Idiocy en I Am Really PZ Myers! <span>I Am Really PZ Myers!</span> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p>It was a busy weekend here - figuring out whether we were moving, my sister was visting, other friends were visiting, we hit the local County Fair, worked in the garden, you know, life. So until just now, I hadn't paid any attention to the empty meanderings about science blogs in the Times Magazine. But I did have to read it eventually - Monday comes eventually to all of us - and lo and behold, I<a href=""> got me an awesome dig from the Times </a>- Virginia Heffernan attacks all science bloggers for being part of the "religion-baiting, peak-oil crowd."</p> <p>Now that's kind of funny, because I wasn't aware that constituted a crowd. I'm pretty good on peak oil crowds, and I've never met this one. Now I'm sure that PZ Myers and I have some overlapping readers, despite the fact that I've got 1/1000th his traffic, if that, but given that I'm a professing theist, a moderately observant Jew who regularly writes about my religion, I can't say I ever thought we were anything but colleagues (my husband is nervous now that he's heard we're part of the same crowd - he knows I think bearded geeks are hot!)</p> <p>A quick googling around suggests that the only references I can find to PZ and peak oil are response to Heffernan's article - it clearly hasn't been a major focus for him, although hey, ASPO is looking for speakers! As far as I know, I'm the only science blogger presently writing regularly about peak oil, although a few others talk about it now and again, but I have to think that Heffernan's "peak oil" reference is to me. Oooh, I'm so proud - the New York Times Magazine tech columnist knows who I am - woot! Gotta run out and get Mom a few copies of her screed!</p> <p>Now there are plenty of atheists in the peak oil community, and I'm sure not a few peak oilers among the atheists - the proportion of atheists among scientists including petroleum geologists and geophysicists alone would suggest this to be likely. Given that the peak oil movement has long been driven by physical scientists, I'm assuming that's the case - but are they organized? Do they have parties? Are there religion-baiting, peak-oil drinking occasions that I'm not invited to? If they have margaritas, I might be willing to give up my faith. </p> <p>Hey, I admit, I'm curious. What religions do you have to bait to join the club Heffernan knows so much about? Do you have to accept than any resources are peaking besides oil? Can you be an atheist and a peak coaler and get in? What religions do I have to bait to stay on science blogs, since I've got the peak oil thing down? </p> <p>There's another possibility here - that Heffernan is on to something deep and important. I mean, how many of you have ever seen Myers and I in the same place? Is it just possible that a thirty-something Jewish mother, farmer and science writer from upstate NY is actually a bearded atheist Prof from Minnesota with one of the highest traffic blogs on the planet, trying to covertly expand the atheist community by infiltrating the enormously powerful peak oil movement? Maybe....just maybe. Or it could be the other way around - that I'm not really a peak oiler, I just wanted to get my readership hooked before revealing my true agenda and plan to take over the world by moving the peak oil and new atheist communities together into one unstoppable political force.</p> <p>Could be. Or, maybe, just maybe there's no conspiracy and Heffernan just has no idea what she's writing about. After all, she doesn't seem to know what Deconstruction actually is, she seems to feel free to meander around her stated "technology" subject, but doesn't think anyone else should be allowed to go off topic. For that matter, she doesn't quite seem to get what blogging is, and why some of us like being able to say things that you can't say in the New York Times.</p> <p>She also doesn't seem to realize that the paper she writes for has policies on advertorial that are pretty much exactly the same ones that Science bloggers were asking Seed to implement. And she doesn't seem to have read carefully enough to realize that many of the departing bloggers explicitly said the primary issue wasn't Pepsi, but things like wanting to actually get paid. The funny thing is that there's a tiny grain of truth in Heffernan's piece - there are class issues in the dynamics of science blogs. They just aren't the ones Heffernan identifies:</p> <p><em>Clearly I've been out of some loop for too long, but does everyone take for granted now that science sites are where graduate students, researchers, doctors and the "skeptical community" go not to interpret data or review experiments but to chip off one-liners, promote their books and jeer at smokers, fat people and churchgoers? And can anyone who still enjoys this class-inflected bloodsport tell me why it has to happen under the banner of science? </em></p> <p>One of those class issues is that the writers here, unlike the Times writers, weren't getting paid regularly. Another one is that we make a lot less than the Times pays its columnists, and quite a number of the writers here are graduate students who depend on that income. I somehow suspect that Heffernan might complain if she didn't get paid.