The Great Beard debate is still going strong, and this ought to clinch it for the beard side: how can you deny the puissance of a majestic beard when you look on Darwin’s nobly hirsute face?

Case closed! Boo-yah!

Now I am a fair-minded and magnanimous person, so I thought I would give the naked-cheeked ones a chance to rebut. I was sent this video:

Hmmm, fascinating…so beardless men compare their lack to sexual inadequacy, and find it amusing? It is not surprising that they’re being crushed in the vote.

The fundraiser that will decide whether Big Dave and I will have to shave off our beards has passed the halfway mark — you have donated £805.33 for Barnardo’s children’s charity — but I notice that some people are still voting “no beard”, and we can’t have that. To counter these weak sallies into beardlessness, I’m going to have to regularly remind you of glorious beards, and today we start at the top.

That’s right, people with beards have that aura of great majesty and power, just like Jehovah. Would you ask God to shave? Look at that glorious beard — it’s almost as good as Dan Dennett’s. You must vote for the beard.

Now you may be marshaling counterarguments in your head: “What about Buddha”, you’re thinking, and “Hardly any kind of god at all”, I reply, “When has Buddha ever annihilated a city with a column of fire?” Or you might be thinking “But I’m an atheist!” or “Hey, women don’t have beards, and they’re perfectly lovely”, to which I say “Satan! He’s got a beard, too.”

And see? He’s apparently a lesbian as well, so the ladies can feel comfortable voting for the feminist bearded option.

Do the right thing. Donate £2 or more, and vote FOR the beard.

P.S. The rules clearly state one vote per person, so if you’re thinking of maximizing your impact by donating £10 in 5 £2 votes, it won’t work. Just vote once. If you’ve already donated, you can ignore my pleas.

This is good news! After the outrage over a prior policy statement, the AAP has revised and clarified their position on female genital mutilation:

The American Academy of Pediatrics has rescinded a controversial policy statement raising the idea that doctors in some communities should be able to substitute demands for female genital cutting with a harmless clitoral “pricking” procedure.

“We retracted the policy because it is important that the world health community understands the AAP is totally opposed to all forms of female genital cutting, both here in the U.S. and anywhere else in the world,” said AAP President Judith S. Palfrey.

The contentious policy statement, issued in April, had condemned the practice of female genital cutting overall. But a small portion of statement suggesting the pricking procedure riled U.S. advocacy groups and survivors of female genital cutting.

Smart move.

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There was a rumor going about that the Royal Australian New Zealand College of Obstetricians was going to consider the practicality of supporting that clitoral “pricking” business — fortunately, it is not true and the RANZCOG is just as forthright in rejecting the procedure.

The anti-vax loons are having a rally in Grant Park, in Chicago, today at 3-5pm. The wretched fraud Andrew Wakefield will be speaking there, encouraging more parents to make their children vulnerable to pathogens and to act as vectors for the spread of disease. Some people are taking action and moving in to spread factual information — if you’re in the area and have some time, help them out.

They are also having ‘satellite rallies’ in Edison, NJ, New York City, and Kent, WA. I’m dismayed at that last one, that’s my hometown…and it’s being held in the public library. I practically grew up in that library (at least, its prior architectural incarnation). If you’re in those towns, stop by share some truth with these dangerous kooks, too.

The author of that phenomenally influential Mathematical Games column in Scientific American (if you are of a certain age you will remember it well), Martin Gardner, has died at the age of 95.

95 is a very interesting number, but then one of the things we learned from Gardner is that they all are.

TAM London 2010. 16-17 October.

Like last time, I expect this news will set off another fusillade of dissenting opinions, but too bad. Extremists have vandalized Lars Vilks home, trying to set it on fire (original article in Swedish here).

In an undoubtably futile attempt to forestall what I expect will be common objections to this story here, I know that there are political ramifications to the cartoons of Mohammed. I know that many of them were motivated by racism and xenophobia. In this instance, though, I don’t care. Vilks drew a sketch. His enemies set his house on fire.

