Image Dogtoring #1: Christians & Crusades

Disclaimers:
1. This was inspired by an entertaining MST3K rendition. Original images stolen from that website. The original comic is here.
2. I'm not actually saying Jack Chick runs a cult. You might catch me thinking it very loudly if you have telepathic abilities, though.
3. I don't think for a minute that Jack Chick or his ilk represent the bulk of Christianity. He's a living, breathing parody.
4. I'm a teetotaler by reason of sheer disinterest. That, and the one tiny, tiny sip I tried tasted like bleach.

EDIT: Since Pharyngula and Respectful Insolence have linked here, I foresee my chances of avoiding a lawsuit (since making fun of "religious" people seems to be a crime in America, nowadays) as decreasing. I give full permission for any readers to copy the images and pass them around. If you can somehow make money doing so, go right ahead. Just please keep my alias on it.

Stupid God Tricks #1: God is a Ninja

God: Bender, being God isn't easy. If you do too much, people get dependent on you. And if you do nothing, they lose hope. You have to use a light touch, like a safecracker or a pickpocket.
Bender: Or a guy who burns down a bar for the insurance money!
God: Yes, if he makes it look like an electrical thing. If you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

I intend to prove that God is a ninja. Take, for instance, the ninja in your house. Yes, there's a ninja in your house. Trust me. The reason you don't see or hear him is because he's an expert in the art of stealth. But surely, you may suggest, he would be eating your food or something during his stay, leaving indirect evidence. He doesn't, because he gets takeout. Next, you may ask, is there any evidence of the local pan-asian restaurant delivering food to your house? Well, it's being delivered via ninja, and the store doesn't keep records because the ninja in your house threatened the owner with the invisible dragon in your garage and that elephant with red tonails hiding in your strawberry patch. Trust me.

What's the ninja doing in your house? He's stealing socks from your dryer. Sure, you could investigate alternate causes of sock loss, but when it's not something else, it's the ninja. Trust me.

So, how do we know God is a ninja?

Ninjas:
1. Are invisable.
2. Possess magical powers.
3. Flip out and kill people for no apparent reason.
4. "Touch" people with weapons that are used as flexable appendages.
5. Are flight-enabled.
6. Enjoy ramen.

God:
1. Is invisible.
2. Possesses magical powers.
3. Flips out and kills people for no apparent reason.
4. Touches people with a flexable appendage.
5. Is flight-enabled.
6. Is ramen.

It should now be intuitively obvious that God is a ninja. Sorry, people, the God will have nothing to do with pirates, the natural enemies of the ninja. Trust me.

Gone to the Dogs #1: The Discovery Channel

I was too afraid to watch, and according to Hokum-Balderdash, it seems my fears were justified. I recognize that Discovery's taken plenty of forays into the dark ages, but this is pretty well beyond my tolerance. That's why I chose to stop watching ABC, after all. I'll need to take the time to write up an appropriately angry letter. I'll probably do it after a few more entries this week, when I have the personal time I need to get my mouth appropriately foamy.

In the Dog House #1: Cordless Power

A lot of woos like to complain that us skeptics can't come up with new ideas: That we're only able to shoot them down. Well, I intend to disprove that... Though my technical prowess is quite limited, I can assure you what I come up with will probably be bad ideas. But you never know. Something I think up might be more practical than I believe it to be.

Passive RFID tags have no internal power source: They're small enough that they can be powered by the radio waves emitted by the scanner. When I thought of that, after dealing with a wireless Playstation controller that goes wonky when the batteries start getting low, this probably bad idea came to mind: Is it possible to power something as big as a wireless controller with radio waves, using the same principle? Probably not. RFID tags probably function on very small amounts of electricity, while my controller is powered by three AA batteries.

So, first big problem: Sheer amount of power needed.

Second big problem: Interference. Since I know little about the far ends of the electromagnetic spectrum (beyond how a microwave oven allegedly works), I don't know how messy the air waves would get in my house, and I'd prefer not to have my laptop go through another finicky wi-fi phase.

Third big problem: The FCC. The jerks who shut down the pirate radio station I operated in my imagination, (La-La Land adjacent) probably wouldn't like it. As far as I know, firing the thing up might deafen the FCC guy intently listening to all the forbidden frequencies for any unscheduled blips.

Fourth big problem: Why deal with all this, when you can just use a cord or a spare set of batteries?

So, that's the preliminary rip on my own idea. It's quite bruised. All you happy tax payers out there, please commence making it bloody. Cookie for the first one who does it with precise-looking math.

Dog Treats #1: The Hexagon

Welcome to one series I've been thinking of for a while. The inspiration was Skepticality's "Whimiscality" on the number five. I'll be rambling on my favorite two-dimensional shape: The hexagon. For those of you who've fallen behind on your geometry, the hexagon is a six-sided polygon.





A regular hexagon (all sides and angles equal) has all angles at 120 degrees. Because of this, three hexagons can join together at a common vertex seamlessly, since 120 x 3 = 360. Thanks to this little property, you can form a mosaic of hexagons known as a tessellation. The only other regular polygons that can do this are the triangle and the square.

Unlike the square and the triangle, there are no platonic solids made of hexagons. Hexagons, however, do commonly find themselves in archimedean solids, including one of the most simple:

The truncated tetrahedron, which is essentially a tetrahedron with the points cut off. The hexagon is also a part of the archimedean solid known as the truncated icosahedron, also known as the buckyball, named after Richard Buckminster Fuller, who had a great enthusiasm for the shape. Buckminsterfullerene, a buckyball-shaped carbon molecule, along with other molecules of its sort, seems to have a lot of research potential. Fullerenes have a number of unusual properties, including being the only known allotropes of carbon that can be dissolved.

Returning to hexagonal tessellations, graphite, another carbon allotrope, takes on the form of sheets of hexagons, weakly bonded with each other. Another carbon form is the benzene ring, a hexagon of carbon atoms with other atoms, usually hydrogen, bonded to the available verticies.

No entry on the hexagon would be complete without mentioning honeycombs, the basic units of a beehive. Bees likely evolved to form hexagonal honeycombs because they were the most effiencient use of space while retaining strength.

