about evolution actually being ‘atheism’.

One creationist went as far as to tell me that evolution is atheistic because the theory of evolution does not mention that god was involved in the evolutionary process. However, this notion is false because the theory of evolution does not make a claim one way or another about the existence of a deity, and although the theory of evolution does not say that a supernatural deity directed the evolutionary process, it does not say that there is no active deity. The theological arguments about the existence of an active deity/personal god is not included in the study of origins simply because it is not science and because there is no evidence for the existence for such a deity directing the development of life.

Creationists, if you want to make a convincing argument that evolution equates to atheism because god is not mentioned in the theory of evolution, why don’t you claim that meteorology also equates to atheism because the meteorologists do not say that god is involved in directing wind patterns?

You insist on mentioning god and pushing your fundamentalist religious beliefs into everything, yet you creationists are the ones who claim that evolutionists are attacking religion. You are the ones viewing creationism as your religion, so perhaps you are merely projecting when you whine about how evolution is an ‘atheistic religion’.

So, get on with it, creationists. Either rage at those darned evil meteorologists for not mentioning how your god controls weather patterns, or stop hitting on biologists for not mentioning god when describing the scientific theory of evolution. It would make you look less ignorant, and less ignorance is something that would be good for all of us.

Love,

Shalini

Tags: atheism, creationism, evolution, science
Posted in Commentary | 5 Comments »

In the Teeth of Rainbows – Part 2

Friday, September 12th, 2008

Humanism and the Need for Wonder

What makes us human? What simply outlines and describes a human being? Whilst I would love to delve more into this, it is not the focus. Rather my point is this: The fact that we can pose such a question is itself something to be awed about. We like to think, arrogantly, we know what “intelligence” is, what “stress”, what “being human” is. We struggle with these concepts all the time. And I find John and Mary Gribbin’s answer the most correct, in their book of the same name: “Being human simply means being one of a variety of animal on planet Earth.” (1)

So should humanism rather be considered along the lines of PETA – that bizarre organisation that has turned into a cult? Why don’t we consider people when we fight for animal rights? We know through evidence that we are animals. There is no ‘seat for the soul’ or any form of Cartesian dualism, through which a spirit can slither and take residence. We are animals – of this there can be no doubt. If you doubt me, investigate our closest cousins, chimps. Helping, sharing, caring all linger alongside warfare, brutality and conquest (2). Our genetic makeup matches theirs 99.8% – the genes are of course exactly the same. People have a hard time realising their cousins are not just swinging from tree to tree but are those daffodils underneath too. That all life on earth reproduces essentially the same way is testament to the awe-inspiring realisation that we are all related. Not just us humans but yourself and your favourite goldfish, plant or flower.

Thus: What separates us from the chimpanzees, animal rights groups are trying to “save”? David Attenborough asked this, too:

Man has credited himself with several talents to distinguish him from all other animals. Once we thought that we were the only creatures to make and use tools. We now know that this is not so: chimpanzees do so and so do finches in the Galapagos that cut and trim long thorns to use as pins for extracting grubs from holes in wood. Even our complex spoken language seems less special the more we learn about the communication used by chimpanzees and dolphins.(3)

It is these sorts of realisations that science affords which spurn people toward more supernaturalist ideologies. We might refer to these as Unweaved Rainbow Realisations, after Keats’ charge against Newton. Once people’s rainbows have shattered into a thousand tinkling shards of painful truth, they are more inclined to seek other, more industrious rainbows (4). Rainbows up in the sky dictating our births (astrology); rainbows too complex for science to demolish (god, theology and the meanings of ‘holy’ books); rainbows that disguise themselves as valid (creationism and intelligent design); and rainbows, which once tasted, heal and help (homeopathy, crystal healing, angel-therapy). The pots of gold, though illusions, are still enticing. People’s yearning for beauty, meaning and wonder are a thirst for the numinous. And, like a man denied water in a desert, the illusion can still be as enticing as the actual: A mirage is no less enticing for not being true.

How then are we to promote humanism in the teeth of “rainbows”? Even by postulating science we seem to tread on our own toes: through science we appear to reduce humanity to simply being animals. There appears to be nothing “special” about us. And science trumps rainbows again and again. Humanity’s flight from reason is beginning to sound like the blur of jet-engines. Science’s answers are breed and breathe, not helpful in defining meaning.

And in the face of this, we know people would choose mirages over empty sand. But why do people choose superstition again and again? Science appears to make life dull, meaningless and utterly worthless. As I’ve said and as is my main point: science does in itself give no answer. It is a tool to discover the world and universe. It is the most powerful tool – so powerful that we have established facts that are true throughout the universe. No superstition can make such a bold claim and justify it.

But with all its power and beauty, science appears to dissolve humans from their core into lifeless husks pushed and manipulated by bacteria and a fragile brain. As Bertrand Russell put it at the beginning of What I Believe: “Man is a part of Nature, not something contrasted with Nature. His thoughts and his bodily movements follow the same laws that describe the motion of stars and atoms.”(5) People’s usual reaction is the sound of a rainbow shattering: No! I refuse to be scientifically measurable and subject to those same laws! I am special!

Yet, if we stop, if we breathe, if we ponder perhaps the rainbow reforms. Consider: a rainbow is no less beautiful in that we know it is a mixture of light and condensation. And life is no less beautiful, miraculous or awe-inspiring just because we are subject to physical laws. In fact we are not subjects, we are discoverers. The word “law” implies prescriptive, whereas Natural Laws are descriptive as the sky is blue. You can not defy gravity, deny germs. That is part of Natural Laws. Understanding these Laws has helped us create a better society (we have eradicated smallpox through our understanding of natural laws, to name a small example; we are able to make crops that help billions of chronically poor thanks to people like the great Nobel laureate Norman Borlaugh).

Yes. We are subject to the same descriptive equations that fit anything. If there is one human here and another human there, that makes two humans. Descriptions do not make it any less amazing that we are around to calculate such a simple matter! I find it incredible that I am “obeying” the same Laws as a entire planets and powerful stars (from where we all came in the first place).

I find that my connection to the universe is there, literally written in the stars. I do not want to be above the world I want to be part of it. I do not want to be some special being observing animals, I want to be part of a great animal kingdom myself. That we have touched the moon, the stars, the sky, that we all have loves, hates, fears, is testament to our need to belong. We all want to belong to something higher or greater than us – the aspirations for the numinous, by traversing the paths of rainbows – but I think humanism finally launches hooks to pull those rainbows down. Like a great sheet it must tumble. We must bring ourselves back down to earth.

We need only grasp that we are here, alone and dependant upon each other for this to work. Though the rainbows are beautiful, we must not forget they are still people. Whether you see a rainbow or a mixture of light and condensation, we are the same. We want to belong and there is nothing better to belong to than that great ape: Homo sapiens. We must eradicate the fear that science destroys the numinous and show it inspires the grandest connection of all: We are connected to the stars, the planets, the galaxies. All of us. If there is anything greater to be connected to, I have not found it. And I will even make a prediction based on the stars: I do not think there will ever be anything greater than this concurrent connection. Rejoice in your belonging to the cosmos.

And don’t forget to breathe.

REFERENCES

1. Gribbin, J. and Gribbin, M. (1998) Being Human. London: Phoenix Paperbacks.

2. I hate the term “going ape” – I find other apes to be more civil than most humans.

3. Attenborough, D. (1986) ‘The Compulsive Communicators’ in Life on Earth: A Natural History. London: Fontana Paperbacks, p. 302

4. Dawkins, R. (2006) Unweaving the Rainbow. London: Penguin.

5. Russell, B. (2001) What I Believe. London: Routledge

Tags: atheism, Humanism, science, wonder
Posted in Commentary | 6 Comments »

In the Teeth of Rainbows – Part 1

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

The Indelible Stamp

When words can not do, consider breathing. When you breathe in, it begins one of the most complex, beautiful and structured events to occur throughout the known universe. As air passes through your nostrils, the elimination of harmful excesses begins. It is a tough agent who is able to survive your body’s display of your immune system. After the air has passed through your nostrils, filtered by tiny hairs and mucus, it passes down into your throat. It then travels down into your lungs, caged behind your ribs. There your lungs fill like balloons. Blood is oxygenated – which attaches energy to blood cells to deliver it to every part of your body. The chemical reactions that take place, on even a microscopic level, would fill several blackboards of any chemistry lab. Yet this is happening right now, while you read this.

