1. Cult Busters

Comment #428240 by Dispiracist on October 30, 2009 at 1:02 pm

14. Comment #428044 by RedCarnage on October 29, 2009 at 6:53 pm
I was looking for the 10 qualities of a cult and after reading the google translation of the french documents, these seem to be the 10.

According to these 10 points my local telecommunications company is getting dangerously close to being a cult like organisation.

2. We are born to believe in God

Comment #413257 by Dispiracist on September 8, 2009 at 6:06 am

We’re not born to believe religious mumbo jumbo. We’re born to believe whatever a credible expert tells us.

If you’re interested in the mechanics here’s the link from the unwired for God item which indicates that the mechanism exists.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0004957

”… disbelief is generally the work of deliberate, effortful work against our natural cognitive dispositions — hardly the easiest ideology to propagate.”

I think he’s got it very wrong. Most atheists aren’t heroically sceptical. Just lucky as kids to have avoided exposure to credible sources promoting religious nonsense. And even people who believe nonsense as young kids need ongoing exposure to specific psychological influences to maintain those beliefs (the purpose of most religious rituals).

Last night I saw a wildlife documentary about lions stalking buffalo. Lion cubs haven’t evolved to believe in hunting strategies, they learn by watching the lionesses. But the cubs are programmed to pay attention and believe that what the lionesses are showing them is true. They don’t have to learn that bit. Similarly with human kids, they are programmed to listen to whatever the adults tell them and to believe it, at least for a few years. They aren’t programmed to believe in any particular thing the adults chose to impose on them, any more than lion cubs believe in any particular hunting strategy.

Given how these things work you’d expect it might be the same set of genes driving the same belief acceptance mechanism in both species.If it wasn’t for the shift from visual to language-based beliefs our kids would be ignoring what we tell them about crossing roads. We’d have to actually show them someone getting run down so they could learn from the observation.

The only difference is that lions can’t survive by deliberately teaching their offspring flawed strategies. While humans have the option to exploit the trust of other people as an alternative to earning a living.

3. The Ascent of Man

Comment #412756 by Dispiracist on September 6, 2009 at 3:01 am

Thanks for the reference on The Cell TV documentary. It’s excellent.

Another good 70’s BBC TV series was Connections – James Burke, and The Day the Universe Changed.
And another recent outstanding BBC documentary is Earth Story.

All are either DVDs at local libraries or active torrents.
The new stuff with good graphics makes a difference to kid friendliness. I’ve shown episodes of The Ascent of Man to the kids. They can’t get over the antique graphics. Kids have zero tolerance for long-winded discussions which would have taken a few seconds via animation.

Hollywood seems to be having great success with remakes of movies and TV shows from previous decades, but incorporating newer technology special graphics effects, maybe BBC could do the same thing with their legacy science and history content. Re-use the same basic script material, just update, re-edit, and include current technology special effects.

They could even use the Gollum graphics approach like in District Nine and resurrect people like Bronowski and Sagan to present the updated versions.

4. (Un)wired For God

Comment #412234 by Dispiracist on September 3, 2009 at 8:42 pm

There’s support for the unwired view in economic research.

Religious people believe gods are real, not supernatural. So a neural mechanism predisposing irrational supernatural beliefs begs the question. The problem is belief in real gods, which reduces to explaining belief in natural phenomena if there’s nothing unique about supernatural belief.

It is simpler to just assume, as in economics, that people are reasonably rational and only put real faith in logic and natural things they have good reason to expect are true. This doesn’t mean they personally understand the details of why they are true. They’ve left that effort to others – who’ve given them the bum steer.

A mundane neural mechanism for how the bum steer works has been observed via fMRI research in neuro-economics:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0004957

The experiment is non-threatening to religious interests because of its focus on economics. But generalising the conclusions indicates that anxiety and uncertainty cause the receipt of a message sourced from a credible expert to suppress the neural activity of the recipient’s critical thinking and value discrimination. Actionable beliefs are accepted if they are not rejected by this active neural analysis filter. There are situations where analysis is shut down. Just about everything about religious ritual would have a suppressing effect on this neural processing.

Evolved biological mechanisms are always like this - slightly imperfect but good enough in normal conditions. Like breathing to get O2 intake being triggered indirectly from CO2 accumulation.

5. Malaysia woman gets caning reprieve

Comment #409150 by Dispiracist on August 25, 2009 at 9:26 am

This situation is less irrational than it seems.
I think she’s been requested by politicians and religious authorities to appeal her sentence because a public flogging risks damaging the international tourism reputation of Malaysia and Islam. She is effectively a tourist, because she lives in Singapore and was visiting relatives when the offence was discovered by religious police.

Ironically, by declining to appeal as requested by religious authorities she is at risk of wilfully bringing Islam into disrepute, a more serious crime than the original charge of sipping beer. Many such offences only apply to Muslims. Presumably this is the logic behind caning rape victims someone referred to earlier: it may only apply if the victim and the accused rapist are Islamic, on the basis that a legal prosecution of a Muslim for rape would inevitably bring Islam into disrepute – a more serious crime than the rape itself. Hence, for the sake of Islam it would be logically more important to deter rape complaints than to deter actual rapes.

6. Who asked for Ireland's blasphemy law?

Comment #394920 by Dispiracist on July 10, 2009 at 2:52 am

I can always rely on this website for a good laugh. I notice that the ‘banned in Turkey’ website banner has gone. Given the new legislation, perhaps it’s timely to replace it with an ‘illegal in Ireland’ banner.

It shall be a defence to proceedings for an offence under this section for the defendant to prove that a reasonable person would find genuine literary, artistic, political, scientific, or academic value in the matter to which the offence relates.

Reasonable people are extremely rare and unusual, possibly not even fully human by normal standards. There are probably more leprechauns in Ireland than reasonable people. Seeing as most of the world’s reasonable people are already members of this website it should be easy to defend prosecutions under Irish law.

7. Interview with Oliver Sacks

Comment #394913 by Dispiracist on July 10, 2009 at 2:28 am

If this item strikes a chord then I recommend you get hold of ‘This is Your Brain on Music’ Dan Levitin.

http://www.yourbrainonmusic.com/

Music is the original language; the rest is just evolutionary history.

(The PBS doco Musical Minds is available to the impoverished from the usual disreputable sources.)

8. Attendance at religious services, but not religious devotion, predicts support for suicide attacks

Comment #345685 by Dispiracist on February 24, 2009 at 5:21 am

Publicity about suicide attacks lead to further suicide attacks. So it will probably disappear eventually when media attitudes change.

