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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 »

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