Rebranding Skepticism

Ticktock of Science-Based Parenting has an article up concerning what skepticism is to the general public. He contends that skeptics are not the cynics. The cynical ones are those who hold irrational beliefs.

I think groups like the Association for Rational Thought does a nice job of staying positive about reality and science. We bring in speakers who focus on a variety of topics not limited to the traditional skeptical topics. Instead of tearing down ideas, we look forward to ideas that may or may not work, but at least they are based on evidence. There are certainly times for tearing down bad ideas, but during our meetings we try to find the solid ground of reason and evidence.

By the way, Ticktock is a Cincinnati-based blogger.

Creation Museum passes 1,000,000 visitors

Apparently the Creation Museum passed 1,000,000 visitors, yesterday.

Paleo Future

Here's a neat blog about what people used to think the future would look like. Obviously we see some hits and misses. I heard about this blog on the way home from work today on All things Considered.

SkeptiCamp and Other Acts of Skepticism in Ohio

Looks like our neighbors to the north east are doing some stuff. Check it out.

Math is useful

Look kids, mathematics is useful. Hey, I know there are plenty of reasons for a solid mathematics education, but I saw this story and thought that it was a great example.

Michael Specter: The danger of science denial

Here's a great talk by Micheal Specter on denialism.

It shouldn't be surprising to most people who are checking here, but it is worth a listen.

What's the harm?

Check out whatstheharm.net. It's a nice resource that compiles examples of why something of the crazy things that people believe in are not a harmless as many would like you to think.

Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos Photosynth

In my wildest dreams I did not see this coming. And it's almost here. Truly another quantum leap in information technology.
http://www.ted.com/talks/blaise_aguera_y_arcas_demos_photosynth.html

Nature by Numbers

Beautiful

James Randi

is gay. Bravo, sir.

What is the speed of gravity?

Apparently it depends on what model you are using, but this short article seems to think that it is near the speed of light. Current technology cannot measure it directly, but we may be able to in the future. That seems reasonable to me.

This is a nice little Physics FAQ.

ART meeting: Dean Regas

Tomorrow March 13th Dean Regas will be presenting to ART. 10:00AM at Molly Malone's in Pleasant Ridge. Join us, it is open to the public.

Zicam lawsuit

It appears that Stan Chesley has filed a lawsuit against the makers of Zicam. Zicam marketed itself as a homeopathic remedy for colds, but it turns out that it isn't homeopathic at all. Zicam contains a Zinc compound that has caused some people to lose their sense of smell. So not only is this product dangerous, but it is also circumventing laws that would require testing by calling itself homeopathic. Isn't it time for the FDA to start regulating so-called homeopathic drugs? Start testing them for efficacy, then we can no longer worry about these con artists from selling people water and claiming that they are miracle cures.

Unfortunately the comments at Cincinnati.com focus either on Stan Chesley's politics or are people claiming that they don't mind losing their sense of smell, just give them back their sweet relief in Zicam.

More 2012 nonsense

A spambot showed up in the comments here.

The site is a cornucopia of nonsensical rambling about Nibiru tearing planet in half and how the Mayan's predicted the end of the world. It seems like an awful lot of work for a site that won't be there on Jan 1st 2013.

I think the 2012 fantasy is amazing in the fact that it not only abuses just about every science discipline, but it also neglects history an tried to tie in many cultural and religious myths to justify its claims. Who buys this stuff?

Snow and Climate Change

Brrr... It's cold out side and look at all the snow! Where's the Global Warming?

These last couple of weeks have been a boon for the Global Warming Denialists. I've seen so many people claiming that all the snow that has fallen on us the last few weeks are proof that Global Warming is some kind of lie.

Snow means cold, right? And if it is cold that must mean that there is no Global Warming. That's pretty much the whole argument summed up right there. Really, do these people expect an eternal summer? The axis of the Earth isn't dramatically shifting. My biggest ripe about the whole mentality is that there is very little thought put into the whole Global Warming thing.

First, just because you have snow on your doorstep doesn't mean the whole world is covered in snow. You can't extrapolate the world's temperature based on the temperature at your house.

Second, that brings us to the next point. There are not only two temperatures, snow and not snow. Global Warming talks about the rise of temperature, the amount of precipitation is a complex side effect of the temperature and a variety of other factors. One of the driest places on Earth is in Antarctica, meaning it gets very little precipitation. So since it snows less there, does that mean it is warmer?

Third, the weather is not the climate. Temperature is very noisy and confusing the noise for a signal is a novice mistake. Factors like El Nino make using the weather to predict the climate completely unreliable. We can't point to a weather event, say Katrina, and say this is proof of Global Waring, just as someone can't point to the pile of snow and say that it is proof against Global Warming.

Finally, I believe that Al Gore did somewhat of a disservice to Climate Science. Anytime Global Warming comes up it is now about Al Gore using his private jet to fly around the globe. The science in An Inconvenient Truth may have been sound, but he has effectively turned off the minds of a good percentage of the population who believe that this is some kind of liberal conspiracy.

NPR has a nice article up on why you have to think about things a bit deeper before making broad generalizations.

More Scale

Depth of the ocean.

Strange Bedmates: Conservative and Liberal Advocates for Judicial Activism

Join ART this weekend 10:00AM at Molly Malone's in Pleasant Ridge. The program will continue till noon with lunch and discussion afterwards.

New Deal liberals condemned the conservative activists who invalidated progressive economic regulations, and 21st Century conservatives denounce liberal activist judges for legislating from the bench on abortion, gay rights, criminal procedure, and religious liberty. Progressives on the left and libertarians on the right have recently joined forces in suits asking judges to find unconstitutional overbroad criminal laws, bans on gay marriage, and limits on gun ownership. Are there any principled legal boundaries or legitimate political checks on the abuse of Judicial Review by justices who substitute personal policy preferences for the choices made by popularly elected legislators?

UC Professor of Political Science and adjunct Professor of Law Howard Tolley Jr. earned a PhD at Columbia and a JD as a human rights fellow at the UC College of Law. He served as President of the Cincinnati ACLU and member of the state board, clerked for a judge on the US 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, and does fact finding/mediation in public sector labor disputes for the State Employment Relations Board. He teaches undergraduate public law courses on the U.S. legal system and Constitution as well as international law and human rights. His publications include three sole authored books and nine interactive Teaching Human Rights Online cases http://homepages.uc.edu/thro/

Math Opinion in the NY Times

A new series in the New York Times takes on Math. This ought to be an interesting looking to the power of abstraction, why math is interesting to so many people, and how it has brought us to where we are today.

Why do people often vote against their own interests?

I have often wondered about this myself. This article goes a long way towards making sense of the issue. Possibly the most cogent point in the article comes from Thomas Frank.

"Thomas Frank says that whatever disadvantaged Americans think they are voting for, they get something quite different:

You vote to strike a blow against elitism and you receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our life times, workers have been stripped of power, and CEOs are rewarded in a manner that is beyond imagining.

"It's like a French Revolution in reverse in which the workers come pouring down the street screaming more power to the aristocracy."

I have to disagree with the author's comment that "This is a culture war but it is not simply being driven by differences over abortion, or religion, or patriotism." Somehow the party of big business has co-opted moral and patriotic authority as their domain, and branded the party of the working class and poor as morally bankrupt. How did they manage that? Could it be as simple as having more advertising dollars?

Why is CBS in Bed with the Religious Right on Super Bowl Sunday?

A thought provoking article in the Huffington Post.
I had never considered that there might be an overt bias toward one "Christian" view point versus another in an organization as large as CBS.