It's probably safe to assume that the places where most suicide bombers come from tend to have tightly controlled media, which won't be changing attitudes any time soon. So what might make a difference is if there's something more interesting on TV. Alternatively a surge in sunspot activity, wiping out TV broadcasts for a few months would probably see the end of it.

Here's an example of how the process works for regular suicide:

http://www.afsp.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewPage&page_id=7852EBBC-9FB2-6691-54125A1AD4221E49

9. Officials reject 'no god' ad campaign on buses

Comment #341135 by Dispiracist on February 15, 2009 at 8:47 pm

6. Comment #340954 by markg on February 15, 2009 at 1:29 pm

an atheist there who's loaded with money?

I’m not sure it is all that easy to become loaded with other people’s money. (And all money is someone else’s, given it represents someone else’s obligations to another person.)

To be truly loaded someone would need to be very effective at convincing people to give up their money for very little in exchange. An effective way of doing this is by exploiting and manipulating gullible people’s irrational behaviour and fears. This is where religion is particularly useful, but when playing with fire like religion you need to be immune to its effects on yourself.

So the most likely place to find truly wealthy atheists might therefore be in the senior leadership roles in various cults and churches.

10. Creationists don't deserve credence--especially from Forbes.

Comment #340295 by Dispiracist on February 14, 2009 at 4:51 am

30. Comment #340207 by aragones on February 13, 2009 at 6:34 pm

Challenge:

Could Someone give an example of how the knowledge of brain evolution could one day be usefull to fix a brain?

Here’s a crude attempt:

Genetics is relevant to some kinds of things that go wrong with the brain, not directly attributable to parasites and trauma. A neurosurgeon would need to know the difference.
Evolution and genetics are deeply connected.

Parasite evolution can lead to drug immunity. Knowledge of typical possibilities and rates of developing immunity seems fundamental in managing pharmaceutical potency. Controlling infection is as relevant in the brain as anywhere else.

Even sources of brain trauma can have an underlying evolutionary psychology explanation – reckless driving, violence in male humans.
Perhaps this is less useful in fixing broken brains, but prevention is always better than a cure. (Though neurosurgeons don't normally get paid for prevention.)

Beyond brain evolution, species differentiation is just as applicable to neurosurgeons. Neurosurgeons naturally disperse into various ecological niches where they can outcompete other neurosurgeons by appearing more attractive to particular classes of patient. One obviously relevant strategy is by highlighting some entrenched prejudice, like guaranteeing that his blood plasma has been filtered to exclude the blood of Jews, Gays, or Blacks, or perhaps by opposing evolution, he can then better harvest the diseases of rich fundamentalist christians suffering from high blood pressure and strokes.

11. Dutch MP refused entry to Britain

Comment #339749 by Dispiracist on February 12, 2009 at 5:22 pm

For ease of reference, here’s a comprehensive list of undiscussable issues:

1.
2.
3.
n.

(N.B. Order of appearance does not indicate precedence. To avoid perceptions of intolerance, all undiscussable issues are displayed as equally undiscussable. Some issues may not be entirely visible because they are more equally undiscussable than others.)

12. Evolution indoctrination at OU

Comment #339137 by Dispiracist on February 12, 2009 at 3:29 am

Evolution science is not really science but a religion. That is why it cannot stand honest scrutiny or tolerate other views.

This must be the relatively mild Christian version of the idea that anyone challenging Islamic claims of peace and tolerance should be killed for insulting Islam.

But this article does seem too good to be true. Some practical joker on this blog must have written it just to see how long it took to show up here.

13. Media Release - Abortion Laws To Blame For Bush Fires?

Comment #338888 by Dispiracist on February 11, 2009 at 3:50 pm

83. Comment #338183 by Richard Dawkins on February 10, 2009 at 9:57 am
It seems that arson is seriously suspected, and I find myself desperately flailing around and trying to think of a motive.

The answer is in the holey books:

Economics books with theories full of holes, but still useful. The book ‘Freakonomics’ has a chapter on the collapsing crime rate in some American cities, misattributed to enlightened policing practises.

Ironically this revolves around the rate of abortion.

If anyone’s interested, here are a couple of articles that help indicate the root cause of the high casualty rate in these fires.

In a nutshell, the cause of death was ignorance, resulting from unjustified trust in elected authorities. People mistakenly assume that democracy is inherently good, but it is just a tool. It’s what it’s used for. Elections can shape an environment where selection pressure favours the proliferation of those least adequate to ensure community survival.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25038717-5018722,00.html

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25037314-16741,00.html

On the motives of arsonists. Like religious belief, the mental processes aren’t incomprehensible. Arsonists behave rationally in response to problems in their lives.

Starting bushfires is a low risk bet with sporadic high payoffs. A recipe for addiction. Evidence beyond reasonable doubt is infeasible with no financial motive and audit trail.
Arson is virtually indistinguishable among the natural fires. Each arsonist is one among many ‘acts of god’, with relatively low personal risk of inflicting harm. He just optimises the proximity and timing of his share of the action. If there’s to be a thrilling emergency anyway, he may as well influence things to suit. What he can’t know is that there are many arsonists, all thinking independently alike in response to the media frenzy. This changes the odds for harm.

Arsonists’ emotional benefits are very high: heroic opportunities or an exciting, unpredictable, and dangerous experience – which implies opportunities. Most arsonists are young males aware that heroic fire fighters top attractiveness polls of young females. The status motive of attention and heroism is a powerful influence. (Arsonists sometimes turn out to be firemen.)

I’ve seen from personal experience that this hero motive works both ways.

My childhood friend’s parents were always out and he spent much of his childhood at my place. We occasionally explored the city on our bikes. In those days it was unusual for people to lock their homes. We stumbled across a cache of stolen property which got us quite a bit of approving adult attention. Then something similar happened again, and again. (We even have found a fire.)

My friend was addicted to risk and became frequently lucky in finding stuff like this. In mid-teens I got heavily involved in sport and we lost contact. By his late 20’s my friend was imprisoned for theft. The only real difference between us was that my friend craved attention. He was clearly an unwanted pregnancy who hadn’t been aborted or effectively birth controlled by his Catholic parents.

Perhaps the Australian police arson investigators should consider extraditing the Pope.

14. Malaysian scientists find stone tools 'oldest in Southeast Asia'

Comment #336724 by Dispiracist on February 7, 2009 at 7:44 pm

6. Comment #333185 by Lucas on February 2, 2009 at 11:04 pm

I want to know more about what happened between 1.8 and 2200 BC.

Just something for your amusement that I just picked up from reading Will Durant's 'The Story of Civilisation' from the 1930s.

