Turn off CNN

Here’s why:

I don’t generally watch the 24 hour news networks at all, but this is spectacularly egregious. Harwood made a reasonable statement about the current US political situation, and got fired by an upper management that is probably heavily Republican.

Just switch it off. It’s not hard.

My perfect job!

What every college professor’s life is like

Buzzfeed has this intriguing article where they ask women who have happy, low-stress jobs to explain what they do. It’s titled Best Low Stress, High Paying Jobs for Women. Here’s my favorite.

University professor (medieval history). I choose my schedule, the classes I teach, and my research agenda. I love what I do, so it never feels like work. I spend my summers traveling, relaxing, and enjoying my life. I don’t remember the last time I felt anything close to stress. I make a really, really good income (salary plus grant money, book royalties, and a research stipend). It is literally a dream job. It took 11 years of school (BA, MA, and a PhD), but it was worth all of it.

Oh man, if I could roll back the clock 40+ years and pick a different profession, I think I’d choose that one. “University professor.” No stress, huh? She’s got grant money and published a book and gets to spend her summers relaxing and traveling! Sign me up!

Second best option:

Self-employed housekeeper. I listen to podcasts and music, clean two or three houses a day. Rarely start before 9:30 a.m., rarely work later than 3:45 p.m. I feel productive and being of service every day. I make way more than any office job I’ve worked. Good full-time wages for way less than full-time hours.

Easy work!

Somehow, I don’t think that Buzzfeed dug very deeply into these anecdotes.

A creationist perspective on AI

It’s not really about artificial intelligence — it’s so muddled I don’t think they understand what they’re talking about, except that whatever it is, they’re ag’in’ it. All the Answers in Genesis “journal” can do is publish a a vague complaint about mind-cloning.

The dominant view of the constitution of the human being in modern times is physicalism. This view attempts to explain mental manifestations as an epiphenomenon of the brain to the exclusion of the soul, as opposed by dualism. According to the dominant view, the mind arose at some point during evolutionary development. As such, physicalists have attempted to transfer the human mind from one substrate to another, in a process called mind cloning.

We have? This is news to me. I don’t think anyone has even tried to transfer a human mind to a different substrate. I don’t even know how you would start to do such a thing, because the mind is inextricably intertwined with the brain.

Yeah, I just searched PubMed for mind cloning, “mind cloning”, and mind-cloning. No papers anywhere on anything like it. Thanks, AiG, now the NIH is giving me an icy stare and wondering if I’m some creationist nutcase.

That project leads to multiple problems. Until now the connectome of only 100,000 mouse neurons have been mapped, thus calling the feasibility of the project into question.

Quite rightly. I think we can say that scientists, even the physicalists he’s complaining about, call the feasibility of this imaginary process of “mind cloning”, which at best exists in the pages of science fiction novels, into question. Just as we call the fictions of the Bible into question.

Ethical issues also arise: would I be held responsible for my mind clone’s criminal activities? What if I and my mind clone vote against each other? Would mind cloning lead to the devaluation of human life?

Granting the absurdity for a moment, no — they’d be separate, autonomous beings. Who cares? We let individuals, and a “mind clone” would be an individual who can vote as they choose, although if they were truly a copy of your mind, wouldn’t they think the same way you do? Why would a copy lead to the devaluation of human life? This seems to be something Christians specialize in, but us non-Christians already oppose it.

This is the best they can do, a series of silly non-issues compounded by their own misconceptions. So, you want to compare materialist and supernatural concepts of the mind? Here you go, be illuminated.

Comparison of materialistic and supernatural creation of human consciousness. A. The materialistic viewpoint claims that consciousness is merely a by-product of the process of evolution from simple organisms to the human being. B. The supernatural view holds to the special creation of human kind and all other groups of organisms. The consciousness as well as the soul is created into the human being directly by God.

