I was in the shower, my mind running a million miles a minute, when I came to thinking about the phrase, "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." An old adage, but one that almost seems redundant in my mind. I mean, you have to understand evil to be able to stop it. If you see and hear it, you can speak out against it. Then my mind got onto creationism, etc. and then my brain struck upon something I would do if I had won the lottery.

A statue to scientific endeavour, and using three "men of science" as the basis. Yes, I realise there are as many women who've contributed to science - look, this is what my brain comes up with in the shower. It was either gonna be something like this, or an overly detailed Transformers rewrite.

So, visual this, if you will.

Obviously, larger than life, the three figures stand back to back in triangular formation. Ideally, the statue is made of something like granite from the Yilgarn craton, amongst the oldest rocks in the world (representing geology and the age of the universe, diametrically opposed to the Young Earth Creation model).

Part of me would want to see them dressed in the style of, say, men of science from the Renaissance, but that's being a tad silly.
Jamie Hyneman of MythBusters is one. He's got one leg raised, foot perched upon a large piece of a real meteorite (astronomy). In one hand, held in front of him, palm up, he has a carbon-12 atom (physics, chemistry, component of life on Earth). His other hand is raised over his eyes, gazing to the horizon (exploration).

The next is Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, of Australian radio and tv. Dr. Karl has a Microraptor gui perched on his shoulder (palaeontology). In his hand, he holds a cluster of fern fronds (botany) and a stethoscope hangs around his neck (medicine, human biology). His head is turned to one side, because his free hand is cupped to his ear, which faces out on the 120 degree angle.

Lastly, Adam Savage, also of MythBusters. Adam holds a large strand of DNA in his hands (specifically, a section of code from the common fruit fly, one of which should be carved onto his clothes somewhere). Hanging from his belt should be a sextant, representing the history of scientific exploration. His free hand is raised to his mouth, and he is shouting.

I chose these three because I feel they represent some of the best examples of people who bring the reality and wonder of science to the general public. Adam and Jamie through tv, Dr. Karl through tv and radio. They explain things to people, they show them how to look at the world, and how to learn about it.

See science and the world around you; listen to science and the world around you; speak of science and the world around you, to others.

Grover Krantz, famous anthropologist and cryptozoologist, was memorialised in a truly wonderful way.

Good news! He's out of the hospital.

( The bad news )

The ability to put a human brain in a robot body, effectively giving it centuries or greater of existence.

So you know how you always get those photos of huntsman spiders behind a clock or a curtain, legs sticking out, that fail to show any actual sense of scale, so they're probably not that big.

Heh, this new species is probably the biggest spider, and actually IS a giant huntsman, with a foot-wide legspan.

Calamari are a cowardly, superstitious lot.

VICTORY FOR ZIMSCIENCE!

( Kent Hovind, founder of Creation Science Evangelism and Dinosaur Adventure Land in Pensacola, was found guilty of 58 counts, including failure to pay $845,000 in employee-related taxes. He faces a maximum of 288 years in prison. )

Darren Naish's blog.

Who is Darren Naish? He's a palaeo/crypto/zoologist of some note, who's quite well published and knowledgeable.

Someone left this bottle of Bavarian apple malt drink at my party.

It has a use by date of 25/7/2005.

FOR SCIENCE!

USA ALL THE WAY.... to the corner with the dunce cap.

Turns out that the only nation in the world *less* accepting of evolution than the US.. is Turkey in this poll.

And yet on the other end of the "SCIENCE!" scale, fossilised *Pre-Cambrian* embryoes.

And here's something bizarro - Studies of cancers in dogs show how cancers can evolve into parasitic viruses in a way. This has great implications for evolutionary science, and biomed.

( David Attenborough talks about creationism - full context is below the cut )
"My response," he says, "is that when Creationists talk about God creating every individual species as a separate act, they always instance hummingbirds, or orchids, sunflowers and beautiful things. But I tend to think instead of a parasitic worm that is boring through the eye of a boy sitting on the bank of a river in West Africa, [a worm] that's going to make him blind. And [I ask them], 'Are you telling me that the God you believe in, who you also say is an all-merciful God, who cares for each one of us individually, are you saying that God created this worm that can live in no other way than in an innocent child's eyeball? Because that doesn't seem to me to coincide with a God who's full of mercy'."
( Read more... )

OHIO VS MICHIGAN.

Yes, less than a year after getting their asses handed to them at Dover, PA, the creationists"intelligent design" "theorists" are pushing to "teach the controversy" about evolution..

