xkcd: Sustainable
I would not be surprised at this…
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Peanut Butter, The Atheist’s Nightmare! Really??
I’m aghast at the abject stupidity apparently being promoted as serious truth by these people.
“Evolution teaches that…”
Evolution teaches nothing. It is those who understand it who teach, and those who do not who mislead.
WLS | Web Links Sceptique for January 26, 2012
- by Dr David Brin… “So you want to make gods. Now why would that bother anyone?..”
- at the Sydney Morning Herald… Science on wind-turbine illness dubious…
- on the Times of India… Scientists would tweet if aliens got in touch…
- by Ben Radford… If you see a Bigfoot, shooting him could be a problem…
- Reeeallly?? Who’s been smoking what, and where can I get some?.. “Psychics” Say Apollo 16 Astronauts Found Aliens on the Moon…
- at CultureLab… Remembering things that never happened…
WLS is a selection of links to blogs, news outlets, and cool little sites on the Web that relate to science, reason, skepticism, atheism, the fringes and borderlands of science, memes relating to science or skepticism, and anything that catches my eye or which I’m deluded enough to think might arouse the interest of you, my perspicacious readers. WPS is published weekly each Thursday on the Call.
Midweek Fractal: Immanent Nucleus
All images in this post are original works by the author, and are copyright 2012 Troy Loy
Dropping the Bomb [Repost]
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(Warning: this post gets a bit personal, but says what needs to be said — because the truth is paramount and I owe it to you, my amazing subscribers. What’s posted here is no great, dark secret that I felt a need to hide, but something that save once before and again here, there’s simply been no occasion to mention. The original post dates back to March 24, 2010, and this repost is identical to the original in text and context.)
Hey, guys. Many of you might have found out about James (the Amazing One) Randi’s recent ‘coming out,’ and it gave me the idea to open up to my incredible readership in revealing a little something that hasn’t been mentioned in great detail in the past, though I’ve occasionally alluded to it from time to time.
Some of you may have suspected it from my writing style, some from my early comment responses, others of you already knew, to more than just a few this may be a bit of a surprise, and some probably just won’t give a crap…
No, I’m not gay — not if any of my ex-girlfriends have a say in the matter — but I do harbor a rather bothersome medical condition that I’m not particularly proud of, nor especially happy about, but which I’ve seen no reason to hide in person, and as of now, here…
I’m schizophrenic.
This condition is one of the most debilitating neurological disorders known to Man (or Woman for you readers of the fairer sex), and something that I have struggled with ever since my early twenties.
My particular condition is one of a family of related disorders, having nothing to do with ‘split-personalities’ as they are popularly termed (That is actually referred to, if I recall correctly, as Disassociative Identity Disorder, an entirely different class of condition) in the media, and this is one of the many reasons among others that I’m a skeptic, since keeping better in tune with reality is a Good Thing™, as this enables me to stay out of trouble more easily than would otherwise be the case.
Is skepticism effective for combating mental illness? I would venture not by itself, and I recommend to others with mental illnesses that you stay on your treatment plan and follow it scrupulously, just to be on the safe side.
You are not alone.
For me though, skepticism is a useful adjunct to my basic treatment. Learning to think clearly is always a good thing with or without a problematic condition.
Few with the more extreme variants of my condition can benefit from skepticism, and many often require physical care as well. But fortunately my illness is mild enough and sufficiently amenable to treatment to allow me to function in daily life and do the things I enjoy, like post on and administer this blog.
I consider myself lucky, to the extent luck actually exists, that I got treatment for my affliction during the early stages before it became too advanced, otherwise I would not be typing this into my browser window for you all to read.
Pushing the ‘publish’ button for this entry was not an easy decision, but a necessary one. Some things are important enough that they need to be said. The Randi-Meister was a big factor in this…
As one of those ‘fervently dogmatic, pseudo-skeptical, pseudo-intellectual (and according to one recent commenter, ‘unread’) debunkers,’ there is no point in pretending to be what I am not and can never be — perfectly normal, ‘just like everyone else’ — since the truth should always be paramount.