</p> <p>Heffernan seems to imagine that real "science writing" should be a. more boring and b. more boring. Don't get me wrong - there's more than a little place in science writing for reporting on papers and results and "reviewing experiments" - and some science bloggers do a lot of that, and some a little. Heffernan seems to think that science writers should never talk about society, culture, politics or anything other than data and experiments. I'm sure that's totally because science has no relevance to any of those things - we never use scientific evidence to make decisions, imagine the future, or to affect our lives in any way, shape or form, so there's no reason to talk about those things - nope, not science! </p> <p>Moreover, Heffernan does seem to have been, as she suggests, out of a major loop for some time. Maybe she was out of the one where the Times missed the financial crisis, and the energy price spike - while dozens of bloggers predicted them? Or maybe the loop she was out of was the one where blogging, which isn't exactly like column writing, was invented (yeah, we bloggers paid $200 month are way, way more privileged than a New York Times columnist...sure) and came to be not exactly the same as newspaper writing. </p> <p>You see, the problem is that the bland, always in exactly the same style, emotionless, neutral "gotta make sure there's two sides to every issue, even when one of them is stupid" science reporting niche was already taken - the Times beat me to it. I, like other bloggers, was left to make my way in the wilderness, and find the tiny leftover audience from the Very Important Paper that didn't want the crap bored out of them, and didn't want to only hear about peak oil and climate change and the deeper problems of our society after they've already occurred.</p> <p>It is sad - I would, of course, have preferred Heffernan's job and the chance to write blandly and inaccurately for the Times, but we all have to make the best of things. So that's why I started up my alter-ego, writing as PZ Myers - because I knew that the religion-baiting, peak-oil crowd was just out there waiting for me...I mean us.</p> <p>Sharon </p> </div> <span><a title="View user profile." href="" lang="" about="" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">sastyk</a></span> <span>Mon, 08/02/2010 - 14:48</span> Mon, 02 Aug 2010 18:48:40 +0000 sastyk 63436 at A Pepsi-Induced Hiatus Exodus <span>A Pepsi-Induced Hiatus Exodus</span> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p><strong>Important Update</strong>: The time has come to close things up here. I will no longer be blogging for I am not sure where Laelaps will end up - perhaps <a href="">back on Wordpress</a>, perhaps elsewhere - but you can be sure that I will keep on writing about saber-toothed cats, whales that walked, early humans, and other cool bits of paleontology. With any luck, I will be able to confirm my plans in a few days. Keep your eyes on my <a href="">author website</a> or <a href="">follow me on Twitter</a> to find out where I'll be headed next. This is not farewell - just a brief break in transmission.</p> <p>By now you have probably heard about my new neighbor here on ScienceBlogs, a nutrition blog called <a href="">Food Frontiers</a>. It is a corporate blog run by PepsiCo. I wish I were kidding.</p> <p>The offending blog, which has already been operating for some time <a href="">on the PepsiCo website</a>, greatly diminishes the credibility of ScienceBlogs by providing a corporation with a platform to advertise to readers without actually calling it advertising. A newspaper or magazine would not allow PepsiCo to write articles about global health or nutrition - there is a very clear conflict of interest there - so I am absolutely dumbfounded as to why the <i>SEED</i> management team thought it acceptable to give the corporation space here. If PepsiCo wants to have their R&D scientists blog on their own site, that's fine, but in moving Food Frontiers to ScienceBlogs, the company is trying to trade in on the reputation I and other Sb bloggers have built while simultaneously tarnishing that reputation.</p> <p>The launch of the PepsiCo blog sharply underscores my mounting frustration with <i>SEED</i>. The <i>SEED</i> management team has repeatedly failed to treat me and my fellow bloggers with courtesy and respect, and this latest event goes beyond disrespect into actively undermining our credibility. Hence I am putting Laelaps on hiatus until I determine what is best for my writing. This is not the end of Laelaps - I will keep writing somewhere, and you can always check out my blog <a href="">Dinosaur Tracking</a> on the <em>Smithsonian</em> website - but if <i>SEED</i> insists on valuing corporate money over creativity, honesty, and integrity, then I will have no choice but to move elsewhere.</p> <p>For more on this controversy, see these posts from <a href="">PalMD</a>, <a href="">Abel</a>, <a href="">Isis</a>, <a href="">Janet</a>, <a href="">Zuska</a>, <a href="">Blake</a>, <a href="">Christie</a>, <a href="">Sharon</a>, <a href="">Jason</a>, <a href="">Greg</a>, <a href="">Orac</a>, <a href="">PZ</a>, <a href="">Mark</a>, and <a href="">GrrlScientist</a>, as well as the notes from <a href="">James H.