Making libraries safe havens for the ignorant once again

A Canadian school board has decided to remove Philip Pullman‘s books from its schools’ shelves because people complained that the author is an atheist. This is a remarkable objection, obviously. I mean, we don’t see school boards screaming to remove Chuck Colson’s books from the shelves because the author is a convicted felon, which seems to me to be a much more serious indicator of moral turpitude than atheism, nor do we see a call to eject books by Ann Coulter because she is incredibly stupid, and is therefore a poor role model for students. It’s just atheism that spurs this objection.

I think we ought to run with it. The school board didn’t go far enough. Let’s purge school libraries of all books by atheists.

[Read more…]

Student Report: All I Want for Christmas is Synaesthesia

Today I’m looking at synaesthesia, but more specifically lexical-gustatory synaesthesia in which certain phonemes (smallest unit of speech such as the /l/ sound in jelly) trigger specific tastes. For example, in Jamie Ward and Julia Simner’s (2003) report, Lexical-gustatory synaesthesia: linguistic and conceptual factors, a case study was done on a forty year old business man who reported tasting specific tastes in response to certain phonemes. In this case the man reported tasting cake when the phoneme /k/ was used in a word. Synaesthesia is thought to occur due to the crossing over or connection of neurons in certain areas of the brain that regulate and process senses. However, there are differing theories as to how this arises.

One idea is that certain neural connections linking sensory areas are not destroyed in infant stages of development as done in normal development. Synesthetes therefore link one sensation with another because connections are not destroyed. The second theory is that, rather than sensory areas in the brain being directly connected, they are connected through neural pathways in higher processing areas. For instance, instead of just hearing a phoneme and having just any taste sensation, it is the processing of the sequences of phoneme in the word used that links to specific learned schemas connected to the phonemes leading then toward a specific taste. Ward and Simner examined this in their case study.

Through documentation of tastes stimulated by specific words and phoneme triggers, Ward and Simner found that their data supported the latter of the two theories. The largest support comes from the idea that the subject’s tastes are specific for certain learned phoneme association rather than just random association of tastes to arbitrary phonemes. For example, as stated earlier, certain phonemes consistently trigger specific tastes such as the phoneme /k/ and the taste of cake. Also, the use of semantics in the sensory process is a strong argument for higher processing connections as food names exhibit their tastes (cabbage triggers the taste of cabbage). Much of this may be because certain patterns of phonemes can trigger specific tastes that have the same sequence of phonemes. So college, having the phoneme sequence /edg/ triggers the taste of sausage which also contains the phoneme sequence /edg/. These associations are done through higher processing which is learned throughout life, supporting a connection through higher processing areas of the brain rather than direct connection between sensory areas.

Although the idea of a direct connection between sensory areas from birth is not disproved by the study, it has supported that there is higher processing connections involved that have developed through learning. There is still much work in the field of synaesthesia, and with any luck, it will lead us to a better understanding of how our brains develop and process information. But despite all this, the best thing to do right now if you are not a lexical-gustatory synesthete is eat leftover turkey, potatoes (cheesy or mashed), and some pumpkin pie. Happy holidays.
~Bright Lights

So now I must go

I mentioned that I should probably attend the odious John West’s talk at the U of Minnesota next Friday, and Rick Schauer has stepped up to the plate and provided compelling motivation.

To help make it easier for you to attend West’s talk, PZ…I’ll sponsor a
Pharyngula Fellowship event at the UM Campus Club.

I’m talking free-beer and munchies to you and any other Pharyngulaites
reading this from 5:30-6:45 at the Club. We then all walk from Coffmann to
Nicholson and confront the poor sap in unison. We’ll make more plans as
time passes.

Free beer? I thought this was a myth, a hoary legend of something truly impossible. Maybe there is a god.