I have used words but words can do little justice to the intricate net of complexity, which begins its first stitching when we breathe. This is how we know we are alive. Strange as it may seem this is the answer to one of the biggest questions we face as conscious entities: “How do I know I’m alive?” Biologically the answer is: “You are breathing.”

But that does not make it fulfilling or all-encompassing of this question. Consider the Meaning of Life: in this same way the meaning of life is to pass on your genes. I do not find either of these answers satisfactory. I would never reply with “to breed” – even though this is the correct answer. I might not use this, but maybe some sexually active people might. Does this mean they are living more fulfilling lives than the rest of us? No. In fact it is, more often than not, quite the opposite.

Life and its mysteries are not dispelled by chemical equations and biology, or philosophy and religion. As Darwin said “there is a grandeur in this view of life”, viewing it through the wonder that science and open-mindedness afford. I can not sway you to accept science or naturalism as opposed to religion or supernaturalism. As I said, words can not do. But we have to ask, are we not awed at our existence through the discoveries of science? As opposed to the gibbering, slavish, pestilential existence that is so depraving on display, as grown men and women supplicate themselves before an invisible god. What monotheist god lavishes in carnal human exhibitions, as opposed to demanding us to cover our bodies, never speak of sexual doings, to shroud women from head-to-toe? Where is the humanity in feeling sickened by what makes us human, where is the humanity in hating the only gateway we have with this world, our world?

Humanism entails nothing supernatural to its tenets. We are dealing with the Here, the Current, The Brief Spotlight we have on this world. And we are unique in how we deal with that spotlight. Sir Peter Medawar (1) considers humans the only species to live in the spotlight, with a consideration for what occurred in the darkness of the past and the darkness of the future and we should not be wasting our brief time in the spotlight of the present.

And it certainly is brief. Our longing for something more, something intrinsically beyond our conception but which touches us at so-called “divine moments” is perfectly natural. But natural does not mean good. The leaves of plants are natural and there is a misconception regarding it to be healthy, or worse, good for us. Plants are a form of life – they don’t want to be eaten. To suppose that plants are healthy or good for us intrinsically is to give into the homocentric – the opposite of humanist – notion that something occurring naturally in the world is created for our pleasure. No it is not. Plants have poisons and toxins and thorns precisely to ward off groping fingers. Natural is not good: Cancer is natural, myopia is natural, but that is not necessarily a good thing.

Humanism then does not deny the numinous and transcendent (2), in fact as a humanist I’m trying to inspire it. But instead of directing our awe at something invisible, we should direct it at something beautiful. Even gazing at the incredible flagellum of Escherichia coli is enough to make any decent person pause. As I stated in an article for Skeptic (3), humans should feel ashamed at their pathetic form of transport: putting one foot in front of the other – when compared to E. coli’s powerful motors thrusting its way toward food. We fade into a monotone of ability when faced with the power of a micro-organism: creating propellers, make-shift cities that can destroy and travel, the ability to destroy hundreds of people by being inside their body. But don’t stop there: consider scientists using E. coli to create smart-drugs that can fight cancer as the cancer changes; consider it being the first organism to have its genes isolated. In fact, it is a minority of people on this planet who don’t have E. coli in their gut protecting them this instant (4).

And humans? Take a moment to look at the power of micro-organisms and reflect: It is humanity who are the slaves, not those bacteria who live in us. In fact, we could not live without most of that bacteria. My question is actually incorrect. I shouldn’t say “humans” – because if we took a measurement of DNA throughout our body, most of it would not be human. The question is actually this: where do these bacteria inside end and we begin?

1. Medawar, P.B. & J.S. (1977) The Life Science. London: Wildwood House.

2. I am averse to the word “spiritual” as it has too many connotations. But the idea is still similar.

3. Moosa, T. (2008) ‘Darwin’s Tiny White Box’ in Skeptic, Vol. 14 (3)

4. Zimmer, C. (2008) Microcosm: E coli and the new science of life. London: William Heinemann.

Tags: atheism, Humanism, science, wonder
Posted in Feature | 6 Comments »

An interview with Dr. Terese Hart

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

Dr. Terese Hart is a scientist and conservationist. She has spent over 30 years in the Congo where many significant events of her life have taken place. There she met her husband (Dr. John Hart) and gave birth to two of her three daughters. Under the support of New York Zoological Society, together they studied many aspects of the Ituri Forest, including the uses of it’s pharmacological contents, the socio-economic impact of human migrations, and most famously, the Okapi. While there, she helped setup a Research and Training Center that eventually led to the Okapi Wildlife Reserve (a world heritage site.) She also briefly served as the director of the Wildlife Conservation Society-Congo out of Kinshasa.

Some of the Hart’s time in the Ituri Forest was spent with the Bambutis, among whom was our favorite – Kenge. A documentary available at Google Video, Hearts of Brightness, describes their time there and work studying the Okapi (link at the bottom).

Currently, she is involved in a new project known as TL2 where she leads operations as the coordinator. I got a chance to ask her some questions last week while she’s visiting the States. Below are her replies.

What have you been doing with your time since leaving the WCS-C?I along with my husband, John, who also left WCS and a group of other people we have worked with over the years are exploring a new area of DR Congo with the objective of creating a protected area. The area we call TL2 for the three rivers of central DR Congo: Tshuapa, Lomami and Lualaba. Details here: http://www.bonoboincongo.com/

Why did you decide to leave?

Some new people in NY. A new concept of WCS-Congo – no longer the place for me.

[New York is WCS-central]

WCS grew a great deal since my husband and I joined (mid 80s). Its funding also changed from the private donations of generous and non-demanding NY wealth to short term agency donations or grants that required proposals and reports. The direction in NY grew and had its own needs and own desires for “making sense” of its international program. Result: much less freedom for opportunistic or grass-roots conservation growth…something we felt was essential in a country where lawless rebels and conservation compete for the same land.

Do you still spend time in the Congo?
Eight to ten months a year where I am director of the TL2 Project. I am in the USA this month as my middle daughter becomes a mom (and John and I grandparents).

Tell us more about the TL2 project. I understand yourself, your husband and your colleagues are working to track down Bonobos and Okapis. How exactly do you find these creatures?
We have just moved to this website: http://www.bonoboincongo.com/about-us/
We are talking about hundreds and hundreds of km in dug-out and on-foot. We use signs (dung, nests, feeding sign) and sometimes we are delighted to actually see bonobo and okapi in their forest. The fear is that bushmeat hunting will take them out before they are adequately protected…already there are large areas of “empty” forest.

What is your day to day work like (within this project)? Is it a lot of surveying and cataloging?
We work as a team (again look at website). My own role includes information and political facilitation…this is really fascinating because political facilitation means everything from a small village to national ministries.

What are some of your most vivid memories of your years in Africa?
a) Vivid and frightening – our 6 week old daughter almost died (1982) of bronchitis..can’t mention this without heart felt thanks to mission hospital in Nyankunde (destroyed recently in Hema-Lendu wars) and the Mission Aviation Fellowship.
b) Vivid and frightening – our girls’ teacher (an ex-peace corps worker) attacked by crocodile when bathing with my daughters. She lost her arm but survived. Extremely tough and brave woman.
c) Vivid and awe inspiring – putting a radio collar on an okapi in a pit.
d) Vivid, awe inspiring and frightening – coming face to face with elephant around a corner on a narrow forest trail.

Do you have any fond memories of Kenge?
I could not have done my PhD without Kenge. He was very bright and very articulate. He would grasp what was needed and make it happen. “You need to distinguish between related species? Ok – look at these characters.” “You need the flowers of that canopy tree? OK- we will climb it.” “You need to see a different kind of forest? Well lets go, it will take a day to get there, bring lots of food.” He had a great sense of humor, would understate the obvious, and make fun of us along with everyone else.
And he was genuinely fond of us. He would unexpectedly give us wonderful gifts. This might sound odd as an example: but once he went out alone hunting and killed an okapi with a spear; it was a very big event. He did it for his daughter’s “coming out”. That evening he quietly brought us the most choice and significant part of the carcass – the full udder.
But Kenge was an alcoholic and that was always a problem between us. As the years went on it became a bigger problem and I as had more people working on projects we could not overlook his being late or absent on account of drunkenness. He tried casting out the demons of alcoholism traditionally. He tried swearing off. But it never worked…and he would drink the most fearsome of local brews.

Do/did the dangers of living in rebel territories deter you?
I have rarely felt personally threatened….Although we have fled (to avoid being threatened) a couple of times.

Care to speculate on the future of African civil wars?
Sigh – no I don’t want to speculate. Conservation has to be strong enough with wide enough support to work in a wide variety of situations; otherwise extinction is just waiting for the first political slip up.

