Ionian Enchantment

Carnival of the Africans #8

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:30:00 +0000

I'm rather late on this, but the 8th installment of the Carnival of the Africans is finally out! Simon at Amaneusis has the goods... My picks: Leonie Joubert on pseudoscience warts and all, our host Amaneunsis on an important recent paper about violence and group selection, and subtle shift in emphasis on quantum bollocks.

Go, read!

Quote(s): William James and Winston Churchill on violence

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:14:00 +0000

Two blood-curdling (and, in my rather Hobbesian opinion, accurate) quotes about violence from Winston Churchill and William James:

"The story of the human race is war. Except for brief periods and precarious interludes there has never been peace in the world; and long before history began murderous strife was universal and unending."
– Winston Churchill
"Shall we all commit suicide?" (1924)

"We, the lineal representatives of the successful enactors of one scene of slaughter after another, must, whatever more pacific virtues we may also possess, still carry about with us ready at any moment to burst into flames, the smoldering and sinister traits of character by means of which they lived through so many massacres, harming others, but themselves unharmed."
– William James
Principles of Psychology (1890)

DS Wilson on Evolutionary Psychology and the media

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:23:00 +0000

David Sloan Wilson has a pretty interesting piece in the HuffPo about evolutionary psychology and its portrayal in the media. Wilson argues, among other things, that the study of human behavior from an evolutionary perspective is flourishing and rigorous, but that it is significantly more diverse than sometimes thought. Specifically, he says the term evolutionary psychology has become overly identified with the Tooby & Cosmides school of thought (the “Santa Barbara school”) which Wilson thinks is flawed in several respects. The meat:

How did the blueprint offered by Cosmides and Tooby go wrong? Let me count the ways: 1) They portrayed the mind as a collection of hundreds of special-purpose modules that evolved to solve specific problems in the EEA. 2) Their conception of the EEA was limited to the range of environments occupied by humans during their evolution as a species, which they acknowledged to be diverse. However, it did not stretch back in time to include primate, mammalian and vertebrate adaptations; nor did it stretch forward to include rapid genetic evolution since our hunter-gatherer existence. 3) They emphasized a universal human nature, or rather separate male and female natures, while minimizing the importance of adaptive genetic variation that cuts across both sexes. 4) They dismissed open-ended, domain-general psychological processes as a theoretical impossibility, creating a polarized worldview with "Evolutionary Psychology" at the positive end and "The Standard Social Science Model (SSSM)" at the negative end; 5) Their blueprint had almost nothing to say about culture as an open-ended evolutionary process that can adapt human populations to their current environments. They did not deny the possibility of transmitted culture, but they had almost nothing to say about it. Their most important point was that what seems like transmitted culture can instead be an expression of genetically programmed individual behavioral flexibility (evoked culture).

Ending on a more optimistic note:

Evolution is here to stay as a theory that can help us understand the human condition, along with the rest of the living world. With understanding comes the capacity for improvement. This is not just an idle intellectual pursuit but has consequences for the solution of real-world problems, so the sooner we can advance our understanding the better. One reason that we are just starting is because the term "evolution" became stigmatized early in the 20th century, in the same way that terms such as "sociobiology" and "evolutionary psychology" tend to become stigmatized today. This problem can be avoided by distinguishing particular schools of thought from the more general theory, so that the former can be accepted or rejected on their own merits without questioning the merits of the latter.

Fun with skeptical songs

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 07:31:00 +0000

The most excellent Daniel Loxton (author of the important manifesto "Where do we go from here?" [pdf]) has put together a fun list of freely-available skeptical songs. There are some pretty cool songs, I especially recommend "Carbon Cycle" [mp3] by Hard ’n Phirm and "Cosmic Carl" [mp3] by Dr. SETI...

African science blogrolling for June

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:58:00 +0000

It's been a long time since I've updated the African science and skepticism blogroll, but here it is. (Thanks to James for the hard yards on this one).

New Scientist on AIDS denialism

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:01:00 +0000

New Scientist magazine has a pair of fantastic articles on AIDS denialism: "AIDS denial: a lethal delusion" (by Jonny Steinberg, author of Three Letter Plague) and "Five Myths about HIV and AIDS". Though entirely fringe in the medical literature, AIDS denialism continues to claim lives, so public education -- especially in southern Africa, the epicentre of the pandemic -- is extremely important.

