1. Immune system differences found

Comment #145860 by the izz on March 18, 2008 at 8:30 am

It should also be noted that any US population juxtaposed with a population from a single African country would have a comparatively wide difference genetics. This is because the some of the most genetic diversity is found in Africa and because the American population has had much greater opportunities for genetic mixing. If you compared a random sample of Americans to each other you would probably find less difference in immune systems.

That being said, this research seems to justify Jared Diamond's claims in Guns, Germs, and Steel that much of the reason Europeans decimated the native populations of the Americas and not the other way around is because Europeans had evolved immunities to many diseases they initially got from their livestock. The native populations did not have immunities to European disease and didn't have as many diseases that could hurt Europeans because they had less livestock and didn't live with them in close quarters the way Europeans did and consequently less illnesses of animal origin.

Interesting stuff. I eagerly await the time when I can get a drug treatment regiment based on my personal genetic immunities.

2. Hebrew University researcher: Moses was tripping at Mount Sinai

Comment #138413 by the izz on March 4, 2008 at 9:25 am

Hallucinogenic substances seems a plausible explanation for biblical "miracles" but Shanon offers no real proof. Of course the stories in the bible are really folk tails so they are hardly authentic enough to provide concrete facts. But regardless, we must maintain a standard of evidence if we are to call ourselves science based.

3. US scientists close to creating artificial life: study

Comment #116211 by the izz on January 25, 2008 at 8:59 pm

Personally, I think the "creating life" description is a bit over the top. Sure, if they pull it off, it is a new life form, but it looks like jumped up genetic engineering to me since they are putting new DNA into an existing cell. Impressive, but note that the cell is existing already. When I think of creating life, I think of generating the conditions where self-reprelicating protein molecules and the other requirements for cells emerge in the controlled environment. I.e. create the conditions where an entire cell can emerge. That would be really impressive...

4. African Crucible: Cast as Witches, Then Cast Out

Comment #88291 by the izz on November 15, 2007 at 8:27 pm

Too right Mango!

5. Egypt's fight against female circumcision clashes with tradition

Comment #81021 by the izz on October 23, 2007 at 11:02 pm

Shuggy-

Of course all genital mutilation is horrible, and I am strenuously against male circumcision. But the gynecologist's quote is spot on.

The difference between female and male circumcision is the differece between virtually NO sexual pleasure and slightly reduced sexual pleasure. Or to put it more bluntly: can't have an orgasm or can have an orgasm.

I am shocked that 97 percent of women in Egypt have been unforgivably brutalized and have had a huge portion of their lives stolen from them. I had no idea the number was so high. And I can't get my mind around the fact that women are primaraly the ones who do this to their daughters and grandaughters.

Does anyone know of organizations that are trying to stop this child abuse that I can donate to?

6. Cheney and Obama: It's Not Genetic

Comment #80658 by the izz on October 22, 2007 at 2:16 pm

Oh, who cares. 9th and 11th cousins! That is very distantly related. It only seems slightly significant because the rest of the political candidates haven't had their ancestors traced back to Bush and Cheney. I'm sure most of them would also be related by similar margins. Funny how people are surprised that anyone with brown skin could possibly be related to anyone with tan skin even in a small way.

7. Does fundamentalist religion cause the rejection of evolution? or is it the other way around?

Comment #80223 by the izz on October 20, 2007 at 8:31 pm

I think the author has an excellent point. I have known totally secular types that believe in evolution because they trust the scientific infrastructure, but still find it hard to square with their common sense. This is actually quite understandable as one doesn't see most organisms evolving within the time constraints of a single human life. When you've studied evolution and really familiarized yourself with all the evidence then it becomes beautifully simple. Of course, evolution is targeted by Christianity/Islam/Judaism because it refutes perhaps the central principal of these religions: that human beings are special and the universe was created for us. But peoples' understanding of evolution is not helped by the fact that it runs counter to common sense.

