No Pete, Thank YOU!

I just got my thank you letter from Pete Stark. He's the conressman who recently revealed that he didn't believe in God, making him the highest ranking openly non-theist politician in the United States.



It almost makes me want to live in his district. If you'd like to donate to his re-election campaign, click here.

The Atheism Tapes

This is from the out-takes of Jonathan Miller's A Brief History of Disbelief. Here he interviews British philosopher Colin McGinn and American physicist Steven Weinberg. It's about an hour long, but if you have the time, do check it out. I especially suggest the first 1/2 hour (McGinn interview). I found myself agreeing with everything McGinn said (except for the ontological argument--but who am I to disagree with a professional philosopher?--I think it has been terminally refuted).


Online Videos by Veoh.com

R.I.P. Larry "Bud" Melman

It's been well over a decade since I watched Letterman (or any late night show for that matter), but I can't help feeling a little something on reading about the passing of "Bud" Melman. So here's a little tribute, and if it doesn't make any sense, you'll just have to wait until the end. (I would have used the actual Offspring video, but they cut out that all-important ending.)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Everyone is Irish on St. Patrick's Day, so the saying goes. But what does it mean to be Irish? And who exactly was St. Patrick?

St. Patrick first: after reading How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill several years ago, I became convinced that we probably know about as much about the actual St. Patrick than we do about the actual St. Nicholas. The biggest difference seems to be that people still connect the legend of St. Pat with the historical man much, much more than they do for ole St. Nick. I think it's about time that changed. I am going on the record right now to declare that St. Patty is still with us. He lives on an uncharted isle off the coast of Ireland. And most important of all, St. Patrick is a Leprechaun!



Now what does it mean to be Irish? One way to get an answer to that question is to go up to an Irishman and say "I like your accent. Are you English?"

The English and the Irish have a long history of enmity. I've always considered the Greens and Oranges are basically the same people who happened to attend different churches on Sundays, but the English and the Irish, they actually are ethnically distinct. That was until I read this article by Nicholas Wade (not to be confused with St. Nick).

Historians teach that they are mostly descended from different peoples: the Irish from the Celts and the English from the Anglo-Saxons who invaded from northern Europe and drove the Celts to the country's western and northern fringes.

But geneticists who have tested DNA throughout the British Isles are edging toward a different conclusion. Many are struck by the overall genetic similarities, leading some to claim that both Britain and Ireland have been inhabited for thousands of years by a single people that have remained in the majority, with only minor additions from later invaders like Celts, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Vikings and Normans. The implication that the Irish, English, Scottish and Welsh have a great deal in common with each other, at least from the geneticist's point of view, seems likely to please no one.

I was intrigued reading this. It turns out, according to University of Oxford geneticist Stephen Oppenheimer, that the traditional view is totally bogus.

In Dr. Oppenheimer's reconstruction of events, the principal ancestors of today's British and Irish populations arrived from Spain about 16,000 years ago, speaking a language related to Basque.

The British Isles were unpopulated then, wiped clean of people by glaciers that had smothered northern Europe for about 4,000 years and forced the former inhabitants into southern refuges in Spain and Italy. When the climate warmed and the glaciers retreated, people moved back north. The new arrivals in the British Isles would have found an empty territory, which they could have reached just by walking along the Atlantic coastline, since the English Channel and the Irish Sea were still land.

This new population, who lived by hunting and gathering, survived a sharp cold spell called the Younger Dryas that lasted from 12,300 to 11,000 years ago. Much later, some 6,000 years ago, agriculture finally reached the British Isles from its birthplace in the Near East. Agriculture may have been introduced by people speaking Celtic, in Dr. Oppenheimer's view. Although the Celtic immigrants may have been few in number, they spread their farming techniques and their language throughout Ireland and the western coast of Britain. Later immigrants arrived from northern Europe had more influence on the eastern and southern coasts. They too spread their language, a branch of German, but these invaders' numbers were also small compared with the local population.

So essentially, it looks like this:

1. During the Ice Age, the British Isles were uninhabitable.
2. When the glaciers cleared, a single peoples repopulated the isles via a land bridge from Iberia.
3. Every subsequent invader has had to arrive by boat.
4. These later groups may have conquered and brought their languages and cultures, but didn't really add to the population make-up.
5. So today they are all still the same peoples, and genetic testing backs this up.

Wow!

The thing about that theory, is that when you really think about it, it makes perfect sense. The next part of the article, about a theory by Anglia Ruskin University geneticist Peter Foster, still blows me away.

English is usually assumed to have developed in England, from the language of the Angles and Saxons, about 1,500 years ago. But Dr. Forster argues that the Angles and the Saxons were both really Viking peoples who began raiding Britain ahead of the accepted historical schedule. They did not bring their language to England because English, in his view, was already spoken there, probably introduced before the arrival of the Romans by tribes such as the Belgae, whom Caesar describes as being present on both sides of the Channel.

The Belgae perhaps introduced some socially transforming technique, such as iron-working, which led to their language replacing that of the indigenous inhabitants, but Dr. Forster said he had not yet identified any specific innovation from the archaeological record.

Germanic is usually assumed to have split into three branches: West Germanic, which includes German and Dutch; East Germanic, the language of the Goths and Vandals; and North Germanic, consisting of the Scandinavian languages. Dr. Forster's analysis shows English is not an offshoot of West Germanic, as usually assumed, but is a branch independent of the other three, which also implies a greater antiquity. Germanic split into its four branches some 2,000 to 6,000 years ago, Dr. Forster estimates.

If that turns out to be true, then so much of what I learned about ancient British history will have been turned on its head. But back to St. Patty's Day, take it away Colbert.

Lemurtime!

I realize my blog isn't exactly Cute Overload! :) but there was just something about this pic that I couldn't resist.

When funny cartoonists lose their sense of humor

from Washington Post

Friday Madness 3/16/07 : Gospel Music or Death!

Yesterday at a New Jersey Turnpike rest stop, a 75 year old human rights activist was murdered by a "Humble" man.

Michail J. Makarenko, 75, a Hillsboro resident and former political prisoner, was pronounced dead about 30 minutes after the attack at a rest stop near the southern end of the New Jersey Turnpike, a state police spokesman said.

...

Makarenko and a friend were on their way to New York to meet other friends when they pulled over about 1 a.m. to use the bathroom, said the friend, Gregory Burnside, who was Makarenko's interpreter and personal secretary.