What is a solution?
For conservation it is obviously not just good enough to have the national gov’t proclaim a protected area, there has to be local support and support by the land holding ethnic group and by both the powerless and the powerful. Just last year when one ethnic group worked to create a protected area in another (rival) ethnic group’s area, several groups of bonobo which had survived close to villages disappeared and conservationists were run out of a village. That is conservation gone wrong.

How passionate or apathetic are the average locals of their natural heritage?
That is very variable. Some of the strongest conservation feelings come when outside groups (foresters, mining companies, rival groups (see above)…) want to exploit a forest that traditionally belonged to a local group. Conservation has to be able to use this sense of local pride and ownership if it is going to be successful.

How has formal conservation changed through the decades?
I can only speak from my own experience within one group (WCS). It went from allowing a great deal of autonomy to individual researchers/conservationists to attempting to build a centrally controlled organization. I think that most big organizations are similar. Small organizations have more flexibility – and can generally be closer to the ground and respond more quickly to needs and changing situations.

Is there any particular aspect of it that you don’t like?

Any part of conservation I don’t like? Watching slow (or rapid) declines in animal populations and not being able to effectively counter it in even a small area….That can be for any or several of many different reasons….

There is a certain amount of turf-protecting that happens in Conservation. Sometimes it is best to allow one vision and one organization to get things underway. Where we have seen things go wrong is where a big conservation organization is “taken for a ride”. They accept without critical evaluation what a local “entrepreneur” posing as “their conservationist” tells them is being carried out on the ground. All good for society publicity, but an area becomes off-limits, and results highly suspect.

There are no schools of conservation, yet a larger fighting force is needed. What do you propose is a way to attract attention?
Conservation needs allies in science, journalism, and politics. I don’t think that it needs schools but rather classes in all schools and champions in all walks of life. It needs more air time, print space, etc.

The gorilla massacre of 2007, where were you?
I was in Kinshasa

Do you/did you have any personal suspicions in the case?
I knew that there were some very negative people in positions of power that affected conservation. I think that the Nat Geo article was quite good. There are some excellent people working for conservation in Goma…absolutely top rate. But these are often fighting a battle against forces strengthened by the continuing war.

North America is rife with green fads such as the use of cloth grocery bags, and fluorescent light bulbs? Is this a really a solution? If not, what more needs to be done?
If people individually reduce their impact on the environment – it is a good thing. But many environment problems must be addressed globally and we must figure out ways for people who are able to make their small environmental contribution at home to make a small environmental contribution in other places around the globe with the same certainty of a true impact as when they personally only use cloth grocery bags. I am not only talking about global warming or other huge global phenomena but also local impacts such as deforestation or commercial bushmeat hunting in a country with a very poor population unlikely to be able to save its own resources unaided.

Ultimately, the power over nature lies in the hands of large economies and militaries. Can we transform the way these operate?
Well we have to try, don’t we?

What’s it like to step down in Kinshasa, and visit a gorilla reserve for a first timer? Is it really as idealistic as we might imagine or is it commercialized by now?
At this time very little is successfully commercialized for tourists in DR Congo. Gorilla viewing more than other activities but the experience is still very raw. Wonderfully so, I think. You almost certainly won’t step down in Kinshasa though if you are gorilla viewing but rather enter the Congo from the east (ie enter Goma to visit the gorillas of Virunga Nat Park or enter Bukavu to visit gorillas in Kahuzi Biega Nat Park. These are not the only parks or places with the gorillas but they are the only places where habituation has occurred)

To what extent has the forest cover reduced in the recent decades?
Varies in different areas (very little in the TL2 where we are working). Some good studies happening using satellite imagery (WRI and CARPE…)

All unreal expectations and hopes aside, where do you think will we be in 50 years time?
My hope, and I feel that it is possible, is that there will be a large and effective conservation area in the TL2 area of Congo. To think larger than what I am immediately working on is hard….. I do feel generally that we have to work area by area and we have to craft our efforts such that any success will be an important success and that there will not be large wasted efforts.

So there you have it, straight from the horse’s mouth. We hear so much about all the politics and adventures behind conservation, so I feel very privileged to hear what happens behind the scenes from a person with such experience. I thank Dr. Hart for answering these questions for us and putting up with a noob interviewer, and offer her and her husband congrats on becoming grandparents!

** References

Hearts of Brightness – Google Video

NatGeo Article on the Virunga Massacre

Tags: Africa, bonobo, congo, conservation, gorilla, hart, science, terese
Posted in Feature | 11 Comments »

The Unopened Gift

Friday, September 5th, 2008

Religion aptly offers comfort and a system of insurance of a fulfilling life. Religion provides one with a sense of worth and accomplishment.

Religion enshrines one in the self-induced ignorance that comes with the dogmatic declaration of faith. Religion breeds fundamentalism and in-group superiority that follows from the embodiment of dogmatism and faith.

Now take the term Secular Humanism and place it in both paragraphs. Do you notice how it fits snugly within the first paragraph, but seems more out of place than a vegan at a dairy farm in the second?   Secular Humanism is like a gift that we’ve crafted on our own, developed over time, and wrapped in pretty bows, but neglected despite its obvious benefits. It offers us all of the benefits of religion, and none of its side effects. That is, as far as we can tell.

I often find myself brooding in deep perplexity over the small acceptance of Secular Humanism as a lifestyle choice. If Secular Humanists do in fact have this world-bettering gift, then why aren’t people unwrapping it and indulging in its delight?

Well, I’m sure there are many reasons. To assume something so complex would beget a simple explanation is absurd based upon previous experiences, except, of course, in the world of science, where evolution offers a beautifully simple explanation. For the sake of time, I want to focus on just three reasons why I think people reject Secular Humanism – four if you count the reason that people don’t even know what it is.

1. Cold and Meaningless

The first reason is that people regard Science as cold and devoid of meaning, and if Secular Humanism relies so heavily upon the information of science then people tend to think that Secular Humanism must be cold and empty as well. But, of course, the whole is more than just one of its components and Secular Humanism adds exactly what Science, on it’s own, doesn’t provide us with – meaning. It directly addresses this first of reasons for its own rejection. Meaning, in the light of scientific evidence, gives us comfort and fulfillment without the bullshit. Secular Humanists don’t have to rely on appeals to faith and a higher power to gain meaning. Meaning comes from pleasurable traits that we’ve acquired throughout our evolution. It comes from loving another and being loved back, from getting caught up in the moment of something you enjoy doing, from helping another in need, from a sense of accomplishment etc,. Humanism implies that we, Humans, are the arbiters of our own meaning.

2. Lack of Community

The second reason I believe people reject Secular Humanism is that it doesn’t provide one with a community atmosphere like Religion does. Religion has buildings devoted to harboring community, and admittedly, much of the good that does come from Religion comes from its devotion to building stronger communities. Secular Humanism has relatively small numbers to form such strong communities.

However, Secular Humanists are building a strong presence on the internet. Many in the online community see the recently apparent cultishness around Richard Dawkins as dangerous, and against what Humanists stand for. I see it as community alongside a romanticizing of ideas. We must realize that communities sprout from the ranks of leaders, and Dawkins is one of them. There are pedestals to stand on in this world. The religious have theirs with Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Joseph Smith, Xenu etc,. We, the science minded folk, have the likes of Dawkins, Sagan, Darwin, and Gould.

3. No Afterlife

And finally, the third reason I believe people reject Secular Humanism is because of their fear of death. Religion provides one with the insurance of an afterlife, while Secular Humanism, to put it bluntly, doesn’t. That is, unless we let go of the traditional meaning of the afterlife.

From the movie Troy:

Boy: The Thessalonian you’re fighting…he’s the biggest man I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t want to fight him.

Achilles: That’s why no one will remember your name.

An afterlife is defined as “a life or existence believed to follow death.” So then what about our self-made legacy; the love we shared with others; the things we’ve made; the work we completed; the contribution to the insurance of a future generation that lives longer, healthier, and more fulfilling lives than us? This is our afterlife. It is not selfish. It is humble and noble. And it is romantic in the fact that we are standing on the shoulders of past giants, contributing to this great play we call life, so that others can stand upon ours and hoist the good life up to the next generation.

Tags: dawkins, Humanism, Meaning, religion, science, Secular Humanism
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From the Frontlines of Conservation

Thursday, September 4th, 2008

In one of my earlier posts, I had made a reference to Virunga National Park – a 7800 square kilometer reserve of the Congolese jungle. Virunga is home to the critically endangered mountain gorillas (MGs), and also to the ongoing Congo civil wars. The BBC just released an article that describes the events that occurred following the famous gorilla massacre from last year.

