You have to watch this weird and engrossing video about Robert White, the neurosurgeon whose goal was to achieve a total body transplant. He’s the guy who was doing the monkey head transplants: cutting the head off one monkey, and sewing it onto the body of another…and it’s hard to get more Herbert West than that.
I’m afraid the freakiest part of the video for me, though, was that he has a reserved table at the local McDonalds.
I have a t-shirt with those words on it; it’s from the Museum of Jurassic Technology exhibit of letters to Mount Wilson Observatory, a fascinating collection of crackpot letters written to astronomers between 1915 and 1935, containing the astounding theories created by people around the world, who all thought they could revolutionize science with their insights. It’s an exhibit well worth browsing—here’s one sample letter.
To whom it may concern:
This is to certify, That I have found the Key To all Existance. And all I ask of any one Is for them to read What I am about to say. Because it is not my purpose to tell What you already know. And consequently the proof Shall follow and establish My work to make it law.
For the key to all existance Is the key to the Law By which all things Come into existance and therefore my word Is the key to that law to be verified by proof Listen therefore to what I say As follows:
The Moon Is practically all Water frozen or Ice It was formed By water evaporating From the earth Which arose and gathered Between the Earth and Sun It is hollow Like a pumpkin The inside is composed of that part of the air known as Nitrogen And very very cold Consequently its water is frozen.
If the crust of the moon Was removed, it would be a Sun bright enough To destroy the earth. There is no life upon the moon, but Without the moon There would be no life upon the earth.
And it goes on, at length.
Now Pascal Boyer has put together a brief ontology of crackpottery. He seems to have rediscovered the Salem Hypothesis — ‘scientists’ who claim to have disproven evolution are often actually engineers — in a rather more general form, and has a few other generalizations, like that all crackpots are male, that are only roughly true (I can think of many exceptions: famous ones would be Madame Blavatsky and Ayn Rand). Come to think of it, though, most but not all of my raving mad anti-fan mail does come from males…
It’s an interesting read, if you find yourself fascinated by the psychopathology of pseudoscience.
Let’s smash this silly poll about the status of the US.
Offended – America is still a Christian nation – 78.4%
Agree – No one religion is more important – 10.0%
Agree – Our country is not based on religious beliefs – 9.3%
Don’t care – 2.3%
Crazy. There’s something these people need to understand: that the nation and its government are secular does not mean that individuals cannot be religious. Similarly, this is not an atheist country, but that doesn’t mean a citizen can’t be an atheist.
Dave Arneson, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, has died.
The CFI World Congress had Michael Ruse speak on science education and religion, which I could have told anyone would be a ghastly mistake. The guy has got some very peculiar notions that, if more widely accepted, would destroy science education in this country. Larry Moran was annoyed to find that scientists aren’t being asked to speak on this issue, while Kristine Harley seems appalled at some of his specific answers.
Then, Michael Ruse drew the analogy that a science teacher who taught evolution without mentioning the Bible or God, but nevertheless caused a conflict within a student who was indoctrinated by creationism, was attacking that student’s beliefs (actually that student’s parents’ beliefs) and therefore violating the Constitution!
Using this argument, Michael Ruse then compared the above science teacher to a teacher who taught the students that “some animals with certain genitals are inferior to other animals with different genitals,” and then claimed, “Oh, I said nothing about men and women! I didn’t teach one was inferior to another!” Now, I ask you, is that analogy apt? Considering I was the only woman who asked a question, and it didn’t get answered?
Well, a man asked him if a teacher taught that the value of pi was 3.14 but a parent believes that it is three (as it is in the Bible), if the teacher was, according to Ruse, violating the Constitution. Ruse said yes! (Then he attempted to spin it and accused Tabash again of being dishonest.)
Then he said, “I agree with Eddie Tabash! I don’t want The Flood taught in schools!” ignoring the obvious fact that, by what he claimed above, any teacher teaching geology would, according to Ruse, be attacking theology, rendering the teaching of geology “unconstitutional” and allowing that parent to block the subject or remove the child.
See what I mean? If we interpreted Constitutional restriction on the endorsement of religion in the classroom to mean that we could never teach anything that contradicts a religion somewhere, we could teach nothing at all.
The races aren’t quite over, but the good news is that the four non-creationists running for the Lincoln board of education have successfully advanced to the general election. Don’t forget to vote on 5 May!
Sad news: I was not able to make it to Miller’s talk at St. Catherine’s last night. We’re down to one car right now, and the choice was between me indulging myself with a long drive and a Ken Miller talk at the end of it, or my wife could have the vehicle so she could do the responsible thing and go to work. She won.
However, I have received some email about it (maybe I’ll get permission to post some of it), and there is one account on the web. It sounds like it was about what I expected: almost entirely good stuff, with a few wacky bits around the edges about his weird cult’s beliefs. He did have the advantage of one creationist in the Q&A throwing him one of their softball questions…usually, the creationists don’t bother to come in the door at my talks, so I’m a little jealous.
If anyone else managed to make it, tell us about it.
This looks like fun, but it’s a bit of drive for me: Steven Schlozman will be giving a talk on the neuropsychology of zombies. He’s talking about levels of activity in the brain and modeling of behavior, which could be interesting — fantasy and horror can be useful tools to get people interested in digging deeper into biology.
Where I always get stuck in any scientific examination of the entirely imaginary phenomenon of zombies, however, is the biochemistry and physiology. They just can’t work. They’re using meat to generate motion, but the properties of meat that can cause contraction/relaxation are dependent on a biochemistry that requires fuel and oxygen. Dead meat doesn’t do work! You just have to surrender to the premise and go with the story, because there’s no way it can be rationalized.
TED talks are rather mixed in quality, but this is a good one: Bonnie Bassler talking about bacteria, bacterial communication, and even squid. Of course, even the squid are vehicles for culturing bacteria…
