Billboards

Those uppity non-believers have put up a billboard with a very nonthreatening message telling other non-believers that they are not alone. This article on Cincinnati.com has brought in over 500 comments as of this posting.

How dare those godless people express such a simple message in public? Don't they know that we're not supposed to discuss controversial issues, such as religion and politics, in public?

Scale

Here's a neat illustration of scale.

Secular Service and UC Symposium

October 18th is Secular Service Day. Seems like a good idea, and maybe next year we can organize ART to participate. I know we have a few members who have connections in non-profit organizations, so it shouldn't be too hard to find opportunities. A bit late to organize something now.

Also the 2009 Darwiniana Symposium: Darwinism, Science, Religion, and Society will be held at UC October 29-30.

Speakers include Eric Plutzer (Penn State University), George Bishop (University of Cincinnati), Patricia Pricehouse (Case Western Reserve University), Robert T. Pennock (University of Michigan), NCSE Supporter Francisco Ayala (University of California at Irvine), Jon Miller (Michigan State University), Michael Roos (University of Cincinnati), and Robert Richardson (University of Cincinnati).

UC Skeptics - Are Christianity & Evolution compatible?

Revisionist History

The webpage is currently down due to being hit by multiple majors blogs the last two days, but this piece of "art" makes some strange claims about the founders and modern society. The artist is trying to make some profound statements about America, but the symbolism is all screwed up. Of note is the number of founding fathers who are portrayed good Christians including Ben Franklin (fornicator), Thomas Jefferson (read his version of the Bible), George Washington (didn't take communion) and even Thomas Paine (atheist). I was especially confused by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. dressed as the modern American soldier.

If you were wondering, the college professor is sitting right next to Satan and Mr. Hollywood.

You can see a revised version of the art with a humorous slant to it here.

Lockland Ten Commandments

The story appears to be a bit light on details. Apparently the guy claims to have been harassed by the police and in retaliation has files a lawsuit to remove the display.

LOCKLAND - A Lockland resident has filed a lawsuit against the village, claiming a display of the Ten Commandments outside town hall is unconstitutional.

Christopher Knecht wants the sign removed and a court order to prevent any future displays of "religious fables and myths."

Collateral Damage (I'm going to get an earful on this one)

I have often wondered about our ability to so readily accept collateral damage in a conventional war, yet we are so unwilling to accept it in the war against crime.
In war news from Afghanistan, we hear of wedding parties decimated by unmanned drones, and women and children recklessly killed by Blackwater in a street fight. This is news for a couple of days, and then we forget and accept it as the cost of war. These people are true innocents. But, for a person who is on death row for a murder he or she most likely did commit, we agonize for 20 years and spend millions of dollars before we are willing to carry out the sentence.
I don't know if there are reliable statistics about wrongful convictions, but my guess is that a very small percentage are innocent of the crime they were convicted for, and an even smaller percentage are true innocents.
At what point do we say society can't afford this process anymore, and we have to accept it as collateral damage?

A Glorious Dawn

This video has been making the rounds around the skeptical blogosphere. It has a catchy tune and a nice message from Carl Sagan.


If you don't know what Autotune is check out this video from Nova Science Now.

What if the only way to send astronauts to Mars is to leave them there for good?

I heard a segment on NPR a couple of weeks ago, and today found the transcript.
The gist of it was:

"What if the only way to send astronauts to Mars is to leave them there for good? Lawrence Krauss, a physicist at Arizona State University and director of the Origins Initiative, argues that a one-way trip is worth considering, and that it wouldn't be hard to find passengers."

An interesting concept.
The argument is that a round trip would be exponentially more expensive.
According to the guest, he has been able to find quite a few people who would be willing to volunteer.

The Transcript

The Audio

Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian

I don't know how many of you know about Betty Bowers, "America's Best Christian". The quote on her latest missive is, "I will NOT let Mr. Obama brainwash children! That is MY job."

Just for grins, check out her site at:
http://www.bettybowers.com/index.html

Here are some graphics that are worth a chuckle (I shudder to think how many people believe this sort of stuff).

http://www.bettybowers.com/bettyschool.jpg

http://www.bettybowers.com/bettybowersbible.jpg

-- Jill

Seasonal and 'Swine' flu

The blog Science-Based Medicine has a great article on the flu. Check it out and be the most informed person in your class this year.

Richard Wiseman

Richard Wiseman has an interesting website where he delves into the workings of the human mind. He loves to exploit some of the trickier parts.



It took me a few minutes to see anything, but once I did it became difficult to 'unsee' it.

