251. Huckabee Wants A 'Faith-based' Constitution

Comment #113067 by mesomodel on January 18, 2008 at 2:10 pm

my question did ask why this fear should be the case

Because you can lose your job.
http://tinyurl.com/2g9wbf

252. Huckabee Wants A 'Faith-based' Constitution

Comment #113059 by mesomodel on January 18, 2008 at 2:04 pm

Would the expression "Teaching morons to teach morons" sum it up you'd say?

Yes. Exactly. Eventually, those morons end up as administrators, school board members, politicians and even presidents. Then, they institute policies that damage and rot the system from the inside out. Once morons start mandating the teaching of irrationality by morons, the game is over. And it is for the U.S. I know its very pessimistic, but I just don't see any hope for a turn around. If things continue in the same direction, there will be a brain drain of intellectuals, engineers and scientists from the U.S. over the next century or so, just as has happened with the decline of virtually every major empire. With manufacturing already gone, that will leave the U.S. with nothing but morons and large piles of bibles.

253. Huckabee Wants A 'Faith-based' Constitution

Comment #113048 by mesomodel on January 18, 2008 at 1:55 pm

al-rawandi,

I went to UCLA. But students at UCLA, Cal, and most UCs are the the top few percent of all students in California. CalStates are the second tier, and it shows.

I taught meteorology. I couldn't stand the daily torture of trying to explain F=ma to students that couldn't add. I gave up and took a soft money position at a non-profit research outfit in Colorado. Best decision I ever made.

254. Huckabee Wants A 'Faith-based' Constitution

Comment #113038 by mesomodel on January 18, 2008 at 1:41 pm

Can someone please explain to me why in America the education system is dead-set against or discourages the talk and theory of evolution

My experience as a professor at a university that "educated" would-be teachers partially answers this. To start with, a huge percentage of students at the university shouldn't have made it past first grade. They can't write, read, or add. Critical thinking is out of the question. Questions like what color is orange stumped many a student. Others "knew" the answer: red. (No, I'm not joking.) Mind you, this was a fully accredited public university within the California State University system. And you expect them to grasp the concept of evolution? What about the other 80% of the population that couldn't even qualify to get into the University?

The students were the product of social promotion. The pressure to continue the social promotion program is also alive and well at universities. So, you crank out idiots for teachers. Then, they go off to K-12, where they infect students with illogic and irrationality. It doesn't take too long before you have a large percentage of the population that lacks the ability to think critically or logically. This sets up the right environment for the belief in mythology. Granted, this is not the whole problem, but our failing educational system plays a large role.

The only way out of this mess is to educate our way out. It will be a slow process, and we haven't even started. In fact, the educational system is getting worse.

255. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #112487 by mesomodel on January 17, 2008 at 9:25 am

the groups the "survive" best are neither the most altruist, nor the most egoist, but rather they are the groups where the individuals behave with a balanced mix of selfishness and unselfishness.

Exactly. In our relatively rich society, we have the luxury of "carrying" those that cannot fend for themselves, for example the mentally handicapped, and brain dead. In essence, we feel empathy and contribute to their care even though it is a lien against our individual survival. But, in other less fortunate societies (I'm showing some empathy here), there has to be some level of selfishness or the individual will perish. "I'm sorry your starving, but you can't have my food." Of course, you still have empathy, but you can't act on it. And, empathy only goes so far, even in our society. I just don't feel empathy for people who taunt tigers and are mauled.

256. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #112482 by mesomodel on January 17, 2008 at 9:13 am

I think it would be more prudent to continue to empathize and carry the lesser people in the hope that they might have something significant to contribute.

This is an interesting idea to ponder. There are plenty of species that don't have empathy (at least I think that's the case, I can't really ask a lemming if it feels empathy when another is eaten by a fox). How would the evolutionary trajectory of lemmings change if they suddenly had empathy? Or, if our hominid ancestors didn't feel empathy, how different would we be now? Perhaps extinct?

From a purely evolutionary standpoint, I can't say what level of empathy is most advantageous to survival of the species. I would argue that empathy in humans must have provided a survival advantage at some point in the recent past, or the emotion would likely have been selected out. It would be interesting to know if humans are becoming more empathetic over time (where time is on an evolutionary scale).

257. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #112479 by mesomodel on January 17, 2008 at 8:54 am

From a biological standpoint, it is beneficial to our species and to our ultimate survival to help one another and to feel empathy

Anna, I generally agree with you. But let me play devil's advocate. It could also be beneficial to not feel empathy. That is, those that won't help themselves out of a bad situation are not desirable in the gene pool. Likewise, those that find themselves in a bad situation through no fault of their own could be viewed as not being well adapted to their environment and a detriment to survival of the species.

There are societies in which empathy and sympathy are limited almost entirely to clans or tribes, and humans outside your "group" receive none (or very little). I was struck by this when reading "Infidel" by Ali. These societies are interesting, because they fall between the end members of no empathy for anyone and empathy for all.

258. The Group Delusion

Comment #112466 by mesomodel on January 17, 2008 at 8:10 am

I thought that was hilarious. Although it raises question about the person who posted the link.

I beg your pardon.
I can assure you god holds me in the highest esteem.
Yep.

259. Science, Evolution, and Creationism

Comment #112231 by mesomodel on January 16, 2008 at 3:42 pm

OK, my position. Every next step (offspring etc) is more evolved

OK then! I think our positions have more or less evolved (tongue in cheek) into agreement.

Cheers.

260. Huckabee Wants A 'Faith-based' Constitution

Comment #112229 by mesomodel on January 16, 2008 at 3:40 pm

Time to exercise the other half of my dual citizenship?? Anyone need an aerospace engineer?

Or a planetary scientist?

As I've stated before, I would have left this theocracy already if I wasn't so entrenched with job and family. Too much inertia to move on now. My little kids have a chance of escaping this nation in decline, though.

I think Kevin Phillips spells it all out pretty well in "American Theocracy".

261. Science, Evolution, and Creationism

Comment #112222 by mesomodel on January 16, 2008 at 3:31 pm

I know you can say they are evolved, but more evolved?

Yes. More evolved, albeit infinitesimally. The offspring inherit the evolutionary past of their parents and then add random mutations on top. This is not to say that they are better evolved, just more. Those that are better adapted due to inheritance and random mutations will have a higher probability of passing along those genes. And after some N generations, generation N is definitely more evolved than generation 0. Isn't this the basic tenet of evolution? (I'm no biologist, and I don't even play one on tv.)

262. Science, Evolution, and Creationism

Comment #112188 by mesomodel on January 16, 2008 at 2:20 pm

I don't see the problem of comparing organism A with organism B and asking which is more evolved. Just trace back to the common evolutionary ancestor of A and B and then determine whether A or B is genetically closer to the common ancestor. That which is closer is less evolved. Such a comparison says nothing about which is more superior, however.

263. The Group Delusion

Comment #112110 by mesomodel on January 16, 2008 at 10:44 am

Anyone read this?

RELIGION: THE ETIOLOGY OF MENTAL ILLNESS (Hardcover)
by Henry, Jones

From Amazon: "This book explains how the religious indoctrination of children causes mental illness. Brain damage caused by religious belief is explained."

There's also one reader review:
"Dr. Jones is a psychiatrist who goes where most "just don't" and names religion the bane of the human mind. I've heard religion offhandedly called "mental illness" by several best selling authors; now here's a deeper look by someone in a position to elaborate on the idea. Dr. Jones is an M.D. and psychiatrist who spent almost 40 years interviewing, studying, and trying to help mental patients. In his book he presents convincing argument that religious indoctrination of children is the cause of mental illness and that religious belief can result in brain damage, not to mention personally and socially disastrous behavior. The target audience is people concerned about the religious pandemic in our world, people who suffer the anguish of religion themselves, and the mental health professionals who want to help them. I have little knowledge of psychology but I nevertheless find Dr. Jones' ideas compelling. My only criticisms are that the price at over $50 for a book of this length seems excessive, and there are about twenty pages that are quite repetitious in describing various patterns of behavioral disorder. But perhaps the simplicity conveyed by that repetition is exactly the point. And "short and to the point" has an appeal too. In my opinion, this psychiatrists viewpoint is an important supplement to the anti-religious ideas of authors in the scientific and philosophical disciplines such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Victor Stenger."