</a>, <a href="">Alex Wild</a>, <a href="">Scicurious</a>. I am also sad to say that <a href="">Blake</a> and <a href="">David Dobbs</a> have left Sb, but I am glad that they will both continue to write at their respective blogs.</p> </div> <span><a title="View user profile." href="" lang="" about="" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">laelaps</a></span> <span>Wed, 07/07/2010 - 04:18</span> Wed, 07 Jul 2010 08:18:38 +0000 laelaps 110676 at The Physics of the Imbecile: Chopra Interviews Kaku <span>The Physics of the Imbecile: Chopra Interviews Kaku</span> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p>I don't remember who pointed me at this <a href="">transcript of Deepak Chopra interviewing Michio Kaku</a>, but if I remember who it was, I fully intend to hate them.</p> <blockquote><p>DC: Is our conversation affecting something in another galaxy right now?</p> <p>MK: In principle. What we're talking about right is affecting another galaxy far, far beyond the Milky Way Galaxy. Now when the Big Bang took place we think that most of the matter probably was vibrating in unison.</p> <p>DC: So it was already correlated?</p> <p>MK: It was already correlated. We call this coherence or correlation. As the universe expanded, we're still correlated, we're still bound by these invisible webs. You can't see them. The book Physics of the Impossible is being filmed for the Science Channel and we actually filmed this quantum entanglement.</p> <p>DC: You actually demonstrated this?</p> <p>MK: We actually demonstrated it right on TV cameras. We went to the University of Maryland outside Baltimore and we showed an atom being teleported right across the room. You can actually see two chambers, an atom in one being zapped across the room. A TV screen shows the blip whenever an atom is being teleported and this is non-local matter.</p> <p>DC: That means going from here to there without the space in between?</p> <p>MK: That's right it just disappears and reappears to someplace else. </p> </blockquote> <p>Aaaaaarrrrrrrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!!</p> <p>The whole thing is like this. It's just brimful of gibberish. I mean, I expect Chopra to sound like a character from <cite>Star Trek</cite>, that's his shtick, but Kaku claims to be a scientist. He's on every other show on the goddamn Science Channel, and here he is spouting New Age twaddle and grossly misrepresenting good science.</p> <!--more--><p>It's a measure of the incoherence of this whole mess that Kaku can't even locate the experiment properly-- at least, I assume he's talking about <a href="">Chris Monroe's experiments at the University of Maryland</a>. I suppose technically College Park is "outside Baltimore," but by that definition, so is Philadelphia.</p> <p>More importantly, <em>they don't teleport atoms from one place to another</em>. At the start of the experiment, they have a ytterbium ion in a trap on one side of the lab, and a second atom in a second trap a meter or so away. They teleport the <em>state</em> of one ion to another-- at the end of the experiment, the second atom is in exactly the same quantum state that the first one was at the start of the experiment. No material objects "disappear and reappear someplace else"-- you have two ions at the start, and two ions at the end, and two ions at every instant in between.</p> <p>The teleportation is also not instantaneous. The quantum teleportation protocol requires information to be sent from one trap to the other at a speed less than or equal to that of light. This is fudged a little in the Maryland experiment, as the way they establish the entanglement gives them only one of the four possible output states, so they have advance knowledge of where it will end up, but in a more comprehensive system, the teleportation is not complete until a final adjustment is made to the target ion based on information obtained from measuring something about the sender. Quantum teleportation is not magic, it's perfectly consistent with both relativity and quantum mechanics.</p> <p>And they're not using any mystical entanglement that dates from the Big Bang to teleport states. They have to work very hard to get the states of their two ions entangled for the experiment-- their success rate is something like one teleportation every 12 minutes. That's the main reason why their experiment is impressive-- getting the entanglement to work is a great technical achievement (as explained in <a href="">my ResearchBlogging post on the experiment</a>). It's not something that we get for free because all matter used to be in the same place fourteen billion years ago, or whatever New Age idiocy Chopra's peddling this week.</p> <p>And the whole interview is like this-- this segment is just the part that I'm in the best position to evaluate. Between the two of them, though, they manage to say all manner of idiotic things about physics, biology, cosmology, and computing. Among other subjects.</p> <p>Somebody ought to be ashamed of this. Ideally, Kaku would be, but that's clearly not possible given that he went on <em>Deepak Chopra's radio show</em> in the first place. But somebody ought to be ashamed. I'm just not sure who-- the Huffington Post? the Science Channel? Tim Berners-Lee for inventing the Web that let me read this gibberish? Guglielmo Marconi for inventing radio?