Who has the weird eyes?

That guy Ben Goldacre just blew my mind. What is the most popular cosmetic surgery in Asia? Blepharoplasty. Many people want to have the Western “double eyelid”, while I didn’t even know I had a double eyelid until I saw a few comparison pictures! In addition to plastic surgery, people buy cheap plastic gadgets to create a wrinkle, or use ugly do-it-yourself methods with acid and double eyelid tape (yes, there is such a product).

I am rather weirded out. A wrinkle I never even noticed before, or at least took for granted, is apparently a mark of beauty to some people who lack one. That’s just screwed up. Or, more interestingly, it’s an indication of how much attention people pay to the details of eyes.

Do I really want you to vote for me?

I don’t know. People keep telling me to turn out the vote for the 2008 Weblog Awards, but given that it’s a race between me and two truly awful pseudoscientific denialist blogs, it’s hard to work up much enthusiasm. It was much more fun when it was a competition between me and Phil Plait, where at least I felt like it was legitimate contest, and any winner would have brought some credit to the award.

So go ahead and punch a button if you feel like it. But I will remind you: no cheating of any kind. The people who run this award have some weird rules, but they aren’t dummies, and they do scrutinize sources and voting patterns very carefully, and will throw out votes that have a hint of illegitimacy. The only thing more embarrassing than winning this contest might be losing it because a large number of votes for me were discarded.

For an even worse example of inappropriate nominations, take a look at the Best Middle East or Africa blog list. It’s a swarm of ignorant neo-cons up against an actual scholar of the Middle East, Juan Cole of Informed Comment. And the ignoramuses are winning!

And he even wrote a ballad for her!

Ann Coulter has been pestering me a lot, lately. Half the right-wing email I get seems to consist of that thick-skulled harpy howling insanely about Al Franken — she seems genuinely staggered by the possibility that us left-wing moonbats actually fought to get him elected.

I’m a bit dismayed to learn that she is Roy Zimmerman’s girlfriend.

What does Spain think of the atheist bus campaign?

Well, if you believe in online polls, they don’t like it very much. But hey, you know what we think of online polls! I suspect that we’ll be able to win over all of the beautiful country of Spain with a few clicks on all of our computers. Here’s the question, and the current state of affairs:

Que opinas sobre esta campaña ateista? (What do you think of the atheist bus campaign?)
Pésima (very bad): 83%
Mala (bad): 4%
Antiliberal: 8%
No se (don’t know): 0%
Buena (good): 5%

Will it become buena in the next few hours?

By the way, the slogan sounds much prettier in Spanish: Probablemente Dios no existe. Deja depreocuparte y disfruta la vida.

There is no religion of peace

I’ve been hiding from the horrible news in the Middle East, but this story induced me to poke my head out of my tortoise shell…so I can puke. A rabbi consulted his holy books to see what God had to say about the vicious violence going on right now, and you can guess what God’s word might be:

Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings.

Of course. Did we expect anything else? No moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians. Thank you for the carte blanche, God. How about raping? Is that OK? Baby butchering? Raping butchered babies? I’m sure it’s all good.

Sometimes it is so difficult to be an atheist. I don’t even have the solace of imagining Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu sizzling in hell, right next to Arnaud Armaury.

Chemical replicators

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We’re one step closer to self-sustaining chemical replicators, similar to what would have existed a few billion years ago, before true cells evolved. Lincoln and Joyce have created a couple of relatively simple molecules that assemble themselves from even simpler precursors in a test tube.

It’s not as straightforward as the simplest scheme one might imagine. The simplest model would be for a single enzyme, E, to catalyze its own assembly from two smaller precursors, A and B. This formula would lead to a test tube full of A and B to be quickly converted to a test tube full of nearly nothing but E with the introduction of a single copy of E. The actual solution is a little more difficult to explain.

[Read more…]

Brunswick, North Carolina: Ground zero for stupidity

The Brunswick school district is still arguing about teaching creationism. As is typical, the usual clueless ideologues from the community are getting up there in front of the board and babbling. Look at this argument:

The topic came up after county resident Joel Fanti told the board he thought it was unfair for evolution to be taught as fact, saying it should be taught as a theory because there’s no tangible proof it’s true.