Oddly, France is sometimes nicknamed "l'hexagone" because, with a little imagination, the nation can be seen as a hexagon.

On a more personal note, hexagonal grids are often favored in some role-playing and strategy games: Distances on a hex grid are constant between two points: There's no need to deal with diagonals.

Still Here...

Hey everyone, just wanted to post a quick note.

I was fired from the ol' jobby-poo (for completely assinine reasons) on Jan. 12 and that was my only connection to teh internets. I look forward to maybe jumping headlong into the 1990's by actually purchasing a home computer, but till new employment is found, that idea's in the pisser.

Nah, didn't get married or kidnapped. But I might have to retire from blogging for a little while. But I'll be back strong with a report on Eugenie C. Scott's Evolution VS. Creationism. It should be good; you all know how much I fucking love Creationists...

Basically I've been looking for a job and LABELED finished it's new album that drops on March 4. Keep up the reporting guys!

Wow! I Might Actually be Wrong. This is Exciting!

Got in a comment war on Skeptico with a guy named slavo. (Hey, that rhymes! ... sorta.) It went much like any other, except hiding among the bull[corn], (subtypes: Straw men, red herrings, anecdotes, hubris, you know the drill) were a few shiny pieces of yellow metal which may or may not be gold. It seems some breathing technique called "Buteyko" might actually show some promise for improving the lives of people with asthma. (Though it's apparently still not a cure, despite protestations to the contrary.)

A series of "Of course" statements:

Of course, I may have overlooked some fatal flaw in the linked studies. Those of you with more experience at interpreting medical studies have full permission to employ the Rolled-up Newspaper of Doom on me, at least after you tell me my oversight.

Of course, I'd recommend more research before we accept it as genuine evidence-based medicine. You know what they say: Replication, replication, replication! I'm pretty sure that four studies don't justify a revolution of even the smallest sort. Let's hope they can get more, better, and bigger ones while keeping the positive results.

Of course, I'm not going to give any creedence to the non-arguments slavo made alongside this one apparently good argument. Finding one piece of shiny metal does not a gold miner make.

Of course, I'm not about to condone the use of logical fallacies or propaganda techniques or give up skepticism. I've been wrong before, and I've even been wrong about being wrong before. It comes with the territory since science and skepticism (Fresh from the department of redundancy department) is about sticking with null hypotheses but trying to falsify them.

---The Dog is hogging the blog. But I suppose it's okay, since Ryan's MIA. I hope he's not stuck behind enemy lines.

Enemy Reinforcements Identified as Another Rant of the Same Type

Just felt the need again. It's an old bit of nonsense, but Creationists* are still repeating it, and getting more annoying each time: That evolution is the root of slavery, war, racism, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, even though it seems their deity invented the stuff millennia before Charles Darwin came into the world.

An annoying tangent of this nonsense is the idea that atheists/Biblical non-literalists/evolutionists can't be moral because evolution eliminates the need for deities or messes up the whole Original Sin thing. I continually fail to understand how the leap from "This is my well-developed theory of how the world works" to "I'm going to be a short-sighted sociopath" occurs. Evolution, like all of science, is descriptive: It tells us how the world is. Morality, not to be confused with religion, is about how the world should be: It's proscriptive.

Another annoying canard: That because us evilutionists perceive human beings as being descended from animals, we are animals, and should be treated as such. First off, which animals? If I thought people should be "treated like animals," would that mean I should go around trying to give people tummy rubs and kibble ('n bits 'n bits 'n bits)? Does it mean I should grab them with a Puffs-brand tissue and drop them in the garbage or out the door? Does it mean that I should run in terror, for fear of being gobbled down like those people in Jurassic Park? "Animal" is a very broad term. It's also meaningless to me, since I don't base my morality on trivial taxonomic labels. Lieutenant Commander Data is a machine. If he were to walk into my room right now (after I got over being starstruck), I'd treat him the same way I'd treat a biological human being: He's sapient, sentient, and even though he spends a lot of time denying it, emotional. It doesn't matter if he's powered by the consumption of other organisms, photosynthesis, or a super-compact fusion generator.

I find it kind of ironic that I base my morality on abstract, possibly subjective concepts like sentience, intelligence, and emotion, while something trivial and physical like arbitrary taxonomic grouping is apparently so central to these Creationists' views.

*The literal Biblical kind of Creationist

P.S.: A cookie for whoever can guess the source of the title of this entry. It's probably a little more obscure than most of these sorts of thing, so I might just order you a real cookie.

The Millenium Project Gets a Trim

It seems things didn't go well for Peter Bowditch in his struggle with the Australian Communications Network. The ACN is likely a pyramid scheme, and at one time the judges agreed. I would be peppering this upcoming text with links to stuff other than a bunch of Homestar Runner cartoons, but since Peter was forced to take down his copious amounts of information on them, I'll have to make do with my memory until I can improve my search-fu to find alternate sources or mirror sites. (Thanks go to Skeptico for reminding me about Wayback, though they don't seem to have recent enough version to include ACN's specific complaints.) Some of the activities ACN engaged in:

They dressed up a photo of an office building, removing a logo, hinting that they owned the entire building, while the company actually worked in one small piece of that building. When Peter showed a picture of the building next to an unedited photo, ACN got him to take off the modified photo, claiming that the editing process made it an original and copywrited piece of art, effectively confessing to their dishonesty.

When legal threats about the content of Peter's articles came in, he offered them several opportunities to provide him with corrections for any factual errors, they apparently never responded in a civilized manner (which would mean providing corrections), preferring to stick with their SLAPP in the face.

The legal climate of Australia seemed to benefit ACN (as well as any fraud currently being exposed), since apparently there is no explicit freedom of speech in Australia, and current libel laws seem to carry a presumption of guilt. I'm glad I live in some place vaguely resembling the United States of America they taught us about in school.

If anyone knows of a mirror site that has kept Peter's original articles, or someone else who's been standing up to ACN, please tell me... While you're at it, you might want to mirror this blog entry, just in case. I'll try to update as I get more stuff to refer to.

P.S.: Before anyone accuses either me or Peter of misspelling: His blog isn't about a thousand years. That's why he's an "n" short.

