Hey all! If you look up above at the URL, you may notice that I’ve put a real domain name on this thing! I never took the time to do a redesign like I wanted to and go and host on my own domain, so I just added the domain to this blog. All the old links should work, but if you want to change them to the new URL, feel free! It’s like I have a real home on the intertoobz. (Thanks to Some Canadian Skeptic for the idea.)
Also, welcome new readers! I was a little confused at the number of comments that were coming in from my 2012 movie post, until I discovered that wordpress.com had included that post on their homepage. So, wow, and thanks to all of you for stopping by and leaving comments! Feel free to look around… it’s a little messy… kind of like my apartment. And go check out Tree Lobsters, since that’s the origin of that lovely image of the crab with the calendar, who really needs to skitter across the page and steal Jenny McCarthy’s Santa hat…
Finally, I’m calling an end to my NaNoFAILMo. So I got a great start the first week, but then I discovered that if I was writing late at night, I could also be working. So it was a success in that I got more work hours out of my day for actual work, but the novel itself got forgotten. I also got inspired to roll out a few blog posts, so yay. And I proved to myself that I can write fiction prose that doesn’t sound entirely lame and corny. I’d like to continue the story when I do have time/motivation again, so those of you (okay, one of you, hi Rachel!) who want to know how Eva’s story comes out, it’s still there floating around in my head in a nebulous form, and it will be told one day.
Speaking of books, Happy Birthday to the FDO. I’m wearing my Krakens shirt in honor of his dark overlordness.
This is a little overdue, but I need to report that I did sit through the 2 hour and 38 minute *facepalm* experience that was the movie 2012. I was invited by Christian, and well, there’s no better way to see this movie than with people who will stay up til all hours of the morning humorously ripping it apart with you. And, apparently he and Maria have a penchant for watching bad movies. So we went to see it with a small gaggle of astronomers and skeptics from CVille (okay we all fit in my car), not knowing it was 158 minutes long. Wow.
Of course, you can already read some fantastic reviews by Rebecca of Skepchick, Ian O’Neill over at Discovery, and at Christian’s The Man Version. To chime in with those: the CGI was pretty effing cool, the movie was LONG and the characters uninteresting, women were reduced to useless whiners, and the bad science was barely justified. Here’s what sticks out in my head all these weeks later (needless to say, with spoilers):
Super-neutrinos. WHAAA? A solar flare (which has to do with the sun’s surface) is caused by a planetary alignment (must be a new property of gravity) sends off a wave of neutrinos (which come from the sun’s interior) but they aren’t BORING neutrinos that barely interact with matter but SUPER ones that pass unimpeded through the actors but heat up the Earth’s core or mantle or whatever layer was mentioned depending on who was talking. It would be bad enough to base the movie on the silly pseudo-science surrounding the 2012 nonsense as it is, but they had to make up their own silly pseudo-science to make the plot attempt to stick. At the very least, it gave those in our row a big laugh.
CGI everything. Okay, watching Yellowstone explode was cool. But some visceral part of me wants for something to be actually destroyed. A model, a car, something. This hit me in one of the very first disaster scenes as the main characters are driving through a series of white picket fences. I noticed that the fence shards were CG. C’mon, can’t you bust up just ONE fence for me and my $9?!
Roland Emmerich thinks we’re morons. I guess we are for coming along to see this movie, but nevertheless… the cheesy jokes and over the top symbolism that is cliche for any bad movie simply saturated this flick. The wholesale destruction of various religious monuments gave a “God says eff you” feel to the flick, but he had to rub it in when the wave of destruction hit the Sistine Chapel and a crack running along the ceiling went OUT OF ITS WAY to split exactly between the fingers of God and Adam. WOW. Thanks for being so SUBTLE.