Starting from the very top, in June of 2007, two female MGs were discovered dead – one shot execution style, the other missing but presumed dead. It was clear the attack had been made by rebels in the area, who even today make a habit of threatening conservationists and conservation-able alike. This outrage was followed by jaw-dropping hysteria when in the following month, five more MGs were found dead.

On July 23rd, Mburanumwe, Neza, and Safari, three female MGs, were found lying dead in the trees. The next day, the body of Senkwekwe – the patriarch of the Rugendo family, also shot through the chest, was found. Another body, that of Macibiri was discovered a few weeks later. The shock these killings brought in the international community were just as pronounced as the grief of the local rangers who knew these famous gorillas intimately. In the same summer, another 3 gorillas would die.

Investigations found and convicted Honore Mashagiro, a park ranger, as the mastermind of the massacre. He had allegedly done all this to deter conservationists who were involved in saving the animal habitats. You see, along with diamond mining and poaching, another one of Africa’s lucrative underground trades is charcoal production. Trees are cut down and then “smoked” to produce charcoal which is always in demand in war-torn villages. It is used for primarily for cooking and heating by those who have no electricity or permanent homes. Just another way in which war directly affects the environment.

Anyhow, the conservationists were succeeding in protecting the forests from heavy logging, while the kickbacks Mashagiro earned from his illegal trade were suffering. If he had anything more than half a brain, he might have realized that his actions would only cause an international incident, and scare-off no one; but being the genius that he was, he decided to kill among the most revered of animals on Earth.

As dramatic as these events were, they only highlight a larger pattern in African governments. Park officials, military men, politicians, and other men entrusted with the safety of a country are those causing the most damage. In the time we resolve global politics and find a solution to Africa’s civil wars and poverty, the mountain gorillas, of which only a little over 700 remain, might be gone.

The more recent account of the BBC journalist (who was not named oddly enough) confirms that the problem is of as much imminence at this very moment as it was when the massacres occurred. Since September 2007, rebels have taken control of the area pointing their guns at anyone who enters. Gunfights break out occasionally, just as they did three days ago. Upon hearing these sounds, the humans get scared, and undoubtedly so do the gorillas.

In a late development, the reporter and his/her team recently caught onto a lead of a baby gorilla for sale. They setup a sting operation with the help of local park-rangers ready to make any arrests. On approaching the sellers, they found the baby gorilla to actually be a baby chimp, a fact the sellers did not seem to be aware of. After the arrests were made, it was found the men who our protagonists communicated with were actually middlemen. The owner of the house where the sale was made has been traced to a major in the Congolese army. Indeed a senior position. The BBC is not yet ready to release his name for legal reasons, but surely complex politics will surround the final outcome.

In good news, the reporter tells of the new head of Virunga – Emmanuel de Merode, an apparently capable person, who obviously has a lot on his plate. Let’s hope his reign remains under positive light. We owe a great debt of gratitude to these conservationists who are literally involved in a war. I said my thanks to one I met in the Jim Corbett National Park of India.

In the next few days, I have an interview coming up with Dr. Terese Hart, former director of the Wildlife Conservation Society in Congo. She has also been on of these people, but has also worn the hat of a scientist. Her perspective on the subject should be very interesting. Stay posted.

Further Reading:
BBC Article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7549444.stm

You can catch a documentary of Dr. Hart and her husband studying the Okapi with the help of the Bambuti: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6940493879196053202&ei=HbGoSJSnAYzQ2AKHtYgs&q=hart+of+brightness

More detailed and gruesome pictures of the accident: http://africambiance.org/phpbbv3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5563

Tags: Africa, congo, forest, gorilla, massacre, nature, science
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McCain’s VP pick is Not Good for Science

Friday, August 29th, 2008

I wake up this afternoon and check the news and my e-mails from my bed on my iPod touch. It has become an enjoyable morning ritual of mine. As I perused the top stories of the day, I find that McCain chose a VP, Sarah Palin. She was an intriguing choice and I started doing some research on her.

I found out that she:

is the governor of Alaska.
is a mother of 5.
is an evangelical Protestant.
is pro-life and a member of Feminists for Life.
is a creationist.
is a creationist who wants creationism taught along with evolution.

I shall let her speak for herself:

In an interview Thursday, Palin said she meant only to say that discussion of alternative views should be allowed to arise in Alaska classrooms:

“I don’t think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn’t have to be part of the curriculum.”

(…)

Palin said she thought there was value in discussing alternatives.

“It’s OK to let kids know that there are theories out there,” she said in the interview. “They gain information just by being in a discussion.”

That was how she was brought up, she said. Her father was a public school science teacher.

“My dad did talk a lot about his theories of evolution,” she said. “He would show us fossils and say, ‘How old do you think these are?’ ”

Asked for her personal views on evolution, Palin said, “I believe we have a creator.”

She would not say whether her belief also allowed her to accept the theory of evolution as fact.

“I’m not going to pretend I know how all this came to be,” she said.

From Anchorage Daily News

Again, this is the usual tripe creationists try to push: “Teach both sides!” “Teach the debate!”

There is NO debate. Evolution is fact. I bet you Palin won’t be able to define evolution if you asked her to. In my experience, almost all deniers of evolution do not know what evolution is. It’s rather pathetic that they would deny something without knowing what it actually is.

Wired also had this to say about her:

Palin’s statements track with the official Alaska Republican Party platform, which support creation science and intelligent design by name, and says that “evidence disputing the theory should also be presented.”

According to Fordham Institute science education expert Lawrence Lerner, Palin’s nomination is less worrisome in terms of education than the broad relationship of science and government.

“In the direct sense, vice presidents don’t have much to do with what goes on in classrooms. But a person who’s a creationist doesn’t understand science and technology at all,” said Lerner. “It doesn’t bode well for science, and doesn’t bode well for interaction between science and government.”

From the Wired Website

Personally, if someone believes in creationism, it does not bother me. If their belief does not have negative effects on my life, then I don’t mind it. BUT this is just not the case with regards to Palin and most creationists. Their unscientific demeanor does have negative ramifications. It does affect me negatively. How could they possibly make informed decisions about scientific policies when they are scientifically illiterate? They are dangerous people. Palin is dangerous.

So…who wants to move out of the US with me if McCain gets elected?

Tags: creationism, creationist, government, ID, intelligent design, sarah palin, science, science advocacy
Posted in News | 8 Comments »

The US Senate: All Lawyers and Businessmen, Not One Scientist

Friday, August 29th, 2008

Sen. Russ Feingold, only guy to vote against the Patriot Act and most awesome senator ever. But even he's completely ignorant about the scientific community There is not a single former scientist-turned-senator, which I must say is very disappointing since unless they were EPA (or other niche) lawyers or have pursued a single scientific issue as doggedly as Al Gore has, none of them appear to have a firm grasp on current scientific affairs… or even the scientific method itself.

Here is a list of Senate Committees that have something to do with research or science-related policymaking in this country and anyone on such a committee who has any grounding in science at all. I’m grasping at straws with some of these people, but here goes -

Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation: One engineer (John Sununu, R-NH), One veterinarian (John Ensign, R-NV)
Committee on Environment and Public Works: One batshit crazy global warming denier (Jim Inhofe, R-OK)
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions: One doctor (Tom Coburn, R-OK), one veterinarian (Wayne Allard, R-CO)
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources: One teacher (Daniel Akaka, D-HI)
Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry: One organic farmer (Jon Tester, D-MT)

I’m not implying that this nation should be some sort of technocracy of scientists; such a system can easily fall out of touch with the average citizen and is the stuff of dystopian science fiction movies. I also realize that going into law and business are more or less natural routes into a political career and that it is pretty much inevitable that a large portion of not an outright majority of our lawmakers will have gone down this path.

However, ask yourself this – On a committee where the latest in scientific research and related policymaking is discussed on a daily basis, how confident do you feel that the right decisions will be made if the vast majority of the committee members probably could not even interpret a PubMed article on their own?

It would be reassuring if at least a few politicians on such a committee were able to interpret and disseminate scientific information provided to them like they are easily be able to do with issues of constitutionality, foreign policy, and general domestic policy. But in a nation where the current administration supports intelligent design, set us back six years on stem cell research to pander to the religious right, and still shows lingering doubts about the validity of anthropogenic global warming… maybe that’s too much to ask.