"I went to eat, and when I finished, maybe five or ten minutes later, he wasn't in the car," Burnside said. "Then I saw someone was on the ground. I got closer, and it was him. His head had been bashed in by a rock. I just did the sign of the cross over him, recited the Lord's Prayer and told him to hang in there."

But about a half-hour later, despite the efforts of paramedics, Makarenko died, Burnside said.

Makarenko had lived in the United States since 1979, when he was exiled by the Soviet government for his repeated dissident activities, according to an article in the Russian magazine Glasnost provided by Burnside.

Among his crimes were running an avant-garde art gallery and engaging in union organizing. He served a total of 11 years in prison. His longest term, eight years, was for anti-Soviet agitation, Burnside said. While in prison, he continued his activism, working for prisoners' rights, the article said.

Since coming to the United States, Makarenko had been a writer and lecturer, Burnside said. He testified before Congress about slavery in the Soviet Union and at the time of his death was gathering material for his autobiography, he said.

"He was an important dissident," Burnside said. "He fought for human rights and resisted communism every way he could."

What kind of a monster would kill an old man: a Russian dissident and human rights activist? One of Putin's Polonium hitmen? Not quite.

Authorities said Brian K. White, 26, of Humble, Tex., approached Makarenko to sell him a Christian music CD. When Makarenko declined, witnesses said, White struck Makarenko on the head with a landscaping rock. White climbed into his 1984 Chevy Camaro and fled northbound on the turnpike.

I can't help but think that there must be more to the story than just retaliation for not buying his Christian music. But in this mad world ...

Prayer works, not!

A new study at Arizona State University shows that prayer works.

David Hodge, an assistant professor of social work in the College of Human Services at the West campus, has conducted an exhaustive meta-analysis on the effects of intercessory prayer among people with psychological or medical problems.

In other words, does God – or some other type of transcendent entity – answer prayer for healing?

According to Hodge's study, “A Systematic Review of the Empirical Literature on Intercessory Prayer,” the answer is yes.

That's funny, I thought that the Benson study last year settled that issue. I wonder what new information Dr. Hodge has found.

“There have been a number of studies on intercessory prayer, or prayer offered for the benefit of another person,” says Hodge, a leading expert on spirituality and religion. “Some have found positive results for prayer. Others have found no effect. Conducting a meta-analysis takes into account the entire body of empirical research on intercessory prayer. Using this procedure, we find that prayer offered on behalf of another yields positive results.”

meta-analysis? What's that? And which studies is he talking about? Since I'm not about to spend my own money to buy a paper which I have good reason to believe is total dreck, I decided to see what Victor Stenger had to say about intercessory prayer in his book GOD: The Failed Hypothesis (which I just got in the mail today)

I discussed several specific examples in Has Science Found God? and will not repeat these here.

Oh well, that figures. I'm batting 0 for 2. But he did discuss some studies that came out since his last book. One of these was the Columbia "Miracle" Study.

One of the authors, Daniel P Wirth, is a lawyer without a medical degree. However, he does have a degree in parapsychology and has authored several articles in parapsychology journals claiming documented evidence for faith healing. In an unrelated matter, Wirth has since been imprisoned after being convicted of fraud, which included the use of names of dead people for financial gain.

The lead author of the paper was originally identified as Rogerio Lobo, then head of the Columbia University department of obstetrics and gynecology. However, shortly after publication, Columbia University announced Lobo was not even aware of the study until being informed by Cha six to twelve months after the study was completed. Lobo has since withdrawn his name from the study and any connection between Cha and Columbia has been severed. The paper, however, has not been formally withdrawn--a black mark on a great university.

Do you suppose that might be one of the studies Hodge meta-analyzed? It hasn't been formally withdrawn, so my guess is yes. But let's hear more about meta-analysis.

“Some people feel (Herbert) Benson and associates' study from last year, which is the most recent and showed no positive effects for intercessory prayer, is the final word,” says Hodge, referring to a 2006 article by Benson, of the Harvard Medical School, that measured the therapeutic effect of intercessory prayer in cardiac bypass patients. “But this research suggests otherwise. This study enables us to look at the big picture. When the effects of prayer are averaged across all 17 studies, controlling for differences in sample sizes, a net positive effect for the prayer group is produced.

“This is the most thorough and all-inclusive study of its kind on this controversial subject that I am aware of. It suggests that more research on the topic may be warranted, and that praying for people with psychological or medical problems may help them recover.”

Wow, his study is absolutely worthless! Let me explain why. The earlier studies he looked at had one of two possible results: either prayer had no effect, or it did. Now according to Stenger, many of those studies were suspect. The most recent Benson study which showed no effect, for example, was a follow-up to an earlier (heavily criticized) study he did which actually showed a slight effect. In last year's study, Benson took extra care to make sure that the study was very rigorous. So what Hodge did was to take all these studies (those with 0 effect, and those with >0 effect) and averaged them together to get ... surprise, surprise ... >0 effect. And then he has the audacity to claim that it's "scientific" because he used weighted averages. That's simply plain dishonest.

Just in case you're not completely with me, allow me to make an analogy. I'm going to take Hodge's own quotes and substitute a few words of my own.

There have been a number of intelligence reports on WMD's in Iraq ... Some have found evidence for WMD's. Others have found none.

This study enables us to look at the big picture. When the estimates of WMD's are averaged across all 17 intelligence reports, controlling for differences in sample sizes, a net positive effect for the presence of WMD's is produced.

This is the most thorough and all-inclusive study of its kind on this controversial subject that I am aware of. (I didn't have to change a single word of that sentence)

The best part of the ASU study is that even after averaging together all the different studies, Hodge still had to use his own standards to get a positive result.

Is it effective enough to meet the standards of the American Psychological Association's Division 12 for empirically validated interventions? No.

Averaging results from rigorous studies with those of not-so-rigorous and maybe even fraudulent studies then using your own standards does not good science make.

Beware the Ides of March!

Happy Birthday Albert!

Blogrolling

I have finally started doing something with my sidebar. It's about time--I've been lazy about it for way too long. So far, I have added "Donate to Project Beagle" (a very worthy project)

and I have also joined the atheist blogroll

I have my atheist blogroll set to show 25 links at a time. Within the next few days, I will be creating my own blogroll (some of whom are already on the atheist blogroll, but since it's a rolling 25, I'll repeat them) as well as links to several of my other favorite sites--science related and otherwise.

And while I'm at it, I would like to send a big thanks out to those bloggers who've already added me to their blogrolls (all the while I've been too lazy to make my own).
Jen Luc
Kristine
Donna
Janie
CrazyHarp
Of course, the fact that they're all female has absolutely no effect on my male ego. I swear!