Archeologists have evidence of ancient archeology in very ancient cities. So at least one of the things that was happening was that some people spent their time digging up previous civilisations to try and find out what their own predecessors spent their time doing.

15. The Man In Darwin's Shadow

Comment #336721 by Dispiracist on February 7, 2009 at 7:21 pm

18. Comment #336577 by Rodger T on February 7, 2009 at 3:25 pm

Here is a stunning piece of creationist stupidity that is in todays paper here in New Zealand

"If Genesis is not the truth, the whole thing starts to collapse... "

Do they normally state this so explicity? If not, then this might be an unusually candid admission - maybe worth spreading around more widely.

16. Young Aussies 'becoming non-believers'

Comment #332396 by Dispiracist on February 2, 2009 at 4:55 am

14. Comment #331325 by mdowe on January 31, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Almost exactly the same percentage of non-believers as in Canada (~20%). It would it interesting to know if the demographics are the same as well...

17. Comment #331334 by robotaholic on January 31, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Population density of the continents:
North America - 32 people per square mile
South America - 73 people per square mile
Europe - 134 people per square mile
Asia - 203 people per square mile
Africa - 65 people per square mile
Australia - 6.4 people per square mile

A clarification on similarities of Australia and Canada:

Australia and Canada are the most similar countries by population concentration. This isn’t the same thing as population density – which is meaningless because of the immense uninhabited areas and because, like Canada, most Australians are clustered in large cities. If you could redraw the map of Australia to exclude locations where virtually nobody lives you’ll be left with a land mass approximately a little larger than New Zealand or the British Isles. There could be more people living on fishing boats and oil rigs in the North Sea than live in central Australia. Also like Canada, Australia has relatively few medium or small cities.

In contrast the USA has a relatively lower population concentration. The US population is more evenly dispersed across a range of community sizes ranging continuously from villages through to the biggest cities in the planet.

That Australia and Canada might have similar census stats on the non-religious might be more than a coincidence. It would be interesting to see if these stats are significantly different from the US, which features a much larger proportion of the population living in relatively small communities. Small communities might support perceptions that more people are likely to notice neighbours that don’t pray or attend church. Which might indicate that religious affiliation is as much about conformity as about belief in the supernatural. Australians are as highly conformist as anyone, but their conformity extends to other religions aside from the traditional supernatural variety.

17. Attenborough reveals creationist hate mail for not crediting God

Comment #330631 by Dispiracist on January 31, 2009 at 12:47 am

131. Comment #329387 by phatbat on January 29, 2009 at 6:56 am

Phatbat

You might be misunderstanding what a real force for good actually is.

It’s ancient history now, but there was a time before the Internet, but after radio, when free to air TV briefly reigned supreme, offering quality educationally oriented shows during time prime viewing on weekends. (Back when we used to live in a paper bag in the road etc. before colour TV and when prime viewing time was around 6 p.m. - when nightclubs closed at 1 am rather than opening at 2 am, so kids were usually out of bed and awake as early as 6 p.m. on weekends.)

Things didn’t have to be that way, but Attenborough made it happen, as a presenter and senior administrator. Most other former British colonies had state monopoly TV networks and followed the BBC which sourced of much of their programming (and all the presenters’ accents). So Attenborough’s coverage was global.

Viewing this every weekend was a family institution for vast numbers of people, possibly over 1 or 2 decades. It made the natural world genuinely interesting – something often lacking in the education systems of the era. It could even be a contibuting influence for why biology is now dominated by evolutionists. That a theory is true and supported by the evidence does not guarantee short or medium run political success in obtaining funding and mainstream acceptance. There are other fields where their equivalent of creationists dominate. (And not just sociology, economics too in my opinion.)

Arguing against creationists and relying only on logic is usually futile. You have to work very long-term through the same processes that lead people to these idiotic beliefs in the first place – by presenting ideas to children in a trusted environment and making them familiar. Setting an example for kids over a prolonged period ultimately enables a little logic and independent thinking to be effective once they escape their community influences. Large populations eventually do hange their ideas – as seen with Obama’s election. This can appear to happen very quicky, but it’s not because Americans are suddenly in favour of civil rights for blacks, but because most of their racists have now since died of old age while their now grown up kids have been exposed to decades of viewing blacks doing everyday things on TV.

18. Attenborough reveals creationist hate mail for not crediting God

Comment #329333 by Dispiracist on January 29, 2009 at 3:04 am

Attenborough would have to be the most underrated, long-running force for good the world has ever seen – partly thanks to the availability of mass media technology.
If I were the kind of person to download all his stuff for free, it would almost be enough to make me feel slightly guilty.

19. 10 Lectures on Darwin's Legacy

Comment #313223 by Dispiracist on January 6, 2009 at 12:19 am

In breaking news: Darwin’s legacy is nearly bankrupt.

As a consequence of the depression, Waterford Wedgewood is now under administration.

That Charles Darwin married into family wealth sufficient to allow him to study and do virtually anything he wanted would have to be an inspiration to scientists everywhere. Wedgewood is no longer an option. But for the next generation of researchers today’s equivalent, Paris Hilton, could still be available.

20. What Will Change Everything?

Comment #311158 by Dispiracist on January 2, 2009 at 6:37 pm

65. Comment #310913 by sidelined on January 2, 2009 at 11:44 am
Sorry for the confusion dispiricist, I was speaking not of weapons but of fusion reactors

It’s probably me that owes an apology for my gratuitous sarcasm. Having never been hampered with religious belief I occasionally overlook that clear thinking can be more than just amusing entertainment.

21. What Will Change Everything?

Comment #310779 by Dispiracist on January 2, 2009 at 1:37 am

Quetzalcoatl

I think the real trigger is the political expediencies of the situation. Which reminds me - will this be the first war between Pakistan and India since Pakistan acquired nukes?

21. Comment #310691 by j.mills on January 1, 2009 at 8:19 pm

I understand the intended energy benefits of flouro lamps. I’m moaning about the advertising deception.

The combination of initial plus operating costs is the true price but flouro lights really were marketed as ‘long life’ independently of the energy consumption benefits. Their much greater price was justified by advertising a significantly longer lifespan, thus saving purchase costs as well as energy costs. This turns out to have been pure spin.

The rated lifespan of fluorescents requires assumptions that seldom occur in real households. The supply voltage and impact of transients in Sydney is not good and we are also hit by frequent electrical storms, so I’ve lost count of my electrical appliances killed in action. But there is definitely something about the domestic flouro lamps that makes them very much less than durable when exposed to a real unconditioned mains power environment.