Tags: congress, government, house, policy, science, scientists, senate, united states
Posted in Feature | 2 Comments »

Bush Admin’s new proposal for the ESA

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

The National Wildlife Federation of the United States has acquired a leaked document that predicts a significant weakening of the Endangered Species Act. The Bush Administration (here onwards BA) is apparently trying to get a bill passed that would enable corporations to bypass most of the security checks currently in place, before engaging in activities like logging or mining. John Kostyack, Executive Director of Wildlife Conservation and Global Warming at the National Wildlife Federation, believes the bill is intentionally timed to coincide with the election campaigns, so that a distracted public wouldn’t create a nuisance.

“I have been working on the Endangered Species Act for 15 years and have never seen such a sneaky attack. To suggest that our nation’s most important wildlife law could be gutted after a mere 30 day written comment period is the height of arrogance and disrespect for wildlife science. Elected officials have been saying no to proposals like this for 15 years,” says Kostyack.

Passed in 1973 under President Nixon, the stated purpose of the ESA is to protect critically endangered species from extinction as a “consequence of economic growth and development untendered by adequate concern and conservation” and also the “the ecosystems upon which they depend.” According to Wikipedia, the creation of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) was helped by the ESA. CITES has since been indispensable in enforcing the protection of endangered species.

Even though the ESA only protects species that are officially listed as “threatened” or “endangered”, over sixteen species have been de-listed since it’s inception. Another twenty three have been down-listed from “endangered” to “threatened”. Though it is believed that the latter twenty three recovered due to a ban on DDT, the ESA was certainly a helping hand.

According to the NWF news article, the current proposal attempts to:

Eliminate informal consultations. Currently, federal agencies seeking to carry out, fund or permit an action must enter into either formal or informal consultation with the Fish and Wildlife Service if the action is found to have any affect whatsoever on a listed species. The Bush Administration wants to significantly reduce informal consultations by allowing proponents of federal projects to decide unilaterally whether projects have adverse effects on listed species. This would eliminate the ability of the Service to review projects and employ its expert scientific judgment about what is needed to protect species and habitats unless an agency requests an informal consultation.

Reduce the number of formal consultations. These are the in-depth reviews that lead to the preparation of a biological opinion, in which the Service determines whether a project will jeopardize listed species or adversely modify its critical habitat and, if so, how the project must be modified to avoid harm. The proposed changes eliminate the requirement for formal consultation any time that an agency unilaterally determines that a project will have no adverse effect on listed species.

Avoid or minimize consultations based on “Lack of Causation” arguments. Under this rule, agencies could avoid consultation if they determine their action will have only a “marginal” impact on a listed species, ignoring the fact that the cumulative effect of “marginal” piecemeal destruction of habitat quantity and quality is one of the main causes of species decline and extinction. “This could mean death by a thousand cuts for many threatened and endangered species,” said Kostyack.

Impose an arbitrary deadline on the consultation process. Perhaps most outrageously, the Administration proposes to impose a 60-day deadline on the Service to respond to an agency’s request for consultation and, if this deadline is not met, to allow the project to go forward regardless of the impacts of the project on listed species. “The creation of an arbitrary deadline could enable even the most harmful projects to escape Endangered Species Act scrutiny,” said Kostyack.

The iconic Bald Eagle, the Whooping Crane, the Peregrine Falcon, the Gray Wolf, the Gray Whale and the Grizzly bear among many others have seen their populations rise thanks to the ESA. In the previous years, the BA has also tried to lift the ban on logging of Giant Sequoias in California. These trees, the most massive forms of life on Earth, are of legendary legacy and would have been a long-term loss if a federal court judge had not raised his voice. Many of us are also aware of another bill the BA is currently trying to pass, which would allow offshore drilling off the coasts of Alaska straight into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In 2006, they already succeeded in increasing the area of the Gulf of Mexico that was legalized for drilling.

Needless to say, this administration has done more than it’s share of damage to the world, but getting bills like these blocked would help leave a slightly-less devastating legacy. I’m not an American, but if you are and have voting power, contact Karla Raettig, raettigk@nwf.org, 202-797-6869 or 202-674-3174
Aislinn Maestas, maestas@nwf.org, 202-797-6624 of the FWA to raise your voice. You can read more about the leaked document at the FWA’s website @ http://www.nwf.org/news/story.cfm?pageId=B37BC419-15C5-5FE8-B007DAC35C60F339.

Tags: bill, bush administration, conservation, endangered species, endangered species act, george bush, science, species, wildlife
Posted in News | 1 Comment »

Artistically Challenged

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

Creating a gender equal group diversifies your physical attributes. What it doesn’t diversify are the thoughts and activities of your group. Getting more people who are interested in science and math – but are simply the other gender isn’t really doing anything for the bigger picture. Besides, I think we’ve already created a more or less safe space for women to come into – they just need to be encouraged. We haven’t made our groups and centers a safe space for some. I think focusing more on advancing our movement to be more inclusive to the arts and social sciences is far more important than encouraging women. All of our events and gatherings are totally open to women who are interested in coming – however, for the art and social science community there is rarely a place for them to fit in.

We tend to have a pretty scientific crowd, and that’s not surprising. Generally speaking a lot of those who are interested in skepticism and the secular outlook on life are science majors of some sort. Evolution, stem cell research, abortion etc. can all be justified and argued as valid with science and are often argued as wrong and invalid by the religious. So it doesn’t come as a surprise to see those with a science background falling into secularism.

This is all well and good, but we’re missing out on an huge portion of the population. What about poetry, visual arts, performance pieces and our philosophers? (Granted the philosophers do tend to appear more than the others.) It’s completely fair to say that our tactics, events and over all atmosphere isn’t all that inclusive or safe for those of the arts to walk into.

A lot of our events are science heavy, as are a lot of our discussions. The people involved aren’t the artsy type, they’re generally a little nerdy – and lets face it…often socially awkward. I’ve found in my dealings with the OCAD kids here in Toronto (Ontario College of Art and Design) that the artists are far more outgoing and loud than our regular geek crowd tends to be. So it creates a sort of awkward clash when just one of them shows up for something.

What we need are events that cater to this other side. There is definitely the market for it – there are sacreligeous artists everywhere, poets writing about vast voids of religious nothingnesses, social scientists writing about the psychology and philosophers wanting to hear about ethics. Not only do they fit into our mandates by being secular and asking questions but they are promoting and exercising freethought and more importantly freedom of expression!

Their art is breaking boundaries of the church and religion being infallible, and there is something to be said about the effectiveness of this controversy. Not only are people using their feelings about religion to create something with aesthetic value but they are also reaching out to the emotions of people who haven’t been able to do that.

There is also the possibility of bringing the two together so that even more people can find an emotional connection to the works. Personally when I see a picture or a painting or a complex biosphere or environment I am filled with awe. I am reminded that something so magnificent has developed over time. Something so complex is growing right in front of me, and I take advantage of it far too often. I connect emotionally.

The same (or similar thing) can be said for someone who sees a recreation of a galaxy or a cell. Atheistic humanism seriously needs this sense of value and allowance of these important and deep feelings. Reason has enabled us to work out in our minds what needs to be done and to devise strategies to follow through with these things. But feelings and passion give us impetus to act and keeps us from falling into that black never ending hold of emptiness. There is something to hold onto, the awe, wonder and beauty of the universe that can be expressed through a painting as a way to constantly remind us of what we’re actually living in and being a part of every day.

That’s enough fluff talk from me for like a century…. – I’ve had enough of all these scientists coming together and acting like they have all the answers to the world. The world wouldn’t be the same and would be a stone cold rock without art. So why aren’t we incorporating that into our movement more?

Here is my wish, want and challenge to all the students out there or people running little groups – do something for your artists! Hold an art gallery, do a poetry reading, start an arts and crafts night (okay, maybe not that one…) or do events that caters to this crowd! Enough of this BS about bringing women into the movement – we’re here. And more will come, you just have to give them time. But we’re not making it easy for the artists and social scientists, and I think this is a far more important task. It’s an entire culture and social world that we’re not including. By excluding them, we’re shutting a lot of possibilities off on ourselves.

Artistically challenged.

Tags: art, atheism, freethought, science, social
Posted in Commentary | 22 Comments »

The Skeptologists!

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

My friend, Brian Dunning (from the excellent Skeptoid podcast), is in the process of creating a new TV show called The Skeptologists. They’ve just finished the pilot episode. Hopefully it gets picked up and we get more of this awesomeness!