I ran across the title when searching for papers on indoctrination causing brain damage. Not sure I want to spend $50 on it, though.

264. Huckabee Wants A 'Faith-based' Constitution

Comment #112093 by mesomodel on January 16, 2008 at 10:05 am

is it truly that bad over there that voters go for the candidate with the most vacuuous smile or most photogenic face rather than policies?

That's my take. Of course, this is on the whole. There are those that actually do consider facts, but they are a minority. Others may disagree.

Our democracy is based on the presumption of an educated electorate. When education fails, the democratic republic is doomed, because morons are electing morons.

265. Huckabee Wants A 'Faith-based' Constitution

Comment #112086 by mesomodel on January 16, 2008 at 9:39 am

Seriously, the problem is that Huckabee is actually a likable guy.

Yes, it's a problem, but not the root problem. The root problem is the complete lack of education in the U.S. school system.

I gave up my university professorship, because I could no longer take the hordes of uneducated students passing through the system. They couldn't write or add, let alone think. And the students represented something like the top 20% of the high school population. What does that mean for the other 80%?

For a while, I thought I could make a difference. The truth is, the students were too far gone; college is much too late to start exercising the brain let alone trying to undo 12 years of crap getting pumped into the brain. Sure, there were a few standouts, but not enough to counterbalance the daily agony.

At one point, I tried to quantify the problem (I regret I never made the effort to publish this). At the start of my Introductory Meteorology for Poets-type course, I asked the students to complete a simple quiz. It didn't count towards their grade, it was just a way for me to assess their knowledge. The instructions were simple. Answer the question if you know the answer, or if you don't know the answer, leave it blank or mark "I don't know". The questions were fairly basic, for example:
(1) Circle the United States on the attached map.
(2) What's the average of the numbers 1, 2, and 3?

I scored the results by giving 1 point for a correct answer, no points for an "I don't know", and -1 for an incorrect answer.

The class average was always negative. The class possessed on average what I termed negative knowledge (i.e., not even wrong). My goal by the end of the semester was, therefore, to have the students leave the class knowing nothing.

With this as a background, I've come to realize that the U.S. population as a whole doesn't have the cognitive ability to rationally and logically evaluate candidates for office. That's why "nice guys" like Shucksterbee (or Bush) end up getting elected. It's also why poles change when a candidate cries or when a 30 second t.v. spot runs for or against a candidate. There's no collective rational thought or consideration about what the candidates actually represent. Very depressing.

266. The Group Delusion

Comment #112051 by mesomodel on January 16, 2008 at 8:55 am

Add to that the fact that most will have been told it's true by their prime care-givers who may well seem sane, rational, normal to them, no matter how bat-shit crazy their religious upbringing was.

Indeed. This gets to RD's assertion of child abuse. Of course, the parents don't realize it's child abuse. But, if it could be demonstrated that religious indoctrination disables the capacity of the brain to rationally and logically evaluate the veracity of statements and ideas, a claim of child abuse would have a stronger foundation.

267. The Group Delusion

Comment #112041 by mesomodel on January 16, 2008 at 8:38 am

I took BMC's suggestion about visiting the various theist web sites, and posting a few questions. I suggest you don't bother.

I gave up debating theists a while ago. It is futile and leads to nothing but frustration. You're never going to convince them of anything other than goddidit.

The antidote to theism is early and strong education, particularly in the sciences, logic, and philosophy. There really must be some physiological change in the brain or brain chemistry that takes place over time in hard-core theists. Or, conversely, perhaps the indoctrination otherwise prevents brain development.

The logic of the theist is equivalent to my daughter's acceptance of Santa Claus and the tooth fairy (she's six). She's old enough to understand the difference between fact and fiction, but this cognitive ability is suspended when it comes to Santa. If I tell her that pink unicorns exist, she knows I'm full of it. Of course, at some point, she'll figure out that Santa is just a fantastic lie (or, more than likley, some older child at school will spill the beans).

