Cephalopod Awareness Day Alert #2

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We have another round of cephalopodic loveliness. Send me more!

  • Chris Clarke contemplates the word “sepia”.

  • Why chiropractors shouldn’t mess around with invertebrates.

  • Kevin submits the ubiquitous octopus vs. shark movie.

  • How can something so cute be angry? (Oh, man, I hear that one all the time.)

  • Poulperia. I think it’s a variant on Santeria.

  • Roger Burnham sends us some movies: Caribbean Reef Squid 001, Caribbean Reef Squid 002, and Common Octopus 001

  • Octopuppy. It’s art!

  • More cephalopoetry, from the Cuttlefish Poet:

    A Cuttlefish Limerick or Three

    The cuttlefish: Squid-like, you think?
    Just a cephalopod in the drink?
    Then you also should know it
    Refers to a poet,
    Or any who hide in their ink.

    For writers who think that they’re odd
    And ignored, by indifferent God,
    Don’t allow yourself–perish
    The thought, and just cherish
    Your label of “Cephalopod”

    For today, there will be no rebuttal–
    We will celebrate, loud and unsubtle!
    Just the same as each squid
    And each octopus did,
    We’ll shake all of our legs, and our cuttle!

    A Cuttlefish Double-Dactyl

    Inkily, thinkily,
    Deepwater cuttlefish
    Hide in their ink (to a
    Poet, that’s odd)

    Writing, you see, is not
    Characteristically
    Part of the life of a
    Cephalopod.

    the classic Ogden Nash–

    THE OCTOPUS

    Tell me, O Octopus, I begs
    Is those things arms, or is they legs?
    I marvel at thee, Octopus;
    If I were thou, I’d call me Us.)

Thoughts on a Creation Science Presentation

A two hour presentation was given at a local church last night by creation scientist whom I won’t name. This presentation overall lacked direction and seemed to jump from one topic to another without really stopping to make a point. About a third of the presentation was about dinosaur diversity, talking briefly about neat features that a variety of dinosaurs have. Various weather phenomena that could have caused the flood described in Genesis were vaguely presented without any solid background or logic. Fossils were also discussed, again without really any rhyme or reason.

There were two highlights thorughout the evening. The first was when the presenter enthusiastically exclaimed, “I do believe that there were fire-breathing dragons!” From behind me a women shouted an equally enthusiastic, “Amen!” The second highlight of the presentation was the time allotted for questions at the end when PZ Myers, who had been sitting quietly in the front row throughout the entire hour and a half presentation, raised his hand and fired one off. For some reason, this reminded me of the nationally televised Bush vs. Kerry campaign debates of 2004. Whenever Bush was asked a question, he seemed to stutter ignorantly all over his podium for a few moments and then say some elaborate nonsense that didn’t really provide an answer.

To me, trying to scientifically explain an interpretation of the Bible, an interpretation that may not even be accurate, completely misses the meaning of having faith. Some of my fellow neurobio students agreed with me that science and the Bible should not have to be in opposition. It’s a shame that some creation scientists deliberately ignore valid research in areas such as glacial geology and evolutionary ecology to formulate what they consider to be a scriptural explanation of how the Earth came about. The Bible does not define the chemical and genetic specifics of the origin of this planet and the life existing on it. So is creation science attempting to make the Bible say something it doesn’t? Perhaps people have been set in their interpretations for so long, that it’s too difficult to accept that current research in science (that may not jibe with these long held interpretations) does not have to disagree with the Bible.

Play whack-a-mole with Lee Siegel

You have to read this essay to believe it: Militant atheists are wrong. It’s a collection of what I call indignant pieties — “how dare atheists challenge my precious faith!” — and it’s also distilled, concentrated, essence of stupid, painful to read and even more agonizing to have to waste time arguing against. But then, it’s by Lee Siegel. Lee Siegel. There’s a man who has a lot of courage, exposing himself on the internet again. Siegel is the amazing hypocrite who denounced the ethics of the blogosphere, and then cobbled up a sock puppet ( remember “Sprezzatura”?) who went trolling around the blogosphere singing the praises of Lee Siegel. Fortunately, I don’t have to suffer over his nonsense too much — Melissa takes a bullet for the rest of us, stuffs Siegel’s brain in the toilet bowl, and flushes.

I do want to touch on one bizarre claim he makes while swirling down the drain, though.

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Cephalopod Awareness Day Alert #1

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Here’s the first volley of cephalopod recognition posts I’ve received. Do send me more, and I’ll put them up later. Do me a favor and put “Cephalopod Awareness” in your subject line so I can sort them out more easily.

Tom DeRosa in Morris

As promised, I attended Tom DeRosa’s creationism talk this evening, and as expected, it wasn’t very informative but it was mildly entertaining. He’s a good, enthusiastic speaker — he’s just unbelievably wrong. We might have a recording later on; Skatje was taping it, but it was just with our little home digital video recorder, and we don’t have any idea what the quality will be like, yet. I’m letting her handle the A/V stuff on this one.

Anyway, it wasn’t quite what I expected. I was thinking it might be based on his recent book, Evolution’s Fatal Fruit, which blames every social ill of the last 150 years on wicked ol’ Darwinism. It was altogether different: he gave a talk on “God’s Amazing Animals,” which was far, far fluffier and harder to grapple with.

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Student Post: More on Gender Dominance–An Evolutionary Psychological Approach

I have some thoughts on the topic of male and female dominance brought up by Blue_Expo.

In fact, it was the topic of a paper for my Evolution of Human Aggression class…

Females are under some different sexual selection pressures than males stemming from the fact that they are the limited sex. They can only produce a finite number of offspring and are heavily invested in their progeny. Perhaps this is the basis for the female dominance social hierarchies observed in bonobos (Parish et al., 1994) and hyenas (Jenks, 1995). In both these systems, offspring inherit their mother’s rank and a mother is willing to engage in physical combat or establish social coalitions designed to elevate their offspring in rank. Because rank determined ability to procure resources, survive and reproduce, and females had high parental investment, there was sufficient evolutionary pressure for females to evolve the capacity to establish dominance even over males on their offsprings’ behalf.

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