Carl Sagan predicts the AntiChrist.

"There's another reason I think popularizing science is important, why I try to do it. It's a foreboding I have -- maybe ill-placed -- of an America in my children's generation, or my grandchildren's generation, when all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when we're a service and information-processing economy; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest even grasps the issues; when the people (by "the people" I mean the broad population in a democracy) have lost the ability to set their own agendas, or even to knowledgeably question those who do set the agendas; when there is no practice in questioning those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and religiously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in steep decline, unable to distinguish between what's true and what feels good, we slide, almost without noticing, into superstition and darkness. " -- Carl Sagan.

Christian: BTW, I find much irony in Sagan's quote in that technology will indeed be hijacked by a dark force so as to force the world population to accept a "mark" whereas they may buy or sell anything. I sincerely hope you will have chosen to not be numbered among them.

 *facepalm*

The personality of science

Some nice anon was good enough to give me a fairly pointless criticism of my previous blog entry.

Really?

Yes, really.

You give personality to a discipline? Science isn't biased because science doesn't think, have a personality or take sides. It is a discipline which has the job of observing and making observations on what is observed.

No. Science simply weighs its biases against various aspects of truth. It simply allows others to check the work of different individuals and see what does and doesn't work out. It tries to neutralize the biases and mistakes by employing many different people who get brownie points for disproving things.

It cannot and should not deal with what it cannot observe. AND, not everything that exists can be observed. There is much of space and the microscopic world yet to be observed so science is silence in these arenas at this time.

I'm sure God will be found in one of those areas of microscopic space. Wait, no that's pretty damned silly to think that.

"Science is trying to figure out reality. If God isn't part of reality, tough cookies for God; don't blame the messenger."

I never suggested that science has something to say about everything. Just that science tries to figure out reality and God doesn't seem to be a part of anything science has investigated thus far. Maybe God is a bacterium at the bottom of the ocean in some unexplored part of some trench somewhere, but I don't think so.

In those areas science cannot observe and so is useless...for now. God, if there is a God, is not subject to science's observations, but it doesn't mean he doesn't exist...

I didn't say it wasn't. I said if God  isn't part of that reality, tough cookies for God. For a God who is said to be everywhere we seem to have to search some pretty distant places to find such a being. It isn't that we have no evidence therefore it's not real. I'm fine with that statement, but rather the point is that we aren't finding any evidence for God in our quest to understand reality. That doesn't mean that science is necessarily a godless quest but rather tough cookies for God.

it simply means it's an arena where science cannot go. Science, if done right, is not biased, but it becomes biased with comments like yours today.

No. It doesn't mean that at all. Science has uncovered no evidence for genies. None. It doesn't likewise mean that genies are an arena where science can't go. It means exactly what I said for God. Science tries to figure out reality and if it finds no evidence for genies, well tough cookies for genies.

If my comment was biased shouldn't I need to have overlooked some bit of evidence? I mean, tough cookies for invisible pink unicorns if science doesn't find them. It's not sciences fault that in fiddling with reality to figure out the truth it uncovered no evidence. There's no need to blame science for failing to find evidence for something that doesn't seem to have evidence.

Very pathetic post today, you can do better than this....come on!

Hardly. You misunderstand my comment as being some kind of claim against absence of evidence being proof of absence. Really I'm just saying that science doesn't find God because science concerns itself with reality and the evidence thus far finds that gods have no more support than werewolves do. Tough cookies for werewolves. Tough cookies for gods.

Science isn't biased against God, it just has a different goal.

Science is trying to figure out reality. If God isn't part of reality, tough cookies for God; don't blame the messenger.

My entire childhood was a lie. What other mysteries of the universe did I miss.

My goodness.

It's true! You really can put up a fight. You really can fight the power. It's not inevitable, it's quite evitable. Perhaps Ray Kurtzweil isn't insane when he says we should live long enough to live forever. My entire view of the world has changed. Reality bends to my will. There is no spoon.

F.

Faith doesn't answer questions.

