1. Which science book should the next US president read?

Comment #257708 by LBraschi on October 1, 2008 at 1:43 am

The Blind Watchmaker and
The Evolution of Cooperation.

2. Cosmic crash unmasks dark matter

Comment #240851 by LBraschi on September 1, 2008 at 7:09 am

Interesting article, although I hate it when it is formatted in a single sentence per line. As if making paragraphs longer than a single sentence would be too difficult for people to read.

Talk about dumbing down science.

3. No atheist burials in Co Donegal

Comment #239651 by LBraschi on August 30, 2008 at 6:15 am

Seems the plot of a dark comedy film

4. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #238833 by LBraschi on August 28, 2008 at 4:20 pm

Why, Cartomancer.

I used to think as dochmbi (#17) wrote. It's their church and they can do whatever they please.

Now you have made me change my mind. Yours is a completely valid point. Thanks.

5. It's no wonder evangelical atheists need to shout so loud

Comment #237963 by LBraschi on August 27, 2008 at 1:12 pm

Another moron with a PhD. Guess he won that on a lottery.

6. Why Islam Is Unfunny for a Cartoonist

Comment #223450 by LBraschi on August 2, 2008 at 1:20 pm

Person A does something perfectly legal that might cause person B to kill dozens of people.

Seems to be person B is the one who needs to be locked up.

7. To beat extremism we must dissolve religious groups

Comment #221856 by LBraschi on July 30, 2008 at 8:13 am

Um, has anybody a link to the full poll? All this discussion abouth its methodological validity are quite pointless if one does not know the sampling method involved, the codification of the data, the questions asked, and so one.

So if someone here has access to this information, I would appreciate a link to it.

8. Kung poo panda 'The Sex Lives of Animals' exhibit digs deep.

Comment #221755 by LBraschi on July 30, 2008 at 4:27 am

This is very interesting, from a biological point of view. I am planning some research on the evolutionary basis of homosexual behavior, which is commonly fond in a wide range of animal species.

I find very positive that a museum opens an exhibit like this. It somehow eases fundraising for research :)

9. An Irishman's Diary

Comment #208993 by LBraschi on July 11, 2008 at 1:39 pm

I scored 100% Beginner, 86% Intermediate, 100% Advanced, and 60% Expert!

# You scored 100% on Beginner, higher than 63% of your peers.
# 5/100 You scored 86% on Intermediate, higher than 5% of your peers.
# 72/100 You scored 100% on Advanced, higher than 72% of your peers.
# 10/100 You scored 60% on Expert, higher than 10% of your peers.

Odd. I did better on the advanced levels than on the intermediate. Not bad for not being my mother language

10. Spanish parliament to extend rights to apes

Comment #200213 by LBraschi on June 27, 2008 at 5:12 am

Hey, alfonso, the Spanish Inquisition mention was a joke. Don't remember the Monthy Python?

On bullfighting: yes, it is horrible too, and there are pressure groups to ban it altogether. Unfortunately, bullfighting moves a lot of money around and there are powerful interest groups in it, unlike the case with the apes.

11. Spanish parliament to extend rights to apes

Comment #200178 by LBraschi on June 27, 2008 at 3:04 am

Nobody expected the Spanish Apequisition!

Funny, though. Here in Spain this was not such a big fuss. It made almost no impact on the news.

12. An Interview with Prof. Richard Dawkins

Comment #199249 by LBraschi on June 25, 2008 at 11:37 am

Uh, I don't quite recall where or when I did read it, but I thought Richard was preparing a book on pseudoscience.

I'm not interested in a book for evidence of evolution per se (there is evidence all around if one actually bothers to check it), but rather I'm interested in the way he will tell the story. There's always something to learn about communicating evolutionary theory.

13. Gay brains structured like those of the opposite sex

Comment #194698 by LBraschi on June 17, 2008 at 7:41 am

This is great news, but hardly new. Still, it is important to have replicated evidence, as always.

Some research papers you might consider interesting:

Berenbaum, S., & Hines, M. (1992). Early androgens are related to childhood sex-typed toy preferences. Psychological Science, 3(3), 203-206.

Camperio-Ciani, A., Corna, F., & Capiluppi, C. (2004). Evidence for maternally inherited factors favouring male homosexuality and promoting female fecundity. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 271, 2217-2221.

Kenrick, D. T., Keefe, R. C., Bryan, A., Barr, A., & Brown, S. (1995). Age Preferences and Mate Choice Among Homosexuals and Heterosexuals: A Case for Modular Psychological Mechanisms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(6), 1166-1172.

Muscarella, F. (2002). Preferred partner characteristics in homosexual men in relation to speculated patterns of brain differentiation. Neuroendocrinology Letters, 23, 299-302.

Rahman, Q., & Wilson, G. D. (2003). Born gay? The psychobiology of human sexual orientation. Personality and Individual Differences, 34, 1337-1382.

Schmitt, D. P. (2006). Sexual Strategies Across Sexual Orientations: How Personality Traits and Culture Relate to Sociosexuality Among Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Heterosexuals. In M. R. Kauth (Ed.), Handbook of the Evolution of Human Sexuality (pp. 183-214). Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press.

Silverthorne, Z. A., & Quinsey, V. L. (2000). Sexual Partner Age Preferences of Homosexual and Heterosexual Men and Women. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 29(1), 67-76.