.. along with that of global warming. Granted, there's far more to and fro over global warming in the climatology wings, but there's a general consensus we are still facing a problem, the real issue is whether it's natural, or we're accelerating it*.

But they're implying there's no such thing..

"Lousy Smarch weather materialistic science!"




* I think the latter.

I'm not sure what to say about this post on chimpanzees. It starts with some stuff about thylacinids, then we move onto bonobos.

I'm saying that every single reference book I've seen, including the ones we used in primatology at university, in the museum, etc, says that bonobos (Pan paniscus) are smaller than normal chimps. This person says that bonobos are larger than normal chimps, and that bonobos are something altogether different to "pygmy chimps". Insofar as I can make out.

But I've replied to their personal journal entry here because of their argument - it's basically, I'm right, and *every* other scientist is wrong, and stupid.

Now, there's an issue here I like to point out - the refusal to stop and reconsider one's argument.

If you make Claim X, and every other reference and source, from established scientific bodies (not just one, but *every* other one) says that Y is the case, and not X - you should stop to reconsider your argument. I mean, when *everyone else* says you're wrong, no matter where they are, it's worth stopping and reanalysing your position. You need to make sure you're not misinterpreting the evidence, or overlooking some aspect.

I've actually screencapped the reply I made to his personal entry, to see if he puts it up. It's screened, but his own page says, quote:

Because of my grumpy nature, this journal is mainly going to be for meranting about the things that piss me off. So if you don't want to readrants, don't read this journal. If you do, then this is the place foryou. You may agree with what I say, or you may not. If you do, that'sfine. If you don't, that's fine too. But if you disagree with me,you'd better be polite and use some logic and common sense when youreply to me, because I will not take pity on anyone I can't stand.Morons WILL be punished, and if they persist, I will ban them..

That way, I can prove I was polite, and used common sense if the post doesn't go up.

EDIT:

This was his reply.

"I didn't use Google Images for a side-by-side picture, and that is beyond the point. You're just another fucking sheep.

And with your comment about scientists, you're faced with two options:
every scientist who has stated they are smaller than normal chimps is wrong, or you are misinterpreting the evidence.

Well there's no way I can misinterpret something I've seen with my own eyes, so option A.

Go away now, you're bothering me.".

So, there you go. He saw some images on GOOGLE, not "with his own eyes". And thus he's disproved years of anthropology.

I'm rather hoping he stops to read this. He's free to reply of course - but he's banned me from responding to him. Says a lot, really.

Edit II: The original poster of the thread I link to said that if one looks at images on Google Images, you can see the difference, not that they looked at GI and based their conclusion on the size from that.

Science Fair Failure. This sort of thing is what I fear encountering in my teaching career. As I raised in my essay for Science,

What is more, there is a tendency for outcomes-based education to overcomplicate a situation, where time and resources are already short. The Western Australian Curriculum for Science reads

“While students in a classroom will have much in common, they also have a range of different science-related experience and world views that should be respected and accommodated. This means that teachers need to identify students’ current ideas and understandings so that they can design activities that build on them.”

The problem with this is that if students have a worldview that is at odds with established mainstream science, should a teacher be designing activities that require class time simply to accommodate these views? Again, concepts like creationism, “intelligent design”, and even the idea of a geocentric universe still exist in global society, and now with increasing pressures from religious groups for acceptance into classes. Is a teacher required to spend a lesson explaining that some cultures believe that the Sun revolves around a fixed Earth (a view still held by some (The Earth Is Not Moving, n.d.), even when all of modern scientific endeavor is aware that this is entirely not the case?

Oh, the US. How far you've fallen.

First, an art teacher of 25 years suspended.. for recommending his advanced art class students consider taking classes in human figures - but as we all know, the most disgusting, immoral thing ever is nudity.

And then, you've got the vaccine for human papillomavirus being refused because if you vaccinate children against diseases they might get in adult life, they might all start having casual sex. As the article notes, there's statistics showing that there's no correlation at all between the two, but hey, I doubt the Bush administration is ever going to let *facts* get in their way.

Huh.

Fred Hoyle said something I agree with:

"It has often been said that, if the human species fails to make a go of it here on Earth, some other species will take over the running. In the sense of developing high intelligence this is not correct. We have, or soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical prerequisites so far as this planet is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ores gone, no species however competent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high-level technology. This is a one-shot affair. If we fail, this planetary system fails so far as intelligence is concerned. The same will be true of other planetary systems. On each of them there will be one chance, and one chance only."
- Hoyle, 1964