Oh, internets, nevar change!
An interesting exchange in a far away corner of the internets I found this morning:
If I hated the original Romeo and Juliet, will I like the new Romeo X Juliet? I hear it’s very different so it might be different enough that I’ll actually enjoy it. But if it’s “for the fans”, then I want to know to pass on this one.
And the reply:
I hated the play too. The language was beautiful to me, but the main characters were a bit too 2-Dimensional and a lot of their actions made me crazy.
I was completely shocked at how much I loved this anime. Every single character is more fleshed out and interesting, and the women don’t just sit there making the situation worse. In fact, Juliet kicks ass.
I just finished it, and highly recommend a watch with the english dub. The voice actors did a great job.
This is all my opinion though. *^^*
Ah, internets, you’re so cute(1)! Nevar change.
(1) I mean, “ah, internets, you’re so cute!!!!!! o^__^o”.
I am the Queen of Links; all shall love me and despair! (Catholic Church and evolution)
The Catholic Church has for years now bragged about its acceptance of science and the theory of evolution, citing the Galileo Affair and Giordano Bruno Affair as minor glitches in the otherwise perfectly working Improbability Drive Biblical Interpretation Machine.
However, with the appearance of Pope Palpatine, the Mighty Conqueror of Children’s Literature it became clear for many that the Catholic honeymoon with science could not last much longer.
Or could it?
I followed the rabbit and several other commenters from PZ’s post until I got here, to a post about a conference about the lie that is evolution, allegedly in response to Pope Palpatine’s desperate plea for “both sides to be heard”. From the above Headline Bistro post, which makes a great deal out of the fact that the conference will take place in Rome, which is so close to Vatican, which must mean it’s all the pope’s fault (at least, until you notice that it’s hosted by a private university with 3 (three) faculties that was opened only 13 years ago(1)) — anyway from the post it’s clear that the organisers of the conference are suffering from a fairly transparent case of 1) jolly appropriation, 2) lack of any reading comprehension skills whatsoever.
Anyway, this is from the conference’s press release:
The 150th anniversary of Darwin’s “Origin of the Species” in November 2009 will be the occasion for a unique conference at Pope Pius V University in Rome presenting a scientific refutation of evolution theory. According to Russian sedimentologist Alexander Lalamov, “Everything contained in Darwin’s Origin of Species depends upon rocks forming slowly over enormous periods of time. The November conference demonstrates with empirical data that such geological time is not available for evolution.” Recently returned from a ground-breaking geological conference in Kazan, sedimentologist Guy Berthault will present the findings of several sedimentological studies conducted and published in Russia.
Which leads us to two conclusions:
1. Ouch, that hurt.
2. Wow, creationism must sure be robust is Russia(3).
Anyway, I will be on the lookout for the presentations as they might appear online, and meanwhile(4), one look at the list of contributors, especially at the speaker number six, provides us with surprisingly valuable insights:
Maciej Giertych, Impact of Research on Race Formation and Mutations on the Theory of Evolution
Maciej Giertych, Impact of Research on Race Formation and Mutations on the Theory of Evolution
Maciej Giertych, Impact of Research on Race Formation and Mutations on the Theory of Evolution
Ahahahahaha, a part of my distinguished readership will surely exclaim smugly. Ahahahahahaha, indeed, for a large part of my distinguished readership will know very very well who Maciej Giertych is!
A short bio for newbies!
- name: Maciej Giertych
- nationality: Polish(5)
- family: married with clones children
- skills: Advanced Scumbuggery +10, Lying for Jesus +20, Racism +100 000 000, Misogyny +100 000 000 (the article I linked to is, um, grossly exaggerated, but: facts! In English! So), Anti-Semitism +100 000 000, Batshit +1 000 000 000
- profession: while I’d gladly say that he’s a professional Liar for Jesus, I’m afraid I have to come clean about him being a Polish Member of the European Parliament(6).
Yes. He really really is.
