Quantum paramagnetic looping heme molecules shaped our morphology!

loopingaortapentagram

The other day, I was briefly harangued by someone named William Peters on Twitter. It was a strange comment that was simultaneously pro-evolution while trying to imply some peculiar doubts — it was just off a bit. He wasn’t rude or anything, but I was intrigued and curious, so I dug a little deeper. He says many things that are slightly off.

Like having a simple mathematical explanation for the evolution of humans from fish.


The world is spherical, not flat! Cartesian math = 19th C. Polar co-ordinate math describes evolution of fish to man

Uh-oh. I see trouble coming. This is a common attractor in crank biology, the idea that form is only superficially complex, and that underlying it all is an elegant mathematical formula that will explain all, and of course, the author has discovered the secret equation that will cut through all the shallow trivia pursued by his peers. We saw it in Stuart Pivar, in Vincent Fleury, in Erik Andrulis. I can sympathize with the seductive power of geometry, but at some point, you have to look at the data…and the data trumps all your abstract theorizing every time.

But at least Peters isn’t talking about toruses, the usual crank attractor. No, this guy is into vacuum cleaner hoses, magnets, electricity, and…


Quantum biology has arrived #persanguinemnostrum Enjoyed your talk in NZ 2014

We have “quantum”, mission control, I repeat, “quantum”.

If you’re in the mood for some grandeloquent strangeness, check out his website, persanguinemnostrum.info. The opening announcement is this:

FISH TO MAN

EVOLUTION

THROUGH OUR BLOOD

COMING SOON

[Read more…]

Ted Storck will never let it die

We suffered for several years with this godawful cheap, loud, and frequent (every 15 minutes, from 5am to 10pm) electronic chime system that was installed in the cemetery a few blocks from my home. The guy who donated it lived miles away, and eventually retired to Arizona, after which we finally got the noisy monstrosity taken down, and a blissful, hymn-free silence settled over the neighborhood.

But Ted Storck cannot let it be. He still occasionally sends letters to the local paper, and they publish them. He’s very bitter, and feels that his inability to inflict Christian hymns on strangers is yet another example of persecution.

In church, we often sing the hymn, “They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love, they will know we are Christians.”

Looking at the world today, you’d figure there are no Christians. This is especially evident on social media comments online, where folks are just vicious with their hateful comments. I am certain many of those comments come from Christians, or people who call themselves Christians.

I am the victim of very hateful comments over the Carillion bell system I had placed at the cemeteries in Morris. The worst came from an avowed atheist, a teacher at UMM, and his followers, but many hateful comments came from folks who claim to be Christians, or, at least, go to a Christian church here in Morris.

It has got to stop here in Stevens County and around this great country. Let folks know you are Christian by your love.

It’s true. “TURN THE DAMNED NOISE DOWN!” is a very hateful, anti-Christian sentiment, and true, loving Christianity requires turning the volume up to 11 and playing “Onward, Christian Soldiers” at everyone.

I recognize Christians not by their love, but by their sanctimonious arrogance and their pernicious whining about their victimhood.

A godless weekend

This weekend is the annual baseball game sponsored by Minnesota Atheists, and this year, co-sponsored by the FFRF. We were too late to get tickets for the Mr Paul Aints game — they sold out again! — but are planning to go to the meeting Saturday afternoon, where Dan Barker will be talking about his latest book, God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction. We may also stop by the Humanist Picnic on Sunday, before heading home.

Minneapolis is a busy place for atheists. Morris, not so much.

Smug and delusional

Ken Ham took Bill Nye on a personal tour of his big ol’ fake boat, and they argued some. I think Ham came away with the idea that he won.

bill-nye-and-ken-ham-at-ice-age-exhibit

We’re glad Bill Nye took me up on my friendly offer to show him the Ark. During his visit I was able to personally share the gospel with him very clearly. On the first deck, I asked him, before a crowd of people including many young people, if I could pray with him and was able to pray for him there. Our prayer is that what he saw will have an impact on him and that he will be drawn to the gospel of Jesus Christ that is clearly presented at the Ark.

Many people have tried to share the gospel with me, as well, and it’s never been done clearly. It can’t be done clearly: have you ever read that Jesus story? It’s an incoherent mess, and makes no sense. Now maybe Ham performed a miracle and and explained it lucidly, but I rather doubt it: I’ve listened to him and his usual approach is to condescendingly talk down to people in that sing-song voice he uses when preaching to children.