THAT’S what you call a happy ending? All of humanity is pretty much dead with almost a hour left to go in the film which centers around these arks that are to carry a minuscule percentage of the Earth’s population (mostly politicians and rich people) and their art to safety. I wanted spaceships, I got arks. You just DESTROYED THE PLANET and you want me to care that John Cusack is stuck in a water-filled compartment? Check, please. But at the end they had these few survivors prancing out of the ark onto new land and we’re supposed to be happy about this? I was totally expecting a rainbow and a dove like in all those cartoon versions of Noah’s Ark that I had to watch as a kid.
For all the complaining, it was worth it for the funny and to say I survived it, but I’d recommend only watching it if you have fast-forward as an option.
And if you are really worried about 2012, check out this cool visualization by Information is Beautiful. I have a small beef with the skeptics side which agrees that precession has a beginning or end point or a length of time for termination… I don’t think there is a particular end point, nor does precession changing by half a degree mean anything significant. Minor point, and if someone knows why they said that, I’d like to be corrected!
For those of you that follow along on twitter, a little while ago I asked for some help finding space and astronomy songs for our Dark Skies, Bright Kids end of semester party. And did I mention that my twitter friends are freaking awesome! I got TONS of lists and suggestions and promised to compile a list once I had it all done. For the party itself, I threw these all together into a big playlist and just hit “shuffle.” For listing purposes, I tried to separate the more educational songs from the pool of general space song awesomeness. This also includes suggestions from our other club members here at UVa. Where possible, I’ve provided links for you to download (if free) or buy these songs. Enjoy, and feel free to add even more to the comments!
Of a more educational bent:
"Glorious Dawn" by Colorpulse ft. Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking - song, video, and more
"Far (365 Days of Astronomy Theme)" by George Hrab - song and video
"Cosmic Carl" by Dr. Paul Shuch aka Dr. SETI - mp3 and MORE songs
"Galaxy Song" by Monty Python - video
from Here Comes Science by They Might Be Giants (really, get the whole album!)
- Science is Real - video
- Meet the Elements - video
- What is a Shooting Star?
- How Many Planets? - video
- Why Does the Sun Shine? - new version and old version
- Why Does the Sun Really Shine? - video
- Roy G. Biv - video
- Put It to the Test - video
- Speed and Velocity - video
- Solid Liquid Gas
"Stars by the Colors" by Alan Marscher - song and lyrics and more songs
AstroCapella by the Chromatics - buy the CD or sample free songs
"Elements Song" by Tom Lehrer - video
"Interplanet Janet" by Lynn Ahrens for SchoolHouse Rock - video
(I could not find the Man or Astroman version! Help?)
"The Planet Song!" from Blue's Clues - song and others
"Yakko's Universe Song" from Animaniacs - video
"Our Solar System" from Animaniacs - song and video
"Big Bang Theory" by Barenaked Ladies - video
For the fun, spacey, and starry-eyed songs, stay tuned for part II…
It’s Turkey Day for the US folks, and I want to say that I’m very thankful for my family.
(AWWWW)
It’s true, they rock. So what if my brothers think football is more important than science, or if my mom thinks Nathan Fillion isn’t funny… I love them very much, and they have always been close and supportive.
Me and my “little” bros, Even Steven and Paulie Wally. I’m now going to get beat up for calling them that!
For an atheist, I tend not to talk much about religious matters anymore. When I first came “out” as an atheist, it was an interesting topic of discussion for me, but I quickly bored of it. Still no evidence for god? Okay, move along. I’m much more interested in the immediate harm of anti-vaxxers and the general push of science education. However, there are some matters of faith that still get under my skin, mainly because they can and do cause harm in the real world. That’s right, I’m looking at you, Catholicism.
The Catholic Church surely don’t have the monopoly on harm. But as an ex-Catholic who was quite dedicated to the faith and raised in a nearly all-Catholic community, the stupidity of some Church doctrines get under my skin in a deeply emotional way. Maybe it’s frustration at the hundreds of hours I spent in church, the skewed view of history I received in my Catholic school, the percentage of my allowance that ultimately went into their bloated coffers, the anti-abortion letters we wrote to politicians as homework, the dozens of hours I spent in service to my church, desperately trying to connect the Catholic worldview with my own emerging one, or the fact that some of my nearest and dearest friends are still Catholic.
