Hola from Quito!

Hey, I’ve safely arrived here in Quito, Ecuador…and of course, I beat Phil Plait here, getting through customs and to the hotel long before he did. He’s got to be getting used to second place by now.

I see the guestbloggers have come through and are doing a bang-up job, so I don’t need to say much at all. We’ll be touring the city tomorrow and won’t have much time to write then, either — so don’t expect too much from me in the near future. Not even in reply to Matt Nisbet.

Speaking of slanderous, self-serving frauds, Ray Comfort has been claiming that I “chickened out” of our debate on WDAY radio. This is not true, and it’s unfair to the radio station. They actually changed the format on their own initiative because they felt that 20-30 minutes would not let us do justice to our positions if we had to split the time. I have a formal statement from the producer that they’ve asked me to post:

For why we decided to change formats, we came to the conclusion that being we are a caller driven show, while having both Mr. Comfort and Dr. Myers on at the same time would be entertaining, neither would have been able to fully develop their respective positions, or take many questions from callers. We decided this Monday afternoon. We attempted contacting Mr. Comfort, with no success, and when I spoke to Dr. Myers he was gracious enough to move his interview to Wednesday morning. We sent several emails to Mr. Comfort (actually his assistant) with the changes to the format, and the emails were eventually responded to.

It is possible, however, that the information in the emails to Mr. Comfort’s assistant was not passed in full to Mr. Comfort. It is also possible that one of the emails we sent to Mr. Comfort’s assistant was lost due to the problems we’ve experienced with our email server this week (which has been an absolute nightmare). This could account for the misinformation that Mr. Comfort is stating on his blog. I will email his assistant this afternoon and try to straighten this out.

Feel free to reproduce this email on any blogs where this discussion is taking place (I’m guessing on Pharyngula and Comfort Food). If there are any further questions, feel free to email me at benandjim@wday.com

Thanks again,

Erik Matson
Producer, Ben and Jim in the Morning
WDAY Radio

Do you believe in evolution … and why?

Greetings, fellow minions. Sastra OM, here, belatedly logging in as guest blogger #4. My smooth entry into the blogosphere was temporarily delayed by my fierce objections to signing Seed’s contract, which to my horror appeared to involve some sort of ritualized Cthulhu chanting to the Elder Gods. Turns out it simply needed reformatting. My bad.

Unlike some of the other guest bloggers this week, I do NOT have a strong background in biology and impressive credentials from prestigious universities and research labs. Instead, I have a BA in English Lit from Western Illinois University (everybody go OOooo) and a passing familiarity with various skeptic and atheist organizations and issues.

So I am starting out my guestblogging by passing on a link to a survey on the public understanding of evolution from Michael Shermer’s Skeptic Society at Cal Tech. It’s part of a study they’re doing “on general knowledge of and beliefs about evolution,” and it only takes a few minutes. So, by the powers of Pharyngula invested in me, I command you go forth. Only if you feel like it, of course.

http://www.evolutionsurvey.com/

One thing I found particularly interesting (and challenging) about this survey was that it
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Oh, the Drama.

Matt Nisbet is railing against PZ and the image of the Angry Atheist again. In fairness, PZ would probably choose to comment on this on Matt’s turf, rather than linking to it from Pharyngula. But PZ’s on vacation, and I’m not inclined to be so noble, especially given the exceedingly smarmy tone of Nisbet’s post:

For sure, atheists for a long time have been unfairly stereotyped in the mainstream media and in popular culture. But we also have a lot of lousy self-proclaimed spokespeople who do damage to our public image. They’re usually angry, grumpy, uncharismatic male loners with a passion for attacking and ridiculing religious believers. Any fellow atheist who disagrees with their Don Imus rhetoric, they label as appeasers.

Wow. Just…wow. The victim-blaming never gets old, does it?

posted by Danio

Honey, where’s my Super-Suit?

The new Speedo LZR Racer suit, that is. Designed with all the power of science and technology behind it, the LZR Racer is being credited with imparting enhanced, record-breaking athletic performances to its wearers.

.

It was designed using the same technology applied to reducing drag on the Space Shuttle, with the goal of diminishing the friction and skin movement that normally occur during swimming, thus improving overall hydrodynamics. It’s a cool story from the scientific perspective, to be sure, but the public reaction since its unveiling in February 08, and now with the Olympic Swimming competitions coming up, has been just a teensy bit hysterical.

I have to hand it to the Speedo marketing team. Dropping ‘NASA’ into any conversation about your product is sure to get people’s attention, and beyond that, the look and promise of the suit is truly reminiscent of something Edna Mode might have whipped up.