I’d also tell Mr Ham that prayer doesn’t work, and that his whole pointless project is saying that we’re going to win, and he’s going to lose.

oneworldtwoviews

Look at this detail from a display in this photo: One world, two views. I can tell already what theme he’s hammering on in the Ark Park, and it’s the same one he repeats over and over again in the Creation “Museum”. We’re all using the same evidence, he claims, and the only difference is in the interpretation, which in their case is informed by evidence the scientists reject, the literal testimony of the Bible.

It’s a lie. They ignore most of the evidence, and what they do let in they have to twist and distort to make it fit. We’re looking at a great big jigsaw puzzle, and we’ve assembled enough of it to get a general idea of what it illustrates — a very old Earth — and what Answers in Genesis loves to do is to grab a couple of random pieces, pound them together until they mash up, and then tell you that the Bible clearly explains that this mangled cardboard shows that the Earth is very young. It’s frustrating to listen to, and touring his “museum” is an exercise in chronic irritation, as every exhibit is a dishonest mess, all justified with that pathetic excuse of One world, two views, and hey, this is just our opinion, and it’s just as valid as everyone else’s. Only it’s not. AiG doesn’t get to have their own facts.

But this is also their weakness, and how we’ll win, eventually. Their big, expensive projects are monuments to the fact that prayers and the Bible are not enough, and they know it. They desperately desire to have evidence on their side, to the point that they have to start inventing their own and misrepresenting the facts.

Bill Nye is not going to be persuaded by the fake Ark, because he knows what the actual evidence is, and seeing the place lying at every point is the opposite of persuasion — it’s active dissuasion to anyone knowledgeable at all. It’s a giant affirmation of ignorance, and so the ignorant will revel in it, while everyone else will be repelled.

This is why I’m not afraid to encourage scientists and atheists to visit: what needs to be done to correct its influence is informed discussion of its fundamental dishonesty. To do that, we need to witness it. But unless we fail to educate the public, this foolishness is ultimately doomed.

I shoulda gone to the Ark Park today #OhNoahHeDidnt

I didn’t attach any importance at all to the opening day of Ken Ham’s Ark Park, but maybe I should have — all the photos I’m seeing are of nearly empty spaces, with more protesters than creationist attendees, so it may not be around all that long. I’ll still definitely try to make a trip out there at some time, and now maybe I’ll have to attach a little more urgency to it.

But, you see, today I had other, better things to do.

I got a root canal. Seriously.

All problems will be solved in #Rationalia

I am so happy. Most days I wake up to a world of pain and chaos, and don’t know what to do…but now Neil deGrasse Tyson has fixed everything with a single tweet.


Earth needs a virtual country: #Rationalia, with a one-line Constitution: All policy shall be based on the weight of evidence

Why has no one thought of this before? It’s brilliant!

Let’s try it with a simple test case and see if it works. There’s currently a bit of a tussle between competing interests in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness of Minnesota, which, if you’ve never heard of it, is a gorgeous pristine wilderness in the northern part of my state. On the one hand, you have the fact that it’s beautiful and wild…but that doesn’t seem very logical, especially when, on the other hand, a Chilean company wants to excavate a giant open pit copper mine there.

So, rational reasonable residents of Rationalia, please use your reason and rationality to deliver an evidence-based verdict to this problem. And don’t you try to sneak in human values into your solution, that would be cheating.

I’ll wait on that rational answer, preferably delivered in the form of a mathematical equation with clearly defined, confirmable parameters, before moving on to a slightly more difficult problem.

Aww, OK, I know you’re going to tear through the easy problem fast, so I’ll just give you a hint of what’s next: are justice and equality rational?

I’d recommend you avoid reading any philosophy on that kind of thing — it’ll just muddy the waters of your cold clear solutions — but I suspect it would be a superfluous warning, since all the philosophers in Rationalia are hanging from the lampposts, anyway.

The Amazing what?

We need an appropriate noun in there…I just wish “atheist” wasn’t one of them. After his awful run-in with Martin Hughes in which TJ Kirk, the “amazing” atheist, revealed just how mind-bogglingly and obliviously racist he is, you can guess what happened next.

A. He had an epiphany and realized that lecturing a black man on the nature of racism was absurd?

B. He took the rebuke seriously and is in the process of rethinking his errors?

C. He doubled down and declared that black people in America are all professional victims?

What’s your guess?

The correct answer is C, D, E, F, G, H, etc., in increasing order of patent nastiness. Kirk had a long heartfelt discussion with Hughes, and it just got worse and worse and worse.

This is exactly why we have to dig a deep chasm in the heart of atheism, detonate a few nukes inside it to widen it, and fill it with molten lava to keep those shitbags on their side.