8. Fiction or prediction?

Comment #77962 by the izz on October 11, 2007 at 9:57 am

Great article! Hurray for science and poetry! This is the stuff that really needs to be highlighted in the popular culture. Change the perception of science as cold and unemotional. Show that science can be an awe inspiring tool to help us understand ourselves.

9. Ban teachers from religious dress, Quebec group says

Comment #77810 by the izz on October 10, 2007 at 4:44 pm

While I find the hijab intellectually offensive banning it is analogous to banning teachers from wearing high heals because they deliberately hobble a women, making her less capable and more dependent on men.

10. Be Good Now, Or Else

Comment #76936 by the izz on October 7, 2007 at 9:59 pm

This seems like an interesting avenue of research, but with a sample size of only 23, and including only men, it hardly seems conclusive.

11. A Nation of Christians Is Not a Christian Nation

Comment #76789 by the izz on October 7, 2007 at 9:26 am

Votes!

I think he has his own principals (I personally don't agree with most of them but he seems sensible than his republican opponents), but he just can't seem to get himself elected, so this time around he is willing to say whatever it takes to squeeze out a few more votes.

12. Dawkins - what can't he be blamed for?

Comment #75322 by the izz on October 2, 2007 at 10:18 am

Comment #75214 by Cartomancer- Hilarious!
I heard he once held an oponants' wife's hand in a jar of acid- at a party.

Comment #75221 by Logicel- What a wonderful way of remembering someone. That's the kind of caring ritual religious people need to see when they call all atheists cold and prickly.

13. Dawkins - what can't he be blamed for?

Comment #75316 by the izz on October 2, 2007 at 10:09 am

So lets all sing songs and have coffee and donuts together on specific calender days. There's nothing inherently spiritual about any of those practices (unless we're talking hot Krispy Kreme donuts right off of the conveyor belt- sacrelicious!) I'm all for rituals; everyone needs them and that's really nothing to be ashamed of. (Football is a very apt example.) All we have to do is uncouple ritual from supernatural. This is a difficult task but not impossible. I think that would satisfy quite a number of those religious in name only folks.

14. A Response to Jonathan Haidt

Comment #69829 by the izz on September 13, 2007 at 12:47 am

I don't think Haidt is wrong when he says that religion strengthens the cohesive bonds of a society and the members of a stronger society have a better chance of surviving and passing on their genes. But really this falls under the heading of a in-group vs. out-group. In-group/out-group social bonding seems to be part of the human genetic makeup, and religion is a weird particularly virulent category of group.

But what Haidt misses is that humans are capable of seeing that their group boundaries are really just a matter of opinion and can redefine in-groups. With religion the criteria to judge groups is elevated to TRUTH and becomes even more resistant to change and more dangerous to its out groups. I don't think any "New" Atheist is claiming that we can get rid of in-group/out-group hostilities, just that we should open up the most intractable in-group to criticism and bring it back to the level of opinion.

15. A Virus Among Honeybees

Comment #69444 by the izz on September 11, 2007 at 9:12 am

Oh, I am so glad they are making some headway on determining the actual cause of the bee die off. I have been having a long standing argument with some of my environmentalist friends about genetically engineered crops. They have repeatedly cited GMOs as the cause of the flagging bee population and blamed big bad scientists for upsetting the "natural" order of things. I was suspicious of this GMO argument, and hate it when people with clean drinking water and bountiful GMO induced nutrition, reflexively blame science. But without any evidence to the contrary I couldn't judge and to be fair we humans have tend to inadvertently reeked havoc on the environment where ever we go.

My friends are well meaning, but they seem to have fallen for the myth taught to them as children that nature left alone means all animals and plants living perfect balance and harmony, singing nauseating Disney songs. I try to explain to them that the natural world is a brutal place with finite resources and when literally EVERYTHING is competing some organisms inevitably loose. This is not to say that humans are not responsible for uncountable unnecessary die offs and a flagrant abuse of our world, which is especially egregious because we seem to be the only organisms capable of preventing such carnage. My friends find it hypocritical that I can hold both the view that "natural" isn't necessarily good, and that humans have messed up the world pretty good. It is hard to explain that science is not a over arching set of opinions, but means heeding the proven facts of a situation, whatever it may be, even if they conflict with what we want to be true.