I would encourage Muslims to respond in kind, with their own cartoons lampooning Vilks (it shouldn’t be hard; the article about the arson has a picture of Vilks that looks rather deranged already). But when you respond to an insult to your beliefs with violence and destruction, you have moved beyond the boundaries of civilization, straight into barbarism, and you will get no sympathy from me.

Some of you know one of our regular commenters here…and she has some good news to share.

Hail the happy Happy Beltane season!

Naughty Marvin

&

Patricia, OM

Are pleased to announce

their engagement.

A Lughnasadh Wedding is planned

at Trout Lake Abbey, Trout Lake, Washington.

I even know where that is! Very pretty country thereabouts. Congratulations to all!

A colleague and fellow freethinker at Bemidji State University, Dann Siems, has been diagnosed with a terminal glioblastoma. This is not good. This is damned scary stuff. He’s still blogging away occasionally, discussing the experimental treatments being tried on him, but this is all expensive, and he has a family as well. If you’d like to help, there is a benefit concert being held on 5 June with a raffle. Maybe you can’t attend because Turtle River, Minnesota isn’t exactly next door, but you could buy a raffle ticket. Or if you’d rather, you can just make a donation through Headwaters Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.

I was given a proposal for a new word by a fellow named Francois Choquette. It’s a tough game trying to get a new coinage accepted, and I doubt that it’ll take off…but it’s actually a useful word to replace that abomination, “spirituality”. So I’ll toss Choquette’s description out there for the readership to judge.

Scientility

Describes the sensation that a scientist or amateur of science experiences when he/she observes an amazing phenomenon, for which his/her qualifications or knowledge makes them experience it a greater degree of appreciaton and joy than people without that knowledge.

Rationale:
We need a new word is that freethinkers can use instead of having to use the word “Spirituality” to describe this enhanced experience. Some of us cringe when having to use the word “spirituality”, when describing our feelings when describing our connection to nature.

Carl Sagan wrote, when speaking of the relationship between science and spirituality: “In its encounter with Nature, science invariably elicits a sense of reverence and awe. They very act of understanding is a celebration of joining, merging, even if on a very modest scale, with the magnificence of the Cosmos….Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.”

Mr. Sagan may have prefered to use a different word, if it existed. The current use of the word Spirituality implies “Spirits”, a ghost, an unquantifiable being, supposedly present everywhere that affects human bodies yet, that has never been detected and is unfalsifable. It is an unscientific word and we need a new word to replace it.

Who would need this word:
Any person experiencing human emotion beyond that can be described by the data:
An astronomer will experience the night sky differently than an astrologer.
An automotive engineer will experience a car show more deeply than say, a car washer.
A biologist netting an new undiscovered fish will feel differently than say a fisherman, who may lack the proper interest in this rare find.

Richard Feynman said it best, but didn’t have the word scientility to describe it:
“I have a friend who’s an artist, and he sometimes takes a view which I don’t agree with. He’ll hold up a flower and say, “Look how beautiful it is,” and I’ll agree. But then he’ll say, “I, as an artist, can see how beautiful a flower is. But you, as a scientist, take it all apart and it becomes dull.” I think he’s kind of nutty. […] There are all kinds of interesting questions that come from a knowledge of science, which only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower. It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts.”

Formal definition:

scien•ti•li•ty [scien-tee-lee-tee]
-noun, plural -ties.
1.the quality or fact of being sciential.
2.knowledge-based experience, improved by real, proven, scientific data. Can be euphoric in nature, like a eureka moment.

Use of Scientility in a sentence:
– Scientiliy can happen while appreciating the results of a scientific experiment.
– Observing a rocket launch can be a scientil experience or a patriotic experience.
– A farmer will have a scientual appreciation of a new genetically engineered seed.
– The class was scientilized by the new science teacher.
– Today I feel scientual.
– Have a scientil day!

–Related forms
non•scien•ti•li•ty, noun
su•per•scien•ti•li•ty, noun
un•scien•ti•li•ty, noun