Very true. Faith is the only option concerning things beyond our current grasp. :)

Very false. Science is the only option concerning things beyond our current grasp.

Make no mistake about this point. Things that have previously been beyond our grasp but are now within our grasp have, without fail or exception, been grasped by science. Every single thing we previously didn't understand and now do understand have come into the folds of our understanding through science.

Never once in the history of the world, in the entirety of things known and unknown, has faith every solved any problem or answered any question great or small sans evidence.

Fractals, trees, and palms --- oh my!

Fractals are a great and important insight that is often the way real life maps into mathematics. We owe Mandelbrot deeply for his insight into this realm of mathematics. They really are a fascinating subject and the intersection with natural and self-similar design structure within evolved solutions to real problem are quite important and impressive.

Much of my love for fractals in nature is sort of tweaked by the bits of nature that doesn't use it. Palm trees aren't fractal. The fronds aren't fractal and neither is the trunk. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough, but there's no part of the tree that looks anything like the entire tree or any other part. I know nature does what works, and palm trees are a very successful species and fractals work in some cases but are not necessary by any stretch. Watching the trees riding in a car, and viewing the self similarities of branch to tree to forest was a somewhat enjoyable way of passing the time. Then I looked at a palm tree and was stopped dead in my tracks. That's not a damned fractal! So annoying.

When life gives you lemons...

"... make lemonade."

Somebody doesn't know the recipe for lemonade. It's equal parts lemon juice and sugar, water to taste. The saying also requires that life gives you sugar in equal proportion to how many lemons you've been given. In which case, it's simply being pessimistic. "When life gives you sugar, make lemonade." Somehow that doesn't sound as deep and symbolic. It sounds like one of many uses for sugar. The reverse claim that life has given you lemons and you mysteriously pull equal amounts of sugar from thin air, is supposed to be somehow deep?

When life gives you lemons, make lemon meringue pie!
When life gives you lemons, make lemon peel candy!
When life gives you lemons, use them as a garnish for alcoholic beverages.

And since we're pulling magical allegorically good ingredients out of thin air, why not just ignore the premise.

When life gives you lemons, eat sugar.
When life gives you lemons, make yourself a sandwich.
When life gives you lemons, listen to people tell you stupid things that they haven't spent very long paying any attention to or they would realize that the premise of being "given lemons" and the obvious sweet flavor and recipe of lemonade requires a magical step of phantasmagorical sugar.


When life gives you lemons... learn to juggle.

It's certainly something you can do with just lemons, I know, I learned to juggle with lemons. And it's certainly something people who have been given proverbial lemons learn to do well.

Nice. Carnival of the Godless 131...

CotG 131: (it mentions me): http://gaytheists.org/?p=821 -- The A in "gay" is fabulous for emphasis (the link seems like a theist site otherwise). For my rather clever work: A modicum of thought. A parable of cards. A look at pascals wager, logic, epistemology, and accepting what you want to be true over what is actually true.

Somebody from the internet actually kinda pissed me off.

That's rare. Usually I look the various people I converse with a sort of distant amusement. I can crush their arguments with absolute ease and wax poetically about fairly obscure notions that necessarily reveal their rather critical mistakes. But, I'm always cool and calm. But, this one actually pissed me off.

In a long exchange involving several points, I noted that minds are sloppy and therefore can make mistakes and often do. He advocated that perhaps that means evolution is false. I pointed out how scientific theories that explain a great amount of evidence are a bit better than guesses and because of the scientific method are of a different quality. The next topic we had discussed was a claim he made that the Discovery Channel was now claiming that the new scientific evidence said the Earth was 7-8 billion years old. I pointed out that the Earth is certainly 4.5 billion years old and that perhaps he misheard and they were talking about the galactic core and did he have a reference for this claim. Then, I was given this chestnut:

Someone else told me the Discovery Channel said that, so I’ll concede that one. Sorry.

That pisses me off. ARG! You... ARG!

