Archive for June, 2008

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about the Louisiana Science Education Act, a bill blatantly constructed to set the precedent for an anti-scientific, religious curriculum to be taught in public schools.  The bill, furthermore, is allegedly tied to The Discovery Institute, an anti-evolution organization famous for losing the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case, in which it was ruled that the teaching of Intelligent Design was in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  They are also known for their well-publicized Wedge Strategy, a manifesto stating its purpose as to “reverse the stifling materialist world view and replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions” as well as “affirm the reality of God.”

Well, in a sad, but predictable turn of events, the bill has since been enacted by governor Bobby Jindal.

Quote:

The bill has been opposed by every scientific society that has voiced a position on it, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science. AAAS CEO Alan Leshner warned that the bill would “unleash an assault against scientific integrity, leaving students confused about science and unprepared to excel in a modern workforce.”

Jindal, who was a biology major during his time at Brown University, even received a veto plea from his former genetics professor. “Without evolution, modern biology, including medicine and biotechnology, wouldn’t make sense,” Professor Arthur Landy wrote. “I hope he [Jindal] doesn’t do anything that would hold back the next generation of Louisiana’s doctors.”

Link.

As much as I love the skeptic community, I’ve recently felt that a few problems need addressing. Namely, that refuting unscientific, false or misinformed matters is quite often approached through ridicule rather than a respectful outlaying of the facts. Given the highly doubtful nature of certain premises such as homeopathy, keeping oneself from succumbing to frustration in arguing against such nonsense can admittedly be a very difficult task on its own. Nevertheless, resorting to the derision of “believers” can only result in the affirmation of their misplaced beliefs, as their mere indifference to the alternative is substituted by outward hostility. Read the rest of this entry »

Science and religion have an unstable relationship. Oftentimes they are content to stay separate and do their own things. Occasionally, they clash over certain issues of public policy. However, are these two world-views actually compatible, and if not, which one is correct?

Let us look at the last part of that statement first. A favorite argument of the Young Earth Creationists and the Answers in Genesis crowd is to state that science and religion provide different worldviews– That the systems use different assumptions about our world and reality and are therefore destined to arrive at different conclusions.  Some go as far as to label science as a religion, and why shouldn’t they? Science is based on a bunch of presuppositions as is any other system of belief. So why is science a more legitimate worldview? Because it lets us get at the truth. In order to understand why science is not “just another religion”, we have to understand what science really is as well as the presuppositions upon which it is based.

Science can only reveal empirical truth, and not metaphysical truth. Some people see this as a shortcoming of science, but even if metaphysical truth existed, of what use would it be to us? Philosophy is an interesting intellectual pursuit, but even Descartes had the common sense to see that the way we view the world through philosophy fails to alter our worldviews when we leave our study and go outside afterward. Whether religious, scientific, or both, we all tend to judge the truth in the same way: By what matches our observations¹. The religious person still looks both ways before they cross the road, and they wash their hands before they sit down to eat dinner. From any moderate perspective, it is obvious that science and religion do not conflict in basic worldviews, as some extremists would have you think. In fact, science and religion are both dependent upon empiricism; the only main difference is that religion assumes that one can talk with god (an all-knowing supernatural entity that imparts divine wisdom).

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A little while ago I was talking with my friends, and the subject of asshole drivers on the highway came up. I jokingly suggested that this was due to velocity having a negative effect on human IQ. This would explain why the stupidest drivers always seem to be the ones going the fastest. I was going to leave it at that, but I was curious to see what other phenomena my “theory” could explain. The Overview Effect (discussed here previously), where astronauts are dumbfounded by looking at the Earth, is one. I then tried to see if there was any evidence showing a decrease in intelligence as one moves towards the equator (which is moving faster due to the Earth’s rotation). Obvious jokes about “the South” aside, I gathered some data on the importance of religion in various countries and the latitudes of their capital cities. (Before you write an angry post, remember that this is just a joke, and I am not actually trying to conflate “being religious” with “being stupid”. In fact, I wouldn’t have mentioned this except that there IS a striking pattern in the graph)

Even ignoring the trend line that MS Excel drew through it, you can see that as the latitude increases, on average the importance of religion decreases. So what does this mean? Have I stumbled across some amazing new scientific discovery?

Of course not.

This whole “theory” is rubbish. I chose only to include observations that supported it, and left everything else out. I conveniently omitted the fact that I’m using a different reference frame for velocity in each case. And Einstein himself showed that it is *physically impossible* to detect absolute velocity; one can only sense acceleration. The correlation on the graph is either pure coincidence or due to some other factors (for example, it is possible that poor countries are more religious, and countries near the equator tend to be poorer). The only reason why I put this here is to illustrate how easy it is to make a theory that sounds reasonable, and how wary you must be of claims that something is “scientifically proven” (especially if it’s by someone trying to sell you something). Even if they have pretty graphs and staistics that are based on cold hard data and seem to be supporting the claims, you still need to think critically and make sure for yourself that everything fits together, and isn’t just a bogus theory like this one.

The BBC posted an article a while back, announcing, “Trust drug may cure social phobia.” Arguably, this article may be jumping the gun a little in terms of efficacy of the product, but the BBC does tend to be pretty good with this type of stuff, and the headline does include the important word may. However, I’m not interested in discussing the efficacy or plausibility of this product; rather, I want to talk about the underlying message behind products such as these.

The thing I love about science is the same thing many people hate about it. Not only do we try to find the solutions to problems, but we also solve things that we didn’t know used to be problems. Up until now, many people would become shy and nervous in social settings and that would be dismissed as just the way things were. Now, along comes a group of scientists who they tell us that we can change the way we interact with each other by taking a drug. I find this brilliant, and while it may not be as amazing a discovery as a cure for a disease, or a more efficient way of producing crops to feed the world population, these types of discovery – ones that change the perceived status quo – are still pretty amazing in their own right.

