"So it was extraordinary to find myself sitting before a respected huddle of planet hunters with the Government's Science Minister, Malcolm Wicks, last week as they declared they believe in aliens...Until recently, the assembled scientists would (quite rightly) have pointed out that there is no universally accepted definition of life, let alone of intelligence. Any talk of smart extraterrestrials belonged in science fiction.
Today, our understanding of the cosmos has changed so much that for the first time searching for signs of life in other solar systems is not just a philosopher's dream but on the list of planned human endeavours. All the scientists I questioned agreed that alien life is inevitable and ubiquitous.
And all but one believe it could be intelligent - ie with the faculty of reasoning and understanding
I think I know what it is about this that bothers me. It seems to me that even though we're learning more and more about the universe (maybe BECAUSE of that), we assume that more and more of what we believe MUST be true, because we know so much. It's a fallacy to think that way, of course, but when has that ever stopped mankind? What makes scientists think it's ok for them to make public announcements about their "beliefs" ? Now, maybe this is just a matter of the press using the wrong terminology; obviously it's fine for scientists to have hypotheses, but these must be rigorously tested and verified, not just stated so positively that it sounds like they're stating fact.
And don't get me wrong - obviously scientists can HAVE beliefs. Everyone does. But those beliefs shouldn't be publicly talked about in a forum that's supposed to be about their scientific endeavors. There's enough confusion already about the difference between theories, hypotheses, facts, and beliefs, and this only serves to blur that line more.
insane plan to dye raw milk black shot down A plan to make raw milk more palatable at least to animals earned the backing of a House committee Tuesday, as lawmakers rebuffed a state Board of Agriculture plan that would have required the product to be dyed gray.
RichardDawkins.net Oxford professor Richard Dawkins presents a series of lectures on life, the universe, and our place in it. With brilliance and clarity, Dawkins unravels an educational gem that will mesmerize young and old alike. Illuminating demonstrations, wildlife, vir
Main Page - Geo Hashing contains an algorithm that generates random coordinates around the world every day. Everyone in a given region gets the same set of coordinates. As such, these coordinates can be used as destinations for adventures, la Geocaching, or for local meetups.
Seed: Random Acts of Evolution LINEs seem to be relics of the "copying machinery" of old viral infections wherein a virus would embed a portion of itself into our genome, not enough to propagate the full, infectious virus, but enough to continue copying itself
This is hilarious. One of my favorite sillyness examples when related to religious fundamentalism. Dobson says Leviticus no longer matters? The whole old testament is overridden by Jesus? Then why is homosexuality wrong? Why is the earth still only 6,000 years old? Why was it still created in 7 days?
"Dobson took aim at examples Obama cited in asking which Biblical passages should guide public policy - chapters like Leviticus, which Obama said suggests slavery is OK and eating shellfish is an abomination, or Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, "a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application."
"Folks haven't been reading their Bibles," Obama said.
Dobson and Minnery accused Obama of wrongly equating Old Testament texts and dietary codes that no longer apply to Jesus' teachings in the New Testament.
"I think he's deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology," Dobson said.
From the most recent Seed Magazine, which you should be subscribed to:
"One element common to both human and fugu is a DNA sequence called LINE, short for Long Interspersed Element. LINE, itself a gene about 6,000 base pairs long, codes for an enzyme called a reverse transcriptase. The key here is that it recognizes its own RNA sequence, and repeatedly inserts copies of itself into our genome. LINEs seem to be relics of the "copying machinery" of old viral infections wherein a virus would embed a portion of itself into our genome, not enough to propagate the full, infectious virus, but enough to continue copying itself. It is a classic example of a selfish gene: It has no purpose but to do only that, without benefit to us.
If you're reading this, you probably already know Dr. Myers' blog Pharyngula, but if not, you should be reading it. This is a fantastic article, very detailed and intricate, but completely understandable to newbies in the biological sciences. The moral of the story is clear: not only are we the result of a long and complicated evolutionary process, but we have old DNA that clearly marks our relation to some of our oldest ancestors, including virus-like species.
A PROCRASTINATORS GUIDE TO THE UNIVERSE (OR IN DEFENSE OF DELAYING THE INEVITABLE) Empirical research would suggest that almost 90% of people are chronic procrastinators, with acute exacerbations occurring most frequently in student populations[1]. Given the incidence of this condition in the general population, it appears possible
Thumb Up for Trees Register with stumbleupon (you should do that anyway) and thumbs-up this page
Welcome to the HMS Beagle Project In 2009, the bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth we will build a sailing replica of HMS Beagle. An icon of scientific progress, she will circumnavigate the globe in Darwin's wake, crewed by aspiring scientists and researchers.
The Science Creative Quarterly - Darwin Is Resurrected Anyway, I woke up in a thunderstorm, a bolt in either side of my neck, Dawkins on the phone saying, ˜theres another book in this! My re-emergence into society in my bicentenary year has caused something of a stir, not least to myself.
They're Made Out Of Meat "There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."
Metamagician and the Hellfire Club: Science, religion, and "framing" There is some discussion over there about whether there's really a tension between science and religion and about whether religion is really such a terrible thing. Let's address the latter point: what's so bad about religion - apart from its falsity?
Ricky Gervais: My Argument with God Seventy-five percent of Americans are God-fearing Christians; 75 percent of prisoners are God-fearing Christians. Ten percent of Americans are atheists; 0.2 percent of prisoners are atheists.
