Gay Marriage Legalized in Iowa

Woooo! Though I’m sure you’ve heard it in a billion other places already.

Good job, Iowa. I used to lump you with all the other conservative backwards states (including my own), but you’ve proven me wrong. I take back (most of) the bad things I may have said about you. If Iowa can do this, it gives me hope that a lot of other states will soon follow suit.

As long as Indiana isn’t the last state to legalize it, I’ll be happy. I have low standards for a state with such a bad track record with homosexuality.

Mystery Injuries

Don’t you hate it when you realize you’re injured in some way, and you have no idea what caused it? Like waking up with a mysterious bruise and not remembering bumping into anything?

I woke up this morning with a weird mark under my chin, the kind a little kid gets when he falls of his bike and skins his knee (or chin, apparently) on concrete. What the hell? Did I join a roller derby team while sleepwalking or something? Actually that would be kind of neat, but I wish my subconscious would let me in on these things.

Creationists make Jen's brain go boom

This gem of a letter was published in the opinion section of our student newspaper today. It’s kind of hilarious until you realize that it probably isn’t a Poe, and this student is attending a Big Ten university that prides itself in science.

Evolutionists fear possibility of God’s existence

In reference to Ms. DeWeese’s March 31 column, thank you so much for writing on an important subject. Unfortunately, Ms. DeWeese’s approach does not permit open debate about the origin of our universe and of mankind. Evolution has many gaps that should be openly discussed in the classroom. The Darwinists are terrified of scrutinizing evolution and fear the possibility that God exists. Fossils don’t even prove that an organism reproduced, let alone evolved. Evolution is a theory that argues that everything came from nothing. Knowing this, they are justified in their fear of debate.

I thought that the foundation of science was questioning. If schools insist on teaching the philosophy of evolution, then there should be an open discussion. Darwin’s book was not called “Adaption of Species”; it was called “Origin of Species.” If you choose to believe that you came from nothing, where did you get your value? If evolution is true, then people are just an accident. Evolution says the strongest should live, and the weak should die. I believe that all people have intrinsic value because they were created by God. I recognize that my belief in the Bible is faith, just as evolutionists’ belief in “Origin of Species” is faith. If evolutionists are so confident that their theories are factual, then wouldn’t they encourage discussions about the weaknesses of evolution?

As a high school student, I bought into the ideology of believing in God and evolution. After exploring opposing arguments, I realized that belief in God and evolution are logically incongruent. A director cannot use an undirected mechanism to create. While this discussion cannot be settled in 300 words, it’s a reminder that there are two sides. Even though evolutionists will attack the intelligence of theists, there is another side of the story. It’s worth considering.

John Westercamp
Junior, School of Management

I don’t even know if it’s worth replying any more, but I feel duty-bound. I’ve had about three pro-evolution letters published since I started school here. The idea that people can spew this kind of imbecilic bullshit and not have someone lay the smack down on them saddens me. At the same time, I have physics homework to do, and the only response I can come up with is “You are an ignorant baffoon, please do not procreate.”

I have a feeling that wouldn’t help the situation much.

Creationists make Jen’s brain go boom

This gem of a letter was published in the opinion section of our student newspaper today. It’s kind of hilarious until you realize that it probably isn’t a Poe, and this student is attending a Big Ten university that prides itself in science.

Evolutionists fear possibility of God’s existence

In reference to Ms. DeWeese’s March 31 column, thank you so much for writing on an important subject. Unfortunately, Ms. DeWeese’s approach does not permit open debate about the origin of our universe and of mankind. Evolution has many gaps that should be openly discussed in the classroom. The Darwinists are terrified of scrutinizing evolution and fear the possibility that God exists. Fossils don’t even prove that an organism reproduced, let alone evolved. Evolution is a theory that argues that everything came from nothing. Knowing this, they are justified in their fear of debate.

I thought that the foundation of science was questioning. If schools insist on teaching the philosophy of evolution, then there should be an open discussion. Darwin’s book was not called “Adaption of Species”; it was called “Origin of Species.” If you choose to believe that you came from nothing, where did you get your value? If evolution is true, then people are just an accident. Evolution says the strongest should live, and the weak should die. I believe that all people have intrinsic value because they were created by God. I recognize that my belief in the Bible is faith, just as evolutionists’ belief in “Origin of Species” is faith. If evolutionists are so confident that their theories are factual, then wouldn’t they encourage discussions about the weaknesses of evolution?

