gregladen | February 2, 2013The Public Religion Research Institute has conducted a poll about the Superbowl They found:
27% of Americans believe that God plays a role in determining which team winds a sporting event.
53% of Americans believe that god rewards athletes who have faith with good health and success
42% of Americans don't think that those 53% of Americans are correct.
By religion, there is variation in the percentage of people who believe that god determines the outcome of sporting events, or that god rewards athletes of faith. They have a graph:
50% of Americans are fine with athletes making public shows…
gregladen | February 2, 2013Skeptical Science is a great source for information about climate change. One of the coolest things they've got over there is a moving GIF demonstrating how the folks in the climate science denialism industry try to convince people that global warming isn't real. This involves cherry picking data to show small segments of time with either flat lines (no warming) or decreasing lines (cooling), and ignoring that the longer term pattern is one of a distinct increase.
Here's the graphic:
How to make it look like global warming is a hoax!
For more information about this graphic, and other…
gregladen | February 2, 2013According to the Turkish Daily News ...
The Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey ... has put a stop to the publication and sale of all books in its archives that support the theory of evolution, daily Radikal has reported.
The evolutionist books, previously available through TÜBİTAK's Popular Science Publications’ List, will no longer be provided by the council.
The books have long been listed as “out of stock” on TÜBİTAK's website, but their further publication is now slated to be stopped permanently.
Titles by Richard Dawkins, Alan Moorehead, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard…
gregladen | February 1, 2013Minnesota Atheists is auctioning off a rare $20.00 bill that does not say "In God We Trust" on it. I've already placed my first bid of $36.66! Go here to check it out. Good luck!
gregladen | February 1, 2013TRIGGER WARNING: Rape, molestation, physical attack, misogyny, abuse. Followed by one billion angry women kicking the patriarchy in the ass. You have been warned.
*Trigger Warning* A film by @EveEnsler and Tony Stroebel.
Please spread far and wide w/this tweet: Rise up on 2-14 to end Violence against Women in a global event! @vday
gregladen | February 1, 2013Glaciologist Jason Box describes a post-warming world that you won't even be able to recognize.
gregladen | February 1, 2013Anthropogenic global warming is a long term phenomenon that is caused by the release of Carbon, in the form of Carbon Dioxide, from fossil deposits, though burning of fuels such as oil, natural gas, and coal. There are other human causes as well, but some of those relate to the use of fossil fuels (such as the leakage of methane gas from oil extraction operations, or from delivery pipelines).
The evidence for warming comes from a variety of sources, but mainly from land based thermometer stations from about the mid 19th century and later, higher tech measurements such as satellites.
The…
gregladen | February 1, 2013History, Culture, Math and the Superbowl
Roman Numerals? What the heck does Exel Vee Aye Aye mean anyway? Does anybody really know?
The Superbowl may be one of the few places where we count above three in Roman Numerals anyway. I assume this is a subtle reference to the gladiatorial aspects of the contest. Which reminds me of this:
A man “lies crumpled on the sand … Behind him a dark trail leads back to the spot from which he has just been dragged. Looking closer, we notice something slightly odd about the figure crouching over the wounded man. His posture does not suggest a doctor…
gregladen | February 1, 2013Skeptically Speaking #198 is now available for your listening pleasure. The main part of the show has Desiree Schell interviewing James Gould, co-author of Nature’s Compass: The Mystery of Animal Navigation.
Great book on animal migration
The 15 minute side bar has Desiree interviewing me about recent research on the New Caledonian crows (this research).
Visit the Skeptically Speaking site to download or listen to the podcast.
This week, we’re looking at some of the amazing abilities exhibited by our animal cousins. We’ll speak to James Gould, co-author of Nature’s Compass: The…
gregladen | February 1, 2013Hey, did anybody go to the 2012 fair? I couldn't make it. Let me know how it went.
Anyway, the 2013 fair will be at a new location, leading Har Mar to say "Creation Science Fair, why hath thou forsaken me?"
Here's the details for this year's Creation Science Fair:
2013 Home School Science Fair
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Northwestern College, Totino Fine Arts Center, Lobby
3003 North Snelling Ave.
Roseville Minnesota
Details here.
They say that last year there were 60 entries, but there are only photographs of 20. I wonder why those other children's work was left out? I sure hope they don'…
gregladen | January 30, 2013I'm not sure about the NUMBER of fires. That might be hard to count. If five small fires emerge and are put out, there are five fires. If five fires emerge, join into one configuration, and wipe out a handful of mountain villages in the Rockies, that's one fire. It might be better to look at acreage burned per year.