So you get a bunch of top tier athletes, adorn them in the best suit technology can buy, extoll its performance-enhancing properties, and have them all feeling like superheroes going into a race. Is there a psychologist in the house who can predict the probable effect here? And is it any surprise that the competitors who don’t have LZR rocket super-suits are pretty much shitting bricks about this?

Oh yes, the competition is crying foul heading into the Olympic games. Entreaties have been made to FINA, the international governing body of organized aquatic sports, to ban the suit from competition, to no avail. In a stellar display of hyperbole, Italian swim coach Alberto Castagnetti has declared the suit tantamount to “technological doping.”, but his complaints have garnered little sympathy.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for fairness in competitive sports. I hate doping, not only because of the unfair advantage it can confer but because of the short-sighted greed it denotes–greed for both the victory and the spoils. Spending hours and hours on conditioning to improve performance is one thing; intrusive meddling with one’s body chemistry through injecting hormones or proteins targeted to increasing red blood cell density, etc. is a different proposition entirely, and reveals an ugly, desperate side of professional athletics. The line blurs a little bit in situations where medically necessary reconstructive surgery (of, say, a baseball pitcher’s shoulder) ends up enhancing performance by imparting increased joint mobility. It would be a shame to ban athletes who were able to return to peak performance after such a procedure, but it would be deeply disturbing if athletes were compelled to undergo this surgery without need with the express purpose of gaining a competitive edge.

This, however, is a merely a swimsuit. An externally applied and fully removable garment that anyone in the world, at least in principle, can purchase and use. A product with such dramatic hype attached that it will be virtually impossible to determine how much of the resulting performance enhancement is due to the power of suggestion, rather than the superior crafting. Get over yourself, Italian coach. Let the Games begin!
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I neglected to note that this post was authored by Danio. I apologize for the omission.

That crazy Canadian news story

OK guys, LisaJ here again. This is going to be a quick one from me because I’m in the middle of hosting a BBQ, and I’m leaving all of the other helpers alone and feeling bad about it! From reading some of the replies to my earlier post I thought I should put up a quick post about the craziest and most horrific news story to hit Canada in quite some time.

I’m sure you’ve all heard of what happened to 22 year old Tim McLean on a Greyhound bus last week in Manitoba. If not, here’s a quick overview. Tim was stabbed repeatedly in the neck and chest and then beheaded by a crazy fellow passenger. Many awful things were reportedly then doen to his body. It’s an awful story, and just leaves me sickened every time I think about it. Well, to make matters worse, this poor young man’s funeral is being held this weekend and a couple of disgusting and despicable groups are threatening to picket his funeral.

First, PETA has attempted to place an ad in a major Canadian newspaper comparing Tim’s tragic beheading to the treatment of slaughtered animals. They are actually trying to use this horrific event to make us feel just as awful about the slaughter of animals. Sorry guys, it just doesn’t equate and it’s disgusting for you to try to use this story for your benefit. Especially on the eve of this poor boy’s funeral.

The second story that was brought to my attention is that a group of American fundamentalists from Westboro Baptist church are intending to picket Tim’s funeral based on the premise that this is god’s response for Canada’s policies that enable abortion, homosexuality, and adultery. What’s even more disgusting is that on their website they refer to Tim as the ‘headless Canadian’. This is just beyond disgusting, and I don’t think I have to say too much myself about how pathetic these individuals are… I know you’ll all paint the right picture. What a terrible world this is when the family and friends of someone who was murdered in such a brutal and public fashion have to worry about assholes like these interrupting their funeral.

I just have to say, I feel terrible for this man’s family and I hope that they can grieve in the peace that they deserve. I find it disgusting when groups such as PETA and these religious wackos have total disregard for what was done to this poor guy and try to use his death to their benefit. They should be very ashamed.

Friday Cephalopod

MAJeff bringing you some ‘pod porn, culinary style.
i-3cee61568c751a0d704504928bc5cbfc-DailyCatchCalamari.jpg
That’s the fried calamari at one of my favorite restaurants, The Daily Catch in Boston’s North End.

A few weeks ago, the New York Times, had an article on the return of the Jersey Tomato. Now, I’ve never had a “Jersey Tomato” so I’ll have to take the word of folks from there that it’s really tasty. I wouldn’t mind being one of the tasters they’ve got in the article, though. Coming from the rural Midwest, I’m pretty familiar with good produce.

