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grrlscientist | April 4, 2006Do you have opinions about the future of science in the USA? What does that future look like? What should the role of science be in America and how is your vision different from today's reality? What should America do to preserve its role as a leader in scientific innovation?
I know that many of you, dear readers, are good writers and that you think deeply about these and other topics, so now you have the chance to share your opinions with the editors and readers of SEED Magazine.
Seed Magazine is pleased to announce its first annual science writing contest. This contest is now accepting…
stcynic | April 4, 2006Someone named Joel B left a comment after a post at Volokh that I just find astonishing, despite being a very common position. The post addressed the recent study showing that Americans view atheists very negatively and this is Joel's explanation for why such negativity is justified. It's a long quote, so I'll put it below the fold:
The "prejudice" against athiests is entirely justified. A publicly declared athiest is one who has declared that they are for all intent and purpose not bound by any type of higher law. Thus, there can be no rational purpose except the maximization of personal…
stcynic | April 4, 2006No, that's not the name of a new band. Over the last few days, the right wing blogosphere has gone positively apoplectic over Eric Pianka, an ecologist and biologist from the University of Texas, and his prediction that the Ebola virus will wipe out 90% of the human population due to overcrowding. Forrest Mims has been on what is essentially a publicity tour of the web, claiming that Pianka is actually encouraging people to create biological weapons to kill off all the people. Meanwhile, Dembski actually called the Department of Homeland Security to get the guy investigated as a potential…
stcynic | April 3, 2006The poster named Kapitano, who took issue with me about the Danish caricatures in a thread below, has his own blog and he's decided to continue the argument there. The problem is, he's completely misrepresenting my position in the process. The first paragraph of his attempt to address it is just riddled with both misrepresentations and logical errors.
The dominant position seems to be that the cartoons were a valid (if crude) criticism of the whole of Islamic faith and politics, and as such are justified under freedom of speech. Oh and by the way the response of the homogenous islamic world…
pharyngula | April 3, 2006It's a marvelous list:
Best Blog — Non Professional : Crooks & Liars
Best Blog — Professional or Sponsored : Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo
Best Blog Community : Daily Kos
Most Deserving of Wider Recognition : Echidne of the Snakes
Best New Blog : Glenn Greenwald of Unclaimed Territory
Best Writing : Digby of Hullabaloo
Best Single Issue Blog : Jordan Barab of Confined Space
Best Expert Blog : Pharyngula by P.Z. Myers
Best Group Blog : Shakespear's Sister
Best Post : Bag News Notes for Katrina Aftermath: And Then I Saw These
Best Series : FireDogLake for Plame…
grrlscientist | April 3, 2006Let's face it, most of my weeks begin the same way that they end; with a whimper. However, today was different. As some of you know, I love reading and recently, I have been publishing book reviews on my blog. Considering all the limitation$ on my life during these past few years, requesting review copies of certain titles has been the only way I have devised whereby I can obtain at least some of those newly published books about birds, science and nature that I dearly wish to read. Well, without having to fight for the same priviledge with all the other unemployed people hanging out at the…
pharyngula | April 3, 2006Now William Dembski, that untiring advocate of academic freedom and the open discussion of controversial ideas, has reported Eric Pianka to the Department of Homeland Security.
Could Pianka be charged with terrorism/conspiracy to commit a terrorist act? What happens if a student actually takes his suggestion to heart and kills a bunch of people? Why shouldn't we think that Dr. Doom himself would commit the act of human destruction he is advocating? How is what he is saying any different from somebody at an airport saying that he plans to plant a bomb there.
Hmmm…anybody ever read any…
stcynic | April 2, 2006John Allen Paulos' column at ABC News is up and it's quite interesting. In addition to his link to this blog concerning the Liberty University debate team, he also discusses a survey that shows that an enormous percentage of Americans have a negative opinion of atheists more than any other group:
Asked whether they would disapprove of a child's wish to marry an atheist, 47.6 percent of those interviewed said yes. Asked the same question about Muslims and African-Americans, the yes responses fell to 33.5 percent and 27.2 percent, respectively. The yes responses for Asian-Americans, Hispanics,…
stcynic | April 2, 2006This is why I say there is a double standard going on. Not one person has commented on my post where I quoted Bill Maher's great line about Christians 'turning water into whining" and complained that I'm perpetuating stereotypes of Christians or tarring all Christians even though not all Christians claim to be victims like the ones that line was aimed at. But that would be equally true, wouldn't it? Of course not all Christians strike the martyr pose and claim that they're the victims of persecution in America; I know many Christians who laugh their heads off at such an idea. Just like I know…
stcynic | April 1, 2006"I don't know what people are afraid of with the 'gay agenda'. Let's face it, if you're not gay, you're not gonna be talked into it. Your heart can be swayed, your mind can be changed, but your dick...is incredibly stubborn."