EDIT: Some comments have been deleted, so no, I wasn't debating a figment of my imagination. Hopefully, that anonymous commenter is washing his mouth (typing fingers?) out with soap, and writing up the math behind a viable ACN business model. I'm not against dissent, but I don't like posts that don't contribute in any meaningful way.

Because I Feel Like Spreading A Meme... and Ranting

To the left, you should see Propeller Head Michael Behe, of the Church of the Butt Propeller, currently wearing his ceremonial white robe. For those of you just tuning in, Michael Behe is one of the leading figures in the Intelligent Design movement, known for bringing up the non-issue of "Irreducible Complexity," which he claims cannot evolve. He usually cites the flagellum as an IC structure, making a bad machinery analogies, such as comparing it to Mazda engines.

One of the inherent problems with Intelligent Design is that it's an argument from ignorance or lack of imagination. Just because we may not know how something works, doesn't mean it's magic.

Another favorite bad analogy of Behe's is the mousetrap, considered "Irreducibly Complex" because it won't operate if any part is removed. Though this might seem like a problem for evolution, it really isn't: There are many different ways to make irreducibly complex structures.

Reduction of Function: Build up a new, helpful trait B that complements an existing trait A. Once B is commonplace, A could wind up being diminished until it can't function without B. An improvement becomes a necessity.

Loss of Scaffolding: Build traits up, and then take down the original supporting traits.

Duplication Mutations: Make a copy of an existing trait, and then change one or both into components of an irreducibly complex function.

There are probably plenty more mechanisms I haven't read, remembered, or dreamed up yet.

It's not that difficult to conceptualize. Ryan (Where are you?) was able to "evolve" an irreducibly complex song that way, just as I did with my AC, Longbow. Behe's imagination must be broke. But even if we fixed it, I doubt he'd listen... Yeah, listening is one of the talents ID proponents aren't known for.

Another big problem with Intelligent Design: It doesn't make predictions.

Evolution can take a look at a series of fossils and make educated guesses about what sorts of fossils we can expect to find later. Evolution can make predictions about the outcome of a simulation. Evolution's history also syncs up well with the history of geology, astronomy, and cosmology.

Intelligent Design can't do anything like that, because they have no hypotheses about the designer's abilities or basic nature. Where's the divine toolbox it used to make the flagellum? Without knowing anything about the designer, you can't make predictions about its actions.

If we knew what the (hypothetical) purpose of the universe was, we might also be able to make predictions from that. But, alas, we don't know, and people like me see plenty of reason to doubt the existence of such a purpose.

As nutty as they get, I have more respect (less disrespect?) for astrologers than I do for IDers. Astrologers are usually in the business of making predictions. They're wrong, but at least they can give science something to measure.

A third problem with ID: It's unfalsifiable. Any evidence we gather can be interpreted as supporting ID, and any seeming flaws in the design can be ignored by essentially making the designer say "I meant to do that [for reasons you can't comprehend]!"

A fourth problem with ID: It often involves a false dilemma: Even if evolution fails to explain something, it doesn't mean that ID is the explanation. Even if evolution were outright falsified tomorrow, ID wouldn't become any more credible. A theory has to stand on its own, and ID can't do that.

A fifth problem with ID: It's unproductive. We can't use ID to do anything. We can use evolutionary programs to "design" stuff for us. Evolution also gives us some promising insights into disease, psychology, and other fields. I've never seen ID do that.

Hopefully, that demonstrates all the problems the Church of the Butt Propeller is facing. So, remember, even though ID cloaks itself in a shell of sciency-sounding words and ideas, it's not science, or even logical.

Disclaimer: For the theists who choose remain quiet about their beliefs until they can properly test them, or openly acknowledge their unfalsifiability (and recognize that it's a fault): You're okay by me, and don't deserve to be associated with the ID blowhards. Just keep trying to think of ways to test your belief. Who knows? You might just find something useful or at least interesting while your evil twins are busy (in the Whitehouse) doing nothing (in the lab).

Disclaimer Part Two: Lots of comics I shamelessly direct-linked to are from the Perry Bible Fellowship. (Warning: Many aren't work safe.)

[Appeal_to_Ridicule] #1.1

Time for a little more [Appeal]. Fore Sam, also known as John Best, apparently a man of a thousand pseudonyms and great notoriety among skeptical bloggers, continues his nonsense on Respectful Insolence. This time, although he swears he's talking about autism, he expresses a great deal of interest in my employment and investment portfolio. Wish I had a financial consultant who was that interested in my money. This fetish grows to the point that he decides to withhold fundamental information about the (alleged) mercury-autism link (specifically how the Hg2+ cation separates itself from the thimerosal molecule, since my quick Google search came up with nothing) unless I satisfy his need to know. One wonders if he'll give me real proof of ghosts if I give him my social security, credit card, and personal identification numbers. Anyway, I've given him a little bite, and he may just give me that particular answer. Time will tell.

Anyway, enough with slightly exaggerating. On to XTREEEEME Xaggeration... I didn't just do that, did I? I'm going to sentence myself to a thousand baps with a rolled-up newspaper.

[Appeal_to_Ridicule]

Fore Sam: There's no time! You have to listen to me because there are lots of children suffering from autism right now! If we don't act now, they'll be condemned to a life of banging their head on the wall.

Bronze Dog: Woah, let's not be too hasty. I know we have to act, but we can't be rash to accept an unproven treatment based on an unproven cause working on a mechanism we don't know.

Fore Sam: That's not important, now! I'll tell you my plan after you answer my question: Do you have any stock in pharmaceutical companies?

Bronze Dog: Huh? What's this got to do with autism?

Fore Sam: I was thinking you might want to sell some of that stock and diversify your portfolio. Can't stay in one industry. You were there for the dot com bubble, weren't you?

Bronze Dog: I'm still not clear on how this relates to autism.

Fore Sam: Have you thought about interest rates, lately? You might also think about taking some equity out on your home or something.

Bronze Dog: Why aren't you talking about autism? I'm not the subject.

Fore Sam: Stonewalling the truth will get you nowhere. Now stop running away from the subject.