Happy Pi Day!

Have a very happy Pi Day! (3/14, get it?)

A big hand for Bohemian Rhapsody

This guy is amazing! I have trouble making mellifluous fart noises with my armpit; I don't know he can be so melodic with just his hands. Here's his own explanation for the video.

this is my tribute to the california guitar trio! their version of bohemian rhapsody is second only to queen's! i was recently asked by these three genius's to play this song live at one of their concerts. i made this not to audition. but, to show them i could play their version! they have allowed me to post it so you could also see it too! remember, i play these songs straight through with no editing! so, 5 minutes 30 seconds of squeezing. very hard to do! thank you cgt! see you next time you're in michigan!

(Via JoCo--who I'll be seeing again in a couple of weeks at the milkboy)

Saturday Madness 3/10/07: Scotty's birthplace honored!

Sorry I'm a day late with my madness post, but I've been feeling rather sick of late. And furthermore, I've been having problems with blogger. About three days ago, my SiteMeter stopped working. I upgraded my blogger template, I put in all the correct code, and it still doesn't work. I don't need this right now.

Anyhoo, it seems the Scottish town of Linlithgow is building a memorial to Scotty from Star Trek (since that's where the fictional character was born). I kid you not.

A Scottish town is to set up a Star Trek memorial to celebrate its claim to the fictional birthplace of Scotty the engineer.

Ironically, the scheme - at Linlithgow - has been given the go-ahead by West Lothian's "enterprise committee".

Scotty, aka Montgomery Scott, played by Canadian-born actor James Doohan, is the chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise.

The £10,000 tribute will feature Doohan's original Star Trek costume, personal items donated by his family and a scale model of the famous spaceship.

Committee convener, Coun Willie Dunn, said: "We have made contact with Dorothy C Fontana, who wrote many of the original Star Trek episodes.

"She has confirmed the reference in one of her books about Linlithgow being Montgomery Scott's birthplace.

"Following James Doohan's death, we contacted his family and they are supporting our plans for a Star Trek exhibition at Linlithgow.

"It will be staged in Annet House Museum, which highlights the history of Linlithgow. Now it will also look into the future with our Star Trek display area."

Madness indeed, but might there be sane rationale behind this madness? Perhaps the smell of money?

He added: "The loyalty and dedication of Star Trek fans is quite exceptional.

"We believe our Star Trek exhibition will attract more visitors to Linlithgow and West Lothian. Niche tourism is a major growth area."

I thought so.

UPDATE:



It seems the Madness has spread to Finland.

A Finnish member of parliament is aiming for re-election by campaigning with a translation of his Web site into Klingon, used in the TV series Star Trek.

"Some have thought it is blasphemy to mix politics and Klingon," said Jyrki Kasvi, an ardent Trekkie. "Others say it is good if politicians can laugh at themselves."

He said his politics posed some translation difficulties, since Klingon does not have words for matters such as tolerance, or for many colours, including green -- the party under whose banner he is running in the national elections on March 18.

Non-warriors can also access the site, www.kasvi.org, in English, Swedish and Finnish.

Happy Birthday PZ!

Yesterday was the 50th birthday of one of my favorite science bloggers, PZ Myers of Pharyngula. I meant to post something yesterday, but I've been a bit under the weather. So I'll just post this squid animation as a day-late greeting.

Carnival of Mathematics: Edition III

The third edition of The Carnival of Mathematics is up at Michi's Blog. My favorite so far was the pi animation from Scott Cram's pi posts.

The Evolution of a Legal Case

On Tuesday night's FSGP meeting, I saw Stephen G. Harvey--an attorney with Pepper Hamilton LLP--speak. He was one of the lawyers in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial (on the good guys' side). This was the local Pennsylvania trial where Intelligent Design in the schools was challenged and defeated. The trial also marked the beginning of the end for Ricky Santorum.

I found the talk interesting. I already knew most of the story since I had been following the trial, but I did learn a few new details. Quick recap:

1. Dover area school board tries to get ID creationism into its schools.
2. Teachers refuse to teach the tripe; administrators come in to read pro-ID statement to students.
3. Several families (including the Kitzmillers) sue school district for establishment violation.
4. Pro bono lawyers backed by the ACLU and NCSE come to town and kick ass.
5. Textbook and rationale proven to be recycled biblical creationism.
6. School board members and textbook suppliers caught lying on the stand.
7. Intelligent Design proven to be sectarian religion and hence unconstitutional.
8. Judge Jones writes scathing decision against ID and the board.
9. Creationist school board members swept out of office come election day.
10. And they all lived happily ever after, The End!

So what new tidbits did I learn? For one, I learned that everything (except the name) about ID was recycled creationism. For example, Mr. Harvey showed a slide which compared a page from the ID textbook Of Pandas And People next to the same page from an earlier draft of the book. Every word was exactly the same except that everywhere that the draft said "Creationism," the official textbook said "Intelligent Design." (I actually knew that part) I always knew that ID was just repackaged creationism, but I (naively) thought that at least Michael Behe's argument of Irreducible Complexity of the bacterial flagellum was original. Boy was I wrong! It turns out that that exact same argument had been used by Creation Science.

I also learned some new details about the "perjury" ("" used because perjury is technically a legal term and no charges have yet been brought) of School Board Christocrat William Buckingham. This was good!

In the year prior to the whole bruhaha, Mr. Buckingham had made numerous pro-creationist an overtly Christian statements at several school board meetings. Since the plaintiffs could win the case by simply showing that pushing religious views was the motivation behind introducing ID, Billy had to deny all such statements at the trial, under oath, which he did. Of course, the next logical question would be why he never denied making such statements when it was being reported all over the local news. Mr. Harvey asked Billy questions to the effect of (paraphrased)

"Are you saying that you were completely unaware of the statements that were being attributed to you on the front page of the newspaper that you get delivered to your doorstep every morning?" To which the pious Mr. Buckingham replied (more or less) " I had no idea!"

After nailing him down good wth several questions to that effect, Steve Harvey then brought out the old television news clip. He showed the clip to us at his talk. I had heard about it, but that was the first time I'd seen it. You can watch the whole clip here. But I have decided to only embed the "proof of perjury" remix edited by Janiebelle. Enjoy!