From the Skeptologists site:

We’re not willing to just accept stories of the paranormal or supernatural. We want proof. Each week, we’ll take on a handful of wild claims — from the Bermuda Triangle to Bigfoot sightings to haunted houses — and apply accepted scientific practices and experiments to see if these ideas really hold up. Whether in the field or in the lab, we’ll literally put these subjects to the test in the hopes that one day we may find something that can’t be explained. Each episode will investigate one or more popular paranormal, supernatural, or other type of phenomena, in favor of evidence-based science.

The cast includes:

Yau-Man Chan, 4th place contestant on Survivor: Fiji and Cheif Technology Officer for UC Berkeley’s College of Chemistry
Mark Edward, a professional mentalist specializing in magic of the mind.
Dr. Steven Novella, a academic clinical neurologist at Yale University School of Medicine, president of the New England Skeptical Society, writer of the Neurologica blog, and host of the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe podcast.
Dr. Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, writer of the Bad Astronomy blog, and a renowned astronomer, author, lecturer, and blogger.
Dr. Kirsten Sanford, holds a PhD in physiology from UC Davis and is known more for her Sexy Geek nomination from a Wired magazine contest than for her intelligence.
Dr. Michael Shermer, historian, author, monthly columnist for Scientific American, founding publisher of Skeptic Magazine, and Executive Director of the Skeptics Society.
Brian Dunning, host and executive producer of The Skeptologists and producer of Skeptoid: Critical Analysis of Pop Phenomenon podcast and book of the same title.

They have a one minute sneak peak trailer out on Youtube. Here it is:

[youtube]D0xAv_CEuaE[/youtube]

You can HELP the Skeptologist by sending an e-mail of support to skeptologists@newrule.com. Write-in in support of this show idea and let them know why you would watch a show about critical thinking, science and skepticism. The e-mails will be collected and used to help with the show getting picked up. (They won’t use your e-mail for anything other than this purpose by the way.)

Let’s hope we see this on the air soon!

Tags: badastronomy, brian dunning, kirsten sanford, mark edward, michael shermer, phil plait, reason, science, show, skeptics, skeptologists, steven novella, television, tv, yau-man chan
Posted in Media | 2 Comments »

A Vegetarian Spider

Monday, August 25th, 2008

At the International Behavioral Ecology Congress that ended just two weeks back, Christopher Meehan of Villanova University presented a very interesting discovery. Bagheera Kiplingi, a species of jumping spider, has been found to be preferentially vegetarian. Out of 140 of its meals that were recorded, 136 were vegetarian. It’s not that the spider’s niche makes insect-meals difficult to find. The opposite might be true instead.

B. Kiplingi lives on Acacia trees in Mexico, the very same that are famous for their symbiosis with ants:
Three species of acacia (collectively known as Bullthorn Acacias) develop domatia (large hollow chambers) which are almost always inhabited by ants. To feed their guests, the plants produce beltian bodies, which are relatively large protein and lipid rich balls. In return for food and shelter, the ants provide the trees with a very valuable service: they fend of any other creatures that might think of making a meal out of the plant. We all know what a force ants can be; If needed, they take on creatures of all sizes, from other small arthropods to large mammals. These acacias are usually easy to spot due to conspicuous grass-less patches that surround the trees.

So the symbiosis has programmed the ants to attack any other creature on sight. But the beltian bodies are too precious of a food to not fight for. So it was only a matter of time then before evolution produced another specialist. B. Kiplingi also lives on these acacias but by staying out of the ants’ way, it can survive. It is known to hide on dying leaves or other lightly patrolled areas and hence avoid confrontation. When it can, it feeds on the beltian bodies, also making rare meals of ant grubs and acacia nectar. Their queer diet is also known to include friends and family, as they have been known to cannibalize.

As you would imagine, the creature is indeed named after Rudyard Kipling and his character Bagheera, the panther from The Jungle Book.

Tags: arachnid, ecology, science, spider, symbiosis, vegetarian spider
Posted in News | 1 Comment »

What purpose?

Monday, August 25th, 2008

Shalini got me thinking on a point that keeps coming up when dealing with liberal, or at least, evolution-accepting Christians. And that is, how do they reconcile a “purposeless” and “heartless” process of evolution (Dr. Kenneth Miller’s words, quoted from Shalini’s article), with a teleological (or purposeful) universe?

Now they can go to the “God works in mysterious ways” argument, but that doesn’t really ever answer anything (how many people are atheists today because of that answer).

Or there’s “God can intervene (directly) in evolution”, but that violates the whole naturalistic basis of science. For this argument to be true, there would have to be evidence of some evolutionary change that couldn’t have come about naturally. Since that evidence doesn’t exist (although unlikely, it is a possibility), god likely hasn’t intervened (here absence of evidence is evidence for absence).

Another theistic view could be that “God intervenes in the universe, guiding natural events which lead to selection pressures which lead to us” sort of far-fetched view, but once again, there’s a lack of evidence of intervention (mind you we have less overall knowledge beyond our planet), and at most this could be characterized as a god-of-the-gaps argument.

Also, one could argue that “God set the universe in such a state that humans would evolve in their current state”. This is more of the enlightenment deistic god, and certainly not the Catholic God that Dr. Miller is praying to. Nevertheless, it’s still unlikely to physicists like Dr. Victor Stenger who argues that the universe was at maximum entropy at the Big Bang, and therefore could retain no information from before creation.

Perhaps God really just didn’t know what he was doing and just arbitrarily created a universe hoping something like us would show up, and he got lucky (this time). But if this is the case, why even make up a god?

Tags: atheism, evolution, god, miller, religion, science, theism
Posted in Commentary | 2 Comments »

Where is the “theo” in biology textbooks?

Monday, August 25th, 2008

One thing I’ve realized after years of following the ID movement is that William Dembski can best be described as a gift that keeps on giving. Take a look at this, for example:

Here are some quotes from seven of Miller’s biology textbooks, textbooks underwritten with your tax dollars. As you read these quotes, ask yourself where is the “theo” in Miller’s “theoevo.”(1) “[E]volution works without either plan or purpose … Evolution is random and undirected.”
Biology, by Kenneth R. Miller & Joseph S. Levine, pg. 658 (1st edition, Prentice Hall, 1991)

…(6) “Darwin knew that accepting his theory required believing in philosophical materialism, the conviction that matter is the stuff of all existence and that all mental and spiritual phenomena are its by-products. Darwinian evolution was not only purposeless but also heartless–a process in which the rigors of nature ruthlessly eliminate the unfit. Suddenly, humanity was reduced to just one more species in a world that cared nothing for us. The great human mind was no more than a mass of evolving neurons. Worst of all, there was no divine plan to guide us.”
Biology: Discovering Life, by Joseph S. Levine & Kenneth R. Miller (1st edition, D.C. Heath and Co., 1992), pg. 152

Dembski is terribly wrong on so many counts that he has to be either terribly ignorant or is simply obfuscating the facts to pander to his religious base. By asking where is the “god speak” in a biology textbook, Dembski has shown us (yes, old news) that ID is all about shoving god into science and down the throats of children, destroying science education in the process. What Dembski did not realize is that there is no “god talk” nor “atheist talk” in the theory of evolution itself because the theory does not make any claim whatsoever about the existence or non-existence of a god. God isn’t mentioned in the description of the theory of gravitation, yet we don’t see IDists demanding to know where the “theo” is in gravity. There is no mention of religion in the weather forecast either and no ID creationist so far has claimed that god should be involved in the description of weather cycles.

Although Miller is a devout Catholic, he keeps his personal religious views out of the way in a scientific textbook. This has nothing to do with Miller accepting or rejecting the theistic god. He is merely writing about the theory of evolution the same way that someone would write about the theory of gravitation. Religion simply has nothing to do with it, and this is the very idea that Dembski refuses to comprehend. The IDists want to shove their narrow, fundamentalist version of religion into science, and they do not understand why current science textbooks do not read like the Bible. Once god is pushed into science, what next? Oh, and which god? Whose interpretation of what holy book? Fred Phelps’ version? Will kids be forced to learn about Yahweh creating man from dust? Will they also learn about Zeus shooting thunderbolts from the sky? Where are we to draw the line?

Of course, Miller is free to talk about his religious beliefs and publish popular books about what he thinks the role of his religion plays in science, the same way Richard Dawkins can promote the idea that evolution is incompatible with theistic belief. No matter how much Ben Stein would like you to think otherwise, nobody is trying to persecute and ‘expel’ Miller for his theistic evolutionary views. Evolutionary theory is discussed in science textbooks without “god-speak” because there is no need to invoke a supernatural being to explain scientific concepts. If Dembski wants Miller to include the “theo” in evolution, he should push for “theo” to be introduced in every scientific field and in every other area of study as well, to replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.