In Poland, he’s mostly famous for being a laughingstock, and saying the following things:
1) Legends about dragons are proof that humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time,
2) Neanderthals are not extinct, but live among us still(7).
This all means that locally he’s to be considered a creationist of about Ray Comfort’s notoriety.
And when I say “notoriety”, I mean “stupidity”.
You can read about his views in the Polish Wiki here, but not in the English one. I wonder why? Were his USian fanboys concerned that that would make him look unhinged and racist and obnoxious? Could not be! Such a pity, really, when major national news outlets have whole articles dedicated to mocking all sorts of his ridiculus or disgusting claims.
He also likes to praise general Franco for slaughtering the commies. Or, you know, the democratic opposition. But then, any opposition to Franco is by definition a commie opposition, which in turn makes is worthy of slaughtering QED.
So, what does Giertych write in the abstract of his doubtlessly magnificent talk?
Throughout Europe evolution is taught in schools as a biological fact.
Gee, I wonder why?
The main evidence for this presented in school textbooks is based on the assertion that formation of races is an example of a small step in evolution. This is profoundly wrong. Races form as a consequence of genetic drift, selection and isolation. Genetic drift results from the accidental loss of some genetic variation in small populations due to inbreeding.
Is this just racist gibberish nonsense or a sophisticated reasoning that bravely sets out to prove that it’s OK to have sex with your sister, because Adam and Eve, QED? You decide!
Selection depends on the elimination from a population of all forms not adapted to the particular environment. With this elimination also some gene variants (alleles) get lost. For natural races to be identifiable they have to remain isolated from the main body of the population. The same is true in breeding, where the breeder reproduces the race formation procedure only applying selection pressures of his own choice. Macroevolution requires increase of genetic variants, thus race formation which depends on their reduction is a process in the opposite direction, comparable to extinctions.
In short, typical creationist drivel about mutations and loss of information with the extra topping of racist nomenclature. Meh.
Positive mutations, as a mechanism leading to new functions or organs, are an undemonstrated postulate. We can demonstrate many neutral and negative mutations, but no positive ones.
Where by “we”, he means “lying disgusting toads that live under very very thick rocks”. As it happens, even a non-specialist such as myself can easily recall at least one recent experiment, in which we could observe, witness with our very own eyes bacteria evolving to eat citrate as well as glucose. Which, I hasten to add, was a very positive development — for the bacteria, anyway; one could imagine, the citrate was rather unimpressed. I am of course talking about the famous Lenski experiment. You can read more about it on Wikipedia or anywhere(8) else, and I really do encourage you to do so, because it really is a very interesting and elegant experiment, and it can easily be understood by a person that doesn’t know anything beyond high school lever biology. I know I don’t!
The claim that the appearance of resistance to man-made chemicals (herbicides, fungicides, antibiotics etc) is evidence of positive mutations is questioned on the ground that it belongs to the multitude of defense mechanisms (like healing or acquiring immunity) which defend the existing life functions of an organism without creating new ones.
What we can read above, ladies, gentlemen and poo-flinging monkeys, is a standard denialist discourse tactic, among professional linguists known as “meaningless drivel”.
In short: the pope is not going creationist just yet, and the kooks aren’t even trying that hard(9). Let’s focus on the condoms for the time-being!
Also, what’s much more chilling is what you can find on Catholic websites regarding the conference:
After all the hoopla in academia some months ago with the 150 anniversary of the publishing of Darwin’s Origin of the Species, this is welcome news. The organizers were interviewed by Zenit News Agency. Here is part of what they had to say: “Results of recent empirical research published by scientific academies refutes the basic principles of the geological time-scale. It reduces the age of rocks and therefore the fossils in them.
It’s like the pope is the last thing that keeps many Catholics from unleashing their batshit upon the world. And what if the next pope will be a blithering creationist dimwit(11)? Shudder with me, ladies, gentlemen, and poo-flinging monkeys, shudder with me!