Wikipedia reports that, if switched off after less than 15 minutes operation, flouros have a lifespan 85% shorter than equivalent incandescents. My impression is that this significantly shorter lifespan is plausible. Perhaps they are supposed to be left on permanently – which defeats the purpose to some extent. LED’s might be a better option eventually.

It would be too much to expect truth in advertising as a likely new development within my lifetime. I must be getting old and grumpy. This is the kind of thing I remember my grandparents complaining about. They don’t make them like they used to. And they didn’t make them like they used to back then either.

22. What Will Change Everything?

Comment #310773 by Dispiracist on January 2, 2009 at 1:13 am

17. Comment #310613 by sidelined on January 1, 2009 at 6:39 pm

On the nuclear fusion solution:

It’s no dream. Thousands of fusion devices are already on standby, each lovingly engineered at immense taxpayer expense to effect depopulation.

This should solve waste management and environmental threats associated with population growth. Technically it won’t occur within your lifetime, more likely at the exact endpoint.

23. What Will Change Everything?

Comment #310603 by Dispiracist on January 1, 2009 at 5:52 pm

Nobody ever voted to get the vote either.

Some amazing new technology innovations that actually do work might be good.
Say a non-stick frying pan that actually doesn’t stick. And some so-called long-life fluorescent lights that actually really do last longer than the obsolete and much cheaper incandescent bulbs.

And perhaps now that have collectively accumulated so much new knowledge it could be timely to start work on clearing out some of the old useless stuff.

Intellectual property rights might be among the first obsolete intellectual developments on the garbage pile. It might otherwise be very irritating to have to de-evolve myself or my dog because the process of genome manipulation is subject to copyright litigation. I'm not sure that the legal system has yet caught up with the fact biological reproduction involves illegal copying of genetic information - much of it may already be subject to copyright or patent law protection.

24. For Good Self-Control, Try Getting Religious About It

Comment #310524 by Dispiracist on January 1, 2009 at 3:08 pm

Dan Ariely, researcher in behavioural economics, wrote ‘Predictably Irrational’ where he describes experiments in honesty. He reports that contemplation of a moral code (eg. The 10 commandments) makes a significant impact on the extent of dishonesty.

He discusses this experiment in this video clip:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=w0F2f-O28nU

‘Self control’ might be a bit too intangible for researchers to measure, but there may be a link to honesty. Apparently everyone will cheat and steal if they think they can get away with it. Being reminded that things don’t work if everyone behaves dishonestly might be more effective than compounding dishonesty by attempting to believe there’s some kind of omnipresent security camera that records everything for judgement day. Hence the practical role of the 10 commandments. It actually doesn’t matter who wrote them or what particular commandments appear on the moral code, apparently few people can remember them anyway. What is important is the existence of any widely accepted moral code – evidence of explicitly agreed behaviour standards. And having frequent reminders of it – perhaps like regular attendance at church. Perhaps also occasional public floggings, stonings, and beheadings of violators and apostates etc. This is probably what people mean when they say people should pay attention to the 10 commandments.

25. For Good Self-Control, Try Getting Religious About It

Comment #309817 by Dispiracist on December 31, 2008 at 4:22 pm

Some aspects of selfs are less controllable than others.

I read an article a couple of days ago reporting on the currently fashionable vows of chastity taken by church-going teenagers. Cultivating irrational expectations of self control implies no need for condoms. So these religiously disciplined teenagers tend to experience very much higher rates of teen pregnancy and STDs than teenagers who rationally expect little self-control, instead relying on keeping condoms handy.

26. Archaeological Discovery: Earliest Evidence Of Our Cave-dwelling Human Ancestors

Comment #304901 by Dispiracist on December 22, 2008 at 12:49 pm

Now that humans no longer rely on stone tools, what remnants will today’s humans leave that could endure in a cave for 2 million years?

Future archaeologists, of any species, would need something more substantial than subtle patterns of snapped off stalactites and smashed beer bottles as evidence of human intelligence.

27. Poll Finds No Boost in Church Attendance during Economic Crisis

Comment #303991 by Dispiracist on December 20, 2008 at 2:26 am

Eshto

I think you're right about the enemy.

For 911 the followers of one religion were cleary trying to terrorise people by exterminating the infidels. The method was horrific and anything church leaders said was trivial in comparison. You would expect churches to be swamped regardless of what religious leaders said.

But now we have church leaders apparently blaming corporate greed for the 2nd Great Depression. Which just isn’t credible. Church leaders are known to be eager to participate in corporate greed wherever possible. And corporate greed is normally inflicted by the friendly bank manager downtown – chances are he is a prominant church benefactor and sings in the choir, reason enough to steer clear of the place.

28. Religion in [Australian] schools to go God-free

Comment #302481 by Dispiracist on December 17, 2008 at 5:03 am

Mixmastergaz

You’ve answered my blog-equivalent of prayer!

There is no religious requirement to blog, some of us are just irrationally driven to it. And you did get a reply when you prayed as a child. You just failed to interpret the response as conveying significant meaning. It’s like a binary code – the zeros are as equally significant as the ones. Just like phoning someone and getting no reply at least tells you that the called party isn’t home or doesn’t want to talk to you (if they have caller ID).

I’m probably not the clearest in describing the unclear. I’m just saying that you can sometimes clarify by assuming an unjustified clear position then look at the implications that follow if that assumption were valid. There’s probably some philosophical methodology involved. If the resulting implications make sense then there may be some value in the initially unjustified assumption. If the implications don’t make sense you can be reasonably sure that the assumption isn’t justified.

We might be associating religion with superficial rituals and beliefs. Distinctive rituals and beliefs might not be fundamental for the critical social bonding aspect without which those rituals and beliefs would otherwise dissipate. Possibly some of these rituals exist because they camouflage what is really going on. It may even be critical to have such things as myths, sacred texts, priests etc because the psychological belief processes only work well when attention is misdirected. i.e. Religion might one day be scientifically prove to be genuine real magic.

I’m thinking that indicators of a religion would be that there is some kind of social bonding mechanism that has achieved critical mass or escape velocity from reality-based criticism. E.g. Evangelism is less about converting new adherents, either by rational or irrational argument, than it is about reinforcing commitment in existing adherents who attempt to convince others.

This is probably the real purpose of such things as Sunday school and religious education – the real target is the teacher and not the student. The process of pitching the product entrenches the seller’s beliefs.

You could look at a range of uncritically accepted popular beliefs for what they have in common that prevents them being considered religions, at least for now. And what conditions might result in traditional institutions dropping out of the religious category?