Don’t you just love meaningless graphs? I start with the axes. What is measured on the X-axis? Is it quantifying the amount of evolution and the amount of creation? The Y axis isn’t even labeled. It suggests that “evolution” proponents think there is a progressive increase in “mind” from simple organisms to humans, and that there is a discrete point where “consciousness” exists.

Meanwhile, creationists think there is a measurable undefined Y-axis something, and that cats have more of it than dogs or horses, and that god at some moment in time (should the X-axis be days of creation, from 1 to 6? And weren’t all the animals shown created on the same day?) conjured them into existence with some fixed quantity of consciousness-stuff? I do not understand any of that. It’s an attempt to create a pseudo-quantitative picture of something they don’t understand.

So, what is the goal of this paper? At least they spend a paragraph on that.

In this paper, the main area of mind cloning will be examined and its feasibility will be assessed, and relevant ethical issues discussed. It will also examine the reasons why the human soul exists as an alternative explanation of the human mind as opposed to monism.

Mind cloning is not a thing, it is not feasible, and we already know that the only ethical issues they’re going to bring up are silly and irrelevant, since we can’t clone minds. The arguments for the soul…well, you already know what they’re going to be. This is Answers in Genesis! The answer is that the Bible says so.

Once again, we get a pseudoscientific graphical illustration of the difference between a brain and a soul. Does this help?

The difference between the brain and the soul. A. The physical brain has three-dimensional spatial extent. B. In comparison, the soul is intangible, yet exists.

I guess the difference is that the brain is tangible and exists, while the soul is intangible and exists. I don’t see how making some strange 3D graph and putting question marks after the axes helps, but OK, I guess someone was reassured by it. Some innumerate, fuzzy-brained someone.

Let’s see one example of how they deal with ethical issues.

Some may ask, but what about frozen embryos? What happens when the soul does not seem to manifest itself? The question is easily answered. When people are asleep or are in a coma, their bodily functions slow down, albeit they do not cease entirely (Moreland 2010; Moreland and Rae 2000, 227). When an embryo is on ice, its functions slow down dramatically, although not entirely, just as the metabolism of a hibernating bear slows down during winter but does not come to a complete stop. But arguably, putting an embryo on ice is a form of torture, and it is a logical non-sequitur that the embryo lacks a soul.

(I should mention that most of their citations show their ideas are based on the writing of JP Moreland, a philosopher and theologian, who also happens to be a heretical old earth creationist.)

All of it is one logical non sequitur after another. How do we know that an embryo has a soul, an entity that has not been demonstrated to exist? Because it would be illogical to think it lacks one. I think the author mistakes his Christian assumptions for logic.

Speaking of illogic, I’ll leave you with the author’s predictable final conclusion, a little lump of evangelical glurge.

However, humans can live forever, but not in a way fashioned by men in an attempt to escape God’s rule. They must humbly repent of their sins and submit to God’s will. That explains the death of Christ: he died for us that we may have eternal life (John 3:16; 17:3). If we trust in Christ, then all diseases, all our sorrows and death itself will one day pass away (Revelation 21:4). This is the true way of salvation and eternal life, not a futile materialistic fantasy that equates a human with his mind, and tries to achieve immortality by perpetuating it.

Logical non-sequitur.

Biden’s speech

It was not a great speech. It was full of that tiresome American political boilerplate about liberty and equality, reinforced the myth of out wonderful founding fathers, reassured everyone that we are the greatest nation on Earth, and was full of “souls” and “God” to the point where I wanted to tell him this is not a church. But it did one thing clearly and sharply: it named an enemy. MAGA Republicans. They oppose democracy and we have to prevent them from getting their way.

That’s useful. It helps to have something concrete to oppose for now. He weakened it a bit by claiming that they weren’t the majority of Republicans — all you have to do is look at the divisions of the House and Senate to see that no, the majority of Republicans are aligning with MAGA Republicans — but it’s a start. I do believe that if you asked American voters to line up on one side of the MAGA Republican label or the other, most would shy away from putting on a red hat and puckering up to kiss Donald’s ass (or deSantis’ ass).