Sometime in high school, I found it increasingly difficult to align myself with a worldview that viewed homosexuality as an unnatural evil. To count myself among the numbers of Catholics who supposedly, though not in reality, all hold to church doctrine, seemed disingenuous. How so many can do that without trying to change their church for the better or just leave it in the Middle Ages where it belongs… I will never understand.
Anyway, this sentiment was brought forth in response to a couple of recent news items. In one, the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., is at a standstill with D.C. lawmakers over certain non-discrimination laws that would require the Catholic Church to not discriminate against same-sex couples. Catholic Charities would then end its contract with the city, which allows the organizations to partner up to provide basic charitable care to the city’s poorest inhabitants. The article doesn’t cover the thorny issue terribly well, since it is full of quotes and accusations from both sides. The issue is elucidated somewhat by a follow-up article (thanks, Nick!)
I think the solution is fairly simple: separation of church and state! It protects the religious freedom of the Church, which can then discriminate at will with its followers’ own money, and the lawmakers don’t then have to bend over backwards to compromise on civil rights. While you are at it, take away the tax-exempt status of churches, and leave that privilege for the actual charitable subsets of the organizations. I think no matter how you slice it, the Church looks like a bunch of bigots to the rest of us.
So this ties into the next recent topic, a debate on whether the Catholic Church is a force for good in the world. On the “yes” side were Archbishop John Onaiyekan and Anne Widdencombe MP, and for “no,” everyone’s favorite chain-smoking atheist Chris Hitchens and the lovable Stephen Fry. As you can imagine, the proponents of Catholicism tout the many charitable acts provided by the Church (um, see previous issue, it comes with a stipulation) and ignore the accusations of harm done by the Church in the past and in the present. Even if you ignore rehashing the Crusades, the Inquisition, or the arrest of Galileo, there is plenty of harm to the world from Catholicism today. When the Church actively discriminates gays for no other reason than “god says it’s icky,” when the pope goes to Africa and blatantly lies to a continent ravaged by AIDS, saying that condoms worsen the spread HIV, when these Middle Aged superstitions are carried to all corners of the Earth with the bait of food and education, so that a doctor can be excommunicated for performing a live-saving abortion for a raped 9-year-old girl, or innocent people in Africa and around the world are being tortured and killed in accusations of witchcraft in 2009, some with the help of Christian pastors… yeah, I have a problem. You can have charity without the funny hats and ridiculous doctrine and the cost in human lives. Shouldn’t an organization that claims to have knowledge of divine truth be progressive in issues of civil rights, even to the point of being millennia ahead of the rest of the world?
I do believe that most religious people are generally good and would continue to support charitable acts around the world without Church oversight. After all, building a better world is a basic tenet of secular humanism. Part of that belief is also motivated by the fact that I know so many people that I love and adore and that would never intentionally harm another human being who are Catholic. My problem is with the doctrine and those that carry it out in harmful ways. I would just love to see millions of Catholics see the atrocities being perpetrated TODAY in the name of their religion, and either force it to adapt, or leave it altogether. I was heartened to see at the end of the debate that most of the audience came around to this starkly obvious conclusion.
Just watch and tell me what you think.
Part 1 of 5
Part 2 of 5
Part 3 of 5
Part 4 of 5
Part 5 of 5
So there, that’s my asshole skepticism unleashed just a bit. Passionate, yes, but informed, and with darn good reasons to care so much. And if you really care, too, please do what you can to help others around with world without the guise of religion, and donate a little bit to a charity like Doctors Without Borders.
I have updates on some of what I’ve been writing about lately. So listen up!