After showing him the clip, Harvey asked Buckingham to explain himself. He said that since the whole creationism controversy that was in the news was dominating his thoughts at the time, he let it slip in front of the cameras. Stephen Harvey was not expecting to nail his prey so early. He admitted to us that these statements slipped right past him because he was already thinking about the next question. He did realize that something big had just happened. He knew Billy had dropped a bomb when the court stenographer's jaw dropped to the floor.

GOTCHA!!!!

Dick Cavett on bellicose vocabulary

I was thrilled when I found out that Dick Cavett was writing a blog on Times Select. His weblog posts have ranges in topic from the English Language to ghosts, to anecdotes about the Marx brothers. His latest post blew me away. What My Uncle Knew About War (subscription required) is a blend of English Language and anti-war posts. He tells of his uncle Bill, a WWII veteran.

The phrase Bill hated most was “gave his life.” That phrase is a favorite of our windbag politicians; especially, it seems, the dimmer ones who say “Eye-rack.”

“Your life isn’t given,” I remember him saying, “it’s brutally ripped away from you. You’re no good to your buddies dead, and when the bullets start pouring in you don’t give a goddamn about God, country, Yale, your loved ones, the last full measure of devotion or any other of that Legionnaire patriotic crapola. You just want you and your buddies to see at least one more sunrise.”

Hmmm, sounds to me like he's saying that all soldiers in foxholes are atheists. But most importantly, he hates euphemisms for violent death; he thinks the popular ones with politicians are fundamentally dishonest. And I agree! I've given my time as a volunteer. I've given money; I've given blood; but I wouldn't consider being murdered on the battlefield "giving my life."

This reminds me of a post by Massimo Pigliucci about the "war" metaphor. He was upset with the "war on terror, war on drugs, war on poverty," etc. It's not a very good analogy, and hence a bad metaphor. But even worse than that, the use of that metaphor glorifies war. It takes the most horrible and horrific invention of humankind, and uses it as an ideal paradigm that we should shoot for in our other endeavors. Yet the blowhards love to call everything a war. What I find most ironic about it all is that the same windbags who love the war metaphor, use the term "militant" as a derogatory slur. Putzes!

But back to Dick Cavett's uncle Bill.

The other word Bill hated was “sacrifice.” Sacrifice is something you give up in order to get something in return. What good are we getting from this monstrous error? Cooked up as it was by that infamous group of neocons (accent on last syllable) who, draft-averse themselves, were willing to inflict on the (largely unprivileged) youth of this country their crack-brained scheme for causing democracy to take root and spread like kudzu throughout that bizarre and ill-understood part of the world, the Middle East.

What service is this great country getting out of all this tragedy, other than the certainty that historians will ask in disbelief, “Was there no one to stand up to this overweening president?”

The short answer is that it's serving the egos and (for a time in the past, at least) short term political aspirations of the above mentioned neocons (you know where the accent goes). However, that doesn't stop the talking heads from using the term.

Earlier this week, John McCain made the same "blunder" that Barack Obabma had made earlier. He, like Obama, was forced to back off from his statement.

"I should have used the word, sacrificed, as I have in the past," the Arizona senator said after Democrats demanded he apologize as Sen. Barack Obama did when the White House hopeful recently made the same observation.

(emphasis mine)

Sorry John, but I think you were closer to the truth the first time.

Last night's eclipse

In the end the weather did not cooperate with me and I missed the entire eclipse. It was there somewhere obscured by clouds, but alas I did not witness it. Here's a taste of what I missed.

Eclipses!

Tonight as the sun goes down the East Coast will be treated to a total Lunar Eclipse. This is some very exciting stuff.

Total eclipse begins 5:44 p.m.
Total eclipse ends 6:58 p.m.
Partial eclipse ends 8:12 p.m.
Last shading visible? 8:50 p.m.

In just another four hours I will be in for one helluva sky show. Or will I? I went and checked my local weather and...



...AAAARRGGGHHHH!!!!
They've been wrong before, so I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed that I'll be able to see something. In the meantime, I'll have to make due with a different type of eclipse. This movie (Quicktime required) is a transit of the moon in front of the sun, shot in UV light, from the STEREO satellites. COOL!!! (via APOD & BA)

How many equations can you name?

Or do you even see any equations?

(via)

Friday Madness 3/2/07 : Tragic Clown!

Carnival of Mathematics: Edition II

Okay, I'm about a week late posting this--super sorry! The second edition of The Carnival of Mathematics is up at Good Math Bad Math. First, Mark does a great job as host; I love it when the Carnival host works a story into the post.

Second, once again the quality of blogging is exceptional. My favorites (sorry, no hotlinks, you'll have to go over to the Carnival itself for those) are the spider problem (fun puzzle), the rubiks cube (I'm meaning to write a post on group theory--and maybe even groupoids, ooh), Escher (Escher, 'nuff said), and the halting problem (Turing is da Man!).

David Mamet on Real Time

Last Friday on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, Bill interviewed writer/director David Mamet. Mamet has made some really awesome movies. He also wrote an excellent op-ed piece for the L.A. Times (no longer available online) where he compared politics to poker. He argued that the Democrats were weak because they never raised the pot (which is the only way to win at poker).

However, it also seems that he's a hardcore Jew and he's written a book lambasting moderate Jews for not getting with the program. Bill Maher asked him about this and here was his reply.

BM: I'm curious how somebody who is such a freethinker wants to herd people into the collectivism that is religion?

DM: Oh my goodness gracious! Here's the thing, Bill. Bob Dylan said "You gotta serve somebody." ...

I don't know about the "collectivism that is religion." I disagree with you; I get a lot of good out of religion, and so does my family, and so do a lot of people I know who happen to be religious. (applause)

Curiously, this is—and the Republicans discovered this—a religious country. And it's always been a religious country. It was founded by people who wanted to worship the way that they felt was correct. And they didn't like people putting them into a herd. Thomas Jefferson talked about "freedom from religion." America was, right or wrong, founded by people who wanted "freedom for religion." It's always been a religious country.

What I'm talking about in my book is for my particular people, who've been undergoing a tough time for the last 2000 years, I'm saying "Get hip to the fact. Get in or get out!"

"Feel free to be Jewish if you're a Jew; feel free not to be Jewish if you're a Jew. But if you have some of the following problems, these may be the seven danger signals of you're missing a great experience—you're missing your tribe. And that larger polity that you think you might belong—the American public at large—it may exist, but if you're a Jew, it don't exist for you!"

That's what I'm saying in the book. (applause)

Okay. Let's break this down.

Oh my goodness gracious! Here's the thing, Bill. Bob Dylan said "You gotta serve somebody." ...