See also: Nicolli Nattrass' fantastic Skeptical Inquirer piece (which I linked to before).

An open letter to the MCC

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:37:00 +0000

The Treatment Action Campaign (an AIDS activist NGO) recently published an important open letter by physicians and academics to the Medical Control Council (South Africa's equivalent of America's FDA) about its failure to adequately regulate quack remedies.

The summary:
"*The Complementary Medicines 2002 call up has resulted in an untenable regulatory hiatus where medicines of unknown quality have flooded the South African market.
*The South African public has been put at risk – not only health-wise but in terms of potentially fruitless expenditure of their disposable income on products which have not been independently assessed.
*This undermines citizens’ rights to bodily and psychological integrity as enshrined in the Constitution of our country.
*It is the Medicines Control Council’s responsibility to regulate all medicines available to the public.
*The Medicines Control Council has failed to ensure that as far as complementary medicines are concerned, their availability is in the public interest, and it has failed to consider “only” these products’ safety, quality and therapeutic efficacy in relation to their effects on the health of South African persons, because it has not required any evidence for these products’ safety, quality and efficacy.
*Based on the Zondi judgment, the Medicines Control Council must resume its statutory obligation to consider all medicinal claims made in the advertising of medicinal products.
*The 2002 call up should be rescinded, and replaced with a notice in terms of Section 19(2) of the Medicines Act – but with the additional provisos of submitting current certificates of analysis and all advertising claims made. A six month period should be stipulated for fulfilment of these requirements."

See also: a news piece on the open letter by Health-e and a blog post on the MCC's regulatory failure by Roy Jobson (one of the signatories).

The return of the Carnival of the Africans

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:14:00 +0000

After a hiatus of a couple of months, the Carnival of the Africans is returning on the 28th of this month at Simon Halliday's Amanuensis. If you're an African science blogger or have blogged about African-related science, please check out the guidelines and then email your submissions to Simon at simon(dot)d[dot]halliday(at)gmail{dot}com.

Also see Simon's call for submissions...

Exploring Ötzi

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 09:00:00 +0000

Discovered in 1991 on a glacier in the Ötztal Alps in Austria, Ötzi the Iceman is a beautifully preserved mummy of a man who died in around 3300 BCE. Amazingly, scientist have pinpointed where he lived (by analyzing the isotopic composition of his teeth), what his last meal was (chamois, red deer and some plants), his possible occupation (copper smelter), among many other details. Importantly, it was also determined that he was a victim of violence: an arrowhead was lodged in his shoulder, there were bruises and cuts to various parts of his body, and he apparently received a blow to the head.

The European Academy Bozen/Bolzano recently released a fantastic photoscan of his entire body, which allows anyone to explore and analyze him in detail. I particularly recommend checking out his tattoos -- interesting stuff indeed.

Video: Being open minded

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:44:00 +0000

A fantastic video (embedded below, or click here) on open mindedness and critical thinking. A must see, seriously.

Open-mindedness
by totocacapouet

Technological Quarterly

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:50:00 +0000

The latest edition of the Economist’s always-fascinating Technological Quarterly is out. Highlights: combating malaria by shooting down mosquitoes with lasers (no, really), a lengthy but worthwhile piece on Marty Cooper the father of the mobile phone, the benefits of building a smart electricity grid, shades of Knight Rider with smart and connected cars, and using the ubiquitous cellphone as sensors (to answer scientific questions, respond to emergencies and so on).

Leonie Joubert book launch

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:51:00 +0000

Unfortunately, South Africa has few good science journalists. Luckily for us, we do have the most excellent Leonie Joubert, who not only covers science well, but is also a card-carrying skeptic. The author of two previous books, Boiling Point and Scorched (which I reviewed here), Joubert has a new book coming out entitled Invaded: The biological invasion of South Africa.

If you're anywhere near Cape Town on June 13th, go attend the book launch at the Cape Town Book Fair! More details are here.

Oh, noes! Rational arguments!