Wait – that is the Wedge Strategy. The IDists actually do want to do that after all.

Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

Tags: biology, creationism, dembski, evolution, ID, miller, science, uncommon descent
Posted in Commentary | 8 Comments »

A Neo-Technocrat Manifesto

Monday, August 25th, 2008

In my last article on Technocracy, entitled You Too, May be a Technocrat, there seemed to be a lot of misunderstanding on what I meant.

There was discussion about what the term Technocrat meant, and there was a great deal of disturbing observations about the definition I posted from Wikipedia.

People accurately pointed out that a purely meritocratic society would be very susceptible to corruption.

Some people thought that Technocracy was opposed to democracy, and in hindsight I can see why people thought that. Though I consider myself to be a technocrat and a committed apologist for the democratic process.

So I am coining a term: Neo-Technocrat.

I am using the term Neo-Technocrat so that I can discard any of the ideas of the original technocrats that we find antiquated, while still embracing the core themes of the original movement.

A Neo-Technocrat is someone who wholeheartedly accepts the democratic endeavor as the best current political system. A Neo-Technocrat does not dispute that the current western political system does provide society with skilled politicians as a result of the voting process. The only thing that a Neo-Technocrat wants to do to the voting process is make sure that the voters are better informed, especially on science and technology issues.

Another issue demanding clarification from the last post is the importance of the term “technocrat.” Technology is the ultimate utility of science. Even basic science, which by definition has no specific technological goals, is defended for its constant contribution to the development of technology. Using technology as the root word for a political idea implies that the vast usefulness of science is of great political consequence.

To call Neo-Technocracy some other word, which does not have technology in the name would not due the idea justice.

What Neo-Technocrats want is for scientists to be consulted by politicians and the public for issues where science is relevant. Neo-Technocrats believe this is going to be the norm for many political issues, especially if one considers the robustness of the social sciences.

Neo-Technocrats see that political language should be naturalistic, just as it is in science. The effect of this is that political discussion of ethics should be naturalistic in its premises, and humanistic in its conclusions. Humanism is a system of ethics built on what naturalism tells us about the world in deference to science. Neo-Technocrats see this as being a more universal approach to ethics.

It is not that Neo-Technocrats want Neo-Technocratic projects to eliminate all philosophy save naturalism and humanism, but we see these as being extremely basic and universally applicable to the whole of humanity. In essence a naturalistic basis for political discussion is a filter, which allows for discussion of testable phenomena to have its deserved prominence. This, again, makes a great deal of sense when one considers the robustness of social science. Questions such as what motivates crimes, greed in human nature, and other controversial behaviors have huge bodies of data in psychology, economics, and other social sciences.

Neo-Technocrats quite simply believe that when society takes in to consideration what is known by experts, society makes better decisions. There are two areas in which this must be achieved. One is at the level of the public, the electorate to be specific. The second is at the level of political decision makers, which include elected officials. This is achieved by creating policy infrastructure so that politicians consult scientists, and so scientific understanding is always strongly promoted to the public.

This may sound like a pipe-dream to some, but we have essentially had this kind of government in the United States before, with a trend towards having more in the future. Especially in the early years of the cold war. I would also argue that the United States was founded on similar principles.

Now the political discourse has strayed from naturalistic language into some kind of post-modernist la-la land where things like climate change are treated as though they were simply a matter of opinion.

This is unacceptable.

Tags: experts, government, Humanism, naturalism, ne-technocrat, politics, science, technocrat
Posted in Feature | 12 Comments »

A review of EXPELLED

Friday, August 22nd, 2008

Before watching the movie, I expected to be so angry by the end of it that some people were afraid that I would end up going on a rampage, killing every creationist in sight. I expected to intersperse my bouts of hot rage at the ID creationists with some laughs at the utter ignorance of Ben Stein et al. I expected to be saddened by how fundamentalist religious beliefs had warped creationist minds, and I expected to be disgusted at the credulous creationists who would flock to the movie just to feed their sad delusions. With all those expectations, it was a good idea for me to watch the movie with an atheist friend. However, I simply did not expect the movie to be so boring. Not even Stein’s nasal drone could have prepared me for the utter failure of the movie to make me either get really angry or to start laughing hysterically.

The movie starts with Stein in his sneakers rambling about freedom and portraying himself as a great crusader for the cause of freedom in the face of persecution. He apparently failed to get the memo that lecturing a crowd of extras about how the establishment is suppressing ID is not the way science works at all. He also failed to get the memo that ID is not about religion, droning on and on about how ‘Darwinists‘ are persecuting ID and putting “science in a little box where it can’t possibly touch god”. Oops, Stein – you scored an own goal there for us ‘evil Darwinists’. You have proven that your side is all about religion, and you have nicely exposed the lies that your side has been peddling all along. Thank you for that little favor there, Stein.

To maximize the sensationalist nature of the ‘documentary’, scenes of Nazi death camps, gas chambers and tortured/dead Jews were badly inserted in the middle of ramblings about Darwinist persecution. Ben, how dare you disrespect millions of Jews that were murdered in the Holocaust by using their suffering to promote your theocratic, fundamentalist, quasi-political, lying agenda? How dare you compare the killing of millions of people with some IDists being criticized by the scientific community for not providing evidence for their assertions? How dare you claim that ID being flunked is tantamount to a new Holocaust? How dare you even think of using the Holocaust as a tool to prop up your lying agenda? How could you, Stein? Don’t you have any measure of shame?

Next, he interviews people who were supposedly expelled or persecuted for supporting ID. He touts the case of Michael Egnor as an example of this great ‘Darwinist’ persecution that rivals what Hitler did to the Jews. Now, get ready for this – all that happened to Egnor was that some people criticized him on the internet. Yes, let me repeat myself if this does not shock you enough: Egnor was criticized on the internet. This is one of the examples of ‘Darwinist’ persecution of ID that threatens the very idea of freedom and is comparable to the Holocaust. Egnor was the very same medical doctor (!) who remarked that one of the reasons evolution is false is because ‘brain tumors don’t evolve to make better brains’. Come on now, Egnor, how could you make such ignorant statements and then get all whiny about being ‘persecuted’ when you are called out on your fallacy? If you can’t take the heat, get out of the scientific ring.

Stein also lies about how Richard Sternberg’s life was nearly destroyed after he was fired from the Smithsonian for supporting ID. However, the truth is a lot less sensational than what the IDists claim. Sternberg was never employed by the Smithsonian. He was an unpaid research associate and he still has full access to research facilities at the museum. As I don’t want to continue beating a dead horse, the real stories about the so-called ‘academics’ who were expelled for supporting ID can be found here.

Stein continues his nonsense with interviews from the usual suspects – Dembski, Johnson, Berlinski, Marks, etc. They trotted out the usual nonsense “The cell is complex, so there is a designer! Design is a scientific theory!! It can be proven!! We just want to be heard!! This is a war of worldviews!! We are being persecuted! Waaaaaaah!!” All this is incredibly boring as we have been hearing them say the same thing for years without a shred of evidence to back up their claims. Those IDists were given the chance of their lifetimes in a courtroom in Dover, their leading light William Dembski was too cowardly to testify, Michael Behe claimed that ID is as scientific as astrology, they bombed in court and their case was shown to be one of “breathtaking inanity”. They had their chance and they failed.

Can we move on now, IDists? Some of us like our brains nice and functioning, thank you very much.

The best part was when the IDists he interviewed stressed that ID was not about religion, while Stein simply ranted in the next scene about how god was being kicked out of science by ‘Darwinist’ persecutors. Those IDists can’t even get their stories straight, and yet we are supposed to believe that they are doing doing real science? In my opinion, I really don’t think that insulting the intelligence of one’s audience is a good idea.

Wait, this is the ID crowd we are talking about here. My bad.

Stein goes on to demonstrate his ignorance by delightfully blabbering about how ‘Darwinists’ still cling to ‘Darwinism’ despite the fact that nobody knows how life actually arose. Stein invokes the tired old god-of-the-gaps argument to claim that since we don’t know everything about a particular scientific issue, GODDIDIT! Apparently, the ’science’ that the IDiots so badly want recognition for is their inane tendency to yell GODDIDIT instead of doing some actual scientific research.

The part where I wanted to slam my head against the wall was when Stein made fun of panspermia and asked “Is this really more plausible than god?”, killing any pretensions of ID being non-religious and again demonstrating his utter ignorance of the issue he claims to be so passionate about. Unless those ‘aliens’ or whatever that was seeding life on earth evolved through evolutionary processes, panspermia is actually ID. The fact that nobody seemed to realize that the idea of an intelligence seeding life on earth belongs on the ID side is apparently because everyone in their camp only sees ID in terms of special creation by the Christian god.

