Robert E. Lee statue goes out with a whimper

The massive statue of confederate general Robert E. Lee that existed in the former confederate capital city of Richmond, Virginia has come to an ignominious end, removed from its pedestal on a prominent part of the city, cut up into pieces, and hauled away and placed in a storage unit.

A statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee that towered over Richmond for generations was taken down, cut into pieces and hauled away Wednesday, as the former capital of the Confederacy erased the last of the Civil War figures that once defined its most prominent thoroughfare.

Hundreds of onlookers erupted in cheers and song as the 21-foot-tall bronze figure was lifted off a pedestal and lowered to the ground. The removal marked a major victory for civil rights activists, whose previous calls to dismantle the statues had been steadfastly rebuked by city and state officials alike.
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The origins of the lizard people theory

I must admit that hearing that some people believe in the existence of ‘lizard people’ took me by surprise, even though you would think that by now I would have become accustomed to hearing that people believe in all manner of fantastical ideas. So what is this theory and how did it originate? Cultural historian Lynn Stuart Parramore walks us through this strange world that has anti-Semitic roots. She says that while the theory is undoubtedly bonkers, it is definitely not harmless.

The world-ruled-by-lizard-people fantasy shot to prominence in recent years in part through the ramblings of David Icke, a popular British sports reporter-turned-conspiracy theorist known for his eccentric ideas.

Icke would have you believe that a race of reptilian beings not only invaded Earth, but that it also created a genetically modified lizard-human hybrid race called the “Babylonian Brotherhood,” which, he maintains, is busy plotting a worldwide fascist state. This sinister cabal of global reptilian elites boasts a membership list including former President Barack Obama, Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Mick Jagger.

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Another possible reason as to why are flight attendants are being attacked

I have been thinking about the incident in which a passenger viciously attacked a flight attendant who had told her to buckle up and put her tray away since the plane had not yet docked at the gate. This was just one of a large number of such attacks that flight attendants have been subjected to in the last year.

I posed the question as to why people exploded in rage like this but did not really answer it. I initially put this phenomenon down to the pent-up frustrations that people have these days because of the confinements caused by the pandemic. But on reflection, I think it runs deeper than that and is a manifestation of class attitudes that is a relic of feudalism
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Another favorable review of my book

The American Journal of Physics has just posted a very favorable review of my book The Great Paradox Of Science. This is important because that journal reaches a significant portion of my target audience, those scientists who have broader interests outside their sub-speciality. You can read the full review here but below is an extract.

The book … is a deep and thoughtful attack on the fundamental issue of how science works. I use the word “attack” deliberately, for the central theme of his book is a devaluation of the concept of truth. As he puts it in his closing words (emphasis in the original),

Truth and correspondence with reality are unnecessary as explanatory concepts in science and …. we can regard them as irrelevant and can comfortably dispense with them as no longer serving any useful purpose.

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Things that annoy me

I try not to let trivialities get under my skin but some things just do. A few days ago one of those things got past my defenses again. It happened when I drove into a gas station just behind another car. As is often the case, there are two pumps next to each other. If you are the first to arrive, it makes sense to pull up to the further one so that the person behind you can pull up to the rear one and both can fill up at the same time.

But this person seemed oblivious to this basic point. He pulled up to the first one and stopped. I was annoyed at that person for this demonstration of a lack of awareness of the impact of one’s actions on others. One sees examples of such obliviousness all the time in different situations and these tend to trigger my annoyance. I am not one to explode with anger at such things (like the women who attacked a flight attendant) so I did not blow my horn and urge the person to move forward nor did I glare at him to indicate my displeasure nor yell at him. I just looped around to get to another pump island which had the nozzle on the same side as my gas tank.

While he was filling up, I noticed that he did something else annoying, and that was to wait until his tank had finished filling to then do some extended shopping inside the store, thus blocking the two pumps for even longer than necessary.

I was also a little annoyed at myself for feeling irritated by such a small thing, since it indicates a lack of maturity on my part.

The free speech dilemma

Speech is a hot-button issue these days, with inflammatory rhetoric being spouted everywhere and those who are called out on it claiming to be victims of censorship and ‘cancel culture’. The radio program On The Media had a very thoughtful discussion on the controversial issue of free speech. Host Brooke Gladstone spoke with Andrew Marantz about the heated response he got to a 2019 New York Times op-ed Free Speech is Killing Us that he had written that had argued against free speech absolutism, saying that noxious speech can metastasize into physical violence. He cited many instances where hate speech had resulted in deaths.

Having spent the past few years embedding as a reporter with the trolls and bigots and propagandists who are experts at converting fanatical memes into national policy, I no longer have any doubt that the brutality that germinates on the internet can leap into the world of flesh and blood.

The question is where this leaves us. Noxious speech is causing tangible harm. Yet this fact implies a question so uncomfortable that many of us go to great lengths to avoid asking it. Namely, what should we — the government, private companies or individual citizens — be doing about it?

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What makes people explode with rage over trivialities?

I have written before about the increasing number of incidents on planes where passengers have become unruly and even attacked flight attendants, who have now started taking self–defense classes. About 4,000 people have been banned from flying just within the past year because of their bad behavior, sometimes mask-related.

But I was surprised at the level of aggression shown by one woman who had unbuckled her seat belt and let down her tray while the plane was still taxiing to the gate, and was so infuriated by being told to rectify those measures that she jumped up and punched the flight attendant, so hard that she knocked out two teeth and bloodied her face so that it later required four stitches. Why would you get so angry over such a trivial matter?
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My Scientific American article on Kelvin and Darwin

In lieu of a post, I will refer you to an article of mine that was just published in Scientific American magazine titled When Lord Kelvin Nearly Killed Darwin’s Theory. It deals with an an interesting historical period in the second half of the 19th century that pitted two scientific giants against each other in which the age of the Earth was the key factor in determining the final outcome.

Enjoy! And let me know in the comments what you think.

Showdown at the Tenacious Unicorn Ranch

In an effort to get away from the trans haters and their constant persecution, a group of trans people went out to a remote part of Colorado to start the Tenacious Unicorn Ranch, to grow alpacas and other animals and to provide a safe haven for other trans and non-binary folk. They hope that theirs will be the first of many across the country. But when word got out to the local townspeople about who had moved there, some of them tried to force them away.

Samantha Bee’s show had a report on what went down.

To my mind, alpacas look like a creation of the Star Wars special effects team.