My friend John Abraham has used the data supplied by National Interagency Fire Center to make a graph of acreage burned per year since 1960. The graph is a 10-year running mean of millions of acres burned in the US.
Here is the graph:
The annual rate of acreage burned in…
gregladen | January 30, 2013Common misconceptions and unproven assumptions about the aquatic ape theory
A Guest Post by Marc Verhaegen
*2013 m_verhaegen@skynet.be
It is often assumed that Alister Hardy’s and Elaine Morgan’s aquatic ape theory (AAT) suggests that more than 5 Ma (million years ago) there was a semi-aquatic phase in our past (explaining e.g. human fur loss, fatness and upright bipedalism), which was followed by a savanna phase on the African plains. In 2011, AAT proponents published an eBook, Was Man more aquatic in the past?, which showed a rather different picture of AAT. Here I very briefly describe my…
gregladen | January 30, 2013There is a new anti-science bill in Arizona. Go read about it here. It is interesting that these anti-science bills are sounding more and more like pro science bills except for just a few words that allow, encourage, and even require funding for the teaching of climate science denialism and creationism.
Michael Zimmerman has a nice write up on how the big boys in creationism have been rather flustered by a former High School Student (now College Student) Zach Kopplin who, as I'm sure you know, has been challenging creationists in halls of government and elsewhere for a few years now.
When…
gregladen | January 29, 2013I just want to point you to these two items:
It's 10:00. Do you know where your handgun is?
Did you know that several, as far as I know uncounted, teenagers living in the Twin Cities have died tragically over the last year, with the cause of death being a gunshot wound, self inflicted. Typically, it is a handgun. The details for most of these tragedies are not available, but I would imagine that few, if any, of these teenagers killed themselves with their own handgun. Most likely, they used a gun owned by someone else in the household, and I'm guessing that it is usually dad's gun,…
gregladen | January 29, 2013There is now a Graphic Book (which is apparently some kind of cartoony thing kids these days read) which is a biography of Darwin. I've not read it but I have a free chapter for you, here. That's courtesy of the NCSE.
Here's the Amazon Link and from that site, a description:
Darwin: A Graphic Biography is an inspiring expedition into the physical and intellectual adventures of Charles Darwin. Presenting Darwin's life in a smart and entertaining graphic novel, Darwin: A Graphic Biography attempts to not only educate the reader about Darwin but also the scientific world of the 1800s. The…
gregladen | January 29, 2013Whispers from the Ghosting Trees
A guest post by Gail Zawacki, who blogs at Wit's End.
While we hustle busily through the necessities of our lives, wrapped up in our daily preoccupations - our obligations to our families, our jobs, and our dreams - at the same time all around the world, trees are silently expiring. For those who take the time to look, we can see that the forests are being transformed before our helpless and incredulous gaze into spectral mausoleums, as even the most ancient living wood is consumed by a raging tsunami of pathogens unprecedented in scale and virulence. What has…
gregladen | January 28, 2013Have you seen the Weather Underground's Weekly Weather Roundups, which are archived here? They are truly the funniest thing on the Internet. Also, tragic and scary. Here is a recent example:
gregladen | January 28, 2013Suddenly and for the first time I saw Amanda as a little child wide eyed with both awe and fear, among other children some sitting on the floor, some in chairs, some standing behind desks, eyes trained on a TV monitor and their teacher as the sudden realization dawned on all of them that the Space Shuttle Challenger had been consumed in a fiery, deadly explosion.
The teacher on board was incinerated before their very eyes. As the explosion developed, shooting out huge arms of smoke and the voice-over began to acknowledge that something was wrong, NASA's space program was suddenly…
gregladen | January 27, 2013Published on Jan 25, 2013
Session 6: Dr. Jennifer Francis - Rutgers University
Topic: Wacky Weather and Disappearing Arctic Sea Ice: Are They Connected?
gregladen | January 26, 2013
I only barely remember the disaster. It was on this day, but in 1967. In recent years, I've wondered why my memory of the death of Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee in the Apollo 1 space craft is so vague. I have memories of earlier space activities, but most of those memories are really memories of reading about things in books and magazines, and playing "astronaut" more or less constantly. I had limited access to a TV and TV coverage of every detail of life everywhere all the time had not been invented yet. But really, the main reason I only barely remember the event despite my…