Bronze Dog: I don't own any stock.

Fore Sam: Oh.

To be continued . . . ?

[/Appeal_to_Ridicule]

So, question I asked the Rockstar groupies last time, but didn't get an answer to: Would this be considered a reducto ad absurdum instead? I'd love it if I had a flimsy pretense to do shrink gun jokes. Back off!

You know, all of this could have been avoided if chelators spent a little of their money on simple, proper double-blind control studies.

Links:
[Appeal_to_Ridicule] #1.0
[Appeal_to_Ridicule] #1.1

NEWSFLASH! SCIENCE PROVEN WRONG! Oh wait, it's just some idiot

I recently came upon the site Natural Woman, Natural Man, Inc. and decided that people are becoming crazier by the day. Not only do they want to a believe in invisible people in the sky, they also want to completely ignore over 500 years of research and evidence to prove that au natural is better than science.

Although I don't completely disagree with Jock Doubleday that science has led our society into a bit (small, slight, miniscule) of a physiological demise, I still think that it's absolutely necessary and even, dare I say it, beneficial for most. Let's give a little background: Jock Doubleday is some guy from CA that believes the following:

• In a society in which hospital birth is at least twice as likely as midwife-attended home birth to lead to infant mortality;
• in a society in which the mother-child bond is continually broken by hospital obstetric care, bottle-feeding, and day care;
• in a society in which medical research is funded by the multi-billion dollar food processing, chemical, tobacco, and pharmaceutical industries;
• in a society in which three-quarters of the annual incidence of breast cancer is caused by mammograms and other forms of ionizing radiation, primarily from medical sources;
• in a society in which the diseases of civilization (cancer, heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, arteriosclerosis, emphysema, tooth decay, and senility) are seen as "natural";
• in a society in which poisons are routinely sprayed on fruits and vegetables;
• in a society in which male sperm count falls dramatically each decade;
• in a society in which a normal meal is a recipe for cancer;
• in a society in which cancer causes and cures are known but are disregarded by the so-called "nonprofit" agencies, the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society;
• in a society in which milk, which leaches calcium and other minerals from the bones--and is therefore a prime cause of osteoporosis--is touted as a cure for osteoporosis;
• in such a society, there must be a focused defense of the truth. Natural Woman, Natural Man, Inc. is that defense. We are, and will continue to be, a spearhead for rationality in an irrational culture.

Alright, I don't even know where to begin with this lunatic. First of all, I'd like to tell him to shove everything up his ass. If he wants to push "natural living" upon others, fine, so be it. Let him fuck up their lives. As far as I'm concerned, I like my lifestyle. I like being able to go to the drugstore and buy medicine to help with my cold/flu. I like knowing that there's a hospital to go to if I somehow jab myself in the hand with a knife. And I like the idea that I can eat whatever food I want and someone will have a cure for my artherosclerosis when I'm 45.

But I don't like fuckheads who claim that their lives are so much less bearable because of modern medicine/science. Being a student of science myself, it's agonizing to hear an idiot like this try to persuade others that everything my colleagues have worked for is bullshit. Honestly, what a dickhead he is.

But I'm thinking this man can't be for real. On his site, he states that he does not have a medical degree, though he belives his eight years of research in childbirth should be applauded. I've found minimal research on his site to back up all claims he's made, and most of what I did find is extremely biased. There's no possible way for me to sit here and type an entire article about the bull spout from this man's mouth, but I would like to point out a couple of things I noticed dealing with childbirth:

1. The hospital obstetrics community wants us to believe that the steady decline in infant mortality in the U.S. (and in all developed countries) is due to modern technological birthing procedures. In fact, the decline has nothing to do with birthing procedures. The decline is due to the widespread use of antibiotics. Essentially, what studies show is that antibiotics are saving babies at a rate faster than the routine use of obstetrics technology is killing them.

Does this not seem contradictory to his previous claims that modern medicine is messing up our lives?

2. Infant mortality is defined in the medical literature as: "Death, by any cause, of infants under one year old."

The number of live births in America from 1948 to 1997 was 180,456,000. The infant mortality rate (IMR) for this period averaged over 15 deaths per 1,000 live births.
During those 50 years, hospital births accounted for more than 95% of all U.S. births. Ninety-five percent of 180,000,000 (rounded down from 180,456,000) total live births = 171,000,000 live hospital births. Infant mortality for those 50 years, with an IMR of 15, is 2,565,000 (171,000 times 15).

It should be noted that the figures used in these computations, all generous to the hospital obstetrics community, do not count higher hospital rates of infant morbidity [Henci Goer, Obstetric Myths Versus Research Realities: A Guide to the Medical Literature, (Bergin & Garvey, 1995, p. 332)]. Nor do they count higher hospital rates of maternal morbidity or mortality [Ibid., p. 332]. Nor do they count damage done to the baby, and to society, when the mother-child bond is broken, as so often happens in hospitals. (Joseph Chilton Pearce writes in Magical Child: "In 1982, the state of California completed the largest study ever undertaken on the root causes of crime and violence. The number one cause was found to be medical interference with childbirth in our hospitals.") Nor do these figures count higher rates of child abuse that occur with hospital-birthed (specifically C-section) infants [Nancy Cohen, Open Season: Survival Guide for Natural Childbirth and VBAC in the 90s (Bergin & Garvey, 1991, p. 25)].

Note the numerous "reliable" sources he cites. He fails to mention other things that his calculation lacks. He has not taken into account that the IMR is defined as the death of an infant under the age of one. Not all infant deaths occur in hospitals days after birth (as is the case with SIDS), nor are they all caused by obstetric procedures. In addition, it may be seen that 95% of all births are done in a hospital, so obviously the amount of deaths in hospitals will look immense compared to the amount of deaths in "natural" childbirth. The numbers for home childbirth: 135,342 out of 9,022,800. Now I'm sorry, but that's too many dead babies for my blender to handle! (I'm so sorry to all I've offended by simply mentioning dead baby jokes, but I get a kick out of 'em.) Argh! Also, the man didn't realize that the average IMR was taken over 50 years, THE 50 CRUCIAL years in which our modern technology was developed. Another thing, you can not take an average OVER 50 YEARS of an IMR and say it applies to both sides. The IMR may have been higher for home births rather than hospital births, but he only gives the AVERAGE. Maybe he's hiding something.... One more point for the final paragraph of this: appeal to emotion. This guy uses so many logical fallacies in his reasoning that it makes my head spin trying to think of them!