Hence this post.
I have little doubt that this entry will be used as a convenient source of ammunition by those online who’ve expressed impatience towards my ‘attitude’ as a skeptic, and that’s fine with me — as long as any disagreement between me and others remains bloodless and gentlemanly — including disagreements with those I’ve annoyed in the past. And believe me, I’ve annoyed quite a few…
For the past couple of decades, I’ve worked at a vocational rehabilitation business as an administrative assistant, only retired as of last December, and this has helped immensely in my personal growth and experience in the workplace.
The people I met and knew there, clients and employees, will always be a reminder how much stigma is still attached to mental illness in this country, as well as others. They will also be a reminder of the incredible resilience of human courage, hope, and ability.
I plan to diversify the subject matter posted on this site to include advocacy for the rights and well-being of those with disabling psychiatric conditions, both like and unlike my own.
I’ve so far immensely surpassed where I was when my illness first popped up some years ago, and I plan to do better still, helping others like me as well. You, my readers both locally and around the world are an absolute joy to write for, and this blog is a wonderful journey & learning experience for my Troythuluness.
Let’s travel and learn together.
Like it says in my collector’s edition copy of the Principia Discordia– Fnord.
TEDxMIA – Scott Rickard – The World’s Ugliest Music
Scott Rickard has degrees in Mathematics, Computer Science, and Electrical Engineering from M.I.T. and MA and PhD degrees in Applied and Computational Mathematics from Princeton University. At University College Dublin, he founded the Complex & Adaptive Systems Laboratory, where biologists, geologists, mathematicians, computer scientists, social scientists and economists work on problems which matter to people. He is passionate about mathematics, music and educating the next generation of scientists and mathematicians.
Magnificent! The Known Universe by AMNH… [Repost]
This is the simulator done by the American Museum of Natural History, in conjunction with the world-wide work of many others.
It is an outstanding example of multinational academic cooperation, and to me brings hope for our future as a species, however precarious that may be for the next century or two.
Things like this are reasons why I consider myself a citizen of the Earth, not just of a single nation.
MNQ | Monday’s Noontide Query: Conflict in the Skeptics’ Movements
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Even before the recent ascendency of the skeptics’, humanists’, and atheists’ movements through Web 2.0, there have been controversies, whether the “don’t be a dick” debate going all the way back to Carl Sagan, on a similar note, the Confrontationist/Accommodationist argument among atheists, and more recently the debate over sexism, misogyny and privilege in the rationialist movements, some of it rather uncivil, but I think, all of it much needed.
The rationalist communities are diverse, and there is relatively little that is uniformly agreed upon, though there’s a general tendency toward the promotion of science and reason, at least among skeptics and atheists.
This is why I prefer to let other skeptics speak for themselves than presume to do so for them.
Rationalism as a worldwide phenomenon is growing, and growing can be painful when more diversity works its way into the demographics of the movement with some resistance, sometimes along partisan lines, as I think is happening.
Personally, I think this is just “a phase” that the ‘new wave of reason’ as Richard Dawkins has put it, is going through.
Change will hurt, it hurts now, but there’s a good chance that in these days of vicious culture wars, that Reason will win out, that the better, more rational aspects of my species will win out over the urges of the reptile brain, perhaps leading to our surviving the next couple of hundred years to make it to a Type I planetary civilization, and go on to the stars, not back to the caves.
On pain of equivocation, my hope cannot be certain in it’s fulfillment, but I can certainly hope.
So what say you?
What do you think will be the most likely outcome of the current arguments within the skeptical and rationalist communities, in the context of the larger struggle of the escalating Culture Wars?
MNQ is a question that I pose to you, my readers, and is posted each Monday at 12:00 PM. Do feel free to comment, and don’t worry yerselves overmuch… I’m not an ogre and I don’t bite…much.