I listened to this once.

It’s not going to go down through history as particularly good oratory, but it does make one strong point.

By the way, Fox News put the speech on their channel, only they titled it Biden attacks his fellow Americans during Philadelphia speech. They shouldn’t object, since attacking fellow Americans, like Democrats and gay and trans folk and poor people and minorities and immigrants, is their stock in trade.

Creepy dudes on ice

They’re everywhere. The NSF has released a horrifying report on sexual harassment and assault at US Antarctic program — there are a large number of military personnel, contractors, and researchers who converge on Antarctic bases for long periods of time, with their ability to escape the place limited. It’s a The Thing situation, except instead of a shapeshifting alien, it’s horny drunk dudes groping anything without a beard. And you aren’t allowed to use a flamethrower on them!

Women are a significant proportion of the Antarctic population, with 140 out of 440 respondents to a survey (peak population total at all sites is about 1600). A huge fraction of the women think harassment and assault are serious problems in the Antarctic, which, whoa, speaks to courage of the women who go there to do science.

This is supposedly a professional environment, but working there is going to subject you to all kinds of degrading behavior. I am astounded that women still go there to work, and also surprised that an epidemic like that is allowed to continue. That persistence might be explained by another datum.

Only 23% of leadership (defined by older, higher salaries, and higher-status
positions) agree or strongly agree that sexual assault is a problem and 40% agree
that sexual harassment is a problem.

Leadership is grossly out of touch or in denial. Read the whole, long report to see multiple examples of the seriousness of the problem. Beautiful, isolated research stations seem to be a magnet for assholes.

Should, maybe, NSF provide all women working in these research stations a flamethrower?

BEEFCAKE!

Well, today is another overloaded day, with a lab this morning, and then I volunteered to take a group of students on a spider tour of campus (we’ll walk around and do some observations), and then I have a division meeting this evening. But somewhere in there I’ve got to set up some Beefcake Fruit Flies for an experiment I describe on Patreon. Yeah, it turns out you can bulk up flies with dietary supplements. It’s true. I’m going to see if musclebound flies are better for spiders.

If it works, look for my profitable line of Spider Food Supplements on sale online.

I suppose I could ask if beefcake flies make beefcake spiders, and feeding beefcake spiders to birds makes beefcake birds, which could in turn be consumed by people…but that’s getting too renfield. It’s always a danger that one can be tempted to go down the renfield path.

The second week begins

One week of the semester done, now to march on into the second. Unfortunately, every week has to have a worst day, and this semester it’s Wednesday. I’ve got back-to-back lecture and lab this afternoon, which means I’m going to have to talk non-stop for about 3 hours, and that means I plan to go home and sit in sweet silence this evening. Expect occasional imprecations hurled at Wotan in the future.

You know what else is annoying about Wednesday? We get three and even four day weekends now and then, and the workdays that get wiped out are usually a Friday or Monday, or even a Thursday (Thanksgiving!) or a Tuesday (Fall break!), but Wednesdays are always inviolate, standing alone and untouched. It’s going to be a whole semester of Wednesdays, undefeated, until 8 December.

Buckets?

I’m sorry, but to me the most disturbing part of this story is the buckets.

APennsylvania man has been found with multiple buckets of stolen human body parts that he allegedly purchased off of Facebook, according to police.

East Pennsboro Township Police said that they arrested Jeremy Pauley, 40, of Enola on Thursday after making the discovery while searching his basement. Police said that Pauley is a self-described collector of “oddities” and was in possession of three full human skeletons and up to 20 human skulls, according to ABC affiliate WHTM. He was released soon after posting $50,000 bail.

The investigation began when police received a complaint on June 14 about human remains potentially being sold on Facebook. Suspicion of Pauley’s alleged involvement began after a person called police on July 8 to report finding multiple 5-gallon buckets containing “human organs” and “human skin” in his basement.