And Lesley Gore said "You don't own me!" I don't think Dylan was right. But I know if I had to serve sombody, it sure as hell wouldn't be an imaginary sky-daddy.

I don't know about the "collectivism that is religion." I disagree with you; I get a lot of good out of religion, and so does my family, and so do a lot of people I know who happen to be religious. (applause)

And I know people who get a lot of good from their regular visits to the nail salon. So what! He didn't address the collectivism issue at all.

Curiously, this is—and the Republicans discovered this—a religious country. And it's always been a religious country. It was founded by people who wanted to worship the way that they felt was correct. And they didn't like people putting them into a herd. Thomas Jefferson talked about "freedom from religion." America was, right or wrong, founded by people who wanted "freedom for religion." It's always been a religious country.

Sigh! Maybe he should read Susan Jacoby's Freethinkers. Yes, there were founding fathers who wanted "freedom for religion," but guess what? They were siding against Jefferson, and Jefferson's side won.

What I'm talking about in my book is for my particular people, who've been undergoing a tough time for the last 2000 years, I'm saying "Get hip to the fact. Get in or get out!"

"Feel free to be Jewish if you're a Jew; feel free not to be Jewish if you're a Jew. But if you have some of the following problems, these may be the seven danger signals of you're missing a great experience—you're missing your tribe. And that larger polity that you think you might belong—the American public at large—it may exist, but if you're a Jew, it don't exist for you!"

"You're either with us, or you're for the terrorists!" -- George W. Bush
Get in or out? You're missing your tribe? You don't belong to the American public at large? What kind of absolute, divisionist credo is that? It seems to me that he just vindicated Maher's "collectivism" assertion.


PS---The real star of that episode was Ayaan Hirsi Ali; just watch.

Primates and stress

Yesterday I saw an interesting article at ScienceDaily titled Why Do Humans And Primates Get More Stress-related Diseases Than Other Animals?

Obviously the researchers don't write the headlines for these articles and press releases. (It's probably not the science reporters either. I'm guessing it's the editors.) News flash: Humans ARE primates; the headline is redundant. Had it said "Why do primates ..." or even "... humans and other primates ..." I wouldn't have twinged the way I did.

But to the article: Stanford University neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky claims that it's our higher intellect that causes our stress. He says that because we're super smart, we have all this extra time to make each other's lives miserable.

"Primates are super smart and organized just enough to devote their free time to being miserable to each other and stressing each other out," he said. "But if you get chronically, psychosocially stressed, you're going to compromise your health. So, essentially, we've evolved to be smart enough to make ourselves sick."

He backs up his assertions with baboon studies he's done. Why baboons you ask?

"The reason baboons are such good models is, like us, they don't have real stressors," he said. "If you live in a baboon troop in the Serengeti, you only have to work three hours a day for your calories, and predators don't mess with you much. What that means is you've got nine hours of free time every day to devote to generating psychological stress toward other animals in your troop. So the baboon is a wonderful model for living well enough and long enough to pay the price for all the social-stressor nonsense that they create for each other. They're just like us: They're not getting done in by predators and famines, they're getting done in by each other."

It turns out that unhealthy baboons, like unhealthy people, often have elevated resting levels of stress hormones. "Their reproductive system doesn't work as well, their wounds heal more slowly, they have elevated blood pressure and the anti-anxiety chemicals in their brain, which have a structural similarity to Valium, work differently," Sapolsky said. "So they're not in great shape."

Monkeys going around making each other's lives a living hell, where have I heard that before?



While he may sound like a fatalist, he's actually quite an optimist (at least for our species of primate).

"We are capable of social supports that no other primate can even dream of," he said. "For example, I might say, 'This job, where I'm a lowly mailroom clerk, really doesn't matter. What really matters is that I'm the captain of my softball team or deacon of my church'--that sort of thing. It's not just somebody sitting here, grooming you with their own hands. We can actually feel comfort from the discovery that somebody on the other side of the planet is going through the same experience we are and feel, I'm not alone. We can even take comfort reading about a fictional character, and there's no primate out there that can feel better in life just by listening to Beethoven. So the range of supports that we're capable of is extraordinary."

So primates are prone to life-shortening stress due to their superior intellect over other animals, while humans have the power to overcome this due to our superior intellect over other primates. I like that. Which reminds me: one more day of this self-imposed stress of "a new post every day for the month of February" even though I'm tired when I get home. I wonder if other primates bring stress upon themselves? I can't really complain though, I wouldn't have done this if it weren't fun.

Favorite Movies

It seems some of the 2008 presidential candidates have revealed their favorite movies. I can't say I'm too surprised by Rudy's choice (The Godfather). It is a great movie and one of my favorites. And I'm shocked! Shocked at Hillary's choice (not really). Remember, we'll always have the 90's. I'm rather upset that Barack didn't chime in. Now I'm dying to know which movie is his favorite.

But picking a favorite movie isn't always that easy. Maybe some people have it easy and have a clear favorite, but not me. I happen to love both of the above movies. And there's so many other great dramas and comedies that I love that it would be unfair to single any ones out (cheat: The Day The Earth Stood Still, A Fish Called Wanda). But if I had to pick just one, I guess I'd have to go with a silly one. I can't help it but I love this movie.

Which brings me to candidate John Edwards. I gotta love a guy whose favorite movie has the same lead actor as my choice. Besides, nuclear (or is it nucular?) proliferation is once again a hot topic--just check out this opinion piece by Lawrence Krauss (yes, the same Lawrence Krauss I ripped into here. I agree with him on this {and actually most} topic).

Take it away, Jack Ripper!

Pictures from LiveScience

Army of Sea Cucumbers marching in Unison.


The website LiveScience.com has a way of finding really cool pictures. The above picture of the sea cucumbers was taken near the Larson B shelf in Antarctica. The article doesn't explain their polarization, which is a shame because that's the most fascinating part. The same article had this picture of a "psychedelic octopus" (Paraledone turqueti).




And finally I'll leave you with this picture--if you've got the stomach.

Friday Madness 2/23/07 : Yo Quiero Taco Bell!

Perhaps you remember the famous urban legend about the lady who goes to Mexico and comes home with a new pet dog. In case you forgot, here's the rundown from Snopes.

A woman from La Mesa, California, went to Tijuana, Mexico, to do some shopping. As any visitor to this border town knows, the streets near the shopping areas are populated with stray dogs. The woman took pity on one little stray and offered it a few bites of her lunch, after which it followed her around for the rest of the afternoon.