(Also, Cthulhu is speaking Czech! Look at this bit of very compelling evidence — just click on the picture — from Google!)
(Also, Karel Čapek! I almost forgot about Čapek!)
(I am the queen of all links, after all!)
ETA: typos fixed.
(1) I’s a big deal that the university is private, because in Europe it is statistically very probable that a serious university will not be private(2).
(2) Unless you are in the UK.
(3) Which in turn leads me to “SO WHY DON’T I SPEAK RUSSIAN AGAIN???”, but I digress.
(4) The abstracts, however, are available here, and, oh my.
(5) The possibility of exchanging him for some oil for the mutual benefit of Poland and Saudi Arabia is, I am told, being looked into at the moment by both countries’ governments.
(6) I now realize this should have been written in sparkly text. Please imagine there is sparkly text in this text where there is none.
(7) It was, as far as I remember, rather unclear whether he proposed that the neanderthals were Jews or simply POC. Either way, he should DIAF.
(8) Although the recap at Conservapaedia should be most entertaining.
(9) They could try at least renting lecture rooms from La Sapienza or something(10).
(10) Heh heh heh.
(11) I am a bad, bad person, because before shuddering I actually thought “LOL @ creationist pope!”
OH WOW
I mean, wow.
A GROUP of past and present University of Sydney students set up a ”pro-rape” page in the sports and recreation section on Facebook, describing themselves as ”anti-consent”.
The students, mostly from an elite, all-male college, initially ensured the ”Define Statutory” group had an open and public profile, and proudly displayed their membership on their personal Facebook pages.
I’m almost tempted to start a page like that in a local language in hopes that it would get flooded with hate-mail and bannination requests, only the cynic in me has very very little hope.
For the sake of their future employment prospects, I hope there’s a cached /screen-capped copy of the Facebook page, somewhere.
(via Unfunny Business)
Explain! Explain! Explain!
(via wannabe-lesbian girlfriend! Thank you, sweetheart)
Let’s look at the evidence!
As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don’t believe,
Very prudent!
or a legend, which I don’t believe either,
I’m a bit confused. What does he mean by “legend” here?
or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics,” Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday.
“Very probable”? Hmmmmmmm. Unsurprisingly, my first reaction was more or less like in this video(1). Only louder. Fortunately for us all, Shanon does indeed provide a satisfying explanation:
Moses was probably also on drugs when he saw the “burning bush,” suggested Shanon, who said he himself has dabbled with such substances.
Ah, everything’s clear, then!
On a more serious note, what happens here (apart from the dabbling) is a typical case of the false dilemma. There exist multiple other explanations for Moses’(2) behaviour than his alleged consumption of hallucinogenic substances. In that respect Shanon’s claims are eerily reminiscent of Lewis’ trilemma, in which Jesus had to be either a fraud, or a madman, or the son of god.
There exist of course multiple other alternatives, such as “there was no Jesus” or “he was wrong”.
(On an even more serious note, professor Shanon is of course a cognitive scientist. Woe!)
(This of course, might be a serious case of bad journalism, only, it doesn’t seem so. OTOH, Benny Shanon seems to be actually a fairly sane scientist, apart from the Moses shenanigans. Will have to take a look at the actual paper tomorrow)
ETA: Fixed, uh-huh, my fail logical inconsistencies “he lied”.
(1) I have a confession to make. I’ve always identified with Daleks. A lot.
(2) That is, when you overlook the other alternative, namely that there was no Moses.
Bonobos can do some really awesome things!
Like the ones shown in this TED talk by Sue Savage-Rimbaugh:
The important thing to remember, though, is that what SSR refers to as “language” is not really a language as we understand it. Having a language means, ideally, that you can (at least potentially) communicate everything you want to. Learning to associate individual sings with places or things is a completely different matter. It’s like memorizing the meanings of a bunch of traffic signs as opposed to learning the language in its entirety.