</p> <p>I don't really care who, but there better be some shame around here somewhere. Because this is completely ridiculous. Jesus, <a href="">my <em>dog</em></a> could give a better description of the relevant physics, and she doesn't have a Ph.D., let alone a tv show...</p> </div> <span><a title="View user profile." href="" lang="" about="" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">drorzel</a></span> <span>Wed, 06/23/2010 - 03:51</span> <div class="field field--name-field-blog-categories field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Categories</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="" hreflang="en">Free Thought</a></div> </div> </div> Wed, 23 Jun 2010 07:51:00 +0000 drorzel 46642 at Downfall of IDiocy <span>Downfall of IDiocy</span> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p><span style="font-size: 10px">tags: <a target="window" href="" rel="tag">religion</a>, <a target="window" href="" rel="tag">IDiots</a>, <a target="window" href="" rel="tag">satire</a>, <a target="window" href="" rel="tag">parody</a>, <a target="window" href="" rel="tag">comedy</a>, <a target="window" href="" rel="tag">humor</a>, <a target="window" href="" rel="tag">fucking hilarious</a>, <a target="window" href="" rel="tag">Hitler</a>, <a target="window" href="" rel="tag">DOWNFALL</a>, <a target="window" href="" rel="tag">streaming video</a></span></p> <p>The so-called Discovery Institute is a pretentious Ã¼ber-Christian disguise for creationism and an ultra-Conservative social agenda called The Wedge Strategy. So-called Intelligent Design theory is plagiarized from William Paley's long-refuted Blind Watchmaker argument, and is merely creationism in a not-so-cunning disguise. </p> <!--more--><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><embed src="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><p> Having neither facts nor logic at their disposal, the polemicists of the so-called Discovery Institute have been forced to resort to lies and subterfuge. One of their favorite tricks is to file false DMCA claims against videos that are critical of their IDiotic organization. They own NONE of the material in this video.</p> </div> <span><a title="View user profile." href="" lang="" about="" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">grrlscientist</a></span> <span>Sat, 01/16/2010 - 23:59</span> Sun, 17 Jan 2010 04:59:03 +0000 grrlscientist 90247 at Rutgers = Mudville <span>Rutgers = Mudville</span> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p>For all the talk of the rise of Rutgers football being a "Cinderella story," the course of the present season is making many boosters eat their words. The first two games were disasters, particularly the second against the University of North Carolina (the score was 44 to 12, <a href="">ouch</a>). As the team prepares to face off against Navy today (with John McCain watching, no less), many people are <a href="">starting to wonder</a> if the near-flawless 2006 season was more of a fluke than a "triumphant return."</p> <p>The team's recent lackluster performances only serve to <a href="">underscore</a> the bloated football program here at Rutgers, as well as the continued lack of transparency about how money is handled within the university. Editorials have flooded the school newspaper and other outlets about this controversy, but it seems that those who are opposed to the stadium expansion can do little but repeat themselves. The Rutgers administration is doing their best to keep things quiet and make sure butts are in the seats for the rest of the season. (Indeed, some members of the university administration, like Board of Governors chair M.W. Howard, appear to be <a href="">outright delusional</a>.)</p> <p>Even though everyone is going to feel the financial pinch, the argument from boosters is that since people want more seats, they should have them. (I can almost hear Richard Attenborough's voice saying "<a href="">Spared no expense!</a>") It doesn't matter that the state is in a financial crisis and tuition is skyrocketing. If Rutgers needs to take out a $100,000,000 line of credit, so be it. Nevermind that the expected $30,000,000 in donations never showed up; money can always be <a href="">diverted from other teams</a> for the good of football.</p> <p>No good arguments for why the project should continue have been offered (i.e. just how much money the football team is expected to bring in, when the huge debt will be paid off, etc.). Instead, all we get are platitudes about how the team is the pride of the state and how things aren't at all as bad as we think they are. I honestly don't know how the administration thinks it is going to pay back the loans. Football teams usually use more money than they make, and the university has let in so many new students (which the administration basically views as walking wallets) that there is not enough space at the school to house them all. It does not take a genius to see that we're in a very precarious situation.</p> <p>[Literally adding insult to the injuries sustained from the present controversy, a few YouTube videos have shown up depicting Rutgers students making <a href="">asses</a> of <a href="">themselves</a>.]