Nice online talk on medicine

There is a very nice talk on medicine, the scientific method, and skepticism on the Skeptics Toolbox by Harriet Hall, MD.
http://skepticstoolbox.org/hall/
Here are a couple of slides:

Cartoons of the day

An oldie but a goodie.

Latest Doonesbury - So True

I'm reminded of a founding member of the Cincinnati Skeptics who long ago observed that:
"Skeptics are just another fringe group."

Creationist Blog

Check out this Creationist blog if you get a chance. I had an interesting exchange with the author towards the end of the comments.
http://thebibleistheotherside.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/hb-2800-in-texas-will-help-creationist-grad-school/

Liberty University's Creation Studies Department

I have started reading "The Unlikely Disciple" by Kevin Roose. This interesting book is about how he spent the Sprint 2007 semester at Jerry Falwell's 20,000 student Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. It is a fascinating account of the good and the bad about his time there.
What I wanted to talk about was their Creation Studies Department.

Apparently, they lost their accreditation in Virginia in 1982 from pressure from the ACLU, so that graduates were uncertifiable as public school teachers, since Liberty only taught creationism in biology classes (and everywhere else). To respond to this, the university moved all the creation coursed to their new Creation Studies department and was able to have students be teacher certified. All Liberty students are required to take a course in creation studies, biology majors are also required to learn evolution studies. As Roose says:

"And even those evolution courses are sort of Fair and Balanced(TM), if you get my drift. As Dr. Falwell said in 1982, before the Virginia board ruling: 'We with God's help, want to see hundreds of our graduates go out into the classrooms teaching creationism - of course they'll be teaching evolution - but teaching why it's invalid and why it's foolish, and then showing the proper way and the correct approach to the origin of the species'."

Liberty still seems to teach the original creation science. I gather many of the more funamentalist based colleges now teach intelligent design, but Liberty has remained pure to the original creed. BTW, he mentions that his required course was taught by a Dr. Dekker with some reasonable science cred in neuroscience. He recounts his first encounter in the classroom describing Dr. Dekker as in a white lab coat as if he was shipped from Central Casting as a movie extra playing Chemist #4. The first words he said in class were "My name is Dr. James Dekker, and I am a real scientist." This strikes me as a little defensive. Sort of reminds me of Dr. Science.

Creation Museum "Science" Fair

The Creation Museum is hosting a "Science" fair in February. This isn't a real science fair, if your child wants to participate they have to agree with the AiG Statement of Faith.

Do I have to believe a literal interpretation of Genesis, including creation about 6,000 years ago, to participate?

One reason we are holding this Science Fair is to show that creationists are capable of conducting good science. We also want to provide an opportunity to encourage creationist students with an interest in science to pursue their goals. In light of these intentions, the invitation to participate is open to any 7–12 grader who agrees with the Answers in Genesis Statement of Faith.

Of course, in real scientific studies there are no doctrines that one must follow in order to do experiments or research.

The cost of participating is $5/student, but I don't see anything on how much it would cost to attend the fair. In the past other creationist 'science' fairs have been good evidence for how otherwise bright children are being misled.

Amazing

From Yahoo News:
An undated photo released by The University of Cambridge shows a rook, a member of the crow family, as it drops stones into a tube to raise the water level and bring a worm into reach, at the Sub-department of Animal Behaviour at University of Cambridge. In Aesop's fable 'The crow and the pitcher' a thirsty crow uses stones to raise the level of water in a pitcher to quench its thirst. A new study published online Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009 in the journal Current Biology demonstrates that rooks, birds belonging to the corvid, or crow family, are able to solve complex problems using tools and can easily master the same technique demonstrated in Aesop's fable.
(AP Photo/The University of Cambridge)

Cartoon of the day

Irradiated food

I have been wondering why there is such a difference in the perception of genetically modified and irradiated foods between European countries and the United States.
On the one hand, most of the people of the US have few concerns about genetically modified foods. Yet they react very strongly against Irradiated foods. Just the opposite is true in Europe.
From the standpoint of the consumers, I have to side with the Europeans. Irradition is actually a very simple technology, which has been thoroughly tested, and really can't offer a lot of surprises. There can't be any residual radiation or others toxins in the food as a result of the radiation. I have read that if fresh strawberries are packed in Mylar and irradiated, they can last for 6 months on the shelf without refrigeration. Less spoilage and no refrigeration costs translates to more food getting to the people who need it. The only concern I have about irradiation is for the safety of the employees at the food processing end.
Genetic modification, on the other hand, especially if done at the DNA level, provides an almost infinite number of possible recombinations. The odds of accidentally producing something detrimental to humans are extremely high. Right now we are taking an Alchemist approach to the science of Genetics. We just dice and splice, and see what happens. Even if we learned enough to be able to accurately computer model the results before we splice, the science can never be perfect.
What do you think?