14. The History Channel might do something right

Comment #176116 by LBraschi on May 6, 2008 at 3:31 pm

Eyes are one of evolution's most useful and prevalent inventions, equipping approximately 95 percent of living species

15. Happy Birthday Josh Timonen!

Comment #119372 by LBraschi on January 31, 2008 at 2:38 pm

Feliz cumpleaños desde España!

Thank you very much for your excellent work!

16. Islam in Europe

Comment #114646 by LBraschi on January 22, 2008 at 1:54 pm

The 'what to do' question isn't easy, and if I had a good answer to it I could run for office in my country.

What can we do? First of all, we should stop giving them so much media coverage whenever they feel so much mortaly offended about this or that. More important, politicians should know better than siding with the intolerants for the sake of 'multiculturalism'.

We should also ban any religious school, to avoid early labelling of children as members of any religion. Children should mix together in school regardless of the religous affiliation of their parents.

And regarding the truly vitriolic imams preaching against their adopted country, it's all OK until they actually start encouraging jihad, suicide bombings, the killings of jews-infidels-apostates-gays-women etc.

The sad fact of all of this is that it will take years to achieve a 'tame' islam -in the sense most christians are 'tame' in most of europe. But it is imperative that we succeed or die trying.

[Edit: corrected typo]

17. Islam in Europe

Comment #114611 by LBraschi on January 22, 2008 at 1:22 pm

@al-rawandi,

Some jews in Europe did not want to assimilate, true, but they didn't try to impose their views on the rest of society.

Most (or at least many) jews were pretty much assimilated into mainstream european culture -you could find jews from all trades of life. Most jews identified themselves as german/french/polish/whatever first, and jewish second. A rich german jewish businessman and a poor polish jewish communist had little in common.

With islam, it is different. Most muslims feel themselves as muslim first, and french/german/whatever a distant second (if at all). Not only that, they would like to impose their views on the rest of us.

18. Chimps beat humans in memory test

Comment #93727 by LBraschi on December 4, 2007 at 3:29 am

I saw Matsuzawa at the First Iberian Conference of Ethology in Portugal last November, where he presented this research.

The whole field of cognitive ethology is very interesting, from an evolutionary perspective. It's time to acknowledge that what we call 'intelligence' is very different from species to species. Every species has the mental adaptations required for its ecological niche.

Special creation my **s

@Asta Kask: maybe this article interests you:
Clayton NS, Dickinson A. (1999) Scrub jays (Aphelocoma coerulescens) remember the relative time of caching as well as the location and content of their caches. Journal of Comparative Psychology 113(4):403-16

19. Rome playing politics

Comment #84943 by LBraschi on November 4, 2007 at 10:10 am

The catholic church has always considered Spain as if it belonged to them. I live in Madrid and I can guarantee you that here the church leaders (the Conferencia Episcopal Española - ie the spanish council of bishops) has been strongly opposed to anything Zapatero has ever done: from gay marriage to fighting terrorism (ETA), to condemn Franco's regime, etc.

They have always been playing politics, but they have shed all signs of 'moderation' since there was no right-wing government (Aznar's) to do as they pleased.

(@BAEOZ: Zapatero is known by his maternal surname, yes. Here in Spain people have two surnamnes, usually the first is their father's, the second their mother's. Zapatero's first surname is Rodriguez, all too common here. )

20. What I Think About Evolution

Comment #46669 by LBraschi on June 1, 2007 at 3:44 am

I've added Brownback's quote to the Wikipedia's definition of confirmation bias

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias#Example_of_bias

21. James Randi on Larry King Live

Comment #20158 by LBraschi on January 31, 2007 at 4:20 pm

Yes, Anderson Cooper seems a much better jounalist than Larry King.

22. A Culture of Faith, Devoted Yet Complex

Comment #19171 by LBraschi on January 25, 2007 at 11:12 am

Comment #19151 by the great teapot
Why is everyone out to get the Reverend Haggard?
He came across as such a sincere genuine chap on Richard Dawkins documentary. When did he turn bad.
You just can't tell, can you.

Well, afterwards their conversation, the good reverend is seen driving Dawkins and his team out of his land, just because they discussed about evolution and felt insulted. I guess he did turn 'bad' then.

You can see it in
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ussdzdnj_dE

The incident stars at about 7'

Regards

23. Ruth Kelly, her hard-line church and a devout PM wrestling with his conscience

Comment #18466 by LBraschi on January 21, 2007 at 4:40 am

"We are descending into a spiral of immorality," said Cardinal Keith O'Brien.

I suppose this refers to the catholics themselves

24. Send a Message to God: He has gone too far this time

Comment #17495 by LBraschi on January 14, 2007 at 5:14 am

Of course it is satirical! And a great fun.

25. Let's Be Rational

Comment #12647 by LBraschi on December 13, 2006 at 4:06 am

"When William Harvey made perhaps the greatest physiological discovery, the circulation of the blood, in the history of medicine, he had faith that eventually such knowledge would lead to benefits for humanity. In fact, it was centuries before it did so: his belief was faith-based, and for a very long time would have had no rational support in its evidence."

Had he not? Can that considered 'faith'? Once he knew what the heart was good for, he simply stated the obvious: knowing the function of something is better than not. IMO he head enough evidence to state that it would eventually lead to some kind of benefit, sometime in the future. If you state it in such a general way, it is almost impossible to be wrong.

Neither speculations that IVF will get better in the future are faith-based. They're based on current trends on research and experimentation. It is not 100% sure it will get improve, but there is rational evidence that it will.

Mr. Dalrymple seems to distort what a rational-based evidence is.