</p> <p>This whole affair reminds me of the poem "<a href="">Casey at the Bat</a>." True, it is about baseball rather than football, but is seems that the administration here at Rutgers (aka Mudville) are scrambling to rescue success from the jaws of defeat. In this case, our "Casey" is the university president Richard McCormick, who smiles and assures us all is well in spite of what the reality of the situation tells us. I don't believe him. I feel that I am watching McCormick swing and miss for the third time in slow motion. Indeed, it seems that the expansion is going to proceed and there is little that can be done about it;</p> <blockquote><p>Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;<br /><br /> The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,<br /><br /> And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;<br /><br /> But there is no joy in Mudville-- mighty [McCormick] has struck out.</p></blockquote> </div> <span><a title="View user profile." href="" lang="" about="" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">laelaps</a></span> <span>Sat, 09/20/2008 - 05:00</span> Sat, 20 Sep 2008 09:00:27 +0000 laelaps 109457 at Sproul interviews Stein <span>Sproul interviews Stein</span> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p>It has sometimes been said that the leaders of creationist ministries and advocates of intelligent design are charismatic, charming people who know how to play to the crowd. I don't believe it. Creationists are often just as loud, judgmental, and terse as the stereotype of evolutionary scientists that is so often hauled out to admonish students of nature for not being skilled enough at communicating their ideas effectively. Recently the Calvinist pastor R.C. Sproul interviewed Ben Stein about <i>Expelled</i>, and the result is the antithesis of stimulating discourse;</p> <p></p><center><embed style="width:400px; height:326px;" id="VideoPlayback" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="" flashvars=""></embed></center><br /><br /><br /><center>(Note: The video did not load entirely for me, so I don't know whether it's a problem on my end or with the video. You can listen to the audio if you're a glutton for punishment at the <a href="">official R.C. Sproul website</a>).</center><br /><br /><!--more--><p>These guys are supposed to represent the charismatic advocates of intelligent design? If I had some glue handy I would have adhered myself to my seat to make sure I payed attention through the monotonous "interview" (quote Mrs. Laelaps "This isn't an interview, it's a mutual appreciation society."). There's a lot of talk but very little substance, most of the discussion focusing on straw-man arguments about the origin of the universe and the origin of life. Evolution itself, what it is and the overwhelming evidence for it, is not even mentioned. Stein isn't identifying himself as a young-earth creationist so I imagine that he may accept some amount of evolutionary change, but rather than a critique of evolution we have a plodding back-and-forth about how oppressive and ignorant "Darwinists" are. (One of the most aggravating points, at least to me, was Sproul continuously citing unpublished correspondence he had with Carl Sagan that no one is privy to but himself.)</p> <p>Most interesting, though, is how Stein tries to co-opt Darwin for his own ends while railing against "Darwinists." What quote Stein is referring to, about Darwin wanting people to debate evolution for ever and ever and ever and come up with whatever answer suits them best, I have no idea, but it was strange to hear Stein somewhat suggest that Darwin would have been a supporter of the intelligent design movement. I really have to wonder if Stein has ever read any of Darwin's books (excerpts in creationist tracts don't count), although that might not have stopped him from intentionally confusing the issue like he did. In reality, Darwin had to defend his idea against plenty of characters like Stein, and in the conclusion of <i><a href="">The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication</a></i> he wrote;</p> <blockquote><p>Some authors have declared that natural selection explains nothing, unless the precise cause of each slight individual difference be made clear. If it were explained to a savage utterly ignorant of the art of building, how the edifice had been raised stone upon stone, and why wedge-formed fragments were used for the arches, flat-stones for the roof, &c.; and if the use of each part and of the whole building were pointed out, it would be unreasonable if he declared that nothing had been made clear to him, because the precise cause of the shape of each fragment could not be told. But this is a nearly parallel case with the objection that selection explains nothing, because we know not the cause of each individual difference in the structure of each being.</p></blockquote> <p>The interview was so mired in abstract nonsense that it's difficult to make heads or tails of it. The origin of the universe and the origin of life are vaguely alluded to, and Stein prefers to take the human form and compare it to mud, saying "See? No similarities at all. Evolution has been disproved, rest easy." There is no discussion at all of what evolution is, its "tempo and mode," or anything of actual relevance to what evolutionary biologists actually research. Some people might find Stein's arguments easy to swallow, but they are the intellectual equivalent of deep-friend oreos; utter junk that's probably pretty bad for you.