Jon Stewart
stoat | April 1, 2006I was too boring to have an April fools post - sorry. What would it have been? Probably something like "BAS bureaucracy discovers sanity; throws out childcare and H+S policy" but thats rather a bitter joke. Anyway, I liked PZ born again.
grrlscientist | April 1, 2006I have been sitting on this particular entry for so long that I almost forgot that it was languishing in my "unpublished" category. But due to the shenanigans today, I thought I would be different by publishing something that is true. Annoying? Yes (depending upon who you are), but true, nonetheless.
In my web wanderings, I ran across EgoSurf, a nifty site that uses mysterious criteria to rank the importance of blogs (my hypothesis? They rely on pecking pigeons to determine their rankings, just as Google does. Because I love birds, this would explain my own site's results). I subjected the…
stcynic | April 1, 2006Bill Maher had one of his "New Rules" last night about the ubiquitous "war on Christians" notion, particularly about last week's conference on that subject. He rightly pointed out how silly it is for a group that comprises 80% of the population and controls all branches of government to pretend to be oppressed victims. And then he had a great, great line. He referred to this tendency to strike the victim pose by Christians as "turning water into whining". I wish I'd thought of that.
apalazzo | April 1, 2006A major field of research in the "RNA field" is the quality control of mRNA production.
Remember from the central dogma:
DNA=>RNA=>Protein
When "genes are activated", what is really going on is that a DNA segment (i.e. the gene) is copied into RNA, that is then processed to form messenger RNA (mRNA) in the nucleus. During this processing, RNA acquires several modifications: a Cap is added to the front end (5' end), a poly-A tail is added to the back end (3' end), and any non-coding regions are spliced out of the middle. The mRNA is then exported from the nucleus into the cytoplasm where…
grrlscientist | April 1, 2006So one of my blog siblings and fellow evil genius, Janet, poses a simple question; what are you going to do with your idiocy/genius? She then proposed this test as a means of quantifying this. Considering that I am unemployable, and therefore, doing nothing worthwhile whatsoever with my energy, rumored brain space or heck, with my life (well, except entertaining you, dear readers!), I decided to give her proposed test a go.
I am 59% Evil Genius.
Evil courses through my blood. Lies and deceit motivate my evil deeds. Crushing the weaklings and idiots that do nothing but interfere in my…
stcynic | April 1, 2006I've read several posts about the Danish caricatures, including at least one by someone who comments here, that says something to this effect: "I wouldn't post the Danish caricatures on my blog because I found them crude and based on stereotypes and I see no reason to make fun of these people." But I'd be willing to bet that at least some of those people found the movie Dogma hilarious. And I'd like someone to explain the difference to me.
Why do some people automatically have more sympathy for one group when their beliefs are mocked, but no sympathy for another group of the very same type…
grrlscientist | April 1, 2006While we are on the topic of intelligence, or lack thereof, I thought you might enjoy this test (I certainly did). The DENSA test is a response to MENSA, I suspect. Unfortunately, this test doesn't give you a cute graphic to add to your blog, but it is a rather fun test, so I stole the site logo and posted the link to the DENSA test anyway.
What was your score?
My score was 11 out of 12 - I am above normal! (Question 1 gets them every time!!) .. and indeed, it was question 1 that got me, even though I knew it was a trick, even though I knew the answer was "yes", mysterious forces caused my…
grrlscientist | April 1, 2006
I am 13% Idiot.
I am not annoying at all. In fact most people come to me for advice. Of course they annoy the hell out of me. But what can I do? I am smarter than most people.
Take theIdiot Test@ FualiDotCom
What was your score? And I want to know how I managed to score 13%? Was it because I answered "yes" to those Kurt Vonnegut questions?
tags: online quiz
apalazzo | March 31, 2006Weird things are afoot.
It all started last time the crazies got together. We had our fill of food and drink. The conversation had turned to nudist beaches and the next thing we knew, books were stolen, a member was held up, and then German Nihilists hijacked the Boston bookclub blog.
That's when we thought "What the hell is going on?"
Then a couple of days later this picture appeared:
Was our finger-gun-wielding-German-nihilist book thief toying with us? From the picture we deduced that he/she/they was obviously a scientist, perhaps a molecular biologist?
Staring closely at the picture of…
stcynic | March 31, 2006I got an email today from John Allen Paulos, a mathematician from Temple University who writes a column for abcnews.com called Who's Counting. He is the author of a rather famous book called Innumeracy as well. He said he's going to include my information on the Liberty University debate team in his column this Sunday, which is pretty cool. I'll link to the column when it goes up.