A devil’s catechism

My review of Dawkins’ The God Delusion(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) (currently at #4 on Amazon’s bestseller list!) is in the latest issue of Seed, which showed up at my door while I was flying out East. They changed my suggested title, which I’ve at least used on this article, in favor of the simpler “Bad Religion”. You could always buy the magazine to read it, but I’ll give you a little taste of what I thought.

Oh, yeah…Seed does that nice plus of having an artist render a portrait of the author, so there’s also a picture, artfully ruggedized and made much more attractive than I am in reality. Not that I’m complaining.

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Squid Hox genes

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It’s April (not anymore—it’s September as I repost this), it’s Minnesota, and it’s snowing here (not yet, but soon enough). On days like this (who am I fooling? Every day!), my thoughts turn to spicy, garlicky delicacies and warm, sunny days on a lovely tropical reef—it’s a squiddy day, in other words, and I’ve got a double-dose of squidblogging on this Friday afternoon, with one article on the vampire squid, Vampyroteuthis infernalis, and this one, on squid evolution and cephalopod Hox genes.

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Paul Nelson in Norway

A reader sent along a few notes on Paul Nelson’s grand tour of Norway—I’ve got to say that his strategy and his talk sounds awfully familiar, right down to the vacuous thought-experiments and god-praising screen-saver that conveniently kicked in during the Q&A. Most significantly, the Norwegian audience of scientists had little patience for his nonsensical arguments, just like our audience of students.

I really wonder how Nelson gets these travel invitations. Did the Scandinavian creationist groups pay his expenses, or is the Discovery Institute funding his missionary work? I think I need some atheist organization sugar daddy to front my junkets to Trondheim and other exotic locales in my ancestral homeland—I’d willingly go into a Norwegian church to lecture on godless evilution and get hammered on by the fundies if it meant I got to visit some interesting people and places.

The summary of his talk (in English, you’ll be relieved to know) is below the fold.

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Evolution of alcohol synthesis

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We need to appreciate beer more. Alcohol has a long history in human affairs, and has been important in purifying and preserving food and drink, and in making our parties livelier. We owe it all to a tiny little microorganism, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which converts complex plant sugars into smaller, simpler, more socially potent molecules of ethanol. This is a remarkable process that seems to be entirely to our benefit (it has even been argued that beer is proof of the existence of God*), but recent research has shown that the little buggers do it all entirely for their own selfish reasons, and they’ve been busily making alcohol that has gone undrunk by humankind for tens of millions of years.

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Cats, candy, and evolution

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Here’s a small taste of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a sweet story about a poor boy and his visit to an amazing candy factory…you’ve probably heard of it, since the new movie is getting a lot of press.

Only once a year, on his birthday, did Charlie Bucket ever get to taste a bit of chocolate. The whole family saved up their money for that special occasion, and when the great day arrived, Charlie was always presented with one small chocolate bar to eat all by himself. And each time he received it, on those marvelous birthday mornings, he would place it carefully in a small wooden box that he owned, and treasure it as though it were a bar of solid gold; and for the next few days, he would allow himself only to look at it, but never to touch it. Then at last, when he could stand it no longer, he would peel back a tiny bit of the paper wrapping at one corner to expose a tiny bit of chocolate, and then he would take a tiny nibble—just enough to allow the lovely sweet taste to spread out slowly over his tongue. The next day, he would take another tiny nibble, and so on, and so on. And in this way, Charlie would make his ten-cent bar of birthday chocolate last him for more than a month.i-a420ae8c62e074dde7e2fce0652d306e-tinystop.gif

That’s how it is published, at any rate. What if it read something like this?

Only once a year, on his birthday, did Charlie Bucket ever get to taste a bit of chocolate. The whole family saved up their money for that special occasion, and when the great day arrived, Charlie was always presented with one small chocolate bar to eat all by himself. And each time he received it, on those marvelg ynfg, jura ur pbhyq fgnaq vg ab ybatri-a420ae8c62e074dde7e2fce0652d306e-tinystop.gif, ur jbhyq i-a420ae8c62e074dde7e2fce0652d306e-tinystop.gifrry onpx n gval ovg bs gur cncre jenccvat ng bar pbeare gb rkcbfr n gval ovg bs pubpbyngr, naq gura ur jbhyq gnxr n gval avooyr-whfg rabhtu gb nyybj gur ybiryl fjrrg gnfgr gb fcernq bhg fybjyl bire uvf gbathr. Gi-a420ae8c62e074dde7e2fce0652d306e-tinystop.gifr arkg qnl, ur i-a420ae8c62e074dde7e2fce0652d306e-tinystop.gifbhyq gnxr nabgure gval avooyr, naq fb ba, naq fb ba. Naq va guvf jnl, Puneyvr ji-a420ae8c62e074dde7e2fce0652d306e-tinystop.gifhyq znxr uvf gra-prag one bs oveguqnl pubpbyngr ynfg uvz sbe zber guna n zbagu.

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