</p> <p>To return to the point of this post, however, Stein and Sproul aren't charismatic, nice, or particularly insightful. For a half hour they pat each other on the back and grumble about "Darwinists," calling acceptance of evolution "irrational" and "ignorant," and I sincerely doubt that the popularity of modern creationism has much to do with who is really "nice" and who is "mean." Personally, I think creationism is so popular at least in part because it fits with what people want to hear and what they are told every Sunday. There is this nebulous concept of "the World" in modern Christian apologetics, a sort of sinful force that makes believers backslide, and the reality of evolution is seen as part of what sunders the faith of believers. Creationist ministries establish museums, publish repetitive tracts, and try to literally buy themselves scientific credibility, but most of it is just a show. It seems that many creationists are simply glad that all this creation science rot is there; they don't necessarily read it or (unsurprisingly) educate themselves about what evolution really is, so it's all the easier to believe that AiG and the Disco Institute have things covered. There are other factors at play, certainly, but as long as creationist leaders give the appearance that they've got all the answers, a number of people will probably soak it in, feeling more assured in their faith.</p> <p>I know I've posted this video before, but I couldn't help but think of it as I watched the Sproul/Stein interview, and at least laughter will help lower your blood pressure.</p> <p></p><center> <object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><embed src="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><p></p></center><br /></div> <span><a title="View user profile." href="" lang="" about="" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">laelaps</a></span> <span>Sun, 04/13/2008 - 15:26</span> <div class="field field--name-field-blog-categories field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Categories</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="" hreflang="en">Social Sciences</a></div> </div> </div> Sun, 13 Apr 2008 19:26:25 +0000 laelaps 108917 at Miss Bimbo? <span>Miss Bimbo?</span> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p>I thought the whole "digital pet" craze was over, but apparently it's just mutated in some disturbing ways. According to CNN, a game launched in Britain called <a href="">"Miss Bimbo" is causing quite a bit of controversy</a>. Perhaps meant to be satire of the "glamorous" lifestyles of female media stars, the game instructs players to find rich boyfriends for their characters to leech funds from, blow their money on breast implants for their avatars, and throw a few crumbs to their "bimbos" to strike that balance between emaciated and dead.</p> <p>Oddly enough, the #1 consumers of the game are young girls aged 7 to 17. Does the game have a bad influence on them (especially the younger ones?). Parents say "Yes," but the creator of the game, a 23 year old man named Nicolas Jacquart, says "No." Quote Jacquart;</p> <blockquote><p>It is not a bad influence for young children. They learn to take care of their bimbos. The missions and goals are morally sound and teach children about the real world.</p> <p>...</p> <p>The breast operations are just one part of the game and we are not encouraging young girls to have them, just reflecting real life.</p></blockquote> <p>Jacquart sounds like a bit of a jackass to me, and he probably thinks he's pretty slick. There's a tidy profit to be had from the game as it exchanges real world money for "virtual money" ("It's like your money, only I have it"), and some young girls are already racking up bills to make sure they can keep playing the game. If a player runs out of "bimbo dollars," they have to pay into their account via paypal or text messages costing about $3 apiece, and some parents are reporting high phone bills as a result of their children playing the game.</p> <p>While the creators of the game probably intended it to be a caricatured look at what shows up in so many tabloids, the satire is probably lost on most of the games players, especially young girls. What's more, it sets a kind of trap to dupe the young girls with cell phones or credit cards into paying loads of money (or, rather, getting their parents to pay) for their infantile game. Jacquart may not have much of a conscience, but I am sickened by the way he's taking advantage of young women.</p> </div> <span><a title="View user profile." href="" lang="" about="" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">laelaps</a></span> <span>Fri, 03/28/2008 - 08:44</span> Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:44:41 +0000 laelaps 108848 at They're at it again... <span>They're at it again...</span> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p>Intelligent design has to be one of the most boring concepts I've ever had the displeasure to be acquainted with. When I first heard about it I thought it was nuts, but at least it was interesting. Two years later I've tired of hearing shrill arguments about how "Big Science" and the "Darwinian orthodoxy" are persecuting the poor creationists, killing puppies, making Jesus cry, etc. Indeed, William Paley argued for design much more eloquently and coherently in <i><a href="">Natural Theology</a></i>, a book that if often referenced but has seldom been read (especially by the intelligent design camp. Paley's book is their <i>On the Origin of Species</i> even if they do not recognize it as such.)