Further proof that the bonobos don’t communicate with SSR in what we call “language” is that they don’t create new meanings, for instance by combining a few of the signs they already know. This is an important part of language acquisition in humans: a human child will be able not only to imitate what the adults say, but also creatively recycle the words she already knows into new sentences with new meanings. Can you seriously maintain that anybody who is unable to do that can communicate in a language?
The scenes where bonobos seem to understand directions given in human speech are rather misleading as well. All the activities in which they engage – and I don’t want to spoil anything for those who didn’t watch the video first – are not something they engage in for the first time. In fact, it is explicitly stated that the bonobos learned everything by observing and imitating humans. This means that the experimenter doesn’t really have to say anything, because when equipped with the tools needed to imitate a certain human behaviour, a curious, not hungry bonobo will most likely do just that. Also, please notice the experimenter’s body language as she asks the bonobo to take her lighter. She might have as well said nothing at all.
But nevertheless, the video is still interesting. Also, while it is necessary to remind and be reminded from time to time that humans are not as special as they like to think, and that other apes may seem uncannily human sometimes, we should not athropomorphize them.
And, while the human ape is just an ape, it was the human ape who noticed that the giant rock she was standing on moves, and has been for approximately the past 4.54 billion years in a universe that is approximately 13.7 billion years old.
Friday Atheist-Friendly Fiction (4)
Today’s rec is The Epic of Gilgamesh!
(There really should be a Wiki version in Akkadian. It’d edit that)
Anyway, because for me, the joys I associate with reading Gilgamesh consisted mostly of:
1) trudging to and fro in the library with any and all of the twenty volumes of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary in my hands, on my back, in my pockets(1), and carefully balanced on my head, and with Borger’s Assyrisch-Babylonische Zeichenliste dangling precariously in the steely yet loving embrace of my upper and lower jaw(2),
(Um. Please disregard the disturbing mental image)
2)finding stuff to fit into the lacunae in the original tablet,
3)crowing triumphantly for no reason at all,
4)consuming copious amounts of coffee,
it would be, I think, a good idea to just let a sane person speak his mind: here, PZ Myers on the awesomeness that is the Epic of Gilgamesh.
This is one of my favourite Pharyngula post ever, by the way.
(1) Haha, NO.
(2) thank Darwin for pdf files! EVOLUTION! SYMBIOSIS!
Oh my! Michael Ruse makes a nincompoop of himself in public. Again.
Like many others, over the years I observed Michael Ruse’s — I don’t even know what to call it anymore. Downfall? Slowly spiralling into madness? Slowly spiralling into madness and incoherence? Being constantly high on Kuhn? Seriously — astounding displays of glaringly growing intellectual incompetence and dishonesty with slight amusement first, then with exponentially increasing perplexity, and then finally I didn’t even know anymore.
I have decided he’s delusional now. Voila, the proof:
Dawkins et al bring us into disrepute
The thing is, there isn’t even that much to say about what he says, because it’s mostly classical Internet Wanking 101 For Real. There’s nothing but constant whinging for a couple of hundred words. What he says amounts to “BUT UR MEAN” while he makes a desperate attempt at presenting himself as a not-mean, nice person, and fails miserably. This is like reading Mooney all over again, and spilling coffee all over the monitor as he startw with “now, now, let’s not be such condescending arseholes” and then goes on to do just that.
They should start using passive-aggressive smileys. At least nobody could have any doubts about their intentions anymore.
Anyway, all that needs to be said about Ruse was said at Pharyngula and Evolution Blog, but! What I completely missed before is the fact that Ruse had been completely unhinged for quite a while now.
Specifically, at least since 2006, when he, having corresponded with Daniel Dennett for some time, sent the said correspondence in its entirety to William Dembski without as much as informing Dennet, least of all asking for his permission.
WTF, Ruse? Are you out of your miiiind? Because this isn’t something a normal person does, but a troll? A typical message board wanker? A deranged fanboy? Yes, absolutely. Definitely, any time.
