...and they blink

By the way, I thought you folks might be interested in this: Ken Miller, author of Finding Darwin's God (among other things), is coming to Villanova University.

On Friday, Nov. 20, Kenneth R. Miller, Ph.D., a professor of biology at Brown University, will deliver the 2009 Mendel Medal Lecture in the Connelly Center Cinema (refreshments will be served at 2 p.m.; the lecture begins at 2:30 p.m.). This is an event not to be missed. On Saturday, he will be awarded the Mendel Medal.

Dr. Miller is a pre-eminent evolutionary scientist. In addition, Miller is the author of the acclaimed book, Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution, a lively and cutting-edge analysis of the key issues that seem to divide science and religion. He contends that, properly understood, evolution adds depth and meaning not only to a scientific view of the world, but also to a spiritual one.

The Mendel Medal is awarded to outstanding scientists who have done much by their painstaking work to advance the cause of science, and, by their lives and their standing before the world as scientists, have demonstrated that between true science and true religion there is no intrinsic conflict.

Dr. Miller was the lead witness in the Pennsylvania “intelligent design” case, which was the first direct challenge brought in U.S. federal courts against a public school district that required the presentation of “intelligent design” as an alternative to evolution to explain the origin of life.

From what I've heard, he's really smart and a really good speaker. I'll be at the Friday lecture along with some members of my family. I'm curious to see what he has to say.

So the other day I was having a conversation with a Christian believer... let's call him "Bob". "Bob" feels it's very special that believers are saved merely by believing in the big Him*. I know that many other aspects of Christianity are not original (virgin birth, resurrection, "lord and savior", etc.), deriving instead from various pagan traditions.

So help me out. Does anyone know of a pre-Christian source for this idea? (Not that it will convince "Bob" of anything, but I'm curious about the history.) I'm not sure in how many pre-Christian religions the concept would have applied -- how many had different destinations for the good and the bad? IIRC, in the Greek/Roman afterlife, everybody went to a farely blah Hades.


* Note for the record that many (most?) Christian denominations don't buy this -- it's the whole faith versus works debate, which has been raging since at least the time of Martin Luther, and probably well before that.

Huffington Post:

I've been a sporadic reader of your site for some time, but haven't paid much attention to your science reporting. I recently realized read (one example) how terrible this reporting has become.

You're fueling the dangerous, paranoid, and arrogant idiocy of the anti-vaccine movement with articles written by Jim Carrey (link)

...and your writers are suggesting enemas to ward off the Swine Flu?... REALLY? (link)

I'm now done with Huffington Post, and will do my best to spread the word on why. It's irresponsible and ignorant to lend credibility to these whackos, conspiracy theorists, and new-age-mind-so-open-that-it-falls-out cranks. The left has rightfully spent the past eight years crying out about the arrogant ignorance of the Bush administration's stance on stem cell research and global warming, only to follow it up with crazy extremist "natural remedies", anti-vaccine propaganda, and "colon cleansing"? Is this the right direction?

You're not part of the solution, and you're helping to create new problems.

How about a little more effort, time, and judgement on what you choose to print in your science and science-related columns?

Science is not open to opinion and voting of the layperson. A responsible media output's duty - should they choose to write science-oriented articles - is to convey the scientific consensus -- that is, the current state of knowledge generally agreed upon by people qualified and knowledgeble about the subject matter, and without their emotions wrapped up in the details.

We don't need Jim Carrey telling us that mercury in vaccines (which is no longer present) is causing autism or Kim Evans advising us about colon cleansing. Should we continue with this and give Paris Hilton a weekly blog on neuroscience?

Jim Carrey - you're a nut job, now with various preventable infections and deaths on your hands (Jenny McCarthy's Body Count).

Kim Evans - you're apparently a woo artist who, in five minutes, has wasted more than your share of my time.

and Huffington Post - you're giving these idiots a megaphone to help make us all dumber.

Ridiculous.

We don't need tinfoil hats and pyramids - we need science, reason, and critical thinking.

There's too much good information out there for anyone to waste their time growing dumber by the minute with the Huffington Post. Here's a few sites to get you started:

* Pharyngula
* Science-Based Medicine
* SkepticBlog
* Scientific American
* Wired Science

*sigh* Maybe, just maybe, science and critical thinking will win out. Maybe.

But not yet.

"...63 percent of Americans believe that humans and other animals have either always existed in their present form or have evolved over time under the guidance of a supreme being. Only 26 percent say that life evolved solely through processes such as natural selection."

I'm curious about the split between the 2 groups lumped into the 63%. The second likely includes the wishy-washy, "yeah, I believe, so God probably had something to do with it" kind of thinking. Don't have time now to see whether the groups are separated out in the write-up.

In honor of which, I refer you to ThinkGeek.com's "98% Chimp" shirt. :)

Stanford has a course where they study what history/archeology/etc can tell us about the historical Jesus and how stories about him have changed over time. It's interesting to hear about the context in which the stories were written and what else was going on at the time. The classes are available on iTunesU under Stanford University. Just started listening to it, but it's pretty cool so far. The prof does come across at times as having a point of view, not purely objective, but I don't think that view will bother the readers of this blog.

(Image by jdlasica)

From the article (FT.com):
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Google and Nasa are throwing their weight behind a new school for futurists in Silicon Valley to prepare scientists for an era when machines become cleverer than people.

The new institution, known as “Singularity University”, is to be headed by Ray Kurzweil, whose predictions about the exponential pace of technological change have made him a controversial figure in technology circles.

Google and Nasa’s backing demonstrates the growing mainstream acceptance of Mr Kurzweil’s views, which include a claim that before the middle of this century artificial intelligence will outstrip human beings, ushering in a new era of civilisation.
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via Financial Times - link