When it came time to return home, the woman had become so attached to her little friend that she couldn't bear to leave him behind. Knowing that it was illegal to bring a dog across the international border, she hid him among some packages on the seat of her car and managed to pass through the border checkpoint without incident. After arriving home, she gave the dog a bath, brushed his fur, then retired for the night with her newfound pet curled up at the foot of her bed.

When she awoke the next morning, the woman noticed that there was an oozing mucus around the dog's eyes and a slight foaming at the mouth. Afraid that the dog might be sick, she rushed him to a nearby veterinarian and returned home to await word on her pet's condition.

The call soon came. "I have just one question," said the vet. "Where did you get this dog?"

The woman didn't want to get into trouble, so she told the vet that she had found the dog running loose in the street near her home in La Mesa.

But the vet didn't buy it. "You did not find this dog in La Mesa. Where did you get the dog?"

The woman nervously admitted having brought the dog across the border from Tijuana. "But tell me, doctor," she said. "What is wrong with my dog?"

His reply was brief and to the point. "First of all, it's not a dog — it's a Mexican sewer rat. And second, it's dying."

Could someone really confuse a Chihuahua with a rat? Could the Taco Bell dog actually be a giant sewer rat? Maybe. Judge for yourself.

Bacteria wick through fungal hyphae

Laser Scanning Microsope photograph of fungi Fusarium oxysporum showing the hyphae (green threads)

I saw this article today on ScienceDaily. It talked about how soil bacteria use hyphae (thread-like structures) of the mycelia (branching, vegetative part) of soil fungi in order to get around. Basically, the bacteria use fungal mycelia as a grand underground highway network.

This is interesting, but the reason I felt compelled to blog about this article is the following quote.

“We deliberately make the bacteria work their way upwards against gravity so that people can’t say there could be a small amount of water trickling down and carrying the bacteria with it,” says Wick.

Dr Lukas Y. Wick: what an appropriate name. I just think that's funny.

Russia confirms humanist philanthropist as next space tourist

Russia has now confirmed that Hungarian born billionaire Charles Simonyi will become the world's fifth space tourist on April 7th.

The world's next space tourist, Hungarian-born US billionaire Charles Simonyi, will blast off on his journey to the International Space Station on April 7, Russia's space agency said Tuesday. Simonyi will become only the fifth space tourist in the world when he makes the trip the research facility aboard the Russian vessel Soyuz TMA-10.

Charles Simonyi was a computer programmer who made his fortune by getting into Microsoft just before it exploded (his work at Xerox PARC labs probably helped give him an in there).

His most well known philanthropic endeavor is Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science. Here's a snippet from its Manifesto.

The chair is for ‘Public Understanding of Science’, that the holder will be expected to make important contributions to the public understanding of some scientific field rather than study the public’s perception of the same. By ‘public’ we mean the largest possible audience, provided, however, that people who have the power and ability to propagate or oppose the ideas (especially scholars in other sciences and in humanities, engineers, journalists, politicians, professionals, and artists) are not lost in the process. Here it is useful to distinguish between the roles of scholars and popularisers. The university chair is intended for accomplished scholars who have made original contributions to their field, and who are able to grasp the subject, when necessary, at the highest levels of abstraction.

The first and current holder of that chair is none other than Richard Dawkins. So the benefactor who has made all of Dawkins' current work possible is about to get "closer to God."

UPDATE:

Charles Simonyi says he wants two books with him up into space (and he dreams of a "space library.")

Don't Make Me Dance!

From the people who brought you Code Monkey Dance ...

What to believe

What do you believe and why do you believe it? There are many things we believe with varying degrees of certainty. A purely rational being will rank his beliefs based on the amount of knowledge he has.

But we are not purely rational beings. Our confidence in each of our beliefs does not necessarily follow from the evidence. This can be a good thing, though. A fixed belief system makes for a much more efficient and streamlined operating system--just not quite as flexible as the purely rational being.

If this is starting to sound like the religion vs. science debate, it is. The conventional wisdom (in the "science crowd") is that scientists base their beliefs on the evidence, while religious beliefs are based on blind faith. Furthermore, a scientist's degree of certainty in her belief is proportional to the amount of supporting evidence, while a devout person has near perfect certainty about highly dubious claims. (I always get a kick upon hearing creationists call "Darwinism" a religion) Of course, reality is full of shades of gray.

For one, there's the phenomenon known as compartmentalization. This is where someone can hold perfectly rational beliefs about one subject while believing completely unsubstantiated woo in another. And then there is the matter of "efficient operating system" that I mentioned earlier. If we only believed what we could personally confirm, our lives would be simple and narrow.

When the AP wire announces that archeologists have discovered 3K year old tombs in Egypt, I believe them just as surely as if I were there to see it. But I'm not; I've never even been to Africa. Blind faith? No. It's a little something called trust.

Trust is nature's shortcut for helping us evaluate information. We would never get anything done if we relied on personally evaluating everything. That's why we put our trust in others. Now this is not the same as the Appeal to Authority fallacy. The AtA fallacy is about ignoring the veracity of the claim itself in favor of the character of the claimant. Trust is just a shortcut. One should always be willing to re-evaluate beliefs based on trust. These beliefs can be perfectly rational.

That's because trust must be earned!

And as surely as it's earned, it can be lost. Young children tend to trust all authority figures blindly. But as they learn to think for themselves, their trust starts growing a price tag. Back to religion vs. science, when I was younger and attended Catholic school, I trusted the priests and brothers who taught me religion. But as I went learning how much of what they taught me was lies, my trust in them began to erode. Today, claims made by religious authorities carry about as much weight with me as a random phrase generator.




This brings me to the story of Marcus Ross Ph.D.

KINGSTON, R.I. — There is nothing much unusual about the 197-page dissertation Marcus R. Ross submitted in December to complete his doctoral degree in geosciences here at the University of Rhode Island.

His subject was the abundance and spread of mosasaurs, marine reptiles that, as he wrote, vanished at the end of the Cretaceous era about 65 million years ago. The work is “impeccable,” said David E. Fastovsky, a paleontologist and professor of geosciences at the university who was Dr. Ross’s dissertation adviser. “He was working within a strictly scientific framework, a conventional scientific framework.”

But Dr. Ross is hardly a conventional paleontologist. He is a “young earth creationist” — he believes that the Bible is a literally true account of the creation of the universe, and that the earth is at most 10,000 years old.

This story has been discussed at length here and here. Never mind for the moment his kooky beliefs about the age of the Earth. Let's talk about the inherent dishonesty in what he did.