16. Like any half-decent atheist, I'm fond of a bit of religion

Comment #67940 by the izz on September 5, 2007 at 9:20 am

I think we really need to uncouple rituals that mark the passing of time and help us think about life from a belief in a supernatural being.

Linklater is essentially saying that funerals are valuable and comforting and he doesn't want to lose that. Of course they are comforting, no one is saying that they are not. It is like he thinks that to be an atheist you must condemn ritual of all kinds. This is nonsense. Religion is not necessary for ritual celebration (witness Thanksgiving, Halloween, New Year's Eve, etc.) Marking the significant moments in life with familiar cultural actions is a universal human need and nothing to be ashamed of. There is nothing wrong with gathering with your community every week to think about how you live your life and treat other people and share a little coffee and cake. There need not be anything religious about it. We need to make an effort to popularize this concept because I think the cultural aspects of organized religion are the parts that people are most reluctant to give up.

If you are an atheists who doesn't need this sort of thing, great for you. I'm sure everyone here would agree that being an atheist is not like belonging to one group, and you can celebrate or not anyway you like.

I agree with those who said Linklater's position is entirely emotional. He hasn't thought all his ideas though. Of course atheist funerals can be just as moving and transcendent as religious ones. If he needs proof of this I would direct him to read Professor Dawkins' beautiful eulogy for Douglas Adams.

17. In God we doubt

Comment #67462 by the izz on September 3, 2007 at 2:02 pm

He is equating "militant atheism" with cutting out all emotion in life. This is absolutely untrue, and nothing that any atheist would wish. He says that when people are searching for in God they are really searching for someone to love them. OF COURSE they are. Love is a HUMAN emotion and has nothing to do with if there is a God or not. This is the big problem with the term "spiritual". People use it to mean any positive emotion they feel in regards to the world they live in. No atheist is saying those feelings are not real, just that they originate inside us and do not come from an outside source.


He also falls into the classic misunderstanding that when something is understood, it must necessarily lose all meaning.

"Would a person who needed everything fully evidenced and rationally demonstrated ever be in a position to say, 'I love you'? Couldn't a Dawkins-type figure make a case for love being a fiction, a function of human need, a function of biology and selfish genes? He may have many useful and persuasive things to say but there is something deeply mistaken about thinking love is simply reducible to the chemistry of the brain.

18. Orthodox Call on Sinners To Give Chickens a Fairer Shake

Comment #66777 by the izz on August 31, 2007 at 10:20 am

Much ado about nothing...and chickens

The amount of time and human energy wasted in such endeavors (the debate over limbo comes to mind as well) is just so sad.

19. Fruit fly parasite's gene invasion raises questions over evolution

Comment #66775 by the izz on August 31, 2007 at 10:04 am

It is so frustrating when a newspaper takes a story that actually could strengthen the case for evolution in the minds of the public and slaps a headline on it that makes it seem as though the enter theory were in jeopardy. I think most people (I'm paraphrasing my mother and sister's objections here) find evolution and natural selection hard to believe because they can't see that truly tiny changes have enough time to accumulate into large changes. They understandably can't get their minds around the vast lengths of time evolutions has to work with. So any discovery that gives an explanation for why change can happen faster than previously though tends to make the theory seem more plausible to the less science literate among us.

20. Does the Bible have a place in public schools?

Comment #61758 by the izz on August 6, 2007 at 7:18 pm

In my high school we did study the bible as literature in English class. I think the fact that we studied it with our regular English teacher and sandwiched between other famous works of fiction helped to keep it secular. I am concerned that literary Bible study would be used to proselytize, but as a student it was very helpful for understanding other works. Furthermore, putting the book in a literary context allowed us to openly critique its inconsistencies and logical flaws and actually helped solidify my nonbelief. Now granted, I went to school in an ultra liberal district, so my experience was somewhat unique.