As a high school student, I bought into the ideology of believing in God and evolution. After exploring opposing arguments, I realized that belief in God and evolution are logically incongruent. A director cannot use an undirected mechanism to create. While this discussion cannot be settled in 300 words, it’s a reminder that there are two sides. Even though evolutionists will attack the intelligence of theists, there is another side of the story. It’s worth considering.

John Westercamp
Junior, School of Management

I don’t even know if it’s worth replying any more, but I feel duty-bound. I’ve had about three pro-evolution letters published since I started school here. The idea that people can spew this kind of imbecilic bullshit and not have someone lay the smack down on them saddens me. At the same time, I have physics homework to do, and the only response I can come up with is “You are an ignorant baffoon, please do not procreate.”

I have a feeling that wouldn’t help the situation much.

Dominance Regulated Sex Determination

Aka, “Biology is Fricking Amazing”

My Evolution of Behavior class is full of amazing, insane facts about animals. Every day I leave that class excited to share these random facts with people, so you get some of them! While I could attempt to explain things in my own words using my notes from class, I’m going to be lazy and use Wikipedia. It probably has more information anyway.

From the Wikipedia entry on clownfish:

“Each group of fish consists of a breeding pair and 0-4 non-breeders. Within each group there is a size-based hierarchy: the female is largest, the breeding male is second largest, and the male non-breeders get progressively smaller as the hierarchy descends. If the female dies, the male changes sex, becomes the breeding female and the largest non-breeder becomes the breeding male. The fish apparently form lifetime pairs, exhibit courting behavior, and depending on the size of the female spawn about 400-1500 eggs per cycle. The expected tenure of breeding females is approximately 12 years and is relatively long for a fish of its size, but is characteristic of other reef fish.

It has been unclear why the non-breeders continue to associate with these groups. Unlike non-reproductives in some animal groups, they cannot obtain occasional breeding opportunities, because their gonads are non-functional. They cannot be regarded as helpers at the nest, since it has been found their presence does not increase the reproductive success of the breeders. Recent research (Buston, 2004) suggests that they are simply queuing for the territory occupied by the breeders, i.e. the anemone; non-breeders living in association with breeders have a better chance of eventually securing a territory than a non-resident. The probability of a fish ascending in rank in this queue is equal to that of the individual outliving at least one of its dominants because an individual will ascend in rank if any one of its dominants dies, and not simply when its immediate dominant dies.”

Or as my professor said, “What they didn’t tell you about Finding Nemo was that at the end, Nemo turns into a girl.”

Wholesome Disney movie, or insidious plot to introduce transsexualism to our children? You decide.

Warning: Girliness

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not a stereotypical girly girl. However, I do relapse in three main ways:

1. I’m a D cup. ‘Nough said.

2. America’s Next Top Model is my guilty pleasure TV show. I have no idea why. Tyra Banks’s insanity is always amusing, and it’s just so addictive watching girls be catty to each other when you’re not involved. I think I’m satisfying some sort of primal female urges that I otherwise ignore. Oh, and artsy pictures are a plus.

3. I hate bugs, insects, spiders, and any other kind of creepy-crawlies.

Yes, I know that I’m a biologist…but I am not a hippie/pot smoking/one with nature and all of God’s creatures biologist. Hiking and bird watching and camping are all just sort of “meh, okay” to me. I get excited over stuff like genes and evolutionary theory (I’m super cool). I’d honestly enjoy nature much more if I had a magical force field that kept bugs a meter away from me.

That being said, I found a cockroach in my apartment this morning. Not. Cool. I’m sort of glad no one was around to witness me doing the “freeze in spot and flail arms uselessly” pose, which I totally did. The nasty thing was just lying on its back in the middle of the bathroom floor not moving. I wondered why the hell it would randomly drop dead and roll over in the middle of the floor, so I got a cup to try to scoop it up…and it came back alive.