Witchdoctors could study medicine then trade as physicians. The underlying scientific basis or their technical effectiveness might be irrelevant to uncritical followers, so their movement away from superstition and religion is not necessarily for the better. Witch doctors might have relied on placebo effects and traditional medications and achieved worthwhile results, while the physicians may depend on sterile equipment or sophisticated drugs which might be relatively unaffordable. Or even simple things like hand washing may be impractical – as is apparently the case with physicians in Australian metropolitan hospitals.

Uncritical trust is associated with both witchdoctors and physicians. It is technically possible that the knowledge and skill training for witchdoctors may take half a lifetime and be more extensive and rigorous than for physicians, while the ritualistic aspects of physician training might also be significant. Just look at the movement for ‘evidence based medicine’ as an example of how modern scientific medicine is not always as scientific as people would think. A religious distinction between witchdoctors and 21st century medicine (as it is really performed in under-resourced, poorly managed Australian hospitals by non-English speaking migrant physicians) isn’t entirely clear.

29. Orangutan's Spontaneous Whistling Opens New Chapter In Study Of Evolution Of Speech

Comment #301840 by Dispiracist on December 16, 2008 at 12:18 am

41. Comment #301616 by mitch_486 on December 15, 2008 at 8:39 am
Do you have a book to recommend on the topic? I'd like to learn more about this.

Some, perhaps non-standard, suggested reading on human language evolution:

The details of evolutionary origins of human speech are a very interesting current problem. I don’t expect there would be much material that isn’t highly speculative.

Some combined sources from popular writing:

1. Anything on basic economics – the theory of comparative advantage is the obvious driver candidate which enables selection pressure to favour increasingly complex cooperation, based on increasingly complex communication.

2. Any recent book on human evolution – there is evidence of sudden behavioural changes which imply a sudden onset of complex communication, plus anatomical changes supporting this.

3. The idea that evolutionary changes must be incremental implying a functional starting point for human vocalisation, the interpretation of very early tools as being musical instruments, and research into the neural processes associated with music – best identified in Daniel Levitin’s book This is Your Brain on Music.

4. John McWhorter – various books on linguistics. (More about the evolution of language itself, rather than the evolution of language capability.)

30. Religion in [Australian] schools to go God-free

Comment #301714 by Dispiracist on December 15, 2008 at 2:18 pm

97. Comment #301591 by mixmastergaz on December 15, 2008 at 6:39 am

On your approach to defining religion:

The evidence might be slightly biased, but relentless blogging by atheists might be comparable to prayer. At least it might be considered to involve similar vain hopes that one’s voice might be heard.

And atheists do have a code of ethics. It’s just genetically encoded rather than scripturally encoded in stone. Possibly more durably in the very long run.

An alternative approach to lining up candidate religions against objective criteria is to start with the tentative assumption that atheism really can be a religion, as can any scientific movement capable of attracting uncritical followers.

Anthropogenic Global Warming is a possible example. At first look AGW is no less obvious than Intelligent Design. Regardless of scientific merits both theories attract followers who are not influenced or motivated by the substance of scientific theory and associated evidence. Though belief in credible authorities that claim to understand the rocket science is a factor.

If you then look at the science of the unscientific reasons why people coalesce around ideologies, establishing cult heroes, myths, and sacred texts, then you might better analyse religion as a time-dispersed process rather than a specific collection of essential beliefs or institutions. The implications of this might be that some prominent religions could be interpreted as being in process of changing into ex-religions by declining into cultural traditions and historical artefacts rather than anything hordes of adherents would still find personally compelling. Similarly, existing non-religious movements could potentially become religions eventually. Eg. Atheism or AGW.

I think this was described in The God Delusion. (I only have the audio book, not the full scripture – so the relevant verse is hard to reference.) The core beliefs of long-established religions were the science of the day when these movements were established. But the process of forming the core group of believers and perpetuating and expanding that group is independent of the initial scientific idea. (Historical evidence is that the growth of major religions are primarily driven by tax laws - which may eventually also become relevant in the case of AGW.)It is possible that key aspects of the believed doctrine must be readily disconfirmed in real life so as to trigger the rationalising processes which results in the relevant beliefs becoming deeply and emotionally entrenched. This factor might be an impediment to AGW becoming a fully fledged religion at present. But if some solid evidence against AGW were miraculously to appear, then the psychological mechanisms of religious belief would be triggered and the future of AGW as a religious movement would be assured. All that would be lacking is a suitable candidate for crucifixion.

31. Orangutan's Spontaneous Whistling Opens New Chapter In Study Of Evolution Of Speech

Comment #301332 by Dispiracist on December 14, 2008 at 2:12 pm

“To suggest that we can learn anything about the simian nature from a study of man is sheer nonsense.” - Dr. Zaius, Minister of Science and Defender of the Faith.

32. Religion in [Australian] schools to go God-free

Comment #301321 by Dispiracist on December 14, 2008 at 1:30 pm

Great news. This could undermine the de facto policy of punishing recalcitrant kids via boredom.

If the alternative content is good it might trigger complaints that scripture kids are being unfairly advantaged. Maybe their parents will opt out their kids too.

It seems odd that a fundamentalist religious group employs a ‘research director’. I assume that’s spinne on the role of media manipulator. But their suggestion of teaching witchcraft and Satanism has merit. Belief in Satan is significant, which makes it a driver of evil. Kids need to know about it.

Like the Lindy Chamberlain case witchcraft makes a useful a case study: that not all scientists are honest, how science often isn’t allowed to work, and how fudging scientific results is driven by financial, political, and religious expediency. Plus it highlights the effects of mass hysteria, the ethics of lying, and of manipulating the legal system and deceiving juries.

This would be timely for kids. Paedophiles now appear to be a serious epidemic in Australia. Possibly a long-term consequence of police corruption and incompetence and focussing on easier targets following the discovery of infallible scientific tests for witchcraft. Convicted witches are likely to have been released by now and their confiscated children would be old enough to avoid state custody and legally seek contact with parents. Suppression orders on names and evidence would presumably be lapsing so true stories are potentially available.

These stories would show how easily science is undermined by religious activists. It also shows how dangerous these people can be when they attain credible positions as psychologists, policemen, journalists, judges, politicians, or teachers.

33. Hubble Finds Carbon Dioxide on an Extrasolar Planet

Comment #300550 by Dispiracist on December 12, 2008 at 4:10 am

Eshto

I’m still waiting for Tropic Thunder on DVD so I can further enjoy its historical accuracy. The scene with the hand signals is a classic.

About Apollo, I think a geologist was brought in on a later mission to lend scientific credibility. This initially didn’t go down too well with those of the right military stuff.