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In relation to Mitchell’s previous post, I often find it hard to discuss the case for or against “natural” substances, since the distinction between what is “natural” and what is “artificial” is an entirely imaginary construct.

While we as humans have advanced a great deal in our understanding of science and technology we’re nevertheless very, very far from deities and are thus still bound by the laws of conservation of mass and energy.  Simply put, it is virtually impossible to create matter or energy out of nothing.  We can, of course, synthesize materials and substances, though this process by its very definition involves the changing of one existing substance into another.  One might make the case, therefore, that synthesized materials are thus “artificial” as they would not exist without human intervention. Read the rest of this entry »

Meet the castor bean:

It is grown around the world to produce castor oil. Not only is it 100% natural, but it contains one of the most toxic substances known to man-kind: ricin. While eating a castor bean might make you very sick, exposure to virtually any amount of concentrated ricin will cause death¹.

So the next time somebody tells you that there couldn’t possibly get hurt taking that natural herb or supplement, remember the castor bean, and just say no!

Update: It has been brought to my attention that I perhaps missed one of the most interesting facts about Ricin while writing this article. This comes from the same source referenced above:

Purported psychics like John Edward and Rosemary Altea are often labeled as generally harmless.  Sure, their business is founded upon the dispensing of vague, useless images and downright lies, but they only comfort the bereaved and entertain the masses, right?

Well, Colleen LeDuc is likely to disagree.

LeDuc is a single mother struggling to support her 11-year old autistic daughter Victoria.  As if this weren’t already a significant burden for a parent to face, matters were made much worse when the educational assistant at Terry Fox Elementary who works with Victoria went to see a psychic, who purported the typically vague information psychics create, suggesting that Victoria had been sexually abused.

How did they come by such startling knowledge? Leduc was incredulous as they poured out their story.

“The teacher looked and me and said: ‘We have to tell you something. The educational assistant who works with Victoria went to see a psychic last night, and the psychic asked the educational assistant at that particular time if she works with a little girl by the name of “V.” And she said ‘yes, I do.’ And she said, ‘well, you need to know that that child is being sexually abused by a man between the ages of 23 and 26.’”

Victoria, who is non-verbal, had also been exhibiting sexualized behaviour in class, actions which are known to be typical of autistic behavior. That lead authorities to suspect she had a bladder infection that may have somehow been related to the ‘attack.’

Leduc was shaken by the idea. “It’s actually your worst nightmare your child being violated,” she admits. “So for them to even suggest that, and that be my worst nightmare, it was horrific.”

Of course, this never occurred, and LeDuc had proof:  Data gathered by a GPS she had equipped her daughter with proved no such encounter could be possible.  Unfortunately, the damage had been done.  LeDuc underwent trials and accusations no parent should ever have to face, and, convinced that her daughter was no longer safe at her school, has removed her from school and taken care of her at home, meaning she is now unable to work.

And all because of one person who, under the false authority of having mystical powers, accused a nonexistent person of raping a little autistic girl.

Link.

Complimentary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is sold as an alternative to conventional (i.e. science/evidence based) medicine. The rallying cry of CAM supporters is usually that of choice. They feel that the supporters of conventional medicine have backed them into a corner, and conspire alongside “Big Pharma” to ensure that their choices for treatment are limited. They demand to be able to choose how they treat their own bodies. Naturally, in a place like Canada where we have a universal public health care system, we fund these “treatments”, because we don’t want to deprive people of their ability to choose. Even if we take into account the fact that these “treatments” don’t work, they still make people feel better and get rid of symptoms, so why shouldn’t we fund them? Granted, some forms of CAM can be dangerous, but as long as people are properly informed as to the safety and proven efficacy of CAM techniques, why shouldn’t they be able to take that risk? Some forms of CAM, like homeopathy, are truly harmless — especially if taken in conjunction with conventional medicines.

Taken together, this sounds like a compelling case for public support and funding of CAM, and this is often seen as a compelling reason by legislators. If the people want it, and it makes them happy, then why shouldn’t we support it? Aside from the fact that this lends credence to ineffective methods of treatment (which arguably is also a rather large problem), the main reason for why this is a bad idea lies in the intended purpose of universal public health care.

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Yesterday, the Canadian Conservative party tabled bill C-61, which is basically a Canadian version of the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This is NOT a piece of legislation that is representative of the wishes of the people of Canada or one that should be made law. As a Canadian citizen, you can help stop this from happening.

One of the elements of bill C-61 is to effectively make it illegal to bypass any Digital Rights Management, even for fair use purposes like transferring music to your iPod. This means that if C-61 becomes law, it will be illegal to transfer a DVD you own to your iPod, as all DVDs have a rudimentary DRM system called CSS. Even worse, it will be illegal to transfer a CD you have just purchased if it implements a basic DRM system (which some music CDs already do, and more likely will if this becomes law).

A democratic government is supposed to act on behalf of its people. We elect representatives so that they can act on our behalf to make decisions about how Canada should be run. This bill simply does not serve the best interests of Canadians as a whole.

I would like to encourage every Canadian who reads this to take action. At Copyright for Canadians, you can generate and send a letter to your MP and Jim Prentice stating that you, as a citizen of Canada, do not approve of this bill or the way that the Conservative government is attempting to sneak it through congress without encouraging public debate. Visit Copyright for Canadians at http://www.copyrightforcanadians.ca/action/firstlook.

For more information about C-61, please read Michael Geist’s post, The Canadian DMCA: A Betrayal.