Dembski, a RL troll and a kook extraordinaire, swiftly published the correspondence at the Uncommon Descent website. The thing is, if anything, it shows that Ruse is an unhinged arsehole, and certainly not that Dennett is wrong. Or a wanker. Or rude. Or a mean hater. Or whatever it was meant to show. I mean:
I am a full professor with tenure at a university known chiefly for its prowess on the football field, living out my retirement years in the sunshine, I have no reputation to preserve, and frankly can say and do whatever the f**k I want to without sinking further.
Well played, Ruse, well played!
Or, you know, not.
It only made me want to read Dennett, now.
Listen up, university, we need to have some standards here D:
It’s such a great thing that I’m not teaching the Language Documentation class, because I wouldn’t laugh at those people, I’d make them cry.
This is like, nightmare fodder. Or alternatively, an awesome proof for sneering programmers of how dumb the humanities people really are.
Brilliant Princess 1
‘So first, we would need to ascertain whether the people who live in the, you know, jungle just talk normally, like we do, you know, small talk and stuff, or whether they only speak when they work or want something from each other.’
Yes, those silly savages! Of course they wouldn’t engage in any sort of social behaviour! They live in a jungle, after all. Small talk? Pah! Pointless babble? Nuh-huh. It’s a 2o century Western invention, didn’t you know?
(Possibly, this was the first time ever in my life when I really wanted to just stand up and smack somebody on their stupid face)
Brilliant Princess 2
‘So, what we should look into first, well, I think, I think we should start with standard language, and progress from there.’
OH MY DARWIN YES OF COURSE PEOPLE WHOSE LANGUAGE HAS NEVER BEEN WRITTEN DOWN AND WHO STILL LIVE IN SEASONAL SETTLEMENTS IN THE BLOODY JUNGLE TOTALLY HAVE STANDARDISED LANGUAGE OF COURSE.
How can you be a third year linguistics student and say stuff like that? And if you can, can you forget about breathing, too? And if so, why don’t you just do that?
Brilliant Princess 3
‘I’m sorry, I just have a question. I mean, it just got me thinking. Do you do documentation of the normal languages… I mean, standard languages, too? Like German or Dutch? I mean, you know, just the normal stuff?’
MY EYES THEY BURN BUT ONLY BECAUSE MY EARS HAVE FALLEN OFF ALREADY WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY.
Note: all brilliant quotations was painstakingly transcribed during my language documentation seminar. By me.
Because that sort of brilliance deserves to be preserved for posterity.
Note 2: “princess” has nothing to do with the gender of the “princesses”. This is what I call people I really dislike when I want to swear but won’t.
Dagon, getting lost, Dawkins, fish, fail.
1. YES I CAN HAS THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH FINALLY.
My book-sniffing skills turned out to be awesome after all(1)! I haven’t got the time today, so I’ve only read about 60 pages so far, but! Awesome!
I liked: the stuff about ultra-violet and primroses, and how Dawkins emphasises that creationism has a lot to do with complete and utter ignorance.
2. The “poor expats who can’t get used to live in their cruelly culturally different host country” meme is as robust as ever, but what about the ex-expats? I’m concerned!
This is because I spent 30 minutes being lost, because I forgot that “the first floor” means actually “second floor”. Or at least it would, if I were still in Japan.
Note to self: first floor is second, the real first floor is zero. Must concentrate moar.
Fail!
3. I have discovered the most ridiculous meme ever. How could I miss it before, I asked myself today, looking stupidly at pictures that will remain undisclosed for a couple of days, as I will be collecting evidence in the library.
Hint: fish and funny hats are involved.
Also, chariots.
(Well, a bit(2))
4. Apparently Claude Levi-Strauss died.
I… I have to say, I can’t really be upset, because until today I was sure he had died already.
So, in a way, when I went online, my worst fears were confirmed :( Thank you for fun times with Tristes Tropiques, Claude, and inspiring one of my favourite profs when he was young.