In this situation we have an example of someone who carefully hid his true belief from the thesis committee, or at least went out of his way to give them an excuse to avoid facing up to the main problem. This is deceptive and antithetical to how science is supposed to operate (see Some People Defend Lying for Jesus). It opens a whole other can of worms. While most of us would agree that openly advocating a young Earth in your thesis would be grounds for failure, we couldn't fail someone who effectively lied about his "scientific" opinion. We put our faith in honesty and scientific integrity whenever possible. It's the default assumption.

But here's the rub. Although there wasn't anything in his thesis about a 10,000 year old Earth it wasn't the case that his examining committee was completely ignorant of Ross' true views on paleontology. In fact, they were aware of the history. They knew Ross was a Young Earth Creationist when they admitted him to graduate school and they had no reason to suspect that he had changed his mind.

The bottom line is that faculty of Rhode Island University gave a Ph.D. degree in geology to someone they knew to be a "scientist" who believed that the Earth is only 10,000 years old. Furthermore, they gave a Ph.D. to someone who they knew was deliberately misrepresenting his "scientific" views in his thesis. They had every reason to suspect that this misrepresentation was for the sole purpose of getting the Ph.D. since Ross knew that by being honest about his rejection of a old Earth, he would not graduate. This is a double whammy since not only was Ross ignorant of the basic principles in his field but also ignorant of the principles of scientific integrity.

His entire education is nothing but a lie as far as I'm concerned. And URI should be deeply ashamed for letting this happen. This is a major violation of trust! When I hear a Ph.D. geologist or paleontologist speak, I have certain expectations relating to that degree of their's. This is a sham! It wouldn't be much different if I went and became a minister.



Oh yeah, that's right. By the way, from now on you will address me as the reverend science pundit. I may not be a scientist (we all know that to be a pundit, no special credentials are needed--hence the moniker.), but I can perform rites.

And if I ever when I go back to school, it won't be at URI. I just don't think I can trust them.

Happy Presidents Day!

Okay, Here's how I'm celebrating Presidents Day.

I can kick him now that he's "cured"

A few days ago, I stumbled upon this video on YouTube which I found hilarious. It's a satire of the Richard Dawkins interview of Ted Haggard in The Root of all Evil? If you've never seen the original, click on this link before going further.

What this guy did was to take some footage from The Root of all Evil? and substitute himself for Pastor Ted. This was pure genius. His facial expressions captured Haggard perfectly. The funny thing is ... that he didn't change that much from the original. An added sheep-call, a fake moustache, a book and a Village Person just help highlight all that actually was said in the original. After watching the spoof, I had to go back and watch the original to see if some of the more outlandish things were made-up or real. Were the crowds chanting "Obedience?" Were they doing the Roman salute? Yes, they were!

Pure genius! Enjoy!

Amazing Animal Human Tricks

One of the most popular types of tricks that people teach their pets is to "act human." It's amazing when animals do things that we only thought we could do. But what about the reverse? What about when people do what we thought only animals could do?

A while back, I saw this article in LiveScience called Top 10 Animal Senses Humans Don't Have. I say give humanity a chance. You might be surprised at what we can accomplish when we try.

For example, do you think people can sniff out a chocolate bar like some kind of hound? According to UC Berkeley researchers, yes.

To test Sobel and Porter's smell hypothesis, the UC Berkeley researchers soaked a 33-foot (10-meter) string in chocolate essence and laid it in the grass outside Barker Hall, located at the northwest corner of the UC Berkeley campus. They then garbed volunteers to block their senses of sight, hearing and touch, eliminating all clues other than smell to guide them along the trail. Sniffing like bloodhounds, two-thirds of 32 subjects were able to follow the chocolate scent to the end of the trail within three attempts. All volunteers zigzagged along the trail in the same way that tracking dogs follow a scent.



The researchers then trained four of these volunteers to see if they could improve. All were able to double their speed along the track within just a few days and deviated much less from the scent trail than on their first attempts. The researchers measured subjects' sniffs and noticed that the faster the subjects moved along the trail, the more rapid their sniffing - just as with dogs, though not as fast as the six sniffs per second rate exhibited by dogs.

I bet you didn't know that you could do that! You probably never realized that you were capable of echlocation. Check this kid out! (via)

Ready, set ... cheat!

First, let me just say that I love that picture! I got it from this Chris Beam column in Slate. He explains how one can cheat in NASCAR--a rather appropriate topic given the huge cheating scandal at the Daytona 500 which has even tainted the popular Jeff Gordon (though he didn't intentionally cheat; his case would be akin to an Olympic athlete who didn't realize that there were minute traces of a banned substance in his/her cold medication).

I find this all very interesting being that my sport (bicycling) is still under the pall of doping. Speaking of cycling, it seems that disgraced Tour de France champion Floyd Landis will be releasing his autobiography on the opening day of this year's Tour. Perhaps he should name it If I had doped for the Tour, this is how I did it.

Friday Madness 2/16/07 : Valentine Madness!

Batman Eats Robin!

What do bats eat? We all know about vampire bats--they suck blood. Although I personally think the most fascinating thing about vampires is that they share their bloodmeals with cave-mates who were less fortunate in finding a vein. Then there are the fruit bats, they eat ... well, fruit. Then there's the insect eating bats. In fact, much of the bat's famous sonar evolved to help them catch flying insects in the dark. It would also stand to reason that there would be omnivorous bats that ate some combination of the above. But do bats eat birds?

Well it seems that the giant noctule bat (Nyctalus lasiopterus) does just that.

A unique creature is indeed capable of exploiting the formidable food source represented by the billions of high-flying, Eurasian songbirds which engage twice a year into long-distance, north-south or south-north nocturnal movements. The danger seems especially acute where birds' flight routes converge around the Mediterranean basin, such as the Iberian Peninsula. This newly recognized hazard adds to the numerous obstacles that sea and desert crossings already represent for fragile migratory passerines. Actually, the newly uncovered danger comes from the deep black sky, in the form of a 45 cm wing-spanned aerial-hawking mammal, equipped with sharp canines and an efficient radar system which remains probably largely inaudible to songbirds.

Bird eating bats?? Oh my!!

Scientists first suspected this might be the case a few years back when they found feathers in bat feces (I thought it was called guano?), but were met with much justified skepicism. To settle the issue, they looked at isotopes of oxygen and nitrogen in the bats and the suspected prey. All elements exist in isotopes, where the number of protons is the same, but the number of neutrons differs. The ratios of different isotopes varies in nature and can be detected using mass spec analysis. Since "you are what you eat," you can determine an animal's diet by comparing its isotope ratios to that of its suspected diet sources.

