It must have been an act of god

I think this is my favorite newspaper headline yet: Priest attached to party balloons vanishes in Brazil. Now you know what to bring to the next party at your local church: a lawn chair, a bunch of balloons, and a helium tank. I am imagining a day when every priest in the world stands smiling beneath a great happy bobbing collection of many-colored balloons, and they all joyously loft themselves up, up into the sky, joyfully drifting away before the winds until they are just a tiny speck and then … gone. It will be a miracle.

This will be my new dream. It will bring a smile to my face as I fall asleep.

And as long as I’m dreaming, I’ll imagine myself with an ultralight aircraft and a BB gun, buzzing above a great Sargasso of wind-gathered balloons.

Hello, new people!

We’re seeing a lot of new traffic here, and a lot of it seems to be people hunting down that infamous P.Z. Myers dude because they read about his evil ways in some publication, or saw the name in some really bad movie. You’re at the right place, welcome, go ahead and leave a comment. If you’re a creationist, the other commenters here are always hungry for a little fresh meat, and if you’re just generally interested in the subjects discussed here, join the conversation. You can find a list of my science articles here, but as long as you’ve found the place, may I suggest you take a look at the ScienceBlogs main page? There’s a legion of other science blogs right here, my next door neighbors, and they’d probably appreciate some visits, too.

And who knows? You may have really bad taste and think one of those other guys has a better blog than mine, and you’ll hang out there. I might forgive you.

Who made the “Beware the Believers” video?

We have a confession! It was made by Michael Edmondson, and it was produced by the people behind Expelled. He wrote to me, and says, “The intent of the video has been questioned a lot…I suppose the answer is that I tried to make something that was funny to me and It’s not really meant to convince anyone of anything.” That’s how I felt about it: it’s amusing, and that’s all that matters — it’s vague enough that it can be read any way you want.

Edmondson has also made a brief sequel.

Note that Stein is wearing a t-shirt that says “Poe’s Law”.

Basics: How can chromosome numbers change?

There in the foaming welter of email constantly flooding my in-box was an actual, real, good, sincere question from someone who didn’t understand how chromosome numbers could change over time — and he also asked with enough detail that I could actually see where his thinking was going awry. This is great! How could I not take time to answer?

So here’s the question:

How did life evolve from one (I suspect) chromosome to… 64 in horses, or whatever organism you want to pick. How is it possible for a sexually reproducing population of organisms to change chromosome numbers over time?

Firstly: there would have to be some benefit to the replication probability of the organisms which carry the chromosomes. I don’t see how this would work. How is having more chromosomes of any extra benefit to an organism’s replicative success? Yes, perhaps if those chromosomes were full of useful information… but the chances of that happening are non existent and fly in the face of ‘small adaptations over time’.

Secondly, the extra chromosomes need to come from somewhere. I’m not sure about this, but I believe chromosome number are not determined by genes, are they? There isn’t a set of genes which determines the number of chromosomes an organism has. So the number is fixed, determined by the sexually reproducing parents. Which leads me to believe that if the number does change, and by chance the organism is still alive and capable of sexual reproduction, that the number will start swinging back and forward, by 1 or 2, every generation, and never stabilising. The chances of this happening are also very very slim.

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Whose head would you like to see on video?

John Horgan actually defended Ben Stein on Bloggingheads. Now I can understand being a little contrarian, but that’s going too far.

More importantly, I’ve been asked to do another bloggingheads session — it could be with John Horgan, and an opportunity to chastise him for that (as well as talk about something more substantive) or it could be with someone else — so I thought I’d throw it out here. Who do you think would be a good person for me to team up with for a diavlog? Maybe there’s someone out there who hasn’t been on bloggingheads you’d like to see.

Let’s all pack up and move to Great Britain!

The views on religion seem much more congenial.

A charity set up by an ardent Christian to fight slavery and the opium trade has identified a new social evil of the 21st century — religion.

A poll by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation uncovered a widespread belief that faith — not just in its extreme form — was intolerant, irrational and used to justify persecution.

Pollsters asked 3,500 people what they considered to be the worst blights on modern society, updating a list drawn up by Rowntree, a Quaker, 104 years ago.

The responses may well have dismayed him. The researchers found that the “dominant opinion” was that religion was a “social evil”.

I think I’d fit right in.

The real expulsions

A fair number of creationists must be leaving a certain propaganda movie and getting on to the internet to find targets of their ire, because I’m getting a little surge in hate mail — mostly short, petty whines and accusations. For any who find this site in addition to my email address, I have two suggestions for you:

  1. Look up the actual stories of the “expelled”. It seems their martyrdom has been grossly exaggerated.

  2. Then compare those stories with more serious case of religious persecution against those who favor evolution.

Creationists, much as I’d love to smack down every one of your silly arguments, I can’t possibly do it one by one. Hang around, ask questions in the comments, and take your turn: we’ll eventually get around to dismantling your ludicrous claims.