The Damned

Garik Israelian is a spectroscopist, studying the spectrum emitted by a star to figure out what it’s made of and how it might behave. It’s a rare and accessible look at this discipline, which may be coming close to finding a planet friendly to life.

“Rock star physicist” Brian Cox talks about his work on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Discussing the biggest of big science in an engaging, accessible way, Cox brings us along on a tour of the massive complex and describes his part in it — and the vital role it’s going to play in understanding our universe.

endlesspsych over at …and your electron microscope! has a super-simple-smashing-great flowchart to explain openmindedness that even those who have trouble sitting the right way around on the toilet should be able to assimilate¹.

From here.

If you’ve not seen it, also check out the excellent Qualia-Soup video on openmindedness (also at the above).

1. Yes, I’m ever hopeful…

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I’m not a huge follower of the CAM movement as they generally appear to be quackers enough for me to dismiss en masse, but they do have their followers and supporters, and they’ve recently be been busy on Twitter, mostly circling like decrepit vultures around the Shorty awards.

Anyway, there’s this one guy who calls himself “Health Ranger” (I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean, but I’m guessing that it’s related to some Americanism I’m ignorant of) who has popped up in quite a few Twitter conversations recently, so I thought I’d take a look at his spiel.

He doesn’t like sceptics. Oh no. Not one jot.

Well, it seems that he doesn’t: he calls them “skeptics” (the quotes appear to be part of the word itself), but he doesn’t actually seem to know any. Not a one. At least nothing like any sceptic (or skeptic) that I know.

Apparently, as a sceptic (or a “skeptic”), I believe:

• ALL vaccines are safe and effective
• there is NO LIMIT to the number of vaccines a person can be safely given
• people of all ages can be safely given an unlimited number of drugs all at the same time
• that the human body has no ability to defend itself against invading microorganism [sic]
• that pregnancy is a disease
• that DEAD foods have exactly the same nutritional properties as LIVING foods
• that water has no role in human health other than basic hydration
• that all the phytochemicals and nutrients found in ALL plants are inert, having absolutely no benefit whatsoever for human health

as well as some other crazy shit.

I have no idea what a living food is. Is that like oats that are still attached to the ground? A chicken kiev that’s still running around? A surprisingly perky salmon fillet?

Oh, yeah. In the grand tradition of those that Make Shit Up™ he completely fails to provide any actual quotes or references. Just saying…

I guess I’m not a “skeptic” then. Well, thank fuck for that: they sound as batshit insane as the Health Ranger!

No related posts.

So you deny the fact of evolution, huh? Which bits of knowledge that we’ve gleaned—by following the scientific method to confirm the fact of evolution—do you not find compelling?

Cell theory? Maybe it’s germ theory. Have a problem with atomic theory? Plate tectonics? Electromagnetic theory? Quantum theory?

Or perhaps it’s just the study of the subject that’s flawed. I guess you must know better, seeing as you are able to, all-at-once, reject the scientific findings in the related fields of bacteriology, phycology, mycology, climatology, pathology, palaeolimnology, bionomics, virology, paleo-osteology, microclimatology, immunogenetics, immunology, organic chemistry, lithology, chemistry, oncology, geogeny, osteology, enzymology, lepidopterology, vermeology, geophysics, pharmacology, ethnogeny, epidemiology, thremmatology, hematology, olfactology, vulcanology, oology, palaeobiology, piscatology, phytology, larithmics, palaeoclimatology, zoology, oceanography, zoophytology, endocrinology, zoogeography, embryology, geochemistry, geochronology, genetics, geology, biology, anatomy, threpsology, palaeoanthropology, photobiology, parasitology, loimology, biochemistry, paleobotany, synecology, ecology, glaciology, odontology, ethnobiology, cytology, palaeontology, ethology, physiology, palaeopedology, insectology, paleoclimatology, karyology, theriogenology, toxicology, entomology, micropalaeontology, gerontology, histology, entozoology, nosology, botany, ichthyology, kinesiology, immunopathology, cetology, sexology, zoopathology, tocology, morphology, geogony, mastology, limnobiology, gastroenterology, crystallography, petrology and ornithology.

To name but a few.

But, come on, you refuse to accept evolution, therefore you’re obviously the expert. I, for one, am tired of listening to “fairy tales for grown-ups”, so I’d love to know exactly how is all of this so utterly and completely wrong.

Please tell us!

Or, maybe, there’s just one real “-ology” in your eyes.

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It’s kind of amusing, but not a patch on the quality exhibited by the likes of The Onion. I’ll give them a B+ for effort, though.

This one, by the same author, isn’t so clever… Are strawmen funny?

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Forget Ripley’s Believe It Or Not; instead we now have Mohammed’s Believe It Or Else! (PDF)

Here’s a sample of the insanity…

/hattip to Mark D in a comment over at Unreasonable Faith.

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Anyone who has read Dawkins’ The God Delusion will, in all likelihood, recall his description of the christian bible’s Old Testament god¹. For those of you that don’t recall, it reads:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

So, a bit of a git, then.

However, it struck me that these very same qualities often apply to a certain number of fundamentalist christians—presumably trying to be more like their god²—and the first and most prominent example of which that sprang to my mind was Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church/”God Hates <topic>” fame.

What a card that chap is. His god is almost certainly the same god that Dawkins mentions; the far more relaxed New Testament redeemer god, Jesus—traditionally the primary god of christianity—doesn’t appear to get much of a look-in in Phelps’ theology.

I began to wonder how like their gods these sorts of people are, how many of these qualities might actually apply to Phelps, and others of that ilk, were one to substitute his name into the above.

[Fred Phelps] is arguably the most unpleasant character in [christendom]: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, [spectacularly] homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.³

It appears that pretty much the only descriptions that don’t apply to Phelps are those that would entail him having to personally perform or order the killing of one or more other people. Perhaps with an infestation of bees. As this sort of thing is generally frowned upon in most cultures (yes, including the bee thing)—occasionally for dogmatic religious reasons but more often than not for purely secular, sensible and justifiable ones—this is hardly surprising; one can lose their liberty to travel the world being a controversial bigot if one is convicted, by a very human court of law, for such actions and end up gaoled.

I did struggle somewhat over the ’sadomasochist’ item, but I realised that, as well as enjoying inflicting misery on others, the proclaimed beliefs of Phelps’ bizarre little cult do appear to indicate he’d be happy with whatever judgement his god handed out to him, even if that meant the ‘hell’ he so often condemns (thankfully completely ineffectively) others to.

According to mainstream christian tradition, the Old Testament god chilled out quite a bit when he raped got laid and impregnated some poor girl with himself-as-Jesus. Unfortunately the same can’t be said of Phelps, who seems to have tenaciously remained determinedly repugnant despite having sired a whole bunch of offspring, presumably in the traditional manner. And with a relatively ready, knowing and willing partner too.

Perhaps he needs to get some a little more often, although I can easily imagine a chap of Phelps’ age and predisposition having erectile (amongst other) issues.

I wonder how often Yahweh gets a bit of action these days. It’s not something one hears about.

How much does your favourite religious crackpot resemble their god(s) in word and deed?

1. at least the Israelite-loving Yahweh one that christians keep harping on about. I’ll ignore El, Hadad, Moloch, Asherah and the rest of them for now and take them at their harebrained monopolytheistic word.
2. or perhaps simply because they’re hate-filled asshats.
3. All of these qualities can, and have been, attributed to (and substantiated if not freely admitted by) Phelps and his clan elsewhere. I’ll leave this as an exercise for the reader’s edification. Hint: the Wikipedia link previously is a good starting point.

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