But how to study the foraging habits of an elusive predator that chases its favourite prey several hundreds if not thousands of metres above the ground in total darkness?

To elucidate the mysterious habits of giant noctule bats, an ambitious investigation led by young scientist Ana Popa-Lisseanu, under Prof. Ibañez' supervision, was launched by Spanish research teams based in Sevilla (Doñana Biological Station) and Granada (Zaidín Experimental Station) thanks to funding from the Spanish Environmental Ministry. The programme was soon joined by one of their once most virulent Swiss detractors (Prof. Raphaël Arlettaz, University of Bern and Swiss Ornithological Institute). The technique of stable isotopes was applied because this recently developed method allows tracking species' main dietary specializations and trophic level position along food chains. The researchers concentrated on carbon and nitrogen isotopes, which are among the best dietary tracers. They analysed their concentrations in bats' blood throughout the year, predicting major seasonal shifts in isotopic signatures towards bird prey in spring and, especially, during autumn. In parallel, isotopic signatures of whole insect bodies and passerine muscular tissues were tracked throughout the year, serving as a control. The results elegantly showed that the bats ate only insects in summer, included some songbirds' flesh in their diet during spring, and depended a great deal on passerines during autumn. Moreover, a higher fraction of songbirds' flesh in autumn than in spring was attributed to the more massive passerine migration in autumn, because both parents and offspring migrate then towards their wintering grounds in Africa, whereas in spring only birds having survived winter mortality return to their breeding area. In addition, young birds in autumn may represent naïve, inexperienced, i.e. more vulnerable prey.

(emphasis mine) Why, you ask, did I highlight the fact that these bird eating bats also eat insects? After all, everyone knows that bats eat insects. So what's the deal? The deal is that sometimes insects eat bats. You don't believe me? Then watch this.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Mindless Imitation

Several months ago, I read an article in NewScientist titled Mindless Imitation Teaches Us How To Be Human. The article really blew me away because it suggested that, despite the popular notion, the true “aper” of the animal kingdom is Homo Sapiens. It turns out that from a very young age, we learn by rote imitation. This classic study was used as an example.

Andrew Meltzoff from the University of Washington in Seattle got 14-month-old infants to watch as a woman turned on a light box by leaning forward and touching it with her forehead. A week later when presented with the light box, two-thirds of the infants performed the head action to switch on the light, even though they could have more easily done it using their hands.

The curious thing is that no other animal shows this degree of fidelity. When given a choice, chimps will tend to do the “smart” thing rather than repeat what they were taught.

The difference between the way chimps and humans learn is clearly illustrated in a study with children and captive chimps published last year by Victoria Horner and Andrew Whiten of the University of St Andrews, UK. They compared the methods that 3 and 4-year-old children used to retrieve a reward from a puzzle-box with those used by 2 to 6-year-old chimps under two conditions, one where the box was transparent, showing its mechanism, the other where it was opaque. With the opaque box, chimps imitated all the demonstrator's actions, but when they could see the workings, they only reproduced those actions that actually functioned to open the box. Children, on the other hand, were happy to faithfully copy all the actions even when they could see that some of them were ineffectual (Animal Cognition, vol 8, p 164).

These results suggest that chimps can imitate, but if they can work things out for themselves, then they will.

My first thought was that that explained why us humans continue to believe in silly superstitions, Bronze Age religions, and other forms of magical thinking despite evidence to the contrary. I saw this as a handicap that needed to be overcome. However, upon further reflection, I have to agree with psychologists who believe it is our greatest strength.

At first glance such unquestioning imitation seems foolish. Like Sylvia, we may end up doing silly things for no good reason. Psychologists Gyorgy Gergely from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest and Gergely Csibra of Birkbeck, University of London don't see it that way. To them, our talent for high-fidelity copying is among our greatest assets. They think that our species is uniquely adapted to both receive and pass on knowledge and skills. What's more, they argue, this everyday education - which they call pedagogy - is at the root of the rich cultural life that marks us out from all other animals.

This seems like clear evidence that memetics is real. We would be unable to acquire and maintain the vast sum of knowledge that is human culture without such faithful copying of information. It is indeed one of our greatest assets. While “thinking outside the box” has become prized by many in the business and scientific communities, a perpetual novelist will not outperform an inerrant copier. You will bog yourself down if you constantly reinvent the wheel—even if your wheels are superior. The key is to faithfully copy but to be able to recognize those rare occasions when a new meme is in order. Magical thinking then becomes a side effect of one of our great strengths.

Happy Belated Darwin Day!

Yesterday was Darwin Day. It marked the 198th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth. The really big celebration will be in 2009, to celebrate the bicentennial. Among the events we should expect on that day is the culmination of the Beagle Project.

Welcome to the Beagle Project: we aim to provide the most compelling events of Charles Darwin's 2009 anniversary by building a sailing replica of HMS Beagle and sailing in Darwin's wake. The build and Beagle's arrival in the Galapagos in 2009 will be two of the most striking, iconic media events of the 2009 celebrations, aimed at firing the scientific imaginations of a new generation and celebrating the life and work of Charles Darwin, one of the greatest biologists ever.

I encourage everyone who hasn't done so already, to check out their website and donate some money to an incredibly worthy project.

But why did I wait until today to post this? Quite simply, I consider November 22nd to be the true Darwin Day. That was the day (in 1859) when The Origin of Species went on sale; that was the day that changed the world. I've always thought that celebrating the birthdays of important people missed the point. It makes sense to celebrate one's own birthday--or the birthday of one's child or loved one--that date has personal significance. But when you're talking about an important historical figure, their birth is really insignificant. I mean, what really happened on the day that George Washington, or Caesar Augustus, or Martin Luther King Jr. was born? Another baby was delivered. Whoop-dee-doo! It wasn't until later that these people would do what made them "go down in history."

If you're familiar with my blog, then you've probably already smelled the BS. Fact is, I was travelling much of the day yesterday, and when I got home it was late and I was tired and just not in the mood to write the post I had planned. I do however stand by everything I said about important people's birthdays--just not enough to eschew celebrations.

On a final note, I'd also like to encourage evryone to become a Friend of Charles Darwin. That way you can put FCD after your name--just like me.

--Javier Pazos, FCD

Carnival of Mathematics

The first edition of the Carnival of Mathematics is up at Abstract Nonsense. There are some very interesting posts there. There's even a small contribution from yours truly.