The theist brain is just stuck at the age of six. By the time they hear that god is a myth, it's too late. The neurons and chemistry have been fixed, and with few exceptions, no further development is possible.

268. The Group Delusion

Comment #112011 by mesomodel on January 16, 2008 at 7:51 am

Thanks to Google, I've been able to uncover the true nature of wooter:

http://tinyurl.com/2z64j2

269. The Group Delusion

Comment #111274 by mesomodel on January 14, 2008 at 7:59 am

How the heck does the tilting of the earth's axis relative to the sun make our lives perfect? Most people live in the northern hemisphere and it makes much of the area extremely unproductive in biomass during the winters. In other words, it is agriculturally a poor place to survive.

Hmmm...the oceans are an incredibly poor place to survive for humans, too. There's that respiration problem. That makes over 70% of the planet unihabitable by humans (or 100% on occasion when god decides to wipe out humans. Unless of course, you build an ark. It has to be a big ark, because it has to hold two of each animal. And, what would you feed the carnivores? I guess you'd have to bring a few extra antelopes to feed the lions. But, even so, imagine the stench? Wait, I digress...) Now, of the 30% or so of land available, a good chunk of it is non-arable land.

Now, let's add to this list a few other wonderful things about the Earth that, according to Wooter, were put here by god to make our home so perfect (others, please feel free to add to the list):

1) Plate tectonics: earthquakes (punctuated with the occasional tsunami) and volcanic eruptions. Why didn't god make the Earth smaller (for example, like Mars) so that the mantle would be solid?

2) Hurricanes (aka typhoons): If we didn't have such large tropical oceans, the energy for hurricanes wouldn't be there. And, don't forget, seasons play a big role in this , as warming of the water is maximized in the summer, thanks to the Earth's tilt.

3) Tornadoes: Particularly bad in the spring when the contrast between equator and pole temperature gradient is maximized owing to the seasons.

Yes, what a perfect design...for a loser.

Wooter: Is that your point? God is a loser?
You're right. I agree, that is, if god were not a fairy tale. So, let's just say that the god in your fairy tale is a loser.

270. Could there be a Darwinian Account of Human Creativity?

Comment #110658 by mesomodel on January 11, 2008 at 8:35 pm

Wooter alert...he's now jumped to the "Group Delusion" thread.

He's appealing to RD himself for help.

271. Could there be a Darwinian Account of Human Creativity?

Comment #110643 by mesomodel on January 11, 2008 at 6:21 pm

Would you expalin to me how sun and earth adapted to each other- days, nights, best location, the degree of the earth's tilting to make our lives perfect? Just one of the blessings of God to us.

You've got it quite backwards. We've adapted to the Earth's environment. In fact, early Earth would have been quite hostile (deadly!) to humans. We would have suffocated in the atmosphere with no Oxygen and then fried under the UV that is now filtered by the Ozone layer, just to name a couple of things.

So, I guess since god created the Earth, he really messed up when it comes to a human friendly environment. Yup.

272. Could there be a Darwinian Account of Human Creativity?

Comment #110641 by mesomodel on January 11, 2008 at 6:07 pm

(Consider a god which is busy creating day and night and Earth and people )
and he continues doing this until the 7th day.

WHO CREATED GOD IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Look Wooter; Even even small model of god needs a maker. Please you are insulting the reason now?

273. Why (Almost All) Cosmologists are Atheists

Comment #110623 by mesomodel on January 11, 2008 at 3:58 pm

This isn't true, the required information is still there but is only true of a very small subset of the microstates covered by the statement "there is now a single drop". For anyone who's interested I highly recommend this article by E.T. Jaynes.

Thanks for the link. I've skimmed it, but I'll need to devote more time to digest. Was it peer reviewed and published?

Fundamentally, I'd like to understand how a a bucket of water that is in macroscopic thermodynamic equilibrium and dynamically at rest (that is, there are no organized macroscopic motions, only random molecular motion and that the molecular kinetic energy is described by the Boltzmann distribution), can through the laws of thermodynamics (which is what the paper is concerned with) permit you to understand whether the bucket was filled by a hose or by pouring N smaller buckets of water into it at some point in the past. Perhaps it allows all of these possible states. But, then you have to concern yourself with other physical laws (e.g., Newtonian mechanics leading to Navier-Stokes equation) that also have something to say, and it would appear that this is where information is lost.

