While writing my post reviewing the film 20 Feet From Stardom about the anonymous backup singers to the famous singers, I recalled that I used to think that for someone with limited musical ability like myself but yet thought that it would be fun to perform, the role of backup singer seemed ideal. It seemed like all it required was the ability to sway and clap while occasionally singing something. A cushy gig, it looked like. [Read more…]
There is something quite alluring about lists, especially if they are lists of things that one cares about. Sites that specialize in ‘listicles’ (articles that are lists of things) are sometimes accused of using them as click bait and I must say it is a successful strategy at least some of the time for me. [Read more…]
Apparently it is a tradition for the US president to give an interview to a television network just before the Superb Owl game each year and this year the interviewer was Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly. I did not watch it, of course, because O’Reilly is a waste of time, a blowhard who tries to pretend that he is a serious journalist. [Read more…]
We are always warned that a statistical correlation should not be used to infer causation because either the causal relationship can go either way or both effects may be due to a third cause. The only way to truly determine the direction of causality is to design experiments that are specifically meant to tease it out. But sometimes we can be fooled by multiple, seemingly independent correlations that strongly suggest causality. A recent study of vitamin D deficiency and health illustrates this danger. [Read more…]
Sherlock Holmes goes to Sesame Street and meets a new nemesis, this time called Murrayarity, who challenges him to solve a tough problem. Holmes has to get the aid of a new friend who is an expert in that area. [Read more…]
It is curious how many people there are who think that many atheists are getting it all wrong and feel they must tell us how we should think. Much of this advice comes from fellow atheists ‘and sophisticated theologians’ (i.e., those whose religious beliefs are so rarified that it has almost no overlap with the beliefs of ordinary religious person except that they agree on the fact that the material world is not all there is). [Read more…]
Everyone hates robocalls, those computer generated phone calls that interrupt you to sell you stuff. They are almost immediately recognizable and so you can hang up at once unless you are feeling lonely and want to hear the sound of a voice. [Read more…]
If there is one thing that religions absolutely must believe in, it is the existence of the soul, although not all religions give it the same name. Without the belief that there is some entity that is part of us and yet somehow independent of the body and can interact freely with an external deity, much of religious doctrine becomes even more vacuous than it currently is. [Read more…]