Creation Museum

I finally went to the creation museum in Kentucky.
The Secular Students Association got a group rate for the tour reducing the admission cost from about $22 to $10. I donated the difference to the SSA and purchased my ticket through them.
There were a little over 300 people who came for the tour. The museum was quite crowded and I would estimate that a little over a half the attendees were with the group for the morning. The museum is doing a very good business in general, even without secular students and their supporters.

I have a few pictures to share and a few impressions. I don't want to give a guided tour, but rather leave you with my sense of the museum.
I had a tendency to view the museum through the lens of intelligent design .vs. evolution. There is a lot of such thinking represented at the museum, but the real mission of the museum is the larger argument for the bible and young earth interpretations. The very excellent dioramas, animatronics, and exhibits are aimed at bolstering the faithful in their viewpoint of the infallibility of the bible and the biblical message as interpreted in modern fundamentalist thought today. As such, there is as much there on the garden of Eden and the flood as in showing evidence for why the earth is as young as they claim. Their two messages throughout the museum are "Prepare to Believe" and the 7 Cs (These start with Creation, Corruption, etc).
I took in the special effects show that was quite fun and included blasts of air, rumbling seats, water mist, flashing lights etc. and had an excellent three screen projection display. The theme was quite illuminating about a girl who was trying to decide if all this evolution stuff she was learning could be true rather than her religious training. She was troubled about having to defend religious views in our secular society. The point of the show was to give the audience viewers the confidence to express such creationist views in the general public arena of school and elsewhere. They made fun of the science teachers and made them out to be fools. In other words the show was quite defensive and tried to give the museum goers the confidence to express an inferior position in public.

I also came away with an admiration of what efforts science teachers must have to make to prepare themselves for such children. The museum had a number of key arguments to use against an old earth interpretation and against natural selection. For example, how do you respond to a student who asks you to explain why there is carbon 14 in diamonds, or why there is anomalous helium in zircons, or why some Mt St. Helens rocks give anomalous radioactive dating? I don't know the answers to these right now, but I would definitely have to be on top of such specific minutiae in order to answer comments from students from fundamentalist families.

Lastly, I listened to a talk from Dr. Jason Lisle who has a PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Colorado on "The Ultimate Proof of Creation" . Dr. Lisle was very intelligent and rational and tried to impress us with how he would convince us with a rational argument that the bible and Christianity are right. He spent quite a bit of time discussing the various ways to approach persuasion with a nice summary and stressed his wanting to win us over with a strictly rational argument. He eventually got down to his main points about the uniformity of the universe, the continuity of the universe, and that the universe is logical. He asked the big questions about these, ie, why is the universe uniform, do we have any reason to believe the universe will act the same tomorrow as today or as it has in the past, and why should the universe exhibit a logical consistency (he didn't get to say much about this for lack of time)? His "convincing" argument was that secular science has no answer to these questions, but the bible gives answers to all these, so religion is the right answer. I leave it to the reader to see if you agree with this.

On to a couple of pictures:

A garden of Eden picture with penguins.



The Garden of Eden with dinosaurs. BTW, all dinosaurs before the fall ate plants including such species as tyrannosaurs and velociraptors.



The Villain of the piece.



The temptation of Adam by Eve. Interestingly, the fruit of the tree of knowledge looks like small berries.

.
This is from the flood. These signs were interspersed with the museum displays all through the exhibits.

If you want to see lots of pictures, I recommend the flickr entries from John Scalzi at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/scalzi/sets/72157603091357751/

I will make the obvious point that this beautiful state of the art $27,000,000 museum is really nice as a religious artifact, and has some beautiful illustrations of natural history, but is a terrible representation of science.