TED – Alain de Botton: Atheism 2.0
Despite the supernatural claims of religion, it could be that it does have some socially useful aspects, aspects that could be adopted with “respectful impiety” (I like Alain’s coining of that, BTW)to bolster secularism, enhance it’s mechanisms, to fill up it’s holes and make it more appealing as a social movement to a greater number of people who would otherwise be members of a religion.
Among other things, de Botton suggests a secular education that replaces scripture and doctrine with culture and philosophy, fulfilling the human needs met by the former two using the latter pair.
Agree, or disagree, especially if you’ve lived in North Oxford, I think he makes a few good points on things and strategies religions do very well that could really help out the rationalist movement. Enjoy.
Fractal of the Week: Borussa Fraal
All images in this post are original works by the author, and are copyright 2012 Troy Loy
My (Non-) Psychic Predictions for 2012
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I have a rather uncompromising view of the validity of psychics and the meaningful success of their annual predictions, which are either generic, high-probability events trivial to fulfill, much more specific claims that never actually happen and require much special pleading to support their alleged fulfillment, and those retrodictions, not predictions, only mentioned after the fact and shoehorned to fit the events they pertain to.
I’ve looked, and no psychic has yet accurately predicted anything important under adequate conditions, illogical, contrived and weak excuses to avoid being subjected to tests of predictive veracity notwithstanding.
Well, despite that, I’m a fair guesser, just as good as any “Intuitive” and best of all, openly in non-possession of any psychic abilities at all (skeptical ethics and all that), so I’ll offer a few predictions of my own, for the remainder of this year and come 2013, I’ll revisit this post, and we’ll see how well I did… or not.
So let’s get started… Each of these will have a likelihood rating using one of three emoticons -
– Trivially likely
– Maybe, could be made to fit
– Definitely a stretch
- Conspiracy theorists will fail to be convinced that President Obama did not get teleported to Mars during the 1980s as a project by the CIA to explore the Red Planet.
- Bigfoot will be discovered in a poll-booth voting for a Republican candidate (most likely Mittens) during election day this November, and DNA analysis will reveal him to be genetically engineered by Grey aliens, or maybe brought to Earth by Time Lords out for a spin in a TARDIS…
- A new fossil hominid will be discovered or revealed by investigation of previous dig samples, further developing our ideas on human evolution and overturning older, more erroneous ideas of same.
- In February, I predict that at least one earthquake will happen somewhere in the Western hemisphere give or take one or two weeks around the 15th.
- A new form of life will be discovered in hydrothermal vents in or near Antarctica.
- Several new exoplanets, even closer to Earth in size and mass than before, will be discovered in orbits near their stars close enough to bear life of a sort we might recognize.
- Yet another politician or other ranking public figure who can’t keep his todger in his trousers will be scandalized and forced to resign after getting caught.
- Several more seemingly extraterrestrial signals will be picked up by SETI radio-telescopes. Most if not all of them will be readily identifiable as Earth-bound interference.
- Irresponsible predictions about the End of the World™ will reach a fever pitch and none of them will come true when or as predicted, be the date December 12, 21, or any other time of this year.
- Mister Eccles will learn to curb the use of his claws in play and become more sedate as an adult cat.
And finally…
- Ethnic Maya in Central America will rise up in wrathful protest vs the silly apocalyptic or transcendant claims that gullible people of West European religious traditions or practitioners of equally silly spiritual doctrines have superimposed over their early civilization’s otherwise perfectly innocuous Long Count calendar.
Related articles
- Psychic Nikki’s Powers of Prediction (cubiksrube.wordpress.com)
- Joyous Festivus for the Rest of Us: Psychic Failures for 2011 (kestalusrealm.wordpress.com)
xkcd: SOPA
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.
This means you’re free to copy and share these comics (but not to sell them). More details.