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:29:00 +0000

I've linked to the always fantastic Onion a number of times now on this blog, but this article might be the best yet. It's just wonderful. Entitled "Oh, No! It's Making Well-Reasoned Arguments Backed With Facts! Run!", it beautifully sums up the tactics and mindset of quacks, pseudoscientists, religious fanatics and their fellow idiots. It's demolition by satire.

A snippet:

Gah! It's calmly and evenhandedly deflecting everything we're throwing at it. Our deductive fallacies are only making it stronger! Wait…what on earth is it doing now? Oh, no, it has sources! My God, it's defending itself with ironclad sources! Someone stop the citing! Please, please stop the citing!

The language is impenetrable! For all that is good and holy, backpedal with all your might!

Video: Ten things you didn't know about orgasm (NSFW)

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Fri, 22 May 2009 13:39:00 +0000

Mary Roach, science writer and author of Bonk: The Curios Coupling of Science and Sex, gave an excellent and funny talk at TED earlier this year about the science of sex. (Embedded below, or click here). Warning, this is mildly NSFW.

Oh. Hold out for the pig farmers bit, it's priceless...

The follies of science journalism

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Thu, 21 May 2009 11:46:00 +0000

Ph.D Comics at its best... (click to enlarge).

The longest ellipsis...

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Thu, 21 May 2009 09:59:00 +0000

(Note: this post is shamelessly unoriginal – John Lynch did all the hard yards on this one).

The most annoying thing about creationists, I submit, is not that they’re wrong (and they are) but that they are often astonishingly intellectually dishonest. One manifestation of this dishonesty is their wont to quote mine, and the nadir of quote mining is constructing unfavorable quotes by using absurdly long ellipses. John Lynch of Stranger Fruit uncovered a doozy of this genre a while ago. Attempting to discredit Darwin by linking him to Marx, social Darwinism and the Nazis, Edward T. Oakes writes:

Darwin actually, if unwittingly, promulgated the charter for all later social Darwinists: "Let the strongest live and the weakest die... Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows."

As many of you no doubt noticed, there is something decidedly odd about this Darwin quote. And this is it: the first part of the quote comes from the last bit of the last sentence of Chapter 7 of On the Origin of Species. And the second part? The (famous) last paragraph of Chapter 14. Yes, that’s right: seven chapters – or almost 200 pages – later. Astounding, isn’t it?

The more charitable among you may object that perhaps Oakes got the quote from another creationist (from the book he's reviewing?) and thus maybe he’s guilty only of bad scholarship, not bona vide intellectual dishonesty. I would vehemently disagree: pretending to know when one does not is an especially vile form of intellectual dishonesty and if Oakes is not guilty of deliberate deception, then he’s certainly guilty this intellectual fakery. His claim, after all, concerns Darwin’s beliefs, and intellectual honesty demands, surely, that anyone making such claims demonstrate enough familiarity with Darwin’s most famous work to recognize its most famous passage and notice it doesn’t really go with the first bit of the quote.

All of this, of course, is strictly irrelevant to whether the theory of evolution by natural selection is true or not. Even if it were the case that Darwin was a sadistic wife-beating pedophilic Nazi bent on genocide, it wouldn’t change the fact that his theory is true. Nice guys don’t always finish first...

Oh, and some fun proving both sides can play this ellipses game...

"Luke... I am your... father".
-Colossians 4 :14, Genesis 27:31, Genesis 2:24

Gladwell on David versus Goliath

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Thu, 14 May 2009 08:21:00 +0000

It's now pretty much a tradition on this blog to link to all Gladwell's recent articles, and I see no reason to stop. In his latest piece, "How David Beats Goliath: When underdogs break the rules", Gladwell argues that when underdogs beat champions it is (usually? often?) the triumph of effort over ability and unconventional tactics over conventional ones. An excerpt:

We tell ourselves that skill is the precious resource and effort is the commodity. It’s the other way around. Effort can trump ability—legs, in Saxe’s formulation, can overpower arms—because relentless effort is in fact something rarer than the ability to engage in some finely tuned act of motor coordination.

See also: Gladwell's response on his blog to criticism of this piece.