In my H1N1 post, I mentioned the “backwards walking cheerleader.” Via Skepchick, please read this entire post by Orac summing up the aftermath. In summary, Desiree Jennings was taken in by Generation Rescue, the anti-vaxx group that Jenny McCarthy associates with, and they “cured” her with some quack medicine. Steven Novella also follows up on this story, and points out that the “miraculous cure” points strongly to the psychogenic hypothesis. I’d really like to know how many people avoided vaccination thanks to this entire mess. I find it hard to laugh about this, but this guy does make it amusing.
And finally, in news from my backyard, The Hook has a nice article about the car that flew through a guardrail and into a house… the house next door to me. It is disturbing to me that new evidence shows that the cops did speed down Rugby Road at 85 miles per hour in pursuit of the stolen car (which at the time was just for a traffic violation.) I don’t know where I stand on the debate though, since although there is clearly harm in such chases, are there benefits as the police department claims? Loss of life is an awful thing, but do they save more lives in the process? That’s hard to prove, so maybe they should err on the side of caution. Two things that did strike me in the article:
However, Longo emphasized the dry pavement, the fact that UVA was out for the summer, and that the near-2:30am timing meant an absence of pedestrians.
Right, so because the undergrads are gone, the REST of us who live in Charlottesville year-round aren’t a concern?
Pointing to a black stripe on the pavement spanning the breadth of the roadway, Stone said the perpetrator probably never applied brakes— that he tried to negotiate a right turn at a speed that the laws of physics simply wouldn’t allow.
That right turn, if partially successful, would have brought the car into my living room and probably my bedroom. *shudder*
Alright, that was all depressing, so here’s a kitteh…
As promised, Tim is writing his first blog post! So be sure to check the author name from now on before we figure out some easier system of distinguishing. I urged him to write up his reactions to the SyFy channel’s 2012 Secrets after we spent over an hour howling with laughter at it Sunday night. ~N
Ok, so I am not typically the type to write a blog posting, actually I’m not the type to really read or write at all, but it’s always good to attempt something new. Anyway, Nicole & I were watching this show on SciFi…SyFy…PsyPhi…whatever it’s calling itself now, about 2012. This dude came on…now right away I knew he was someone I should trust. I mean his hair, bolo tie and hat, it resembled a Sombrero-Cowboy Hat hybrid, were good indicators that this guy was worthy of my attention. His name was Richard Hoagland. Apparently he’s a genius (at least in his own opinion). He was telling me about this thing called Torsion Field Physics. Now, I’ve never heard of this before but I’m no scientist so that wouldn’t be surprising. However, I learned that the Mayans were experts in Torsion Field Physics…Calendars and Torsion Field Physics…and sacrificing things to appease the Gods. Well, I learned from Hoagland that the Mayans were experts in Torsion Field Physics and he knows Torsion Field Physics and they appeared to be the only ones who know anything about it…so either he’s right or he’s just making this stuff up. I think I’ll trust him though because he had some awesome scientific type equipment. Sure, it may only look like some little box with a broken watch on top and a USB cable running to his laptop…but he swears it’s scientific. It’s called an Accutron after all…need I say more? Now I’m not sure if Accutron is an Autobot or a Decepticon, so I am a little wary still, but if it can find Energon Cubes, then Torsion Field Physics should be easy…fictional things should be able to deal with other fictional things, right?
Bolo, yo.
Seriously though, or as serious as I am capable of being. Why don’t Hoagland’s family and friends love him enough to just get him committed somewhere? I know I am not a full blown skeptic and I don’t really care to research or look into things, but even I think this guy is a crackpot. Martians left Mars because it was doomed and they came to Earth to hang out with the Egyptians & Mayans to teach them about Torsion Field Physics and warn them about impending disaster. Then the Martians went and hung out in Atlantis. Really? That sounds as plausible as my theory that tiny green gremlins will burst from inside the Earth in 2012 and run around stabbing people in the toes with spears and with all these green gremlins leaving the center of the Earth, there will be nothing at the core anymore and the Earth will collapse in on itself. That’s right, the core of the Earth isn’t iron or anything like that…it’s tiny Green Gremlins.
