I wish I could go

It’s a conference, in Oregon, and it’s about The Future of Evo-Devo, all wonderful things, and it’s on 10-12 February — right in the thick of the traditional Darwin Day hoopla, the days when I’m like a big egg-laying bunny at Easter. I’m already booked for Pullman, Washington, then Florida, then Las Vegas in that week.

You’ll just have to go in my place and report back. Yes, you — the one looking around quizzically and wondering “why me?” Because I said so. Book it now. Portland, 10 February, the Nines Hotel.

Coincidentally, I’m giving a talk at UNLV that is kind of about the future of evo-devo: I’m going to be both pessimistic and optimistic, and talk about the mainstreaming of evo-devo into the discourse of evolution and development, and propose that it isn’t so much a revolution in evolution as it is developmental biologists finally adopting views much more copacetic with standard model evolutionary thinking. There may be a lynching afterwards.

(Also on Sb)

Someday, maybe social media will apply their rules consistently

Remember when Facebook started censoring the pages of breastfeeding women? They were removing photos that showed…nipple. It was a violation of the TOS! If they didn’t hold the line on nudity, they were on a slippery slope to open pornography. Think of the children! And most importantly, they were enforcing a consistent policy that simply banned all nudity without judgment about its purpose or context.

The situation has a apparently changed in 2011. Now there are crass Facebook pages filled with crude jokes about rape, and that’s all right despite the fact that they do plainly violate the TOS, that states “You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.” Is rape not hateful? Is it not threatening? Is it not violent?

Have no fear, Facebook has a rationalization. Rape is a joke.

Facebook’s initial response to the public outcry was to suggest that promoting violence against women was equivalent to telling a rude joke down the pub: “It is very important to point out that what one person finds offensive another can find entertaining” went the bizarre rape apologia. “Just as telling a rude joke won’t get you thrown out of your local pub, it won’t get you thrown off Facebook.”

Does breastfeeding a baby get you thrown out of a pub? Shouldn’t joking about rape be more likely to get you thrown out? (I know,it isn’t).

Personally, I don’t think Facebook should censor the rape pages: they’re awful and shameful, but it’s good to see that the hateful morons are out there so you can guard against them. I’d rather that social media were open and that they allowed all — they simply shouldn’t be in the business of monitoring user-created content.

But Facebook has gone the other way. They are regulating what people are allowed to say, and they are creating a culture in which a bare breast is obscene and disgusting, while violent sexual assault is considered amusing. It isn’t that they allow rape jokes, it’s that they’ve exposed themselves as two-faced and untrustworthy, and are actively promoting an environment in which men have carte blanche and women are targets, and had better like it.

(Also on Sb)

Dear Emma B

This post from Scienceblogs has been nominated for The Open Laboratory 2011, so I thought I’d repost it here on the new site, just in case it gets accepted.

Ken Ham is crowing over fooling a child. A young girl visited a moon rock display from NASA, and bravely went up to the docent and asked the standard question Ham coaches kids to ask — and she’s quite proud of herself.

I went to a NASA display of a moon rock and a lady said, “This Moon-rock is 3.75 billion years old!” Guess what I asked for the first time ever?

“Um, may I ask a question?”

And she said, “Of course.”

I said, in my most polite voice, “Were you there?”

Love, Emma B

Ken Ham is also quite proud of himself. He’s also pleased with the fact that many people will be dismayed at the miseducation he delivers.

Each time I give examples in my blog posts of children who have been influenced by AiG, the atheists go ballistic on their blogs. They hate to read of instances like this. They want to teach these children there is no God and they are just animals in this hopeless and meaningless struggle of this purposeless existence.

I am angry at Ken Ham, but in this case, I mainly feel sad for Emma B, who is being manipulated and harmed by a delusion. So I thought what I would do is write a letter to her — a letter which I wouldn’t send, because I’m not going to intrude on a family with the actual science, but because this is what I would say if Emma actually asked me.

[Read more…]

The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

…and the prize goes to Bruce A. Beutler, Jules A. Hoffmann, and Ralph M. Steinman for their work on the innate immune system, the components of resistance that are evolutionarily older than the adaptive immune system (antibodies, T cells, all that stuff). The innate immune system includes all the cytokine and chemokine activators of other components of the immune system, NK (natural killer) cells, various lipid inflammation mediators, the histamine response, and the complement cascade — a welter of complex interacting elements that combine to make our bodies hostile places for any pathogen. This is the first, fast-acting part of the immune response, so it’s rather important; it also contributes to auto-immune diseases.

(Also on Sb)

The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

…and the prize goes to Bruce A. Beutler, Jules A. Hoffmann, and Ralph M. Steinman for their work on the innate immune system, the components of resistance that are evolutionarily older than the adaptive immune system (antibodies, T cells, all that stuff). The innate immune system includes all the cytokine and chemokine activators of other components of the immune system, NK (natural killer) cells, various lipid inflammation mediators, the histamine response, and the complement cascade — a welter of complex interacting elements that combine to make our bodies hostile places for any pathogen. This is the first, fast-acting part of the immune response, so it’s rather important; it also contributes to auto-immune diseases.

(Also on FtB)

Some students should not go into a health profession

I’m afraid Ben Cochran is one of them. He’s a nursing student who wrote a column in a newspaper because he was upset at the time it took for the emergency medical services at his local clinic to help him with his sneezy, phlegmy cold (which, I would have told him, is going to put a low priority on something they can’t really treat anyway). He places the blame: the clinic offers women’s reproductive services, and they were busy helping a “gaggle of preemie sluts [] get a free pass on harlotry” and treating their “cunt problems”.

But he really doesn’t have a problem with these women, he says. He just wants to end women’s medical services and the distribution of condoms on campus.

I don’t take issue with sex mongers. They serve their place. Hell, according to the bible, it’s the oldest known profession on earth. So you sultry sex fiends are clearly established, but this is a place of higher being. Please take your gaping holes elsewhere for medical services, and leave the real health issues to those that actually belong on a college campus

Yeah, he’s going to make a greeeeeat nurse. He’s already an expert on triage: men with runny noses must be treated before sluts with gynecological issues.

He’s going to have a tough time doing the work, though, with all the holes Ema ripped into him.

(Also on Sb)