Roy

Eugenics

So far, this blog has become a repository for Skeptics news items. Well, I think I’ll mix it up a bit with some of my personal observations and political incorrectness.
I am absolutely convinced that almost all of the problems facing the human race today could be solved if we could get a handle on population growth. In fact the ideal situation would be to roll back the population and maintain it at a sustainable level. Rational humans who care about the quality of ALL human life, should be able to formulate a strategy to accomplish this. In fact, it is essential for the long term survival of the race.
Easier said than done.
So what are our options?
The Chinese have tried using law and coercion, with quite obviously very little success.
Pol Pot had some rather distasteful notions of his own. So did Stalin and Hitler.
Abstinence education is a dead end for obvious reasons.
The human drive to procreate is based on the notion that there is infinite room for growth. It is built into our primal nature. So we are on a self destructive path which no amount of rational discussion can end.
Force is not an option. The only humane and totally equitable solution would be a capitalist one. Reward for deferred or ended fertility would be the only way I could see this working. A one-time small cash payment for elective, reversible sterilization. The payment has to be large enough to incentivize those who are not ready to handle the cost or responsibility of children. But small enough that there would not be a black market in cheap reversals. When, or if, an individual considers him or herself ready for children, they would pay back the amount they received, with interest, and get the reversal.
The first ones to line up would be the alcohol and drug addicts who should not have children anyway. Care of their children costs us millions a year. This would be a windfall savings for society. I am sure that there is a large portion of the population which would never consciously want to have children. Accidental or unwanted children would be a thing of the past. There is another segment which would never achieve the economic status to raise children properly.
This is the only form of Eugenics which allows each individual to choose for themselves. There would be no majority deciding the reproductive fate of a minority. There would be no pressure to make a decision. The only pressure would be economic.
I haven’t worked out the details of applying this on a global scale. But, we have to start somewhere.
If someone has a better, more equitable, idea I would love to hear it.

Creation Museum visit update

PZ has posted an update concerning his trip to the Creation Museum. Apparently they have over 20 people signed up to attend and it is getting Answer in Genesis a bit worried about security. I don't blame them, that's a of of people. I'd like to think that in general, rational thinkers are well behaved people, but with such a large group who knows how every person is going to act?

If Marijuana is legal, Will Addiction Rise?

There is a nice discussion in the NY Times today on this topic.
The article includes several opinions. One of the nice things is that the article doesn't contain the usual comments by:
1 - A usually less well informed parent concerned about the drug menace to their children
2- A representative from a government agency whose budget is dependent on the war on drugs
... or
3- Someone with a religious argument against the use of drugs

Don't get me wrong. Like anything else that has psychotropic effects there are downsides to taking a drug like marijuana. Furthermore, there will likely be an initial rise in use, although my guess is a longer term return to current use levels or lower. Also, I am sure there are people who will get "addicted" to marijuana. I think the issue here is that we all have an addictive personality to a greater or lesser extent and those who would get addicted to marijuana would find something else otherwise. Most people in the article would agree, this is a drug that is much safer than our current legalized alternatives of tobacco and alcohol, and likely safer than many of the widely prescribed drugs such as ambien and prozac. As Norm Stamper (former Seattle police chief) points out, one of the problems with marijuana, is not it's current higher strength, but no standards such that the consumer knows what strength of drug they are smoking.

Peter Reuter (professor of public policy and criminology) states there were 750,000 arrests last year for marijuana possession. This is a ridiculous waste of time, money, instills a disrespect for the law. Clearly, the current system doesn't work and the laws need to be changed.
I could go on, but you can fill in the blanks yourself.
BTW, for the record, I don't smoke marijuana and am not planning on doing so.

Roy

The Amazing Meeting is streaming

Click here to watch The Amazing Meeting going on right now in Las Vegas.

PZ's visit to the Creation Museum

Here's some more information on PZ Myer's visit to the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum in Northern Kentucky.

Looks like if you wish to join him on Aug 7th that you can register in advance and get $10 tickets as opposed to the full $22. Might be a good chance to go as they don't offer many free days.

Sea Level Rise: It's Worse Than We Thought

I just read an interesting on-line article from the New Scientist that discusses this. As the article states:

In its 2007 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecast a sea level rise of between 19 and 59 centimetres by 2100, but this excluded "future rapid dynamical changes in ice flow".

The rest of the fairly extensive article discusses the various types of modeling being done, much of it after the IPCC statement. As is often with such modeling, there is a great deal of uncertainty with complicated system such as the earth including how much greenhouse gas the world produces. However, the conclusion is that the sea level is likely to rise something between 0.8-2.0 meters by 2100 (and of course still increasing in subsequent years).


Sea level rise comes from a number of factors. To briefly mention a few from the article:
- Thermal expansion of water
- Glacier movement of ice into the sea from land
- Melting of surface water on the glacier tunneling beneath to lubricate the glacier movement.
- Surface melting on glaciers creating giant "ice cubes" which may tumble over increasing glacier flow rate
- Warmer sea water near the ice sheets melting from below releasing more dammed ice to increase flow off land

The author also points out that such a rise is consistent with geologic history. There have been instances where sea level has risen by 1.6 meters on average in a 100 year stretch during the last interglacial period and one report that suggests that sea level had risen by 3 meters in 50-100 years.