I decided my new best friend, Richard Hoagland, deserved a quick Wikipedia search. I really do think this man would awesome to hang out with…it would be a non-stop riot and his Wikipedia page only further supports that opinion. For instance, he believes the US Government and other major governments of the world have known 2012 was going to happen for some time and have staged an elaborate ruse to confuse us and keep that truth from us. The Berlin Wall coming down, the two satellites that collided in space, 9/11, they were all part of this conspiracy to keep us from finding out about the impending disaster in 2012. Personally, I think he’s giving way too much credit to politicians. He also believes in an ancient Moon Civilization, life on Mars, the Face of Mars, the Face of Bo…oh that last one is from Doctor Who not Hoagland, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he believed Doctor Who was actually a documentary. As I said, I am not a scientist. I probably slept through any science classes I took, in fact, I probably slept through most classes I took, science or not. But even for me, some of these theories are so completely absurd that they’re funny. They make no sense and the conspiracies needed to hide some of these “facts” are so elaborate that they leap into absurd. So I implore you, if you know Richard Hoagland or know anyone who believes everything he says, have an intervention. Send them to The Bad Astronomer or one of the other great scientifically accurate blogs out in Cyberland (not to be confused with Cybertron). Do something to help them learn real science.
UPDATE: On further research, by that I mean I actually looked something up, it turns out Hoagland’s Accutron looks just like a watch on a box because it IS a watch on a box. An Accutron watch is a watch made by Bulova that uses resonating tuning forks as a means of regulating the time keeping function. But with the name Accutron, I’m not changing my mind, it might still be a Transformer.
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This semester, a number of astronomers at UVa are participating in a project called Dark Skies, Bright Kids. Each week, a group head out to a local elementary school and do astronomy-related project with the third, fourth, and fifth graders who have joined the astronomy club. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to join the Friday afternoon activities, but I did help out at one of the evening observing sessions on a clear Friday night in October.
Waiting on the sun to go down…
We set up a Galileoscope to look at Jupiter and an 11-inch telescope to look at everything else. The kids arrived and were given glow bracelets so that we could see them in the dark. That was a very good idea, since the kids were so excited to be in their school’s playground in the dark, all they wanted to do was run. And RUN. And play around on the playground equipment. And RUN. A few times we were able to shepherd them back to the telescopes where the other grad students were entertaining the parents, and they would look through and say “Wow!” Kelsey Johnson, our fearless leader on this project, had plenty of worksheets for the students to do, and then they would run off again.
I decided, if you can’t fight them, join them! I joined their game, where they were pretending to be orphans living in the woods together… I was their pet unicorn that could hunt with my horn… really. From there, I could try and tie in astronomy to our game. Kids in the woods need to tell directions, right? Let’s look at the North Star. Well a unicorn is sort of like a horse… with wings… oh look, Pegasus! I could usually entertain them for a bit before they’d run off or turn back to the game. Later, Ryan, another one of the grad students helping out, took some of the kids over to look at another constellation. A few minutes in, they all start telling him about Pegasus. I was shocked… although they had been talking and laughing and running, they were not only paying attention but they were absorbing they information! Kids are amazing. And kudos to those brave teachers that work with them day in and day out.
Colonel [Hal] Bidlack said, “When they say they are selling you something that will save your son or daughter on a patrol, they’ve crossed an insupportable line into moral depravity.”
Someone in that company, ATSC (UK) Ltd, must know that they are selling absolute garbage. According to the article, they have made $85 MILLION lying to people in a way that endangers lives. That’s not just swindling, that’s murder. I almost wish there was a hell for people like that.