A motionless, steady-state fluid (i.e., velocity(x,y,z)=0, acceleration(x,y,z)=0) can not be integrated backward in time to tell you the earlier state. Whatever motion it may have had has been dissipated as thermal energy, radiative energy, or conducted into the containment vessel (although we might consider a perfect insulator for this argument). Are you arguing that the macroscopic state of the resting fluid and it's surrounding environment still contains the information required to reconstruct a previous state? I'd very much like to see--using the navier-stokes equation, thermodyamics, and mass conservation--the *unique* solution to this problem at time t=0 for the given initial condition v=Dv/Dt=0 at t=T where T>0.
Unless you have a *unique* solution, you don't know the earlier state.

Again, I'll have to read the manuscript more carefully, but if you'd like to point out where I'm in error, I'm all ears.

274. Why (Almost All) Cosmologists are Atheists

Comment #110588 by mesomodel on January 11, 2008 at 2:33 pm

Hi guys. Can you start posting in English again.

I'm no expert in QM (only had a couple of courses in it a long, long time ago). But, I can offer perhaps a bit more common every day perspective (I think) on physical systems on which I am an expert: fluids.

Imagine a river that is created by the merger of two smaller rivers and then splits again into two rivers farther downstream.

Now envision a stick in the middle of this system. Can you tell from which of the two upstream rivers you originated given the knowledge of your position and the state of the river system?
Can you tell in which of the rivers downstream you will end up?

The answer is "no", because the system is chaotic. Mathematically, the system can be represented by equations (partial differential equations), and the future (or past) state can be solved *if* the exact state at a given time is known. But, this is impossible. You can't know the exact state of this system (quantum mechanics/Heisenberg uncertainty comes into play here).
On a practical level, even without QM problems, you can't measure the state of the system everywhere, so the solution of the equations becomes impossible in practice before you ever get to QM scales.

You can compute probabilities, which is how chaotic systems are sometimes described. For example, if you happen to find yourself very far towards one side of the river, you might guess that you originated from the tributary nearest that side and that you might end up downstream in the river nearest that bank. But you can't be sure.

The claim that such equations can be solved numerically (on computers) to get an answer are just plain wrong. These codes require numerical representations (discretized in some manner) of the continuous fluid dynamical equations, and the initial conditions (the fluid state) is not known perfectly.


As a side note, I'll also point out that there are many physical systems that exhibit hysterisis, and cannot be run backwards in time to determine an earlier state. The collision of raindrops into a larger raindrop is one example. Once you have the larger drop (and let's for fun just assume that its interior circulation has come to a steady state), the information about the drops of which it is composed is forever lost. But you can, within the confines of the chaotic system, determine the future of the drop.

275. US 'doomed' if creationist president elected: scientists

Comment #109642 by mesomodel on January 9, 2008 at 11:02 am

Comment #109057 by mikecbraun:

I want to find a place that will print, "God works in strange and mysterious ways" on toilet paper. Anyone know a place?

www.printedtp.com

276. US 'doomed' if creationist president elected: scientists

Comment #109584 by mesomodel on January 9, 2008 at 8:30 am

Ha! Wish I could claim ownership, but I don't have a stamp. Not a bad idea though.

277. US 'doomed' if creationist president elected: scientists

Comment #109044 by mesomodel on January 8, 2008 at 8:11 am

Few (none?) people regularly read money, but I bet almost everyone has sat done at some point and looked at all the text and pictures on a bill. I have, and I know my kids have done it as part of learning about money and different denominations.

In any case, a fundie will almost certainly notice text that has been blacked out. If that pisses them off, the I've done my good deed for the day. Haven't you ever taken notice of a bill with added marks or text?

Finally, it's not about reading money. It's about making a statement.

278. US 'doomed' if creationist president elected: scientists

Comment #109041 by mesomodel on January 8, 2008 at 8:02 am

Annabanana,

Better tell your friend to pack her bags. I regularly remove the phrase from my bills with a black permanent marker. One down, a couple hundred million to go. Gotta start somewhere. Sorry to dump them on Canada and elsewhere, though.