The comparison with Star Trek is that while real life heroic adventure is inspiring, it can’t compete with a good screenwriter. If there isn’t much real scientific justification for your project then you may as well do the whole bit with all the weird stuff: faster than light travel and communications, transporter beams, English-speaking aliens, and time travel. It’s more honest. And given that robot probes would have eventually done the business on the Moon, Star Trek probably had an underrated impact on the next generation of scientists – if only by getting people to think about things like what the speed of light actually is or whether Vulcans really can interbreed with Humans.

It’s interesting that people focus on the speed of light rather than the rate of time. They’re probably the same underlying thing, but at least with velocity we can travel slower and even stop. With time we only seem to have the choice of it passing us by more quickly. What we really should be looking at is slower than time aging.

34. Hubble Finds Carbon Dioxide on an Extrasolar Planet

Comment #300470 by Dispiracist on December 11, 2008 at 8:57 pm

Decius

Diluting the facts is a long-term iterative effort. You start with some kind of military disaster and after many years of accumulated delusions and propaganda you really do end up with the opposite. The US Civil War is an example. And where I live we now celebrate one of the greatest examples of military incompetence in history, the Anzac disaster of WW1, as a nation-building cultural icon. We even have Anzac biscuits, bridges, frigates, and spirit.

I don’t recall Chomsky’s view, I think he proposed an institutional driver for the objectives in the Vietnam war. But I’m not sure there really was a tangible objective in the Vietnam war. It was just WW 1 and 2 continued. Fighting to end WW2 had a reasonably clear purpose in Europe and the Pacific, but conflict was never clearly resolved in some places like South-East Asia.

For a true strategic objective to be real it must be achievable, which includes being funded with sufficient resources. If the objective isn’t achieved it is most likely because it was never realistic. Complex projects of any nature tend to collapse for similar reasons of inadequate scope definition, untested assumptions, and unmanaged expectations. So it’s no wonder that perceived outcomes default to the subjective opinion of stakeholders. Psychologists show that people who get the worst out of any deal tend to be the most satisfied. So if everyone thinks they’re the victors you’re left with a win/win situation – at least for the supporting spectators. This is quite important otherwise voters would be less willing to move on and support the next war.

35. Hubble Finds Carbon Dioxide on an Extrasolar Planet

Comment #300446 by Dispiracist on December 11, 2008 at 6:46 pm

81. Comment #300424 by Eshto on December 11, 2008 at 4:57 pm
If we can get to a point where our technology provides us with everything we need, I don't see how money will matter anymore.

Our technology already provides us with everything we need. Money only constrains us when we try and acquire everything we want.

We don’t want a scarcity of resources, but I think you’ll find that scarcity of resources really is a fundamental concept that applies universally. Anything alive once wasn’t, and soon won’t be again. If it can’t die, it can’t be alive. Which means that an organism’s lifespan duration is always scarce, regardless of the state of technology and other resources.

Re the Vietnam war – history is written by the victors, because they tend to be still alive. And the Americans have written most of the history. The recent movie Tropical Thunder being the best example. Millions of Vietnamese died during the campaign – so it is reasonably clear who didn’t win.

Opinion research also supports American’s belief in having won the Vietnam war, though similar surveys are less clear about whether they really put men on the Moon. I think NASA undertook a project recently, to attempt to convince Americans that they really had visited the moon. And Star Trek really did have a major impact on human space travel: The original Apollo project was eventually cancelled because NASA’s TV franchise couldn’t compete with shows like Star Trek for advertising revenue, even though NASA’s astronauts were definitely the better actors. Part of the problem was the lack of genuine scientific input, which was in Star Trek’s favour. Of course none of them were real scientists – though it is possible that some scientists may have worked as extras on one of the sets.

36. Hubble Finds Carbon Dioxide on an Extrasolar Planet

Comment #300386 by Dispiracist on December 11, 2008 at 2:42 pm

As Steve Zara points out: The real problem with interstellar travel is the vast amounts of energy required.

But abundant energy is everywhere. The real problem is the tremendous economic cost of developing technology to manipulate sufficient energy. We can assume our laws of economics are at least as inapplicable to intelligent extraterrestrials as to humans, so these laws would be as universal as the laws of physics and biological evolution. That’s probably why we don’t see extraterrestrials from other planets commuting to visit Earth. There just isn’t enough money.

But politicians claim to solve tremendous economic problems by facilitating massive credit creation through leveraging multiple teradollars. That's how they put a man on the moon and won the Vietman war. This process might be cosmically significant if spectral atmospheric traces of the economic surges are detectable by extraterrestrial astronomers hundreds of light years away. With this magnitude of cash creation even the impossible appears temporarily plausible. Though it seems much less plausible that intelligent extraterrestrials would ever develop economic theory this sophisticated. This implies there’s no point in waiting to receive visitors from other planets, we’ll have to go there.
The most awesome implications of economic theory might be that some of our politicians are already living on another planet. Life, but not necessarily as we’d want to know it.

37. Interview with Nicholas Wade

Comment #299839 by Dispiracist on December 10, 2008 at 2:26 pm

I’ve just finished reading Nicholas Wade’s book Before the Dawn.

Anyone interested in the present and continuing evolution of human behaviour really should read this one. It is a jam-packed sampler of interesting theories involving human origins.

Some random things I learned:

1. Evolutionary change in human minds can be very rapid – with significant changes in some reproductively isolated groups suspected to have occurred over as little as 800 years. (Significantly increased intelligence in Ashkenazy Jews.)

2. Domestication of plants and animals may have occurred very rapidly and repeatedly in different locations.

3. Domesticated dogs are critical for enabling civilisation. (I have always been suspicious about people who prefer cats over dogs – this may lead to incriminating evidence that cat lovers really are undermining the very foundations of human civilisation.)

4. Humans are programmed to divide up into groups and wage war on the out groups – dog versus cat lovers, the United Atheist Alliance versus the Allied Atheist Allegiance.

Religion may be the evolved social mechanism which enables our recently acquired tolerance of strangers and family orientation, essential for civilisation, to be suppressed, facilitating our capability for genocide, which is an important aspect of our evolutionary development. (Perhaps this is an underlying genetic driver behind programs like SETI – not just scientific curiosity about intelligent life, but whether it is feasible to undertake a dawn raid on their star system and kill them all in their beds before they do unto us - just like we dealt with those Neanderthal bastards.)

38. The Religion of Peace Strikes Again

Comment #295030 by Dispiracist on December 1, 2008 at 5:23 pm

165. Comment #294904 by Nairb on December 1, 2008 at 1:57 pm

If we want to tackle muslim extremism, I think we need to learn from what has worked in the past aainst other such extremists.

World War 2 offers some interesting lessons of history.