I replied:

FFS. Seriously, how much less false crap would you accept as true if you didn't accept second and third hand anecdotal evidence about silly things? I daresay you might not suggest that groggy figments of your imagination and second hand innuendo trumps 150 years of well verified scientific data confirmed by fossil, genetic, morphological, developmental, paleontological, and embryological evidence by a massive collection of some of the worlds greatest scientists if you had a modicum of intellectual honesty or personal reflection. And as a secondary (but personally relevant) effect, I wouldn't want to flay all the skin, tendons, and muscles off my hands right now for their inability to reach through the monitor and punch you.

Witnesses to the Creation.

I guess perhaps the Onion hasn't lost all of it's ability to entertain.

Members of the earth's earliest known civilization, the Sumerians, looked on in shock and confusion some 6,000 years ago as God, the Lord Almighty, created Heaven and Earth.

...

Richard Carrier on Jesus

Reason's Greetings.

Some crackpot sent me a book. Pro-evo'ly.

Yeah, free book from a crackpot. A dead crackpot at that. Tomotom Stifung apparently wants to enlighten me on "pro-evo" thinking and help me to adjust my life towards the cosmic evolution of universe.

http://www.amazon.com/Pro-Evolution-Guideline-Age-Joy/dp/3952251909

He's apparently atheistic and all newagey and denies actual biological evolution because it's "against all odds". This cosmic evolution cannot be the chance evolution of biology, because if it were, then everywhere in the universe would have different laws and forms. However, since everywhere seems to have similar universal laws of physics as Earth, it must be the case that there is universal evolution to the universe. I mean, if biological evolution were possible, then mathematics constants like phi (the golden ratio) wouldn't be the same everywhere.

From this he supposes there are ways to act in favor of this universal force and against this universal force. And acting against it is evil and in favor of it will cause joy. Then he lays out a mediocre worldview couching his agnosticism in terms of pro-evo and his opposition to abortion except to control population, protect the life of the mother. Or that the point of parenting is to raise kids to act in a pro-evo fashion. Or to law, only pro-evo things are the standard for law and its interpretation. Or women, who should in the future be treated equally and should act in a pro-evo manner and support men when they act in a pro-evo manner.

He also gives a great commandment "Steadfastly think and act pro-evo: establish pro-evo goals, tasks and modes of behavior for all areas and in every situation of life - and energetically realize them."

All in all, this book is the the intellectual equivalent of "buy low and sell high, because that's what the universe wants." It might sound good in places but it's entirely pointless and other than defining "pro-evo" as that which furthers your own evolution. We can see what these things are by judging the absolute moral standard. Things are pro-evo and in tune with the other forms if they are "right, good, sensible, and valuable." As if what is right or good or sensible or of value aren't entirely dependent on your sense of rightness, goodness, sensibility, or values. "Do what's right, the universe wants you to, and it will make you happy." So in the future we'll stop dying and AI will come around to save humanity, and it doesn't matter about God so long as you keep doing what is pro-evo.

This great "advice" is absolutely pointless as it is dependent on itself. It's akin to saying "buy low, sell high". Sure, if you did buy low and sell high, you'd make a lot of money. But how can you really figure out what is low and what is high? You can't tell at the time whether this point is the low point or if this point is the high point. You may buy the stock before the floor fell out or sell at the point before the stock skyrockets. You don't know. And without a valid method to actually derive morality this little book is a bunch of pointless nonsense wrapped in the bitter patina of evolution denial, misunderstanding, and new aged nonsense.

Ayn Rand was a total crackpot.

In case anybody didn't know that...

http://www.slate.com/?id=2233966

In her 70s Rand found herself dying of lung cancer, after insisting that her followers smoke because it symbolized "man's victory over fire" and the studies showing it caused lung cancer were Communist propaganda. By then she had driven almost everyone away.

Tim Minchin: Christmas, Drinking White Wine in the Sun

Heard it before, but it's making the rounds again.

You can't prove that! You have no evidence.

Church burned, paster has good words for arsenists: I hope God kills them.

