Yes, it’s true: we have now absorbed Laelaps. Update your links and feeds.
It’s like some ravenous chthonic entity, isn’t it? Got a blog? We’ll devour it. But it’s a good thing, and I like being part of an all-consuming juggernaut of science.
Thank you, Dr House. “Rational arguments don’t usually work for religious people otherwise there would be no religious people.” Also good: “It’s not about fun, it’s about the truth.”
A two hour presentation was given at a local church last night by creation scientist whom I won’t name. This presentation overall lacked direction and seemed to jump from one topic to another without really stopping to make a point. About a third of the presentation was about dinosaur diversity, talking briefly about neat features that a variety of dinosaurs have. Various weather phenomena that could have caused the flood described in Genesis were vaguely presented without any solid background or logic. Fossils were also discussed, again without really any rhyme or reason.
There were two highlights thorughout the evening. The first was when the presenter enthusiastically exclaimed, “I do believe that there were fire-breathing dragons!” From behind me a women shouted an equally enthusiastic, “Amen!” The second highlight of the presentation was the time allotted for questions at the end when PZ Myers, who had been sitting quietly in the front row throughout the entire hour and a half presentation, raised his hand and fired one off. For some reason, this reminded me of the nationally televised Bush vs. Kerry campaign debates of 2004. Whenever Bush was asked a question, he seemed to stutter ignorantly all over his podium for a few moments and then say some elaborate nonsense that didn’t really provide an answer.
To me, trying to scientifically explain an interpretation of the Bible, an interpretation that may not even be accurate, completely misses the meaning of having faith. Some of my fellow neurobio students agreed with me that science and the Bible should not have to be in opposition. It’s a shame that some creation scientists deliberately ignore valid research in areas such as glacial geology and evolutionary ecology to formulate what they consider to be a scriptural explanation of how the Earth came about. The Bible does not define the chemical and genetic specifics of the origin of this planet and the life existing on it. So is creation science attempting to make the Bible say something it doesn’t? Perhaps people have been set in their interpretations for so long, that it’s too difficult to accept that current research in science (that may not jibe with these long held interpretations) does not have to disagree with the Bible.
You have to read this essay to believe it: Militant atheists are wrong. It’s a collection of what I call indignant pieties — “how dare atheists challenge my precious faith!” — and it’s also distilled, concentrated, essence of stupid, painful to read and even more agonizing to have to waste time arguing against. But then, it’s by Lee Siegel. Lee Siegel. There’s a man who has a lot of courage, exposing himself on the internet again. Siegel is the amazing hypocrite who denounced the ethics of the blogosphere, and then cobbled up a sock puppet ( remember “Sprezzatura”?) who went trolling around the blogosphere singing the praises of Lee Siegel. Fortunately, I don’t have to suffer over his nonsense too much — Melissa takes a bullet for the rest of us, stuffs Siegel’s brain in the toilet bowl, and flushes.
I do want to touch on one bizarre claim he makes while swirling down the drain, though.
Here’s the first volley of cephalopod recognition posts I’ve received. Do send me more, and I’ll put them up later. Do me a favor and put “Cephalopod Awareness” in your subject line so I can sort them out more easily.
The blog that kicked this all off, Cephalopodcast, has a vintage octopus wrestling video. I remember my dating days, too. It’s even from the Pacific Northwest, and that guy has a classic Seattle Scandihoovian accent.
Somebody has found their way to the inner sanctum of the cephalopod lords, and returned with pictures. Yes, it’s true: cephalopod worship, for some reason, involves scantily clad women.
Wait a minute…eating cephalopods? No scantily clad ladies for you, Rick.
The Other 95% has a collection of squid links and a video of schooling squid.
Peter Metrinko sends a poem:
Today we sing a love ballade
To the majestic cephalopod
True, they may look quite odd
But judge them not by their façade
The eyes that grace their lovely bod
Have photoreceptors like a rod
More worth our passion than some jihad
Waged for some fictitious god
Today we cast a loving nod
Towards the lovely cephalopod
See them in their natural environment! Here are some diving photos.
Check out the trailer for “The Future is Wild”: land squid! I think the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus site already did this.
Remember, it’s International Cephalopod Awareness Day! Send me links to your articles that express your appreciation of our 10- and 8-armed friends, and I’ll periodically put them up right here on Pharyngula.
You’d never guess who the second largest religious group at Missouri State University might be. And they get hate mail and threats just for existing!
If that link doesn’t work, try this:
Thanks, Greg!
As promised, I attended Tom DeRosa’s creationism talk this evening, and as expected, it wasn’t very informative but it was mildly entertaining. He’s a good, enthusiastic speaker — he’s just unbelievably wrong. We might have a recording later on; Skatje was taping it, but it was just with our little home digital video recorder, and we don’t have any idea what the quality will be like, yet. I’m letting her handle the A/V stuff on this one.
Anyway, it wasn’t quite what I expected. I was thinking it might be based on his recent book, Evolution’s Fatal Fruit, which blames every social ill of the last 150 years on wicked ol’ Darwinism. It was altogether different: he gave a talk on “God’s Amazing Animals,” which was far, far fluffier and harder to grapple with.
I have some thoughts on the topic of male and female dominance brought up by Blue_Expo.
In fact, it was the topic of a paper for my Evolution of Human Aggression class…
Females are under some different sexual selection pressures than males stemming from the fact that they are the limited sex. They can only produce a finite number of offspring and are heavily invested in their progeny. Perhaps this is the basis for the female dominance social hierarchies observed in bonobos (Parish et al., 1994) and hyenas (Jenks, 1995). In both these systems, offspring inherit their mother’s rank and a mother is willing to engage in physical combat or establish social coalitions designed to elevate their offspring in rank. Because rank determined ability to procure resources, survive and reproduce, and females had high parental investment, there was sufficient evolutionary pressure for females to evolve the capacity to establish dominance even over males on their offsprings’ behalf.
You may have heard about the 21-foot long half-scale model of the X-Wing that was built to actually fly, using solid fuel rockets. It was launched yesterday. The results were caught on video, and it is spectacular. There were lots of kids watching this thing, the announcer does the countdown, it lifts off on beautiful columns of flame and smoke, gets about 50 feet in the air … and did the announcer just say “Holy shit!” over the loudspeakers?
The kids are thrilled. We shall enlist them in the Empire’s legions.