The German population may have been highly unified in supporting, if not the Nazis directly, their deadly anti-Semitism of the time. And it took very much more than just invading Germany to end the war in Europe. Some of the fighting continued through to the 1960s. Perhaps not quite as bad as some Japanese soldiers in isolated Pacific Islands, but pretty wacky all the same.

Here is an interesting article on the topic:
http://www.jewishpress.com/page.do/21967/The_Anti-Terror_Campaign_That_Succeeded.html

39. The Religion of Peace Strikes Again

Comment #294842 by Dispiracist on December 1, 2008 at 12:39 pm

68. Comment #294397 by decius on December 1, 2008 at 3:29 am

Stats on bride burnings:

I’ve no idea now. I’ll take your theistic anecdotal hearsay as trumping my first ranked Google search – which on closer inspection I see is over 10 years out of date. Possibly the eradication of dowry murders would be another case of good news being no news. People generally might not be interested to hear that bride burning is history.

It’s interesting that a 10-years out of date article is the top-ranked Google search on the topic. Presumably the idea of burning women alive is a compelling emotional hook, as drives urban myths.

I should have realised that this stuff is continually revved up. Having just watched the ‘Forbidden Lies’ movie (about the Norma Khouri who wrote Forbidden Love – the fraudulent story about honour killing in Syria).

40. The Religion of Peace Strikes Again

Comment #294349 by Dispiracist on December 1, 2008 at 2:11 am

5. Comment #293871 by Evilcor on November 30, 2008 at 10:21 am

the problem is one of incentives, and therefore a structural issue.

Religion might be a useful spark for terrorism, but there is always a government involved somewhere in the background. Either as an indirect perpetrator or as an indirect beneficiary of the aroused emotional affiliation. E.g. If you want to become the most popular political leader ever in your nation’s history (momentarily at least) then just sit back and wait for some appalling tragedy to strike then address the people in a serious, confident, statesman-like manner. The opinion polls will go through the roof.

There is a theory that governments would otherwise be limited to controlling relatively small communities like city states, unable to expand and absorbing neighbouring communities except by stimulating conflict that creates long-term dependency of their subjects on their ruler’s capability to impose peace on all parties. An extortion racket that involves persistent threats and reminders of violence. Religion might play a useful role in facilitating such conflicts, resulting in very large populations population coming under the control of a single ruler – the one most effective at cultivating conflict, but not too effective.

There would be an incentive for governments to make life a misery in surrounding territories, if only to deter their own subjects from absconding to alternative locations presenting more attractive opportunities. The implications are that if most governments control small nations and are too small and militarily weak to eliminate or immiserate neighbouring populations then they can’t deter their subjects from absconding. Maintaining sufficient tax-paying subjects implies allowing life to be relatively tolerable at home. Given that military expansion is off the agenda for the time being, such governments can probably afford to be nice even to their own citizens. It may be periods like this, with many fragmented city states rather than large nations, which gave rise to the cultural advances of ancient Greece and the late middle ages in Europe.

41. The Religion of Peace Strikes Again

Comment #294344 by Dispiracist on December 1, 2008 at 1:57 am

Speaking of statistics, the Mumbai casualties are barely 2 weeks’ worth of bride burnings for India overall.

But this is typical of journalists to focus on the negative perspective. They could equally say the Koran is 47.3% hatred free. Most people will look at anything ambiguous and take from it whatever they want to hear or see. If disaffected, aggressive young men are prevented from reading the Koran then the bad half might be relatively harmless.

The mums in PNG had some insight into this:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/01/2434537.htm?section=justin

42. Atheist Foundation of Australia Bus Slogan Rejected!

Comment #291684 by Dispiracist on November 26, 2008 at 3:39 pm

I doubt this would be due to the religious beliefs of APN management. APN, like all the other badly managed media companies, is desperate for revenue. But their commercial risk is that the costs might exceed revenue – given that religious groups may retaliate with vandalism, abuse, and harassment of bus company employees and APN. APN’s insurance contract may even preclude this activity.

The problem here is not with APN, it is with the generally accepted reluctance of law enforcement and courts to enforce property rights and act against intimidation and violence. Presumably based on a misunderstanding of the concept of free-speech, property rights, and religious tolerance.

I am acutely aware of this inversion of law and order priorities at present, as we have aggressive paedophiles openly operating in our area, with several recent abduction attempts. This makes me the one who would be grossly irresponsible in allowing my youngest child to walk home from primary school. (It is already illegal in NSW to leave a parked car unlocked on a public street as it is considered to be aiding criminal activity. Next step will be laws against women and children being left unattended in public.) On the other hand, the top Sydney police story of today is the substantial resources committed to patrolling cinemas with special night vision equipment so police can arrest people recording movies with their mobile phone cameras.

Perhaps a better way through is to underwrite APN’s perceived additional risks so they can’t lose. They could be offered a substantial additional bond payment, which becomes non-refundable if APN provides independently acceptable evidence of harassment costs sufficient to justify police investigation and compensation claims against the perpetrators. This would at least get any consequences into the crime statistics (police are always eager to solve easy crimes – it gets their performance numbers up). It may only have to occur on the first few occasions, once a successful precedent is established there would be less perceived risk for media companies.

43. Why we believe in gods

Comment #291522 by Dispiracist on November 26, 2008 at 1:32 pm

On the by-product issue about language development preceding or following music, a useful source would be the neuroscientist Daniel Levitin.

He is a guitarist and is therefore would be well acquainted with the significance of music and dance both for human and bird sexual selection, especially for picking up birds at gigs.

The idea is that language capability is a by-product that becomes available from the evolutionary-driven sexual display function of increasingly sophisticated audio processing input and output modules. This emphasises that by-products go both ways. They can obviously be useful, and can only ever be harmful as long as the net long-term harm to reproductive success is significantly less than the benefits of the module’s core function.

This music / language link may also have some commection to the fact that guitarists tend to have relatively primitive language skills: They usually can't read music, operate their amp volume knob, and use the word 'man' excessively.

44. Single-Celled Giant Upends Early Evolution

Comment #291485 by Dispiracist on November 26, 2008 at 1:06 pm

53. Comment #290993 by Roger Stanyard on November 26, 2008 at 4:33 am

fossils of large multi-cellular animals from the pre-Cambrian do exist

That’s typical! Another spectacular theoretical breakthrough entirely based on magazine article headlines is shot down in flames. No wonder science is difficult. Even biology could be as easy as economics if only biologists could become as comfortable with ignoring inconvenient facts.