*insert flailing and squealing here*

Wtf, seriously? Was it trying to trick me? Why the hell was it playing dead? I ended up just putting the cup over it and leaving it for my roommate to dispose of…who wasn’t too happy about it. Blech. I really hope this is an isolated case, but you know what they say…when there’s one, there’s more. The apartment I lived in last summer was infested with them, and it was horrible. Every night I had Kafka-esque nightmares of giant cockroaches trapping me in my bedroom.

The worst part is I know my fear is illogical. If cockroaches were rainbow colored or shiny neon green, I would probably be poking them with sticks or playing with them. Buprestids are awesome looking. But no, they had to be twitchy and poo-colored, and who wants that as a roommate?

Fermirotica

I love xkcd:
Though really, 30 minute average? I wonder what it would be if the comic was written by a girl…

I feel like there should also be some sort of multiplier for being on a college campus, ha!

Attempts at Theism – Prayer

I’m one of those weird new atheists who didn’t leave some religion. While both of my parents went to church as kids (Dad Protestant, Mom Greek Orthodox), they pretty much left me to my own devices. We never went to church, I was never told about God or Jesus, and I didn’t really even know what religion was until I was about 12 and started hearing about it from friends. My dad always told me to just be a good person via the golden rule, and everything would sort itself out. It was more important to be good than to be a jerk who goes to church. Now my dad is probably an atheist (or a very atheisty agnostic) and my mom is one of those wishy washy agnostic theists who hopes there’s some sort of higher power thingy to make the world a happy place.

I can go on and on about my various experiences, but one thing just popped into my head now. For people who were basically raised as atheists, there might have been a time where you thought you were supposed to be religious. Was there ever a time you tried to pray just out of the hopes that it would work?

I attempted prayer a total of two times, both around the time where I was in my Hopeful Deist stage. The first was when I was 14, and my cat had died. Now, this was the most lovable cat in the world, and I had him my entire life (he was 18). I was sort of a lonely awkward little kid, so he was my friend when I didn’t have anyone else. It sounds kind of pathetic saying it now, but it was the first time something close and comforting had been taken away from me. I was crying for days about it, to the point where I couldn’t sleep. One night I asked my deisty God that if he existed (and wanted to stop being deisty for a moment), to please give me the strength to stop crying.

I did stop crying about my cat, but looking back, I know it wasn’t some divine being that gave me the strength. It was from inside of me (cue the cheesy music). By asking for that strength, I had made up my mind that I needed to move on, and move on I did.

The other time was when I was convinced I was pregnant…even though I was a virgin. Yes, that sounds ridiculous, but 16 year old girl logic isn’t the best. When you’ve fooled around with your boyfriend to any degree and your period is just a tad late, you’re convinced the boy has super-sperm that can dissolve through the air from a meter away and still get up your vajayjay somehow. Saying I was scared shitless is an understatement. Praying seemed like a better alternative than jumping out a window, so pray I did. I promised God I wouldn’t do such naughty things if he gave me a free pass this time through (Um…a promise I’m kind of failing at. Whoops, oh well).

A couple days later, my monthly visitor finally came. Do I really think God did it? Of course not. But at the time, it was comforting thinking the situation was in the hands of someone who could do something about it. Maybe that relaxation releaved some of the stress that was making it late in the first place. I can only speculate, but I think it does show how prayers can make people feel better even if they’re not being directly answered. And to an extent, they create a sort of placebo effect that actually helps out.

The actual efficacy of prayer is a whole other topic. The thing I find most interesting is that these two positive situations still didn’t make me suddenly believe in God. Even though my prayers were “answered,” I think I knew I was just tricking myself into believing them for the benefits. Double think is an amazing and scary thing. I wonder how many theists are in a similar situation.

Hemant Talk!

Hemant Mehta gave a talk for us today at Purdue… I finally got to meet my favorite blogger/quasi-famous internet celebrity! Yay! …I will repress the rest of my fangirl squealing, because I kind of think he reads this. Knowing he has cute atheist girls squeeing over him may go to his head ;)

On that note, I think we solved any monetary problems his blog may have. Let some porn website put the ad “Sexy Atheist Women in Your Area” on his blog. What guy wouldn’t click that?