</p> <p>The latest snooze-fest is brought to you courtesy of a new magazine called Salvo (you've got to love that militant, religious language), a periodical that is presently featuring an <a href="">arm-waving, revisionist history of the significance of micro-creationism*</a>. If that weren't enough, there's supplemental material in which Michael Egnor is upset that bloggers don't think highly of him, Larry Caldwell demonstrates that he doesn't know the difference between fact and theory, and Casey Luskin says that ID cannot be squashed by kicking it out public schools (even though that seems to be the only thing creationists of his ilk are concerned with).</p> <p>There's nothing new in any of the articles; there's the same misinformation, distortion, and self-congratulatory comments, and it's difficult to pay attention to the same yammerings that we have been hearing for years. I won't worry too much about it, though. Within a year or so it'll be defunct, much like Overwhelming Evidence, although I'm sure that some new irritating publication will take its place.</p> <p>*I know this term isn't in popular usage, but I feel compelled to use it every now and again for shady creationists who engage in a lot of goal-post shifting and make plenty of inane proclamations about what is or is not designed (as opposed to the YEC camp, or macro-creationists, who are at least up front that in their view science must bow before their faith).</p> <p></p></div> <span><a title="View user profile." href="" lang="" about="" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">laelaps</a></span> <span>Wed, 02/13/2008 - 08:12</span> Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:12:57 +0000 laelaps 108659 at God will make you eat brains if you don't pay the rent <span>God will make you eat brains if you don't pay the rent</span> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p>At least that's what I learned from this video;</p> <p><br /><br /></p><center> <object width="425" height="373"><param name="movie" value="" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><embed src="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="373"></embed></object><p></p></center><br /><br /></div> <span><a title="View user profile." href="" lang="" about="" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">laelaps</a></span> <span>Mon, 02/11/2008 - 09:28</span> Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:28:59 +0000 laelaps 108649 at ID gets slammed again and again and again... <span>ID gets slammed again and again and again...</span> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p>Even though they'll never admit it, I imagine the creationists allied with the Disco institute are hurting pretty bad right now. Other bloggers have already covered the carnage so I'll just put up some links rather than write up a summary of what's already been said, but the beating ID has received over the past few days has been nearly painful to watch;</p> <ul><li>Casey Luskin stole the <a href="">BPR3 icon</a> and is now crying discrimination by evil Darwinistas even though he clearly didn't pay attention to the requirements of using the icon. I smell a bit of a fake-out (Luskin creating a trap for himself by misusing the icon and knowing he'd get called on it, only to claim that the evilutionists are being unfair again). <a href="">Mike Dunford has a more detailed series of posts</a> on this subject.</li> </ul><ul><li>The results from ID-proponent Guillermo Gonzalez's tenure-review are in, and it didn't turn out in the favor of the creationist; the Iowa Board of Regents denied Gonzalez tenure. <a href="">Tara</a>, <a href="">the Evil Monkey</a>, <a href="">PZ</a>, and <a href="">The Panda's Thumb</a> have more.</li> </ul><ul><li>The big news right now is the scoop on a super-secret ID conference that Daniel Brooks sat in on and has shared his thoughts about over on <a href="">The Panda's Thumb</a>. It's a revealing look at what the top creationists are at these days, and it really looks like more of the same stuff they've been peddling for a while. <a href="">PZ</a>, <a href="">Greg Laden</a>, and <a href="">John Lynch</a> have got more.</li> </ul><ul><li>The other day PZ noticed a paper that appeared in <i>Proteomics</i> that not only features some creationism, but also <a href="">a large amount of plagiarism</a>! <a href="">The journal might retract the paper</a>, but given the extra dimension of plagiarism I imagine that we're going to hear a bit more about this particular paper in the future.</li> </ul><p>I think that's about it for the moment; clearly there is so much going on at the moment that it's hard to keep track of it all. Now, if only there was a report that <i>Expelled</i> would be going direct-to-video...</p> </div> <span><a title="View user profile." href="" lang="" about="" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" xml:lang="">laelaps</a></span> <span>Thu, 02/07/2008 - 09:58</span> Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:58:00 +0000 laelaps 108633 at