*kicks something*
In a related note, so glad that my buddy Will is home from his tour in Baghdad! See you this weekend, dude…
I had long ago promised to write about what came out of Skeptrack at Dragon*Con. It’s taken some time to process, and there have been many other distractions (life, work, etc) but here I finally begin…
I’ve written previously about what it means for me to be a “skeptic” so I guess you could call that “skepticism 101.” So say you are already on board with the whole idea. As Daniel Loxton asked, what do you do next?
One of the simplest things that you can do it just talk to your friends and family about what you think. Don’t be shy when you hear a friend claim that childhood vaccines cause autism. Be genuinely curious when someone wants to tell you their ghost story. It’s easy to rag on homeopathy or make fun of Jenny McCarthy when you know you are among like-minded people at skeptical blogs, forums, and meetings. But eventually, the topics that you care about will come up in conversation with your buddies, and they don’t all read skeptical blogs all day long… I mean…. I’m working!
I’m not confrontational by nature. Grumpy at times, yes, but I’m pretty shy when it comes down to it. (Despite the volume, honestly!) And sure, we all see the productive arguments and unproductive shouting matches that occur online, but real life conversation doesn’t always go that way. The first thing that you can do when someone brings up a topic that you are skeptical about, even passionate about, is listen. I know, it’s hard, sometimes the first thing to come to mind is “WTF, dude, Oprah is a ditz!” Listen to your friend, discuss it like you would anything else. Even on a topic that is as well scientifically validated as the safety of vaccines, just having the right answer doesn’t end the conversation. The science is there, but so are the fears and emotions. The science is there, but it hasn’t been properly communicated to everyone. Most people just want to make up their own minds, and you may be able to plant the seed that leads them to the answer.
Most of the time, you really won’t know the answer. You didn’t personally see their UFO or ghost, you weren’t there when they “cured” themselves with homeopathy. You probably can’t say for sure what they saw or felt or what really cured them. But you do know a few things about the field, so share that. Plant the seed of doubt, let them investigate for themselves. Or help out! I’d love to see a really crazy UFO and try and figure out what it is.
There are times for impassioned, even asshole skepticism. But some of us just can’t pull it off well, and besides, having a beer with your colleagues is probably not that time. Chances are, they aren’t swindling people out of their money with fake cures. They are probably just as curious as you are. And who knows, you may grow your own skeptic! That said, I still cherish the online arguments, even as a spectator. It’s good training for your own critical thinking, and maybe it can help with some of those listening skills I mentioned above.
So, we use the word “skeptic” to describe ourselves, although technically the term is misleading. Skepticism is a process, there is no one way to be a “skeptic.” But we use the word and it’s there and sometimes your friends will ask, “Well what does that mean?” For a while I wasn’t sure what to say. When I was at Dragon*Con at Skeptrack, I asked this question of a bunch of people there, but being scatterbrained as I am, I didn’t write it down or record anything. But a general picture began to emerge… a skeptic is someone who asks questions… a skeptic is a science advocate… a skeptic values critical thinking… a skeptic likes to do their own research and see the evidence. We like to be seen as inquisitive, not curmudgeonly, though the latter is more likely where the stereotype lies. We’re open-minded, not closed-minded, nor are we “conspiracy theorists”, though some of those have tried to co-opt the term.
I tend to hang out with science-types and with grad students. It’s just a function of where I am in my life. In my experience, they are more likely to respond to honest discussion and critical thought, not appeals to emotion. We live and breathe this stuff every day, poking holes in articles once a week in journal club, watching peer-reviewers poke holes in our own work. (Aside: there is nothing “peer” about it when you are a wee student. It’s frakking terrifying!) So maybe I have yet to delve into the world of the believers, but I think there’s plenty to do right here.
I’m a brand new post-doc in astronomy working as part of the CosmoQuest team. My thesis focused on radio astronomy instrumentation. That means, I got to build cool telescopes that will open up new frontiers in the universe. I also love to teach, both in a classroom setting and informally. I'm happy to talk about the universe with anyone who will listen, and I am skeptically curious about all things.
I’m a brand new post-doc in astronomy working as part of the 