Why buckets? Is this a practical way to store your organs? Why? Can you do anything with them, or do you just go down to the basement to gloat over the random viscera floating in your buckets? I mean, I would at least want some classy glass jars, maybe a big vat with multiple organs so you can play with them and assemble them, but this guy’s process is just sloppy and pointless.

I am not at all surprised that Facebook is where you go to buy body parts.

Chaya Raichik is willing to blow up children’s hospitals “in the name of the children”

I find conservatives’ obsession with gender affirmation therapy to be disturbing and bizarre. This Libs of TikTok fanatic, Chaya Raichik, has been haranguing hospital help lines in an effort to get incriminating sound bites for her sensationalist channel. And she succeeded!

Last Friday, Libs of TikTok’s founder Chaya Raichik posted an audio recording of her discussion with hospital telephone operators who said that “a 16-year-old trans boy would be eligible for a hysterectomy at the hospital’s gender development clinic,” The Washington Post reported.

One operator told Raichik that a 16-year-old child would be “in the clear” to receive the operation. A second operator told her that “all different type[s] of age groups” come in for the operation and that “kids” younger than 16 have come in for the procedure.

Yeah, no. Transgender groups are on tenterhooks right now, aware that the mob is ready to rampage and kill, and are scrupulous about avoiding doing anything irreversible to a minor, no matter how much the child may desire it. I don’t believe that they got a revelation from an informed expert at the hospital — they badgered a person who probably primarily handles appointment scheduling to say something wrong. You might want to instead base your opinions on what pediatricians and ethicists say:

One of the most complicated ethical issues that arises in children’s hospitals today is the issue of whether it is ever permissible to perform a procedure for a minor that will result in permanent sterilization. In most cases, the answer is no. The availability of good, safe, long-acting contraception allows surgical options to be postponed when the primary goal of such surgical options is to prevent pregnancy. But what if a minor has congenital urogenital anomalies or other medical conditions for which the best treatment is a hysterectomy? In those cases, the primary goal of therapy is not to prevent pregnancy. Instead, sterility is an unfortunate side effect of a medically indicated treatment. Should that side effect preclude the provision of a therapy that is otherwise medically appropriate? We present a case that raises these issues, and asked experts in law, bioethics, community advocacy, and gynecology to respond. They discuss whether the best option is to proceed with the surgery or to cautiously delay making a decision to give the teenager more time to carefully consider all of the options.

It’s just not done. You can find people who claim it is done — Raichik and her collection of freaks included — but the hospital has denied it and they have nothing but an uninformed claim by someone who is not a medical expert.

The recording, made by Libs of TikTok founder Chaya Raichik, features two telephone operators at the renowned D.C. medical facility stating — in response to Raichik’s questions — that a 16-year-old trans boy would be eligible for a hysterectomy at the hospital’s gender development clinic. Children’s has not disputed the authenticity of the recording but said the employees provided inaccurate information.

“None of the people who were secretly recorded by this activist group deliver care to our patients,” hospital spokeswoman Ariana Ahmadi Perez said. “We do not and have never performed gender-affirming hysterectomies for anyone under the age of 18.”

Now the hospital is flooded with threats. Some human beings seem to favor an opportunity, even a false opportunity, to exercise some self-righteous violence. I think it’s less about protecting children and more about venting some aggression and believing they are heroic…by screaming at a children’s hospital.

Children’s National Hospital has been inundated with threatening emails and phone calls after an influential right-wing Twitter account published a recording that falsely suggested the hospital is performing hysterectomies on transgender children, a hospital spokeswoman said. The torrent of harassment was accompanied by social media posts suggesting that Children’s be bombed and its doctors placed in a woodchipper.

Chaya Raichik has been suspended from Twitter temporarily for spreading misinformation. Not banned, mind you, despite her long history of vicious rumor-mongering. We’re going to have to wait for one of her followers to throw a doctor in a woodchipper before that happens.

Oh, Twitter. Forever pretending to be ethical, forever failing before the siren call of profitable traffic.