Expelled Exposed: Flunked "Rebel" Part 1 "The universe, and life itself is turning out to be far more complex and mysterious than Darwin could possibly have imagined." - This quote is torn apart at the seams
Pharyngula: We need to get the NCSE's counter-site to the hideous little propaganda film, Expelled, to rank higher in the search engines. The way to do this is for lots and lots of you to link to the Expelled Exposed site with the word Expelled. It's not hard: just copy this code into a blog post.
Whenever you write about the movie, use that link. Do it a bunch of times, if you want. It's more effective if many people use the same link every time, though, than for one person to be repetitive.
An 'Astounding Time' for Planetary Discoveries - washingtonpost.com The recent discovery of methane in the atmosphere of exoplanet HD 189733b was the kind of breakthrough that the astrobiology institute and many others are looking for -- even though the methane almost certainly has chemical origins, as on Jupiter and Satu
Saudi woman sentenced to death for "witchcraft" She is accused of casting a spell that caused a man to become impotent, and threatening to cause people to be possessed by dogs. She is to be be headed.
Science, Evolution, and Creationism How did life evolve on Earth? The answer to this question can help us understand our past and prepare for our future. Although evolution provides credible and reliable answers, polls show that many people turn away from science, seeking other ...
"Bo Reagan, vice president of research for the Colorado-based National Cattleman's Beef Association, said the videotaped incident was not indicative of how most slaughterhouses operate.
"The welfare of our animals -- that's the heart and soul of our operations," Reagan said.
U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines mandate that an inspector must review sick or injured animals, called "downer" cattle, before they can be slaughtered, and that the 1958 Humane Slaughter Act sets strict rules for the humane treatment of animals.
"What happened in this case was that there were some animals that were harvested out of compliance," he said.
The rest of the news story is here. Honestly, this shouldn't surprise anyone. I'm disgusted at this treatment, but it's no different from any other slaughterhouse. Large-scale meat production is ALWAYS inhumane, because there's no way to produce the sheer quantity of meat in demand without cutting corners. Unfortunately, those corners always involve the treatment of the animals, the safety of the meat produced, the results on the environment, or a combination of those. I've written several articles on large-scale agriculture and meat production, namely this one. Other articles that can give you an idea of the environmental degradation and health issues involved are here, here, and here.
"President Bush warned Friday the United States is in "more danger of attack" because Congress failed to extend legislation on domestic wiretapping laws allowing the government without a warrant to listen in on phone calls and intercept e-mails by foreign terrorist suspects that are transmitted through this country.
Story here. This whole thing is hilarious, because it's exactly what Daniel Ellsberg was talking about when I saw him speak at Wake Forest University. Bush says we're in "more danger of attack" because congress won't legalize something he's already doing and will continue to do. Also, the FISA courts have rejected about 3 requests, ever. AND, not only that, but they can get permission for wiretapping RETROACTIVELY, after they've already done the spying!
It's some of the stupidest mumbo jumbo I've seen in a while to attack the opposition for something they simply aren't doing. Of course, the Democrats will continue to bend and find ways to allow the spying to go on. They even say so in that article:
""He knows that the underlying 'intelligence' law and the power given to him in the Protect America Act give him sufficient authority to do all of the surveillance and collecting that he needs to do in order to protect the American people," House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Thursday.
"A group of scientists has drawn a map that leaves the land blank and highlights what humans have done to the world's oceans. The team was led by Ben Halpern of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara, Calif. Halpern says the goal is to focus more attention on a part of the world that seems out of sight and out of mind.
"The team that drew the new map of the oceans is now working on more detailed regional maps that might be used to predict emerging threats to places like the waters off the coast of California.
Coding : BatteryFace - Start or Stop Processes Based On Battery
I've made updates and fixes to my BatteryFace software, which allows you to set up a list of programs that stop or start based on whether your laptop is plugged in or running on battery.
Go check out BatteryFace, and let me know what you think.
"Nearly 2,000 years later, some who claim to speak in Jesus' name are taking a different view. Consider Bishop Eddie Long, who pastors a megachurch in Lithonia, Ga. With a salary approaching $1 million a year and a nine-bathroom mansion situated on 20 acres, Long's choice of vehicles reflects his opulent lifestyle: He drives a $350,000 Bentley.
Far from casting out money changers, Long is likely to join them. In a 2005 profile in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he defended his high-flying ways, insisting, "I pastor a multimillion dollar congregation. You've got to put me on a different scale than the little black preacher sitting over there that's supposed to be just getting by because the people are suffering."
I just met a person the other day who used to go to the megachurch near my house. He told me they thought about putting a Starbucks in at one point.
Bors Blog: World History With The Pope Funny comic response to pope benedict saying atheism has led to the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice
On the Origin of Species - Condensed and Abridged Charles Darwin's On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life ...in 9,387 words
So, being an evil evolutionist and all, I figured it was time for me to finally read the entirety of On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man. I've read chunks of both and books about them and Darwin himself, but the actual combination of the two is a pretty hefty tome. My second biggest surprise is how totally readable Darwin is. For a book published in England in 1859, the language is very modern and not difficult at all, Darwin speaks intelligibly and provides great examples and descriptions, and he's even funny in some cases.
My biggest surprise so far (keeping in mind I'm only about 60 pages into Origin) is highlighted in this snippet below... until a while after Origin was published and evolution started to be accepted, even DOMESTICATED species were thought to have each come from an ancestor exactly or almost exactly like them. I wonder if that won't become the most telling thing I find here - that creationism was so rampant pre-Darwin that people didn't even believe that their cattle, rabbits, wheat, and corn came from an ancestor quite different from the current species, even though it existed in its current form only because of human-driven selective breeding.
That just tells you how far we've come. It gives me hope. The passage is below, or
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