He almost had it too. I love the good news is that people took the gifts home to wrap. That makes everything better. Lol.

Robert Ingersoll: The damp and dropping dungeons.

I keep using this quote and I keep having to look it up over and over again. Ingersoll is so brilliant that I'm often forced to quote and genuflect from afar. But, for the sake of convenience I check my blog for things that I want to look up. Even if nobody reads the blog, I still use it as a quick reference guide to all the awesomeness I've encountered.

Is it nothing to free the mind? Is it nothing to civilize mankind? Is it nothing to fill the world with light, with discovery, with science? Is it nothing to dignify man and exalt the intellect? Is it nothing to grope your way into the dreary prisons, the damp and dropping dungeons, the dark and silent cells of superstition, where the souls of men are chained to floors of stone; to greet them like a ray of light, like the song of a bird, the murmur of a stream; to see the dull eyes open and grow slowly bright; to feel yourself grasped by the shrunken and unused hands, and hear yourself thanked by a strange and hollow voice?

Is it nothing to conduct these souls gradually into the blessed light of day -- to let them see again the happy fields, the sweet, green earth, and hear the everlasting music of the waves? Is it nothing to make men wipe the dust from their swollen knees, the tears from their blanched and furrowed cheeks? Is it a small thing to reave the heavens of an insatiate monster and write upon the eternal dome, glittering with stars, the grand word -- FREEDOM?

Robert Ingersoll, Thomas Paine, http://www.thomaspaine.org/bio/ingersoll1870.html

Damn spammers. Brief hopes that somebody loves me...

... dashed by enlarged penises and weight loss creams.

The Evolution of Candy.

In one more vain attempt to get people to understand evolution:

Imagine you have a bowl of candy and every day one a few pieces of candy from the bowl duplicate. Now if people ate candy out of this bowl and after a while what would happen? Well, interestingly it depends on the candy people prefer, if you really like skittles but you hate granola bars, then you'll eat the skittles and avoid the granola bar. As a consequence of this "predation" the skittles would be less likely to be that candy to duplicate as there would be fewer skittles in the bowl. Also the granola bars would be eaten far less often and as a consequence of nobody really liking them would become the dominate "population" in the candy bowl. If you ate the best candy, you'd end up with a population overwhelmingly made up of the least editable candy. If you "culled the herd" and ate only the worst candy in order to make sure the population of candy would all be of very good tasting candy, you'd be engaging in artificial selection. This is how we have giant cows and sheep with lots of fluffy wool. We have only allowed the best individuals to breed and the most wanted individuals to propagate and allowed the least desirable animals to die off without "duplicating" (reproduction).

Now, imagine if rather than a pure duplication you have a imperfect duplication only slightly though. You might end up with a slightly larger or smaller candy bar, you might end up with more nuts or fewer nuts, you might have a larger bag of skittles or smaller bag. You might have more green skittles than blue skittles. And these subtle mutations could occur every once in a while. Even if the most common one was a bit of a wonky candy bar or a messed up M&M. Then what would happen if you ate the ones you liked?

Not only would you end up with your least favorite candy you might end up with the smallest candy that looked ugly or reminded you puke or if you were inclined to eat many because they were small, you might end up with the candy getting large in order to sate your appetite with one sacrifice rather than enduring the death of several individuals. If you were to breed the candy for your liking. You could end up with bags filled with a single giant bright green skittle to the point that they don't even look much like skittles anymore. You could bread a second population of millions of tiny red skittles over the course of a long period of time. And while bags of tiny red skittles and giant green could seem like completely different candy, they would have descended from a common ancestor.

At what point are such things evolving? Make no mistake, this hypothetical candy bowl is evolving. Is it when you "naturally select" the candy? Is it when they duplicate? It's the entire process. In humans there are more subtle ways of changing and differences and rather than you eating candy we are faced with the prospect of the uncaring reality of organisms in the struggle for existence dying of disease, famine, and being devoured. But, like the candy, whatever is best suited towards survival is the most likely to survive and pass it's genes off to the next generation.