Roy

Paleontologists at the creation museum

The University of Cincinnati just hosted the North American Paleontological Convention and many of the scientists took a side trip to the creation museum in Northern Kentucky, itself created by the group Answers In Genesis.

Several of us have gotten the NY Times which had an article about this.

The article reported comments from the scientists such as:

Many of the paleontologists thought the museum misrepresented and ridiculed them and their work and unfairly blamed them for the ills of society.

“I think they should rename the museum — not the Creation Museum, but the Confusion Museum,” said Lisa E. Park, a professor of paleontology at the University of Akron.

However, there was a curious neutrality from the reporter, Kenneth Chang. He expressed the opinions of museum officials and a couple of non-scientist museum attendees as well as the paleontologists. It came across as much more "balanced" than I think the topic deserved.

Perhaps someone in the other camp would think the liberal NY Times has portrayed the creation side unfairly, something like the old Ronald Reagan line: "There you go again."

From my biased point of view, there is no other reasonable position and I would hope reporters would call these things honestly instead of with a false neutrality.

Roy

Rome Burns while Nero Fiddles

I was struck by the appropriateness of this phrase to our government today. First, a couple of words about the phrase itself:

There were no fiddles we know of during Roman times although they had other stringed instrument, the best known of these, the lyre. Nero loved to perform and had aspirations to be as good as professional performers and commissioned the making of lyres by the best in Rome. Suetonius, who viciously attacked Nero (with good reason in general), claimed that Nero had the fires set that burned down a substantial part of Rome in 64 AD as a means to forward his aim of urban renewal. He also claimed that Nero sang "The Fall of Llium" as he watched the flames engulf the city. Others saw Nero's actions as moderate and even a help in the catastrophe. In any case, the meaning of the phrase as it comes to us is clear, an act of purposely ignoring a catastrophe as it happens around us.

Such is the case with our government today. In an excellent editorial by Paul Krugman in the NY Times he points out the acts of congress concerning global warming with statements like:

And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.

and:

But if you watched the debate on Friday, you didn’t see people who’ve thought hard about a crucial issue, and are trying to do the right thing. What you saw, instead, were people who show no sign of being interested in the truth. They don’t like the political and policy implications of climate change, so they’ve decided not to believe in it — and they’ll grab any argument, no matter how disreputable, that feeds their denial.

This exactly captures the sense I get from the opposition to this problem. I couldn't have put it any better.

See It to Believe It

One of the things you learn as a skeptic is that sometimes seeing it isn't believing it.
Our group logo was meant to symbolize this idea with an apparent figure visible even if it really isn't there. (the symbol would probably be better if we could have slightly curved the line ends in the punctuated triangle).

Anyway, I came across a great optical illusion, by way of onegoodmove.org from Phil Plaits blog on bad astronomy at:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/24/the-blue-and-the-green/

The color illusion is so striking, it is hard to believe.

Check it out.

Roy

Symbols of Science

The University of Nottingham in England has been creating fun websites for teaching science.

Previously, they created a web site giving information about the elements:
http://www.periodicvideos.com/#

There is a similar site, also from England and the University of Sheffield that includes much more information and some amusing touches:
http://www.webelements.com/

For instance, under Iridium, they have the following cartoon:



Anyway, Nottingham has also started up a web site with nice little videos about various symbols of science. Here you can learn about symbols as diverse as Jupiter to the fine structure constant to Feiganbaum's constant:
http://www.sixtysymbols.com/#

PZ Myers to attend Creation Museum

Apparently PZ Myers will be taking a trip to the Creation Museum in Northern Kentucky this August. No details, yet. PZ has been arguing with Ken Ham recently and challenged him to invite actual scientists to tour the museum for an official review. Could be interesting.

Are Humans Evolving Faster

An interesting story I got from Onegoodmove.org.
I had always wondered whether humans were still evolving through a biological level of natural selection. The argument against would be that society supersedes selection. For instance, a society with remedies for genetic ailments may not naturally select for evolutionary improvements.
This article suggests the opposite with some genomic and observational evidence. They make the point that evolution is faster in larger populations, such as humans today.
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/06/the-past-40000-years-are-human-evolving-faster-a-galaxy-classic.html#more