I love the summer, and desperately miss my parents’ garden during this season. A few weeks ago, I bought some corn-on-the-cob from a local grocery store…I nearly cried, it tasted like field corn. Grocery store corn is worthless, and people here in New England have no idea what good corn is like (and it’s also impossible to get a good bratwurst here). Then again, anything that spends several days going from the field to a store isn’t going to be as good as something picked that day.

Living in an urban setting, the “picked that day” option is rarely available to me. This year, though, I planted a small window box garden on my landing–basil, mint, grape tomatoes, and a few other herbs (that window box got flooded during a couple of our early July evening thunderstorms–we’ve had a rainy summer in Boston). I’ve been eating at least one meal of fresh basil pesto per week, but now my tomatoes are starting to come in, which means basil-tomato salad for the rest of the month. It’s a good thing.

So, here’s to summer. To great tomatoes and corn and beans and peas and apples and peaches… To celebrate, share your favorite recipes. Let’s get seasonal. If you’ve got access to food coming right out of the garden, you’ll know why I’m stressing the seasonal aspect. There’s nothing quite like picking something and eating it right away.

I’ll get things started on the recipe front below the fold.
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And I make Guestblogger #3!

Hi all! This is LisaJ, and I’ll also be guestblogging here on Pharyngula for the next 10 days or so. I’m very much looking forward to the opportunity to chat it up with you fine folks here on Pharyngula, and I hope I can do my part to keep everyone stimulated and satisfied.

I would first like to echo MAJeff and Danio’s sentiment and send a big thanks to PZ for inviting me to participate as a guestblogger. I too was very surprised and flattered to be asked. What a nice guy that PZ is! Just to briefly introduce myself: I’m a 3rd year PhD student studying novel functions for the pRb/E2F tumour suppressor pathway in nervous system development. Although this is my favourite protein pathway, largely because it takes up most of my waking thoughts and, you know, these proteins are just so awesome and multifunctional, I will likely be contributing various Science related posts during my time here, among other topics that will just come as I go!

I’m also a pretty proud Canadian girl, currently living in Ottawa, our beautiful capital city. Since alot of the posts here on Pharyngula center around the news, politics, crazy christian crusades, etc, going on in PZ’s fine country, the US of A, I thought that for my first post I would lead a little discussion on what makes its Northern neighbour such a special place… but also, not really that different at all in some respects.

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Guest Blogger #2, checking in

Hello Pharyngulites, Danio here in my second official stint as ‘guest blogger’. Like MAJeff, I’m very honored that PZ tagged me for the task, and I hope not to disappoint.

A bit about me: I am a postdoctoral fellow at PZ’s alma mater, the University of Oregon, working on zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a model organism for studying hereditary deaf-blindness. I also have a broad interest in science education and science literacy, especially at the elementary and secondary school level, so I do a fair number of tours and demos for different student groups. I don’t have as much time for more formal pedagogic endeavors as I’d like, but I have taught courses in Human Reproduction and Development in the past, and I have a special interest in the intersection of science and public policy in this area.

Why just “Danio”, you might ask? My identity is not a secret, per se. People in my field who are reading this can probably figure out who I am, and that’s totally ok. My choice to post under a pseudonym on Scienceblogs is out of consideration for my kids, who aren’t old enough to make an informed decision on whether or not they want to be publicly associated with an unapologetically godless Mama, and for my husband, who, as a healthcare provider, has to kiss a lot more ass than I ever do, and thus could also suffer by association.

I’m glad to be here and looking forward to posting somewhat regularly. In keeping with the theme that MAJeff has started us off with, here’s another question to mull over:

In reflecting upon PZ’s current journey to the Galapagos, what site of significance in the history of scientific discovery would you like to visit, and why?
(If that doesn’t do it for you, feel free to use this as an open thread).

Hi there everyone!

MAJeff here, and I’ll be one of your guestbloggers for the next several days. I’d first like to thank PZ for asking me to do this. I was more than a little surprised to get an email the other day inviting me, and I hope I can keep up the quality people have come to expect from the place.

I’m not sure of everything I’ll be posting about yet. But, I’ll probably be doing some of what I do when I teach, and that is asking questions. Y’all are a chatty bunch, so I probably won’t need to do much asking. Sometimes, though, I just like to get to know folks better, to move beyond argument and talk. As a sociologist, I study people. I don’t always understand them, but I do find them fascinating. Opportunities to get to know what drives folks are never to be turned down.

So, here goes: What is it about science that so enthuses all of you?

My brief answer–it’s not Boobies; not that there’s anything wrong with that, w00t–is below the fold….
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