Truth and the Devil

We need to get PZ Myers to write more book reviews.

Whoa. Bryan Appleyard has reservations about the book. That tells you how bad it has got to be. If you show your new baby to your sister, and she doesn’t scrunch up her face and say “OOOH, she’s cute widdle one!” but instead starts talking about the miracles plastic surgery can do, you know you’ve got a really ugly baby. This book is one ugly baby. It’s the baby that would inspire your sister to get her tubes tied to prevent the possibility of repeating your mistake.

I thought it might be telling to keep an eye on the Expelled blog and see what’s going on there. Ben Stein has a new post which is rather cryptic [edit: the post has been inexplicably removed]. It basically is setting out to create a climate of victimization (which the film seems to be doing as well) starting out with a quote attributed to Jonny Cash.

It’s good to be hated by the right people.”

I’m not quite sure what to make of the following quote, though if it turns out to be some sort of parody, I’ll be pleasantly surprised (though I’m not holding my breath).

Looks like Expelled really isn’t going to provide anything new under the sun. An article on Beliefnet gives us a little more information on what the film might include.

Let the buzz begin. Not that “Expelled’s” intentionally incendiary tone will need much help from the pastors and religious-school teachers in attendance at yesterday’s meeting. From the clips and trailers they showed, the film presents a world of–to use a quote I heard repeatedly yesterday–”the new scientific movement” (Intelligent Design, in case you weren’t sure) vs. the tired, old “theory” of evolution. Relying on news-clip montages, interviews, even cut-away shots of concentration camps, “Expelled” talks of faithful scientists and other believers losing jobs, losing grants, even losing friends in defense of ID. And, relying on footage of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and other atheists du jure, it sets up a worldview of ID vs. atheism, with no gray areas in between.

Richard Dawkins is back with part 2 of The Enemies of Reason

The Intelligent Design creationists have tried all sorts of tactics to get their religious ideology taught in America’s science classrooms. They’ve written books, changed curricula, been involved in lawsuits, everything except actually doing science. Now, as a new extension of their PR assault on the media, they’re making a movie: Expelled — No Intelligence Allowed. It looks to be bullshit propaganda at its finest. Their website has a blog authored by the co-writer and MC of this film, Ben Stein. Let’s see what he has to say about the film.

It was Hubble’s 17th birthday on April 24th and Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy has a post over the insanely beautiful image of the Carina Nebula that was released today.

The news is in! An exciting discovery in the field of astronomy: a candidate for an Earth-like planet has been found! It’s exciting news for certain, though news that must be tempered. I’ll let Phil Plait explain:

The European Southern Observatory is reporting that they have found the most Earthlike planet yet orbiting another star. It has about 1.5 times the Earth’s diameter, and five times its mass. This makes it the smallest extrasolar planet yet found (two other planets have already been found orbiting that star, with 15 and 8 times Earth’s mass).

I’ve got several old links that I want to talk about, and I mean several, so I apologize for any deluge of posts coming forward in the recent days. My workspace (computer and real life) is far too cluttered, so I hope this’ll help a bit.

First bit, Non-Newtonian fluids. These are liquids, for the most part, but with solid particles suspended in them. When rapid pressure is exerted on them they solidify somewhat. I believe it’s the same principle applied in new liquid armor technologies being developed.

The key component of liquid armor is a shear thickening fluid. STF is composed of hard particles suspended in a liquid. The liquid, polyethylene glycol, is non-toxic, and can withstand a wide range of temperatures. Hard, nano-particles of silica are the other components of STF. This combination of flowable and hard components results in a material with unusual properties.

For those of us who are skeptical of pseudoscientific claims, especially those of the supernatural variety, our skepticism can often be treated as though were limiting ourselves to our 5 senses. Implying that we have another sense that we’re not utilizing or simply ignoring. When asking for evidence of psychic phenomenon, a common dodge might be, “How do you prove photography to a blind man?”

The implied answer is that you can’t, even though we all know photography exists, blind people can’t see the contents of a photograph. They lack the visual sense required. Similarly, only psychics have the extra sense required to perceive psychic phenomenon. Attempting to provide evidence to those who don’t have the ‘psychic sense’ is like trying to prove photography to a blind person.

There was a recent story about new images from Cassini. It showed a hexagonal shape at the north pole of Saturn. Apparently this shape was first identified in 1980 during the Voyager mission, and scientists were excited to see that it has remained.

It’s interesting that when people see a regular shape that there is a sense of something unnatural about it. That maybe it’s unexplainable or even supernatural. Some of the comments on the Daily Mail site are instructive:

With each exciting discovery comes mystery. Which, in my estimation proves that the universe didn’t evolve. It was created by God.
- Frank, Charleston, SC USA