Prof. Lawrence Krauss writes a typically hard-hitting column in the August 2010 issue of Scientific American. I’m not sure if the piece is available online without subscription (I have access as I subscribe to the paper version of the magazine) so here are the key paragraphs.
I don’t know which is more dangerous, that religious beliefs force some people to choose between knowledge and myth or that pointing out how religion can purvey ignorance is taboo. […] Last May I attended a conference on science and public policy at which a representative of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences gave a keynote address. When I questioned how he reconciled his own reasonable views about science with the sometimes absurd and unjust activities of the Church – from false claims about condoms and AIDS in Africa to pedophilia among the clergy – I was denounced by one speaker after another for my intolerance. […] [In] Arizona, Sister Margaret McBride, a senior administrator at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix, recently authorized a legal abortion to save the life of a 27-year-old mother of four who was 11 weeks pregnant and suffering from severe complications of pulmonary hypertension; she made that decision after consultation with the mother’s family, her doctors and the local ethics committee. Yet the bishop of Phoenix, Thomas Olmsted, immediately excommunicated Sister Margaret, saying, “The mother’s life cannot be preferred over the child’s.” Ordinarily, a man who would callously let a woman die and orphan her children would be called a monster; this should not change just because he is a cleric. […] Keeping religion immune from criticism is both unwarranted and dangerous. Unless we are willing to expose religious irrationality whenever it arises, we will encourage irrational public policy and promote ignorance over education for our children.
For my part I’m not sure which is more worrying: Krauss being shouted down at a scientific conference or the Bishop of Phoenix. Both are very worrying.
It’s generally been a quiet week and I’ve been doing lots of Anthony Powell Society work, hence the lack of activity and only a couple of recent quotes …
If you allow annoying people to annoy you, then you’ve allowed them to win. [Hypersexualgirl]
Nature does not say that cats are more valuable than mice; nature makes no remark on the subject. She does not even say that the cat is enviable or the mouse pitiable. We think the cat superior because we have (or most of us have) a particular philosophy to the effect that life is better than death. But if the mouse were a German pessimist mouse, he might not think that the cat had beaten him at all. He might think he had beaten the cat by getting to the grave first. [GK Chesterton]
Another in the series of things which have struck me, or amused me, this week.
So look, I’m going to say this thing, and you’re going to listen and believe me because … I don’t know, why would you believe me if you haven’t believed it from anyone else? […] Because in the patient corners of your heart, you’ve ALWAYS known it’s true. It’s this: You’re not broken. You are whole. And there is hope. [Emily Nagoski at ]
There is evidence that male babbling (what you kindly call Punditry) is a Zahavian handicap. During both foetal development and puberty, male brains are subject to damage from hormonal processes that convert the female body and neural system into a male one (more or less). This causes males to be, on average, poor at communication. They don’t understand what they hear as well as females, can’t form their thoughts into words as well, and most interestingly, can’t think about one thing while carrying on a conversation with another human at the same time, as females routinely do. Therefore, ability to communicate at all, let alone well, is very difficult given the handicap of this developmental brain damage. Public communication (babbling/punditry) would indicate relatively high quality for any male that could do it. Thus, all that male babbling. [Greg Laden in a comment at http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/]
The Chap Olympiad has a number of things to recommend it, apart from the variety of potential experiences. One is that its resolute promoting of amateurism, eccentric sporting and events cocks an elegant snook at the revolting orgy of corporate arrogant dullardism that infuses all major sporting events. We don’t need their cocacolaMacanike extravaganzas in citizen murdering nations. Stuff ‘em. [“Minerva” at http://redlegsinsoho.blogspot.com]
There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats. [Albert Schweitzer]
Just as we should cultivate more gentle and peaceful relations with our fellow human beings, we should also extend that same kind of attitude towards the natural environment. Morally speaking, we should be concerned for our whole environment. [Dalai Lama]
Minds are like parachutes: they only function when open. [Thomas Dewar]
Another in our occasional series of quotations encountered during he week which have struck me.
Bodies are … I mean, what are they? They’re these sacks of bone and meat and water held together by 2 meters of integumentary tissue. They’re battlegrounds of infection and injury […] A body is a life. My opinion is that bodies, lives, people who have suffered and survived are the MOST beautiful. The marks left on their skins tell us of the strength, the resilience, the power of the person. The so-called flaws of a body show you what a person has made of themselves […] Real bodies, real lives, real people. Real things have scratches. [Emily Nagoski, ]
“D’you get any good presents?” “Yeah, me Aunty Jean got me a goat, but they delivered it somewhere in Africa … unbelievable” [from a Christmas card spotted at ]
Life is full of miracles, minor, major, middling C. It’s called “not being in a persistent vegetative state” and “having a life span longer than a click beetle’s.” [Natalie Angier, The Canon]
unconstitutionally vague [US Federal Court of Appeals in rejecting the policy of the FCC on indecent words in broadcasts]
One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. [Arthur C Clarke]
Another in our occasional series of quotations encountered during he week which have struck me.