Bills change hands many, many times before leaving circulation. If a reasonable fraction of atheists crossed out the phrase, it wouldn't take long until most of the paper currency was devoid of the text in question.

279. US 'doomed' if creationist president elected: scientists

Comment #109034 by mesomodel on January 8, 2008 at 7:44 am

For those of us in the U.S., the reality is that we'll have to cast a vote for someone (or not vote at all, but that's just being part of the problem rather than the solution). So, whom is the lesser evil? All the candidates have publicly acknowledged they're belief in fairy tales and mythology. So, it comes down to finding the candidate that is least likely to inject or force their warped reality on us. And in particular, least likely to invoke divine revelation as a reasonable and credible argument for initiating a war.

I tend to vote democratic, so I've looked a bit into the two most likely candidates: Clinton and Obama. Under "faith" on the Obama web site, he specifically references separation of church and state, and even throws a few bones to those of "no faith at all." On the other hand, the Clinton website doesn't have anything at all about faith. Perhaps it's a plus that she's somewhat limiting the injection of faith into politics. However, it is more reassuring to hear a specific statement regarding the importance of separation of church and state. Both candidates have given "faith" speeches, so neither is willing (or able in the current political climate) to leave religion out of the picture entirely.

If anyone has additional information or thoughts regarding the other candidates' position on religion and politics, I'd be interested. Don't bother with most of the Republican nutters; it's clear where they stand. But, how about McCain and Giuliani?

As a scientist (and rational thinker), I do agree that if a creationist is elected, the U.S. will accelerate further down the path of self-destruction and decay. Furthermore, if I didn't have an established career and family, I'd certainly pick up and move. Sometimes, I'm afraid, you have to hit rock bottom before you realize the error of your ways. I hope that's not the case for the U.S.

280. Monkey, Business

Comment #106044 by mesomodel on January 2, 2008 at 9:51 am

127. Comment #106012 by Rtambree

Yes, I used to think this might be a big nail in their coffin, but if Darwin didn't convince them, then discovery of exobiology won't hinder them much either. Human cognition is flexible enough to confabulate a reconciliation or even to hold the two contradictory notions simultaneously.

I'm not so naive as to believe that discovery of extant life would end religion. Indeed, it may actually initiate cult would-be-religions (a la John Frum). However, it would be interesting to see how the religious adapt. Perhaps it would not be unlike the slow paradigm shift to accept the sun as the center of the solar system. Ideally, this time without imprisonment and death for heretics.

If extant and relatively primitive life were found on Mars, for example, I think the adaptation would be relatively simple. But, if sentient (and by definition more intelligent) life were to visit us, it would certainly be more difficult to reconcile with past and present mythologies. Furthermore, unlike extant bacteria, extant intelligent life could argue it's cause: "Hey religious dumbsh*ts, wake up!" This might certainly cause at least a crack in the foundation of large-scale organized religion. Of course, this assumes that the visitors don't come with their own mythology and act as missionaries for their cause.

281. Monkey, Business

Comment #106003 by mesomodel on January 2, 2008 at 9:13 am

Annabanana, Steve Zara, Rtambree and al-rawandi:

An excellent book contemplating life elsewhere in the universe is "Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosphy of Alien Life" (HarperCollins, ISBN-0-06-018540-6), written be a colleague of mine, David Grinspoon. I spend my time researching Mars with a sprinkling of other planets, but David contemplates life on Earth and other planets and is one of the best speakers/writers on the subject.

The book covers life's origin on the Earth, the idea of panspermia (life beginning elsewhere and seeding Earth), as well as life elsewhere in the Universe. If you're looking to ease into the subject, this is an excellent book to start with. Annabanna, with your biology background, you will almost certainly appreciate the chapters on exobiology and astrobiology.

BTW, wouldn't it be a spectacle to witness the response of religious institutions to the discovery of life elsewhere in the universe, especially intelligent life?

I mean, c'mon, we all know god made man in his image, but who made the alpha-centaurians, who almost certainly don't look like humans? Did anyone die for their sins? Hehe.