Assessing email

Here’s a useful formula devised by Jessa to evaluate creationist hate mail, called the Creationist Rant Absurdity Phenomenon Index:

CRAP Index = M + 10(µ + Ω + I) + 10(F + σ + ρ) + (H)(1.0 x 106)

Where:
M = number of words in all capitals
µ = number of misspelled words
Ω = number of superfluous quotes around words or phrases
I = number of exclamation points
F = number of factually incorrect statements
σ = number of times the words “Darwinist,” “evolutionist,” etc. are used (double points for “evilutionist”)
ρ = number of insults
H = number of statements that the recipient is going to/will burn in/will rot in Hell

Somebody needs to code up a mail plug-in that will automatically score incoming mail for me…although I fear that F, σ, and ρ are probably difficult for software to recognize at this point. I also think there ought to be extra points for sequential exclamation points. Maybe we need a simplified index that is machine-calcuable.

Another letter from a department of education

There are a few novelties in this one: a) it’s in Florida, not Texas; b) it’s a creationist in the department advocating creationism; and c) she didn’t get fired for writing it. You can read the whole thing at Florida Citizens for Science, but here’s the stupid part.

The science standards that are in place now do not include the word Evolution anywhere. In fact, they are ambiguous enough that the districts and schools in Florida have been able to teach evolution as a theory along With other theories. In addition to that, if these new standards are adopted, the new instructional materials adopted and placed in our schools will be aligned to these standards, which means that our new materials will explicitly teach evolution – and not as a theory!!!

The current Florida standards are weak and vague, and this twit is complaining…because it leaves the teachers the latitude to actually teach a fundamental concept of biology. I guess their goal in Florida is to close the loophole. And of course it’s rather obvious that she has no understanding of the meaning of the scientific term “theory”.

Man, the quality of the people who are ending up on state school boards is depressing.

Student Post: More on (not) sleeping with the fishies

My fish have (theoretically) been sleep deprived for three days. I can’t tell much of a difference. If anything they seem more active than the other fish, but they do have to constantly outswim a rotating ruler and their tank is pretty small. There is also a bright lamp on a timer that turns on and off every 30 minutes, so even if I can’t prevent sleep I know they’re regularly disturbed.

This is what the set up looks like:

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I’m testing the sleepless group against control fish in a behavioral assay. I wanted to use a T-maze adopted from Mark Antimony’s experiment but the initial results were dismal. It took some fish over ten minutes to find the food reward (during which I once left to find a food reward of my own. Sweet sweet NutterButters…).

So… I modified the test. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that now I’m prodding the fish with a pen and timing how long it takes them to “escape” (go to a protected side of the tank). The results are definitely cleaner than the ones from the maze, but I still don’t think I’ll be able to describe a difference between the groups. What is cool is to see the way fish learn. Individuals generally get faster each trail; I think that trend should be significant.

Sutdent Report: Zebrafish Again? What Did You Expect?

Wow, it’s been a little while since I last blogged. I’ve been busy trying to stain the eyes of my zebra fish, but still with little luck. My goal is to dye the retinas and their resulting optic nerves and neural pathways of developing zebrafish. After staining the retinas and optic nerve, I was going to keep a group under constant intense lighting conditions, another group under a regular 12 hour dark and 12 hour light cycle, while raising yet another group in complete darkness for 6 days after fertilization. I would then test their visual processing skills by rotating a stimulus around their tank and seeing whether or not members of each group followed the stimulus. However, I haven’t been able to do even one run through as I can’t get my fish to live long enough or stain them early enough.

I’ve been using self made micro spotters to inject dye into the retinas of these developing fish, but there are a lot of problems that I’m still running into. One of the largest is that I can’t seem to get the retinas stained until the fish are at least 2 or 3 days old (post fertilization). By this time a lot of early development in the retina as well as neural construction of pathways to the optic tectum and lateral geniculate (some of the primary visual sensory areas of the fish brain) have already occurred. To make matters worse, the fish often times don’t survive past four or five days after staining. This might be due to poor maintenance (whoops), but they should survive if I simply feed them and change their water every other day. I really think that I might be poking through the retina and damaging other tissues when I stain with my micro spotters. I know there are many fancy pants scientists reading this right now who could do the experiment in their sleep, but I guess I’m still just figuring out what doing science is really all about (which is why I love this class).
~Bright Lights

Wake ’em up!

This is an amusing reversal. Connecticut Valley Atheists put up a Winter Solstice sign in the town square, in the same place that was reserved for Hanukkah displays and nativity scenes, and while some people think it’s just fine and fair, others are freaking out.

On Friday, a town crew erected a larger Christmas tree, 10 feet from the atheists’ three-sided display. Mayor Jason L. McCoy said that the intent was not to block the view of the atheists’ display, but to place a larger Christmas tree in a prominent position in the park. He said he directed town staff to purchase a larger Christmas tree and to “find a spot in the middle of the green. That’s just where it happened to be.”

Asked if placement of the tree was intended to obscure the atheists’ display, McCoy responded, “Of course not.” When told that it appeared to be blocking the display, McCoy said, “Oh, really; that’s unfortunate.”

The mayor says he’s reconsidering the city’s policy. Some of the religious leaders are saying it’s a good thing because it’s making people talk about their faith. The wacky ones are claiming they see a cross in the atheist’s sign.

It’s so darn easy to blow a narrow mind.

There are more photos of the sign at the Connecticut Valley Atheists site.

Report from the Cephalopod Appreciation Society

Hey, somebody went to the Cephalopod Appreciation Society show in Seattle — and Tikistitch came back with pictures! I love the idea of suede squid draped decoratively about the house, but at $2500 each they are a little bit out of my price range.

She has also discovered a Japanese fashion doll with a pet Cthulhu. It sounds neat, but ewww. The Chtulhu figure is cute and cuddly, but the doll…that noseless face, the tiny mouth that can only be good for sucking up fluids, the huge insectoid eyes taking up half her face. <shudder> It would give me nightmares.