Let us be grateful to people who make us happy: They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. [Marcel Proust]
A mind committed to compassion is like an overflowing reservoir – a constant source of energy, determination and kindness. This mind can also be likened to a seed; when cultivated, it gives rise to many other qualities, such as forgiveness, tolerance, inner strength, and the confidence to overcome fear and insecurity. [Dalai Lama]
Put three grains of sand inside a vast cathedral and the cathedral will be more closely packed with sand than space is with stars. [Sir James Jeans]
How much does it cost in pesetas to do something else? [Antonia Cornwell]
In interacting and communicating with other people we make a lot of assumptions about the other person. Sure, we have to make some assumptions to even begin to communicate (for instance that the other person can understand our language); if we didn’t we would have to start every conversation by asking a complete set of detailed questions – so many we would end up never communicating anything. But making too many, and too deep, assumptions, and not testing those we must make, is highly dangerous. Along with not listening to what the other person actually says, is in my experience the root cause of the majority of misunderstandings.
So I decided to set out those things which it seems to me we assume about the other person or the situation at our peril:
Any one person speaks for everyone
Anyone is right about anything
“Culture” or “society” is the same everywhere and for everybody
Someone else’s ethics and morals are the same as yours
How young or old or young the person is
Someone else is of a given race or nationality
What someone else’s religion or spiritual belief system is
What someone else’s first language or nationality is
What someone else’s politics are
What someone else’s personal values are
What someone else’s economic class is
What someone else’s financial situation is
What someone else’s level of education is
What someone else’s level of intelligence is
What someone else’s experiences or background are
What someone else’s life history is
What the person’s family or home background is
What someone else’s sexuality is or that someone else’s sexual ideals or ethics are the same as yours
Someone else has the same body or beauty ideals you do
Someone else has the same values, desires, interests, likes and dislikes as you
All things have the same effect on all people
Anything is universally yucky or universally yummy
What someone else’s skills and aptitudes are
What you find easy or hard they will also find easy or hard
What worked for you will work for anyone else
Someone else is better, worse, the same or different to you
Any given word means the same thing to everyone
One kind of learning works for everyone
Your logic is someone else’s logic
What they think is the same as you think
Someone else’s common sense is the same as your common sense
What is right for you is right for anyone else, and vice versa
Anything is possible or impossible
Yes we often can (and do) make pretty good guesses at many of these and we base our initial communications on them, but we’d better be prepared to test our guesses and change our position accordingly. I’m sure we’ve all been in situations where we’ve made an assumption about (say) someone’s education only to find we’re totally wrong – haven’t we all come across someone with a doctorate doing a job we wouldn’t expect (driving a taxi or a bus, dealing in second-hand books, selling insurance). Or we’ve spoken to a colleague on the phone and then been surprised on meeting them to find they’re a Sikh, a Muslim or Afro-Caribbean.
Noreen was off early(ish) today on a work outing. On her way she phoned me to say she had found an embryo lying on our front garden path and had moved it into the shrubbery nearby so no-one trod on it. (Handily we keep a trowel by the front door for burying the cats’ prey.)
Of course being interested in natural history I had to go and look. And yes, there was a roughly 4 inch long fresh foetus, complete with placenta still attached. Nice! And of course I just had to photograph it.
But what is it? Well it isn’t human as it clearly has a tail. Phew! It is too big for domestic cat – it is bigger than a new-born kitten. Being London this immediately says it is going to be either fox or dog. I would guess it’s too late in the year for fox, and maybe a little large.
Hmm. Interesting, if slightly yeuchy – but not as yeuchy as I’d expected.
If anyone really wants to see the photo you can find it here. I bet you all say “yeeuuuwwww”, but still go and look anyway!
Well according to a recent Scientific American article it is very simple …
We masturbate. A lot.
(Oh, come on, it’s not that shocking!)
But the uniqueness is that no other animal, including our close primate relatives, does. The theory seems to be, at least in part, that it’s all to do with the ability of our well developed brains to create entirely novel and imaginary picture shows and videos.
I’ll leave it to you to follow the link and read the article. It’s long, but it’s interesting, especially if you’re a science geek.
… and obscene is not a word I use often or lightly, but I am horrified at the story which is circulating of a New York doctor who is reducing the clitorises of young girls in the belief that they are abnormally large. In deference to my blood pressure I shall say no more here but refer you to the story over on The F-Word. If this is even half true the man (yes, a man, of course) is in my view a paedophile and child abuser.
Hat-tip: jillysheep.
Eccentric looks at life through the thoughts of a retired working thinker