“I wasn’t here 2 million years ago,” Fanti said. “If evolution is so slow, why don’t we see anything evolving now?”

That statement makes no sense. The slower evolution is, the more difficult it is to see the slow changes within the brief period of recent time. He has answered his own question! The second clause is simply raw ignorance, though, since we do see organisms evolving now. Bacteria, insects, lizards, birds…we’ve got lots of examples in organisms with shorter generation times than ours, and we even have molecular evidence of genetic changes in humans in the last 10,000 years. Is Fanti Italian for “Fool”?

Worse, though, is the fact that members of the school board are buying into this nonsense. They want to stuff creationism into the curriculum, somehow.

Board attorney Joseph Causey said it might be possible for the board to add creationism to the curriculum if it doesn’t replace the teaching of evolution.

Schools’ Superintendent Katie McGee said her staff would do research.

Babson said the board must look at the law to see what it says about teaching creationism, but that “if we can do it, I think we ought to do it.”

WHY? This is idiotic.

I think the square root of 9 is 27. I think that idea ought to be shared with the students in arithmetic class. As long as it doesn’t replace the teaching of the dogmatic opinion that the square root of 9 is 3, I think we ought to do it.

I think Moby Dick was written by Herman Shakespeare. I’m pretty sure we can find lots of Ph.D. experts in literature who will tell you that Shakespeare was the most important writer in our language, so I see no harm in promoting his importance further. If discussing Shakespeare’s extensive temporal contributions to American literature doesn’t replace a few a few American authors, it ought to be possible for the board to add my theory to the curriculum.

Creationism does not belong in the curriculum because it is wrong. Teaching is not a process of pouring random noise into the brains of young people and allowing them to pick and choose what they want to believe — it’s about giving kids a solid rational foundation for learning. Teach them lies and you’ve poisoned their minds for a lifetime, and here is a school board actively promoting harm to their charges.

For another take on teaching both sides, read some advocacy for teaching the controversy from a biblical point of view. Detailed dissection of the different claims of the book of Genesis will sow doubt in the minds of the students.

However, I disagree in one way — that doesn’t belong in science class. Spending more time teaching the garbage of chapter 1 of Genesis, and more, adding instruction in the garbage of chapter 2 of Genesis, is still teaching garbage, and giving too much time to nonsense. It’s useful for teaching that the Bible is an untrustworthy source, but that should not be part of the agenda of a science curriculum.

I’d like to see the kiddies learning that the Bible is incoherent trash in Sunday School.

Radio reminder

This morning at 9am (in about an hour!), Atheist Talk radio will have an interview with Todd Allen Gates, to talk about this subject:

What if the Christian god really existed?  That’s the premise that author Todd Allen Gates takes in his book “Dialogue with a Christian Proselytizer.”  What conclusions can we reach about this Christian god?  One of the book’s main themes is: “If you understand why you reject all the other religions, you’ll understand why I reject yours.”

Could be interesting. One of the infuriating things about arguing with believers is that they refuse to extend their ideas to their logical conclusions…which are usually absurd.

Testing, testing, testing…is this thing on?

It looks like Pharyngula is back online…at least I’m seeing new comments appear. Now let’s see if I can post anything.

How about another pointless poll? In a web page for some TV show I’ve never seen, ABC is asking, “Did Arlene have the right to refuse to vaccinate two of her sons?” (I presume this refers to some fictitious incident in the program). Alas, the anti-vaxing kooks have seized upon it, and the vote is now at:

70% say “YES – The parent has a right to act on their beliefs.”

30% say “NO – Her decision put her sone and hundreds of other people at risk for the measles.”

Wait, measles? That’s a dangerous disease that is currently on the rise because of these paranoid idiots who oppose the MMR vaccine. This should be a no-brainer — it’s too bad there are so many brainless people out there.

Orac has transcripts of the relevant part of the program, if you want to figure out what the poll is refering to.