Seriously, though, this is a brilliant idea. One of our disadvantages in these kinds of events is that the creationists will truck over church-loads of true believers, and the science side goes in outnumbered. Organizing a social event for skeptics beforehand is an excellent scheme to motivate a turnout that is more critically-minded — it doesn’t even require a generous philanthropist to host the fellowship, although we certainly won’t turn down free beer.

So yes, now I will definitely be there. I urge other Twin Cities Pharyngula readers to show up, too. If we come prepared with arguments against West’s thesis, that evolution dehumanizes society and Darwin is therefore responsible for the errors of eugenics, and share our perspectives in friendly conversation, we’ll also be more effective in the Q&A in the talk.

If you aren’t in the Twin Cities, but are having various creationists show up to harangue your citizenry, think about this simple idea as a model: host a pre-talk social event and get the science-minded locals to turn up. I’m not at all keen to go listen to another Discovery Institute liar, but the opportunity to bend an elbow with a group of smart people? Count me in.

The logic that makes him confident history will remember him as the man who brought peace to Iraq

Since George W. Bush no longer owns a baseball team, he can take credit for whoever wins the World Series this year. After all, somebody will win despite his absence.

George W. Bush is a friend of the oil industry who has shown little interest in cultivating research into alternative energy or conservation—therefore, when (or if) someone develops a strategy for providing energy as the oil supply declines, George’s heroic boosterism for oil will be remembered as the stimulus for the future.

The Bush administration dallied when Katrina struck, but New Orleans is still there, and George W. Bush now deserves full credit for the brave efforts of Louisiana’s citizens to rebuild.

This Orwellian “logic”, that individuals who neglect or oppose an endeavor are to later be rewarded with accolades for their hindrance, comes to mind on reading this ridiculously effulgent piece praising Bush for the recent stem cell breakthrough.

I believe that many of these exciting “alternative” methods would not have been achieved but for President Bush’s stalwart stand promoting ethical stem-cell research. Indeed, had the president followed the crowd instead of leading it, most research efforts would have been devoted to trying to perfect ESCR and human-cloning research — which, despite copious funding, have not worked out yet as scientists originally hoped.

So thank you for your courageous leadership, Mr. President. Because of your willingness to absorb the brickbats of the Science Establishment, the Media Elite, and weak-kneed Republican and Democratic politicians alike — we now have the very real potential of developing thriving and robust stem-cell medicine and scientific research sectors that will bridge, rather than exacerbate, our moral differences over the importance and meaning of human life.

This is insane. The work that led to understanding the way to switch somatic cells into pluripotency required work on embryonic stem cells—the research Bush opposed. That scientists found ways to work around the Bush restrictions does not rebound to the credit of the man who threw up obstacles. This is also not a medical breakthrough at all: it opens the doors for basic research into how cells develop and differentiate (which may, of course, lead to medical advances), but to claim this develops “stem-cell medicine” is exactly wrong.

Reading that over-the-top praise for the man who hindered this progress reminded me so much of Powerline that I suspected John Hindrocket of authoring it…but no, it was my other bête noir, the Discovery Institute and Wesley J. Smith. I should have known. That’s one right wing think tank that has really mastered the art of double-speak.

A couple of live ones

Sometimes the spectacle in the comments can be as fun as the articles. Here are a couple of examples loons trying to address the criticisms directed at their ideas on a couple of blogs.

Larry Moran attended a lecture by a creationist, Kirk Durston. The creationist pulled the usual stunt: cite a few of the multitude of science papers out there, and misrepresent it to support his fallacious claims. Not even Larry is able to have all those papers right there in his forebrain, which allows Durston to briefly pretend to be the voice of authority. Of course, later Larry looks it up and points out the misrepresentations. The fun part is that Durston joins the thread to argue. Durston also objects to having his argument for an omnipotent Intelligent Designer called a “god”.

There’s more fun along the same lines at Scientia Natura: Shalini has a geocentrist on the line. This is hilarious.

What’s particularly amusing is how much alike Durston and the anonymous geocentrist sound: both are completely convinced that the scientific evidence actually supports their ludicrous positions.