5. I have to confess: I’ve been having the urge to look for moar vaccine-deniers on the intertubes all the time lately(3). I’ll start posting when my hands will stop obeying me and continue typing on their own even when I sleep. SLEEEEP!
6. For all internet troll aficionados, a tragic news indeed: Tom Estes, the voluble pastor of the Hard Truth fame (?), seems to have deleted himself from the interwebs. I, for one, will be inconsolable for weeks to come, and I haven’t even broken the news to Dan yet :\ The last googlable post (a bit stale). Google Cache to the rescue: he flounced ’cause “I’m no longer all that intrigued by Pharytales, or Helga’s Battle-ax, or the NotSoFreeThinker, and I think the reason for the that is because they are so repetitive in nature. Basically what they do everyday is criticize rational Christians, and for a while it made me angry, then I found it amusing, but now it’s just tired.”
Tom also warns his faithful readers that he’s got two other blogs here and here. Stay tuned! Once an attention whore, always an attention whore.
(You can also follow his rants on Twitter:
NY Times’ Dowd is a super feminist, UNLESS it’s Obama is the one excluding women, than it’s okay. #tcot http://s.nyt.com/u/Waf
I laughed!)
Anyway, RIP, Hard Truth!
(1) Throw some ink at me. I could probably tell which genre it came from.
(2) The other bit is that I like the word “chariot”. Chariot!
(3) Shooting fish in a barrel much? And yet!
The five-click meme
I don’t really remember where I heard it first, and I’m too lazy to google(1), but there’s a meme on the internets that tells you that in five clicks you can always get to (insert thing). Let’s say we can get from non-crazy part of the internets to the completely crazy part in under five clicks. Will that be possible? Here we go!
1. Click! My post about deconversion and proselytizing in atheism.
2. Click! Sarah’s post about the same.
3. Click! Sarah’s insane commenter who babbles about consciousness being a lot like soul, and about humans being a lot like god, because they can plan stuff, and Ingo Swann, the psychic; anomalous mental phenomena; and sceptics who plug their ears(2) and stuff.
Be patient, grasshoppers and other dear and cherished hexapod friends! Soon we will be getting there!
(Where by there, I mean to the HEART OF DARKNESS(3))
4. Ladies, Gentlemen, and poo-flinging monkeys(4), we’ve reached our destination here! Equilibrium found!
As an hors d’oevre I’d recommend this deliciously insane post about Life, the Universe and Homosexuality(5), which starts with an earthquake, quickly derails to paedophilia, and than goes right back to homosexuality in a neat swirling set of smooth eloquent segues.
Then, you can take a long and delightful look at Gideon’s sidebar, full of New World Order conspiracy theorising, really easily debunkable creationist videos, and this delectable gem:
my comment policy (trolls take note!)
My comment policy is no censorship allowed. You can say whatever you like, and, being a good Christian, I’ll listen and turn the other cheek, even if you’re a nasty-wasty little SOB!However, while I’m turning my cheek, it’s entirely possible I’ll reverently bring my foot up and smash you right in the beets! Then, I’ll bring my knee up into your contorted face and spread your nose all over it, followed by a left hook into your sneering mouth! For the coup de gras, I’ll rip your head off and SKULL-FUCK you, then do the same to your mother!
May the Lord bless…
Gideon
(1) Fact: I will die if I can’t get my hands on The Greatest Show on Earth finallyyyyyyyyyy. However, sniffing at books in Mainz has so far been inconclusive D: D: D:
WANT!
(2) Are your ears plugged yet, fellow sceptics? Be sure to plug your ears before the winter comes for real, together with gales, snowstorms and psychic invasions!
(3) For those of you with more delicate nervous constitutions, there’s always The Unspeakable Vault (OF DOOM).
(4) Such as myself.
(5) The answer to this post is 42, which is what everyone should write, should an opportunity to comment arise. *CACKLE*
DISCUSS!