Category Archives: science

Response To Science And Reason In Higher Education

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[A note from Big Ugly Jim: This is a response to Cyndi Laurenti's guest post here on Meddling Kids about education and the conflict between reason/science and faith/religion. Please feel free to provide your opinion via the comments on either piece.]

I absolutely agree that there is a serious threat to scientific thinking at every level of the educational experience, but I do not agree with Cyndi’s opinion on how best to confront it. I believe that attempting to find that line between faith and fact is a moot point, and one that cuts deeply into the effectiveness of both sides of the argument. I believe in compromise wherever possible, but compromise in this case is ineffective.

I used to teach in college. I didn’t teach evolution or origins of life or anything that would cross the line into OMG UR HURTIN MY RELIJUNZ FEELINZ, but I can imagine what it must be like. I taught (among other things) systems analysis, which is the process of determining where problems exist, understanding all of the issues around them, figuring out how things work in the current model, and synthesizing a new model that resolves the problems. There are very simple truths to this process, not the least of which is that the only way to succeed in a project is to have buy-in from your customers. They need to know that you are there to make their lives easier, and not to score points with the boss or what have you.

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Gamers – They May Be Socially Devoid Misfits, But They Just Solved A Serious Decade-Old Problem

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Creativity is often the biggest weapon when faced with a problem, and that notion is illustrated so clearly by the story of FoldIt. If you aren’t familiar, FoldIt is a game for people to fold proteins. That may not sound enticing when you could be battling legions of Hell Wraiths and hooking up with hot adventurers in Warcraft, but for those of us out there who love a good puzzle, FoldIt is the king in my anything-but-humble opinion.

So you’re folding proteins. What’s the big deal? Well, FoldIt is sneaky. The purpose of FoldIt is to bend many minds to one of the more complicated aspects of biology, the seemingly limitless way in which proteins can be folded. There’s an excellent explanation of what I’m talking about on the Neurologica blog today.

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I Want To Show You How This Isn’t Science

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Creationism is not scientific, it is a dismissal of all scientific thought. By struggling to prove that God created the world and everything in it whether you choose to look at this as a Biblical literalist or a more liberal Creationist, what you are doing is trying to find science to prove your pre-conceived opinions. That is not scientific. So I’ve created a spurious example, using this page, a simple seventh grade science experiment. I will now handle this according to the Creationist stance.

Question
How does the upright bass guitar produce sound?

Hypothesis
All music is a gift from God, and an angel is sent from heaven to sing praise to him through the instrument when it is plucked.

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Science Can Be Cruel (And Dirty)

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Wow. I just read what must be one of the most unethical studies of human sexuality ever. The blog post from Oscillatory Thoughts is called Self-stimulating the brain for heterosexual sex with a prostitute. Seriously. I can honestly say, the title just doesn’t do it justice.

Then again, I’m not sure how much more unethical this can be than the right wing Christian pray out the gay seminars that berate homosexuals into accepting that they are wrong and disgusting, but it’s okay because God wants to make them celibate and miserable.

Jim

Neil deGrasse Tyson is a Gateway Drug

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Grade A Certified Tyson ... the good shit.

So a Muslim and an Atheist walk out for a smoke …

A Muslim co-worker and I have been getting pretty friendly these days. Obviously, we disagree on the god topic, but he’s liberal minded and open to discussion about anything: religion, science, politics, pornography … everything is fair game, and that’s why our relationship works.

A few months back we were outside with a few co-workers talking about the possibility of living in space. I was adamant that I would take the opportunity in a heartbeat. My friend found the prospect of living in space to be tantamount to living in a black box. “There’s nothing really going in space … we’ve learned all there is to know … pretty boring really.” Astonished, I encouraged him to look a little further.

He did.

Science communication is a hot topic these days. Continue reading →

Exactly My Point

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I was just reading an article on the NPR web site about the historical Adam and Eve, and how (gasp) some people just don’t believe that the story of the Garden of Eden is possible given the genomic data of the past couple of decades, and I saw this quotation from Fazale Rana, who is the vice president of Reasons To Believe, an evangelical organization who claim to be “Integrative science and faith” but who also “believe the Bible (the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments) is the Word of God, written. As a ‘God-breathed’ revelation, it is thus verbally inspired and completely without error (historically, scientifically, morally, and spiritually) in its original writings.” But here’s the quote:

From my viewpoint, a historical Adam and Eve is absolutely central to the truth claims of the Christian faith… But if the parts of Scripture that you are claiming to be false, in effect, are responsible for creating the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith, then you’ve got a problem.

You absolutely have a problem on your hands. The evidence says that your creation story is untrue.

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Evolution Explained For Kids – DNA And Traits

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[I regularly notice that one of the top search hits to this site is some variation on the theme of "evolution for kids". It just makes sense that I take a few moments and write a post or two on the topic and hopefully help out those parents who are searching for this information. My intended audience in this case isn't actually kids, it is parents trying to find ways to communicate with their kids. Hope it comes in handy! To see other entries, go here.]

Your body is made up of cells. They are really small, and each one contains a lot of stuff. One of the things they contain is called DNA, and that’s a really important thing. DNA is like an instruction manual for building you, and it gets put together when your mom and dad made you.

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Why I Can’t Agree With Animal Rights Activists

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At their heart, only sick people want to hurt animals. It is a warning sign for many serious psychological issues, and besides, animals are cute. Even when they aren’t cute, we still try to believe that they all deserve a reasonable life just as we do. And I agree with that. But like everything, the picture isn’t quite that simplistic.

Now, before I go on, I need to point out that there is a difference between dangerous animal rights activists and those who simply promote the animal rights ideals. It is easy (and I have been called out for doing this before) to forget that what I assume are the majority of people who consider themselves animal rights activists are not throwing blowing up cars and sending death threats. Most of the animal rights people, direct action supporters or otherwise, are attempting to change what they consider to be an evil societal view that allows innocent creatures to be murdered and dominated by humans, and are attempting to do so ethically.

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Get ‘Em While They’re Young

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I often hear how religion and science can co-exist, and it always makes me giggle. Science is the examination of evidence. Religion is the denial of evidence. The two just don’t seem to coincide very well. And this morning, I read an article that underscores that nicely. It’s about the work of Harun Yahya, a Muslim who’s putting on a campaign to teach young Muslims about the truth of creationism and how science lies to you.

I’m not going to dwell on this article or Yahya’s mission to stupid up the youth of tomorrow. You can read the article for yourself, and you’ll no doubt get a good belly laugh from the quotes from various young adults who were in attendance. I know I did.

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How Do We Layperson Types Know What Is Good Science?

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One of the problems that us layperson types have is in trying to understand what’s true in areas where we are mere laypersons rather than experts. One of the common areas where this crops up is in medical news. We hear about studies that say they found a cure for cancer and we go “Yeah! Screw you, cancer!” but nothing comes of it. We hear about studies that prove a link between mercury and autism and we go “Yeah! Screw you, mercury!” but then someone else says it isn’t true and who do we believe? How do we figure out the truth when there are two sides to every story?

It’s situations like this that are breeding grounds for the conspiracy theorists. “They can cure cancer, maaaaan, but the Drug Companies, maaaaan, Big Pharma, maaaaaan, they don’t WANT cancer cured cuz they make more money treating it, maaaaan! And mercury? Maaaaan, mercury is in the vaccines, maaaaaan, and that’s their cash crop, maaaaan, so they want you ignorant and full of toxins. Maaaaaaan.” But both those arguments (and, indeed, most conspiracy theorist talk) are so full of stupid as to warrant a rough kick in the pants.

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