3. Breast cancer is a cultural disease.

Hahahahaha...I do believe that cancer is caused by a specific cell's DNA being altered to enhance the mitosis of the cell. This produces a mass of cells that uncontrollably reproduce. The DNA alteration is mostly caused by carcinogens, though I believe some types of cancer have been linked to genetics. Although one can see this as a cultural disease because our society has helped in the output of many known carcinogens, I just see this as an attack on society itself. This man is mad at the world, and that's all there is. Get a fucking real job, you twit, and stop cashing in off people's ignorance, as religion does.

[Appeal_to_Ridicule] #1

And Fore Sam's bad grades have nothing to do with the complete lack of references, data, or even showing of work.

That's what it's been like arguing with him at Prometheus's blog in the "Field Guide to Quackery" Part 2 and Bartholemew Cubbin's blog on autism. Lots of accusations, straw men, subject changes, and misrepresentations, too.

So, without further ado, a script based on our argument, and suspiciously similar to an episode of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law:

[Appeal_to_Ridicule]

Fore Sam: Oh, no! My office has been burgled! Robbed! Purloined! Ha-ha... Loin... *buzzes on the intercom* Everyone, get in here! "Someone has stolen my baby-grand piano!"

BronzeDog: *thinking* "Was there ever a piano in here? I don't remember seeing it."

Fore Sam: "Of course there was! You can still see the dimples in the carpet where it stood... right next to the 40 foot tall gold Buddha. How dare you accuse me of never having a piano!"

BronzeDog: *Starts looking for dimples. Never finds any, since no one will point out their location in the giant office. Continues thinking,* "Now, I'm pretty sure I've never seen a 40 foot gold Buddha in here."

Fore Sam: "Of course there was a 40 foot Buddha in here. How dare you accuse me of never having one! And keep your thoughts to yourself, BronzeDog!" *sniff* "I'm a victim."

Later...

BronzeDog: "Uh, sir, can you show me a photo of the piano and gold buddha? And have you considered you might have just misplace-"

Fore Sam, interrupting: "BronzeDog! I can't believe what I'm hearing!" *gets in BronzeDog's face.* "Do you support the thief?!"

BronzeDog: "N-no, I just want to make sure there isn't another explanation."

Fore Sam: "Well, I don't want to hear any more of these photograph or misplacement sophistries. All you need to see is my empty office to know that my stuff was stolen."

[/Appeal_to_Ridicule]

On second thought, would that merely be a reducto ad absurdum?

Links:
[Appeal_to_Ridicule] #1.0
[Appeal_to_Ridicule] #1.1

Interesting Anagrams

Over on the LABELED Music News forum we recently started an anagram thread. We found some interesting ones using the anagram genius to make full sentences. Some anagrams of note:

Ryan Michael Whitmore (Your Rockstar) = Limey rich woman hater.

George W. Bush = He grew bogus. (ouch!)

Sadaam Hussein = A minus asshead.

United States of America = Dine out, taste a Mac; fries. (truth in anagrams)

Ariel Sharon = Oh, ran Israel. (creepy!)

Jesus Christ = Such jest sir.

Skeptic's Circle Number 25, uh, I Think

The 25th meeting of the Skeptic's Circle is up at The Saga of Runolfr. Go there to find out about all types of new and used horseshit that's making it's way around the world.

Lord Runolfr uses some pretty cool avatars for the different bloggers. I can't seem to figure out mine though ---------------->

Who the hell is that guy? I think it's someone from "The 13th Warrior" or something like that. I thought it was Steven from "Braveheart", but it's not.

Our buddy Skeptico got my favorite character from "The 13th Warrior", Hergard the Joyous. Apparently in the Skeptical blogging world, Skeptico gets to be the one guy that lives to save the day, and Your Rockstar is "Guy Who Gets Killed in the Beginning of the Movie Number 5".

Wait. Just got it. I'm Weath the Musician. Who said Rockstarring required a brain...

Irreducible Complexity is Ridiculous - Even in Music!

I was reading a Creduloid blog today (no, it doesn't receive the honor of a link) that placed "irreducible complexity" as one of the top reasons they believed there is a magical man in the sky that made us all in present form from dirt. For those not familiar with pseudo-science, irreducible complexity is used by proponents of Intelligent Design Creationism, and states that some structures in biology cannot be simplified without causing the entire structure to fail, and that therefore they could not have evolved naturally. After all, how can a mouse trap work without all its parts? Remove the spring and it no longer works, right? So we couldn't have evolved, as our structures had to be created together.

That last statement shows how the ID/Creationist con-artists peddle their "science" - they preach it to the undeducated. Of course it is a completely bogus concept that has been debunked a million times over - evolution doesn't concern itself with the end product. But it makes sense to the credulous among us.

So LABELED (Your Rockstar's band; he's on the far left) was finishing a new song for our fourth album last night when it, for lack of a better word, evolved.

See, we needed a transition from a 6/8 time in the key of "E" to a 4/4 time in "D".

Stick with me here.

Initially there were two parts in the bridge: one to change the tempo and one to change the key. We then added another segment to the bridge that removed the necessity of a tempo change; that part was no longer needed so it was removed. We now have one part taking the place of two in a much more efficient way.

Much like evolution, we now have a song that is irreducibly complex; we can't take the bridge or any of its parts out or the song will not work. But that doesn't mean it was created from nothing.

Evolution - it's pretty kick ass, no?

Peace of Mind, Please Report to Bronze Dog's Office. Peace of Mind...

Bronze is an alloy usually made from copper and tin. Since I'd rather not waste my additive on foil hats or ratchet my threat level up to "Blackwatch Plaid," I'd like to know where I can get some reliable information on RFID tags. Most of the stuff I've bumped into seems to involve people wearing said hats, and I'm not too trusting of Wikipedia.