I was curious about the ID creationists’ excitement over Richard Dawkins supposedly admitting that ID is possible. What actually happened in the movie was nothing at all like what the people over at Uncommonly Dense want you to believe. Stein asked Dawkins to imagine a scenario in which ID could be possible, and Dawkins replied by saying that an intelligence could have started life on earth. Now, for those who think that this is some sort of staggering admission, Dawkins mentioned this possibility because Stein asked him to! He was merely answering Stein’s question, not advocating ID. Furthermore, Dawkins goes on to say that the intelligence itself must have evolved elsewhere through evolutionary processes. However, Stein deliberately ignores this, choosing instead to spew his lie about how Dawkins accepts ID as long as the Designer is not god.

The part of Expelled which truly made me angry was when Stein walked around concentration camps trying to look upset while blaming and trying not to blame ‘Darwinism’ for the Holocaust at the same time. He utters inanities about how he is not claiming that ‘Darwinism’ lead to Nazism, but Darwinism was the root cause of Nazi ideas. Stein ignores the widely-known historical fact that anti-Semitic ideas were around long before Darwin and that there were ideas about the extermination of Jews even before Hitler. (Check out Martin Luther’s rantings against the Jews, for one). Stein then claimed that ‘Darwinism’ led to eugenics without realizing that artificial selection has been around since the dawn of agriculture. Stein then threw in more right-wing propaganda with stupid remarks about how Planned Parenthood, abortion and stem-cell research are modern-day eugenic practices. Pandering to the fundamentalist base probably never looked so good. Stein also completely misses the point that even if evolution led to Nazism or that Hitler admired Darwin, the scientific validity of the theory of evolution has nothing to do with the consequences of accepting the theory. Clearly, the IDists making this inane claim are unaware of how science is done.

The movie ends with scenes of people tearing down the Berlin Wall and Stein basically comparing himself to great defenders of freedom and claiming that Big Science has erected a wall to keep god out, just like the Berlin Wall tried to keep ideas out, and that the fight to bring god into science is like bringing down the Berlin Wall, and that Stein cannot do it on his own, so he needs sheep to follow and bray after him, yada, yada, yada…

Thick on the propaganda, vacuous on the science – just like the whole big tent of Intelligent Design. As expected, Expelled fails to tell us exactly why ID qualifies as science. All Stein talks about is how ID is being persecuted, but we never see any of the so-called evidence that the ‘Darwinists’ are suppressing. If Stein is so passionate about freedom of ideas and the defence of truth, why not put the evidence on the table?

Could it be simply because there is no scientific validity to ID and that the only thing keeping them afloat is their spin machine? Could it be that we ‘evil Darwinists’ were right all along?

Scary thought, isn’t it, Stein?

Tags: ben stein, creationism, evolution, expelled, ID, review, science
Posted in Commentary | No Comments »

The fraud of homeopathy

Thursday, August 21st, 2008

A branch of ‘alternative’ medicine that has been gaining prominence in recent years is homeopathy. According to homeopaths, homeopathy is the second most widely used system of medicine in the world. This is indeed cause for worry as the very basic foundations that homeopathy relies on do not stand up to any scientific scrutiny whatsoever.

Nevertheless, I personally know of skeptics who still believe that some element of homeopathy still works beyond the placebo effect. The cause of this would probably be the advent of homeopathy into mainstream pharmacies and the offices of qualified medical practitioners. Although nobody denies that there are qualified medical doctors who are also qualified as homeopaths, the very basis of homeopathy doesn’t render it suitable as a replacement or even as an ‘alternative’ to evidence-based conventional medicine.

The three main principles of homeopathy are:

Like Cures Like
For example, if the symptoms of your cold are similar to poisoning by mercury, then mercury would be your homeopathic remedy.
Minimal Dose
The remedy is taken in an extremely dilute form; normally one part of the remedy to around 1,000,000,000,000 parts of water.
The Single Remedy
No matter how many symptoms are experienced, only one remedy is taken, and that remedy will be aimed at all those symptoms.

Let’s take a look at the first principle, the so-called like cures like theory. Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy, believed that restoring the ‘vital forces’ of the body is the way to cure diseases that were incurable in his time. He also claimed that the very small doses of a medication would be enough to heal as the potency of a particular substance could be manipulated by succussion (vigorous shaking). He founded the like cures like theory after observing that quinine, which causes fever, cured malaria (in which one of the symptoms is fever).

He expounded further on the like cures like theory, by claiming (without any evidence whatsoever) that diluting the so-called cure minimizes its bad effects but maintains its full ‘curative’ power. Scientifically, this is utter nonsense. Is he speculating that some sort of metaphysical force in the water exists and diverts the harmful effects of the substance while maximizing its healing capabilities? The development of homeopathy has taken place outside science; therefore its claims still lack justification or scientific evidence despite homeopathy being around for more than 200 years.

Some modern homeopaths even go so far as to claim that similar principals form the basis of conventional allergy treatment, where the allergic substance is given in a small dose and in vaccines where an impotent form of the virus is given to bolster the immune system against that particular virus. Again, this is merely a faulty analogy and an overdose of wishful thinking. The dilution process involved in homeopathy causes no active ingredient to be left in the medication itself, making it indistinguishable from plain water or alcohol. You might as well be taking an empty pill instead of a homeopathic tablet. This immediately renders their above claim as false. Firstly, there is no active ingredient entered into the body, or rephrased: NOTHING at all enters the body that triggers an immune response. Secondly, as opposed to the case of immunization, homeopathic medications do not stimulate the body to produce substances that may protect the body from a certain disease. Immunology is a tested, proven, verified branch of medicine, whereas the evidence for homeopathy is still non-existent.

Now, we move on to the second principle of homeopathy, the ‘minimal dose’. According to the calculations done by Dr. Simon Singh, for a homeopathic dilution to have even one molecule remaining of the active ingredient, the pill has to be the size of the planet Earth. Alas, these ever-so-wise homeopaths rush to proclaim that one of the many undiscovered, unproven magical properties is that it has the ability to retain a ‘memory’ of the active ingredient.Jacques Benveniste even claims that a homeopathic solution’s biological activity can be digitally recorded, stored on a hard drive, sent over the Internet, and transferred to water at the receiving end. Some homeopaths also claim that homeopathic remedies have powers to ‘magically’ alter the molecular structure of water. (These were the same homeopaths that claim that homeopathic remedies are merely derived from natural elements around us, right?). Worse, there isn’t any evidence for the very basis of the ‘minimal dose’ theory, where it is claimed that one could minimize the negative effect of a ‘cure’ by significantly reducing the size of the dose. The least they could do is to prove that their fantastic ideas work, and be in the running for a Nobel Prize in Medicine.

The third and perhaps the most outrageous claim is the ludicrous ‘single remedy’ principle. It is a widely known fact that a disease is usually associated with a variety of symptoms. These symptoms help doctors identify the disease and subsequently prescribe a cure. The opposite seems to be the case for homeopathy. A single cure is prescribed (diluted into oblivion first, that is) that supposedly cures one of the symptoms of the disease, thus curing all the other symptoms at the same time. In the homeopaths’ on words, “Homeopathy is system of medicine that targets the symptoms of a disease (as opposed to conventional medicine where the disease itself is targeted”.

Now let’s look at a little gem of contradiction here (from a homeopathy website): Homeopathy is holistic. It treats all the symptoms as one, which in practical terms means that it addresses the cause, not the symptoms. This often means that symptoms tackled with homeopathy do not recur.

Treating all the symptoms with a ‘cure’ directed at merely one of the symptoms addresses the cause of the illness? They contradict themselves in the last line by admitting that they merely target the symptoms, not the disease. Yet this is the exact opposite of what they said in the previous line ‘addresses the cause.’ Are you willing to place your health in the hands of a bunch of people who can’t get their symptoms and causes straight?

If homeopathic remedies seem to work, it is not because of the metaphysical properties of the ‘miracle water’, but the body’s own natural curative mechanisms or the placebo effect. Although most homeopathic remedies are safe and merely ineffective, the real danger is when a patient chooses not to seek proper treatment by a conventional medical doctor in cases where the patient could be helped by such treatment.

Tags: alternative medicine, dilution, Hahnemann, homeopathy, pseudoscience, science, skepticism, water
Posted in Commentary | 82 Comments »

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