I should have noticed the word ‘poised’, meaning ‘if only, but for contradictory facts’ in the statement ‘poised to revolutionise our understanding of the evolution of complex life on Earth’. I suppose few people would read an article headlined as ‘slightly increasing the range of considerations when interpreting pre-Cambrian fossils.’

45. Single-Celled Giant Upends Early Evolution

Comment #290970 by Dispiracist on November 26, 2008 at 4:11 am

14. Comment #287900 by DamnDirtyApe on November 20, 2008 at 11:31 pm

A lot can happen in 550 million years.

A lot can happen in only a few years.

I was just checking basic biological classifications on Wikipedia to help my son with his end of year science revision, particularly in distinguishing protists and eukaryotes, only to find that biological classification has evolved to the point where I don’t understand it any more – not that I really understood it first time round. I have been overtaken and sidelined by the evolutionary race in biological terminology. Hopefully my offspring are better adapted to this new environment.

As an explanation for the Cambrian explosion, this article clears up a misunderstanding, leaving much less of an anomaly to explain. If there were no large multicellular animals before the Cambrian explosion then it was really just a starting point for large organisms. So Charles Darwin was right: the Cambrian explosion is an artefact of the fossil record. Prior fossils weren’t preserved because there were none to preserve.

This also undermines the idea of the trilobite eye as some kind of trigger for an animal evolutionary arms race. The arms race would have occurred just the same, but instead of being an incredibly improbable innovation, which inexplicably failed to occur for a very long time, the eye becomes more of an inevitable evolutionary development enabling multi-cellular animals to exploit the available information resource (reflected light) to locate threats and opportunities.

It may even explain why plants haven’t evolved eyes – not that anyone’s asking.

46. Interview with Sam Harris

Comment #290919 by Dispiracist on November 26, 2008 at 3:17 am

Someone mentioned SETI.

Which reminds me that there is a related project, though a little mundane in focus:

http://www.totl.net/STI/

47. We can't hide in our labs and leave the talking to Dawkins

Comment #290390 by Dispiracist on November 25, 2008 at 4:47 am

Coincidentally my kids and I have just completed watching the last of the 4 episodes of Marcus du Sautoy’s presentation of The Story of Maths.

It is an excellent production. While the kids would otherwise have preferred to watch The Simpsons my 14 year old enjoyed it and actually found it relevant for his school work. (Which wasn't the point - I'm trying to ensure they find this stuff inherently interesting rather than experiencing lacklustre exposure in school.) Even my 10 year old stayed alert and interested through all 4 episodes. And he’s someone who claims that everything except football is gay.

So I rate du Sautoy as having passed the discerning child test.

48. Why we believe in gods

Comment #290350 by Dispiracist on November 25, 2008 at 3:50 am

I’ve got that Nicholas Wade book ‘Before the Dawn’. This has inspired me to actually read it.

Ignoring the fact that Spielberg wasn’t available as production director, I picked up a possible content error around 13 minutes:

Music cannot originally have been a cultural by-product of language put to rhythm, even if it appears that way today. Evolutionary developments must be incremental and developing spoken language must depend on enhancing an existing ability to discern and to produce vocalisations. This means that song and dance is likely to have preceded language, perhaps for mate selection as occurs in birds. Rhythm sources are more likely to be limb movement – with periods derived from walking, jumping, running, waving arms etc. rather than heart rate. It’s more of a coincidence that the frequency of heart pulses corresponds to the range of limb movement frequency.

Around 34 minutes there’s some discussion of monotheism versus polytheism and that desert religions are more repressive to women etc. Not sure how that fits with Australian aboriginal religion. Being a typical Australian (well a Kiwi actually, which is pretty typical for Australians) I therefore know virtually nothing about Aborigine culture. I've heard they whack their women around, but that isn’t their original cultural outlook. They probably learned that from the European missionaries. Perhaps Australian aboriginal spirituality is an exception to desert environments. Aborigine culture is one of the oldest human cultures and is apparently well adapted to desert conditions rather than being in conflict with geography.

In the Q&A the first commenter mentioned Greek polytheism compared to desert–originated monotheism. I’m not sure that there really is any shift from poly to mono in religious practises from Greek to Roman to Roman Catholic. Zeus was the top god with scores of lesser gods. Pronunciation shifts take Zeus to Deus and Theus and the original lesser gods just become complex hierarchies of angels, demons, and various prophets, disciples, and saints. It remains as polytheistic as ever. Does the same thing apply to Islam? It would make evolutionary sense that any novel religion is a small innovation producing a slightly more infectious mutation of something already in circulation.

I don’t think the polytheism versus monotheism question is relevant to the message. Perhaps best deleted if the theory is inconsistent.

49. Regenerating a Mammoth for $10 Million

Comment #290239 by Dispiracist on November 24, 2008 at 10:22 pm

This would encounter similar objections as sex education, immunisations, and stem cell research.

If animals can be unextincted then people might be less cautious with already endangered species. This will be as outrageous for environmentalists as condoms are for the Vatican.

On the other hand, seeing as our collapsing financial system, the impending nuclear war with Iran, and climate change might take us back to the Stone Age, perhaps it’s a good precaution to re-establish our natural prey. This will give us something to live on until civilisation re-emerges.

50. It came from outer space: Fireball streaks across Canadian Prairie, crashes

Comment #290139 by Dispiracist on November 24, 2008 at 6:09 pm

49. Comment #289662 by InfuriatedSciTeacher on November 24, 2008 at 4:11 am

I should probably be more aware of the paranoia in places targeted for nuclear destruction.

My Dad had a brief experience of this even far away in New Zealand. Before I was born he worked in geophysics and was invited by a journalist to comment on a US atmospheric hydrogen bomb test near Hawaii. Apparently there was no one else with anything interesting to say about it, but he had local data from the magnetic pulse. There was a photo in the local paper, with buildings in Honolulu in the foreground which he recognised and used to establish the altitude and direction. A few quick calculations and he had the altitude, location, timing, and therefore the blast intensity and presumably a few other technical details which could be easily derived. All this ended up being quoted in the paper – with the consequences of some diplomatic fuss about breach of security etc. It was apparently easier for some people to believe he was betraying classified information than that someone might just do the maths. I think he still qualified for a security clearance eventually – but he had to explain himself.

On the meteor I observed – the explosion had a tinge of colour, I don’t remember exactly what. I have mild astigmatism which makes mercury streetlights produce a violet halo – I think it was a similar effect. The light was basically white, but the imperfections of my eyes refracted specific wavelengths. I think the object originated from a comet tail Earth happened to be transiting – so presumably it was mostly ice. It was the most interesting thing that happened that night. Even the aliens I met near the impact crater were unsure of what the object was – but I may have been asleep by that stage.