Some specific questions that come to mind:

Is it really illegal to remove them from tires?

Is it illegal to fry them?

From how far away can they really be read? (Of course, I doubt the whole "from orbit" stuff.)

Can you really interfere with RFIDs by wrapping them in aluminum foil? (Or should I just go ahead and wrap my head?)

Looney Toons on Larry King...Again

And limited skeptic presence...again. Your Rockstar started calling LKL at 8:59 CST to try and get his brand of wit and skepticism on, but I imagine the amount of Creduloids trying to get one of these frauds to give them a "reading" was enormous.

The show, which aired 12/28/05 at 9:00 CST, was just what I expected from the man who asked "but if evolution happened, why are there still apes?". 3 of the world's biggest frauds: Big Fat Idiot, Chuckles Van Praagh and some chick named Char Margolis were in studio. Dr. Bryan Farha, represented the sole true skeptic in my opinion. The other guy was a Rabbi who just argued that the psychics' view of the "spirit world" and religion was wrong.

Chuckles started the lunacy with this statement (you can read the transcript right here) :

To a certain degree and it has been tested there are certain percentages of ["the sprit world"] that have been proven to a certain degree in percentage certainly but there are certain scientific methods which also have not been invented yet or come up with a method that they can actually measure something like this.

Damn! I have certainly never seen that many certain uses of the word "certain" in an appeal to gibbersh at any certain time. And get this - there are no scientific methods that can measure the spirit world. I agree - the only thing that exists that we can't measure or observe is NOTHING.

Oh boy does the bullshit fly after that. Larry King wonders what good it does when Syl tells someone their dead brother's name was "Herbie". Syl decides that's a good thing - the sitter sucker knows "Herbie" is with them spiritually...or that Syl knows how to read obituaries, whichever you prefer. Then we get this exchange when Char jumps in:

MARGOLIS: It's really interesting you say that because that was my father's name and out of all the names in the world why would you bring that up? See to me...

KING: Because one of my best friends is named Herbie.

MARGOLIS: OK but he...

KING: It had nothing to do -- I didn't get a feeling.

MARGOLIS: But to me -- but to me that's a sign.

BROWNE: It's called synchronicity, yes.

No, it's called two completely different people have the same fairly common name. Big deal.

For what it's worth, the Rabbi does point out that no psychic has ever "predicted" anything worthwhile. Where's Osama Bin Laden? Who cares if you know my brother's name is Herbie? Dr. Farha tries to jump in to rebut the buttheads, but gets shushed. Imagine that...

Char then claims responsibility for finding Dean Martin's son Dean Paul after "Dino" crashed his National Guard fighter jet in the mountains of California. I'm trying to find information to verify this, but a google search comes up empty. The few sites that do cover Dino's death mention nothing about Char or her magic powers. I'll provide any findings in an update. Until then, we'll assume she's making it up.

At this point, Chuckles busts out the old fourth dimension bullshit and LK actually points out that he can't prove it. But Chuckles knows we all have magic powers:

Two- thirds of Americans have had experiences where, telepathic experiences where they thought about someone. Five minutes later the phone rings and it's that person. This is a sense that every single person has experienced.

Ok, well I would point out how many times I've thought about someone and they didn't call me 5 minutes later. Chuckles is taking advantage of our ignorance of the law of large numbers and confirmation bias - basically the fact that we receive hundreds of thousands of phone calls in our lives, and are bound to be thinking of the caller at least once. However, we forget the 99,999 times it didn't happen and pay close attention to the one time it did happen. This is typically how I descibe psychic bullshit to fence sitters. They simply don't consider those two facts.

Chuckles continues:

Just because things cannot be proven scientifically in the scientific method or the way you choose it to be in your paradigm, your way of thinking, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Wouldn't you know it - I checked Skeptico today (hey, rockstars are busy and take a couple of days to write articles, sheesh) and he comments on this! Says he:

[cut]...which the obvious rejoinder would have been: just because I can’t prove to everyone that you’re a fraud doesn’t mean you aren’t one.

(I'll skip over the whole discussion of mysticism, since religion and psi have same amount of evidence.)

Dr. Farha then proves his open-mindedness when questioned whether he was open to the possibility of another dimension:

I am open to that dimension. I'm open to the possibility. I'm not open to the idea that these people have proven it.

Exactly. No one has. Dr. Farha then asks Sylvia why she has not taken the JREF Million Dollar Challenge, and shows her documentation that the money exists (which she slanderoulsy said did not on an earlier LKL). Sylvia provides the usual reasons the frauds back out of the test - Lloyd Auerbach says you can't win, Randi changes the rules, he'll run away from the challenge when it appears they'll win, etc.

It's at this point my blood began to boil. I'm serious, I think I could've passed the Challenge myself my body temperature raised to such a degree. Chuckles has the gall to say:

Let me just say something. The skeptics (INAUDIBLE) use this thing about taking a test and proving it, the emphasis should be on them to prove it to us this is not real and I would say they always raise the bar.

What. The. Fuck. If you make a claim that is extraordinary, why should I help defend you? It's called burden of proof. Were I to say give me $1,000 and you'll marry Natalie Portman, is it up to you to prove me wrong? Or would you ignore me till you had some proof?

I believe Dr. Farha made a serious mistake by not explaining the scientific method right here. I was twitching to get on the air. First he could explain burden of proof. Then, when the psychics say that psi can't be proven by science, ask them this:

Does psi produce effects that we can observe or measure?

If yes, then it can be tested scientifically through DBTs. If no, then I have to say there is only one thing in the known universe we all agree produces no observable effects.

NOTHING!

---

The Big Sylvia Browne Thread

Roosevelt converts to Hinduism!

Well, that's what Civilization 4 told me last night. I got the game for Decemberween, since it was the natural progression: the last two PC games I bought were Civ 2 and Civ 3. My laptop isn't up to specs, but the game still manages to work, though it's a bit choppy, and sometimes my horses, cows, and so forth turn invisible, except for their shadows, apparently possessing custom hoof-oriented knock-offs of the One Ring.