Goldacre on Rath: Or Quackery Smacker vs. Charlatan

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Thu, 14 May 2009 06:01:00 +0000

As you may recall, the most excellent Ben Goldacre was sued for libel (along with the Guardian) by the notorious quack Matthias Rath. As a result, Goldacre couldn’t include the shocking tale of Rath’s activities in South Africa in his superb recent book, Bad Science. Luckily, Goldacre has now made the excluded chapter freely available, and I very highly recommend reading it. My favorite bit:

Despite the extremes of this case, not one single alternative therapist or nutritionist, anywhere in the world, has stood up to criticise any single aspect of the activities of Matthias Rath and his colleagues. In fact, far from it: he continues to be fêted to this day… The alternative therapy movement as a whole has demonstrated itself to be so dangerously, systemically incapable of critical self-appraisal that it cannot step up even in a case like that of Rath: in that count I include tens of thousands of practitioners, writers, administrators and more. This is how ideas go badly wrong.

War in prehistory

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 13:19:00 +0000

I blogged a while back about the Evolutionary Perspectives on War conference that happened earlier this year, and now I see science-writer John Horgan has a piece out in Scientific American covering some of the highlights of a very similar looking conference. A titbit:

As deep as scientists peer into human history and prehistory, they have found evidence of violence. That was the bad news from 17 researchers in anthropology and other fields at “The Evolution of Human Aggression: Lessons for Today’s Conflicts” conference, held at the University of Utah at the end of February. The good news is that much can be done to reduce lethal conflict in the world today. As participant Frans B. M. de Waal of Emory University put it, humans are not “destined to wage war forever.”

Blogging break at an end

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 13:16:00 +0000

The meatspace has taken over of late, but I'm sure you all will be overjoyed to hear that my unannounced blogging break is now officially over. I think it did me good but I'm very keen to start blogging again.

Dennett in South Africa

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:37:00 +0000

So I advertized Daniel Dennett's talk at UKZN the other day, but if you couldn't go, some good news: Dennett is giving a couple of more talks in South Africa in the next week. First he'll lecture at SciFest (in Grahamstown) on April 28th (program) on "How materialism transforms our understanding of consciousness", then he'll deliver the TB Davis Memorial Lecture on March 31st at the University of Cape Town on "What should you be free to teach your children about religion?" (press release) and, finally, on April 1st he's at Stellenbosch University with a talk entitled "From animal to person" (press release).

If you're in any of these towns -- go to these events! You will not be disappointed.

SA blog awards -- go vote

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 07:41:00 +0000

The finalists have been announced for the SA blog awards and, though I didn't make, there is good news: Angela of The Skeptic Detective did! She's up for the best SA Science and Technology blog. Please go vote for her! (Note: you need to submit your email address and then click on a confirmation email). Unfortunately, the Sci-Tech category is light on the Sci and heavy on the Tech, so Angela is the only science blog in sight, which is even more reason to vote for her...

Oh. And full disclosure: Angela is my girlfriend. So, I might be biased.

Carnival of the Africans -- call for submissions

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 10:16:00 +0000

It's almost time for the 8th Carnival of the Africans, the premier (and only...) carnival dedicated to African science and skepticism. And... it'll be hosted right here on Ionian Enchantment! Please check out the guidelines, and then send your submissions to me at ionian.enchantment@gmail.com.

Get writing folks, let's make this edition the best one yet!

Clay Shirky on newspapers and the web

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 09:50:00 +0000

Ok, so this is seriously off topic, but Clay Shirky's post about the impact of the web on newspapers, and the revolution in how we manage information more generally, is an absolute must read. Shirky argues, in brief, that there is nothing natural or inevitable about how journalism is current conducted -- it's simply a product of the economics of the printing press. And, rather disconcertingly, we simply don't know -- can't know -- what system will replace the current one. A snippet:

Round and round this goes, with the people committed to saving newspapers demanding to know “If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?” To which the answer is: Nothing. Nothing will work. There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke.

With the old economics destroyed, organizational forms perfected for industrial production have to be replaced with structures optimized for digital data. It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves — the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public — has stopped being a problem.

Dennett in Durbs

Ionian.Enchantment@gmail.com (Michael Meadon) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 07:08:00 +0000

The great Daniel Dennett, cognitive scientist and philosopher of mind, will be speaking at the University of KwaZulu Natal on Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 at 17:20 for 17:30. The venue is at the Howard College campus (map) in the L5 Lecture Theater (map).

All are welcome!