I'm thinking about getting a new desktop that'll meet and beat the specs so that it'll play smoothly. I'm nearly oblivious to the nuances of PC gaming and appropriate hardware, so if you have advice as to how to build and/or buy such a unit (preferably for cheap), please speak to me as if I had the IQ of a YEC... Well, maybe not that low. My idea of compatibility checking is looking for a Playstation logo.

But enough about my pansy PC. I thought I'd bring up Civ 4 because it features more detailed mechanics than usual on religion. For those who haven't played the Civ games, religious and political ideologies are in the big category of "technology" alongside more concrete things like chemistry, lasers, and robotics. Religious "technologies" often work as prerequisites for other technologies. To some extent, I think that's understandable. For example, with all the efforts humans have put into building bigger and better temples to the deities, we've probably learned a few good engineering lessons. I recall some shows that demonstrated some clever mechanics to produce "miracles" in Greek temples.

One (possibly flawed) analogy comes to mind: The space program. In the early days, scientists had to push the limits of engineering to put Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and all their buddies on the moon. The Egyptians had to do the same to build the pyramids. The difference: Religion hasn't displayed any evidence of a moon for it to land on. The end result might be the same, though: In the effort to achieve the end goal, many lessons are learned, and new, useful technologies are developed.

Counter-analogy: Religion can be a lot like war when it comes to technology. War has brought about many advances. There was even a show about it. The problem is that those advances have a cost in terms of homes and lives destroyed that I would prefer to avoid. Religion is similar in that it incurs often unacceptable costs: It can cause a reduction in critical thinking abilities. (Exception I'd make to the sweeping generality: The religious people who readily adjust their beliefs when new facts come in. You're okay in my book.) At its worst, it triggers witch hunts, wars, and other atrocities.

Though modern science has correctly shed its ancient dependency on religion and the supernatural, I'm curious how our distant ancestors would have progressed without religion. I imagine they probably would have progressed faster, not being held back by the phrase "Things Man Was Not Meant to Know." Then again, I can imagine the threat of a plague of vicious beasts if you don't build a perfectly hemispherical dome on the temple could encourage someone to accurately calculate pi.

For now, though, I'm going to continue researching Meditation, so that I can get Philosophy down the line, followed by Liberalism, so I can get the Free Religion civic. I'm not sure I qualify as a liberal, but I'll take it anyway.

P.S.: I typed "First Amendment" in whitehouse.gov's search engine for the "Free Religion" hotlink, and I got this bit of unintentional humor. I didn't intend to get political, but I couldn't really resist this.

EDIT: Tried the whitehouse.gov search engine again, and some results showed up. I guess it was a temporary glitch. It's still funny, though.

"Customer Service"

/rant

Has anyone ever noticed how completely unhelpful customer service lines really are? Well, maybe it's just me. Every time I call a customer service hotline, no one can seem to help me. They try, I'll give them that. But it never seems to fix the problem. Aren't they there to answer any and every question you can think of? I understand that it's difficult to comprehend some questions that people ask (i.e. "what's this thingy that just popped up on the screen?"), but they're trained for that, right?

Another issue I have with customer service lines is that a fee is generally involved. When my computer broke and I tried to call HP for some support, they first acquired my name, email address, and phone number. They then informed me that because my warranty is no longer good, I would have to pay approximately $100 for them to help me over the phone. For one freaking question. And this $100 only gets me one year of service. But wait, it gets better. If I simply wanted to suscribe to the 2-week service, it would only cost me half of that. But, I could also go online and get support for free. Because I had a functioning computer and all.

Honestly, how mental are these people? I don't know if I speak for the general public or not, but we do not break things frequently enough to give the producer $100 to help us fix it. Or not fix it, in most cases. It's ridiculous that these "support lines" charge outrageous fees to answer simple questions. The more reasonable/logical option is to have people call a non-toll-free line and pay only for the time that they actually use. But I guess it's a part of the American way to fuck people for money, eh?

/end rant

Note: I do not mean to offend anyone who works in customer service. Nor do I mean to diss our nation's economic strategies. I love America. I just hate Americans that try to fuck up my life with bullshit. :D

Hey! Read the Skeptic's Circle and Don't Use Apostrophe's Unless' Needed's!

The Christy Eve miracle of the 24th Skeptic's Circle is up at Immunoblogging. Merry Jeesus.

America? Fuck Yeah!

Now that it's unconstitutional to teach Intelijunt Desine as an alternative to evolution, it's made me wonder:

How can we as a country get some things right and others so wrong?

The Dover decision is for every assbag that ever said "If you don't want GOD in the Pledge of Allegiance/national motto/US currency, then LEAVE to a GODLESS country!"

I can't wait to tell them to LEAVE and go to a SCIENCELESS country. But these cocksnacks exist and will continue to exist, saying that Judge Jones is oppressing and censoring them. Face it Chet - you lost. You tried to mask Creationism as science by dressing it up with a fancy name. BANG! Shot down by scientists and biology professors who saw through the bullshit. You tried to get your religion into public schools by electing close-minded hillbillies. Score currently stands tied 1-1. You then tried to go through the courts to have Creationism taught to children as a viable explanation for the origin of species. BANG! Shot down. Kansas, you're next...

Speaking of BANG, I wish I had a bazooka for every dumbass who still thinks that I'm out to destroy Christmas. No, really, check out what this lying piece of shit has to say (via 2% Company):

"It's a sad day in America when you have to retain an attorney to say 'Merry Christmas,' " said Mike Johnson, an Alliance Defense Fund attorney in Louisiana who will push the Christmas cause."

Whaaa??? If there is someone in the world who is holding you back from saying "Christy Christmas and a very Christy New Christ" to every mouth-breathing motherfucker who walks down the street, please tell them I have a bazooka saved for them too. Problem is, there is no one stopping you from doing so. Not person number one. Scream it from the top of your lungs. Wear the stupid sweaters, making sure to piss your dog off by making them wear one too. Have them match for shit's sake - I don't care.

But stop playing victim! I'm sick of these assholes making things up to raise money for the Jerry Falwell retirement fund. Show me evidence!

While we're on evidence, I have a new pet peeve. It's all the creduloids that drop by and spout their bullshit but don't back it up. It's fine if you disagree with me; even Your Rockstar can't be right about everything. But when I ask you fuckers for evidence, here are the responses I've been getting:

1. "Do the research yourself!"
2. "You're stupid!"
3. "Pastor Hank on www.ilovejeebus.org says it's true!"
4. A shitty poem on an even shittier blog
5. The claimant disappears completely to uplink with the mother-ship.

Oh well. At least we've held religion out of public schools for the time being.

The Bronze Dawg is in the Hizzy. Or Whatever You Kids are Saying These Days.

Since not all of you hang out at the JREF forums, much less the humor section thereof, I suppose I should introduce myself. I'm a geek and general skeptic. Although I've got a BA in art, I've got a good science background, and got that degree faster by CLEPing out 8 hours of chemistry.

I'd like to take a moment to thank Mrs. Isbell for that.

I think critically, and I'm fully aware that even I can slip up. If I do, don't hesitate to bring in the rolled-up newspapers and pummel me on the nose.

My pet peeves:

Bad grammar (especially those morons who don't know what an apostrophe is, but still use it)
Creationists
Psychics
Interesting Ian
Religious intrusion on government
Governmental intrusion on religion (which includes the government telling people who they can and can't marry)
Deities who act like mob bosses, exchanging "protection" for "respect" (See also: Pat Robertson's god.)
Marketing buzz phrases like, "Extreme," "edgy," and anything that unnecessarily starts with an X.

Things that really get me angry:

Propaganda techniques (especially straw men and stereotypes)
Anti-vaxxers
Homeopaths

Some of my turn-ons:

Raw data
Non-submissive women. Skepchicks in particular.
D&D
Geometric forms
Good anime
Sh'mups

As for my future at Rockstar Ramblings: I'll probably be posting some fairly generic stuff, like Skeptico has been doing, such as explaining common fallacies performed by the newage crowd, the nature of skepticism, as I see it, and so forth. As a regular poster at the JREF forums, I might spend a little time dissecting some of the truly stupid things the resident non-skeptics post.

-Bronze Dog

Alert the Scientists - We Now Have a Theory of Everything

Being an enemy of stupidity and a crusader against the credulous, we've come upon a lot of silly crap. Not just Fun Size Snickers Bar piles. Mountains of steaming horse crap. That being said, I now call your attention to The Final Theory. Yes, this guy has the "Theory of Everything". Wow. So instead of publishing this in numerous scientific journals for peer review, he writes this book. Probably because those evil scientists would ignore him - how else would they keep their jobs? All the science are belong to him!

Part I or "Are You Freaking Serious?"

On his website author Mark McCutcheon frequently requests science base itself on common sense, yet refuses to do so himself. Case in point:

Q: Light slows as it passes through water or glass, causing it to bend, but how can it return to light-speed on its own once it exits?

A: This is impossible in today's science. No object in nature can speed up of its own accord after being slowed. A bullet doesn't spontaneously speed up after it is slowed by passing through a wooden block, so how does a photon of light mysteriously return to its original speed once it exits a glassblock?

Part II or "The Game"

For those who don't get the False Analogy, here's some pretty pictures for you:

Excuse me, Mr. Creduloid?

WhAT?

Let's play a game of "One of These Things is Not Like the Other".

oTAY!

Here we go!




Ok, which one?

i KnOW, i KnOW! dA LITE!

Good! Why?

BECOZ! i CAn'T EAT da LITE!

Ok, not really the answer I was going for...

Mr. McCutcheon, try this - drop a dead body from a plane. Have it hit or break through something at about 5000 feet. I predict that it speeds up to terminal velocity before hitting the ground. That's what science does and your woo-woo drivel doesn't.
If the entire book is filled with this shit, I see about as much need to buy it as I do paying money to have Sylvia Browne ask if I'm related to an "R".

Part III or "This is What it's Like When Woos Collide"

Now dig this. A Fundie wack-a-doo used this book as proof science can be disproven. No, really. Click the link. Back? Fascinating isn't it? This guy unintentionally (or maybe intentionally?) gave religious wackos ammunition in the "debate" over science. Except that using that ammo would be akin to throwing marshmallows at a velociraptor...

Using The Final Theory to show how science can be disproven is like saying I'll have Bugs Bunny kick your ass because you don't believe in the LORD (Praise the LORD!)

Here's what the author did not grasp: science doesn't care how something happens, be it against your common sense or not. We make observations and test our theories to make predictions. We try anything we can to make our theories not fit the data; it's falsifiable. "The Theory of Everything" ranks right up there with ID as far as being science.

The beauty of science is that it works whether you believe in it or not.

Why am I Anti-American for Being a Rational Being?

I don't believe in the supernatural. I don't believe in the paranormal. I am open-minded though; I'm willing to admit my beliefs are wrong. However, based on the fact there is absolutely zero evidence for the existence of a god/gods, demons, angels, psychic powers, dowsing, astrology, homeopathy, or any kind of magic in general, and in some cases evidence against their existence, I won't change my mind until they are proven.

Somehow, according to the Fundamentalist in Lya's most recent post at God is for Suckers, because I don't believe these things exist I am Anti-America. My question to the Theists: Why?

To quote the billboard in the picture:

Attention: Lunatic Atheists & their Lawyers

Anti-God is Anti-American

There is a glaring error in that statement; an atheist can't be Anti-God because there is no God to be Anti about (not to mention the fact that I'd associate "Lunatic" with the Bleevers more than atheism). But apparently this fool thinks that since I don't believe there is a god/gods, I'm Anti-God and therefore Anti-American. Again - why?

Is God an American citizen? No, he'd have to have been born here or go through everything necessary to get citizenship. Hell, I don't even think he has a green card...
Is it because the country's legal framework is based in religion? No, it can't be that. A quick look at the Constitution of the U.S. would show no mention of "God". So atheism isn't against the law...

So I ask all of you religious types: why am I Anti-America for not believing in God? What makes you hold this belief? Surely there is a reason or you'd not think atheism = Anti-American. Ask yourself. I'm willing to bet it is because someone told you to think this way. And that makes you a credulous fool.

I don't believe in God. And I love living in a country I can fucking say that!