Ionian Enchantment

Video(s): They Might Be Giants awesomeness

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:24:00 +0000

They Might Be Giants, in case you don't know, is a truly awesome alternative rock band. (My wife and I were given a CD by them for a wedding gift - I've been a fan ever since). The following two videos - the second correcting the first - illustrates why you, too, should think them awesome...

And...

Direct links are here and here.

Updated: the original version of "Why Does the Sun Shine" is also pretty cool.

It's been a while...

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 20:34:00 +0000

So I haven't blogged in a while - not in nearly 8 months, in fact. The reasons for this are multifarious, but the two most prominent reasons are Consilience (podcasting in very time consuming) and a demanding job. But, I really do miss blogging.

So I will blog again... occasionally at least.

The African science, rationalism and skepticism blogroll for May

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 19:30:00 +0000

This is the updated African science and skepticism blogroll for May 2011... If you know of blogs not listed here, please let me know. Also: add it to your blog! Tweet it! Do a post like this one! (Email me, and I'll send you the HTML).

Note: I generally remove blogs that have been inactive for more than 6 months, so if you're no longer on the list and have resumed blogging, please email me.

The African science, rationalism and skepticism blogroll for April

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Tue, 03 May 2011 11:09:00 +0000

This is the updated African science and skepticism blogroll for April 2011... If you know of blogs not listed here, please let me know. Also: add it to your blog! Tweet it! Do a post like this one! (Email me, and I'll send you the HTML).

Note: I generally remove blogs that have been inactive for more than 6 months, so if you're no longer on the list and have resumed blogging, please email me.

Video: Big History

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 11:49:00 +0000

David Christian, a professor of history at San Diego State University, recently delivered an excellent talk at TED about "big history". The video is embedded below and the direct link is here.

The African science, rationalism and skepticism blogroll for March

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 11:09:00 +0000

This is the updated African science and skepticism blogroll for March 2011... If you know of blogs not listed here, please let me know. Also: add it to your blog! Tweet it! Do a post like this one! (Email me, and I'll send you the HTML).

Note: I generally remove blogs that have been inactive for more than 6 months, so if you're no longer on the list and have resumed blogging, please email me.

Video Aluminum cast of ant nest

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 08:25:00 +0000

One of the most enduringly popular post on this blog is "A cement cast of an entire ant colony", a video of an ant nest cast. Embedded below (direct link) is another video of a beautiful cast, this time made using metal.

(H/T: Mike Breytenbach).

The African science, rationalism and skepticism blogroll for February

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 09:58:00 +0000

This is the updated African science and skepticism blogroll for February 2011... If you know of blogs not listed here, please let me know. Also: add it to your blog! Tweet it! Do a post like this one! (Email me, and I'll send you the HTML).

Note: I generally remove blogs that have been inactive for more than 6 months, so if you're no longer on the list and have resumed blogging, please email me.

Dr. Uba... FAKE

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 14:48:00 +0000

The South African interwebs is up in arms about one Dr. Uba, who apparently offers cash for body parts. In flyers distributed in Johannesburg and a website, Dr. Uba offers "keen cash" for eyes, penises and kidneys and more.

This, understandably, quickly drew a lot of attention. Twitter exploded with outrage, Reddit got in on the act, the police was apparently sniffing around, and I was notified about the site via email and Facebook by several independent sources. Since human body parts are sometimes used for "muti" (traditional African medicine) and since this kind of quackery flourishes in South Africa, alas, Dr. Uba existing didn't strike me as impossible. But, as I've pointed out before, doubt will set you free. With some ninja internet skills and the help of several friends, I manage to uncover that Dr. Uba is nothing more than a guerrilla marketing campaign for the upcoming South African horror-film "Night Drive" (a trailer is here).

To make a long, convoluted story very short... The first indication that Dr. Uba wasn't real was that the Whois for the site revealed it was registered to one Jonathan Merry (this is he, I think) who works for a design / marketing company. Additionally, if you phoned Dr. Uba's clinic, all you got was voicemail. Much more significantly, the Whois description of the site is "spoof site of fake doctor". That confirmed the site is a fake, but not why it was being faked. Contacting Mr. Merry revealed few additional details (he was constrained by his client, apparently), so the motives for site remained hidden. Then, rather anticlimactically, the site was edited so that clicking on any of the links showed:

Video: Optogenitics is Nature's Method of the Year

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 14:43:00 +0000

Long-time readers will remember a guest post by my friend Hugh Pastoll about optogenetics. I didn't catch it at the time, but Nature declared optogentics its 'Method of the Year' for 2010. An explanatory video below (direct link):

(Video found via Ed Yong).

Video: Hymn to evolution sung by an innocent child

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 08:18:00 +0000

Genius.

Evolution Made Us All from Ben Hillman on Vimeo.

Picture: Sexual Psychology (summarized)

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 01:04:00 +0000

The African science, rationalism and skepticism blogroll for January

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 08:07:00 +0000

The updated African science and skepticism blogroll for January... If you know of blogs not listed here, please let me know. Also: add it to your blog! Tweet it! Do a post like this one! (Email me, and I'll send you the HTML).

Note: I generally remove blogs that have been inactive for more than 6 months, so if you're no longer on the list and have resumed blogging, please email me.

An evolutionary psychology blog (worth reading)

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 11:26:00 +0000

Two years ago I was excited by the launch of the first blog by a major evolutionary psychologist - Satoshi Kanazawa's The Scientific Fundamentalist. Unfortunately, it turned out Kanazawa is batshit insane and often face-palmingly wrong, so my search for a blog by a reasonable evolutionary psychologist continued. Luckily, a while back the interwebs provided: Rob Kurzban's ingeniously entitled Evolutionary Psychology Blog hosted by the equally ingeniously entitled journal Evolutionary Psychology. Being twice shy and all that, I didn't want to recommend Kurzban's blog before I gave it a good long look. Now that I have, I can say Kurzban's blog is well worth reading.

So... check it out.

Quote: The scientific method

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 15:09:00 +0000

The following is a rather neat expiation of the scientific method. While it leaves a great deal out (institutions, the social nature of science, etc.), it's damn good nonetheless. The writer is John D. Barrow and the quote is taken from his essay "Simple Reality: From Simplicity to Complexity - And Back Again", published in Seeing Further: The Story of Science & The Royal Society:

Laws reflect the existence of patterns in Nature.We might even define science as the search for those patterns. We observe and document the world in all possible ways; but while this data-gathering is necessary for science, it is not sufficient. We are not content simply to acquire a record of everything that is, or has ever happened, like cosmic stamp collectors. Instead, we look for patterns in the facts, and some of those patterns we have come to call the laws of Nature, while others have achieved only the status of by-laws. Having found, or guessed (for there are no rules at all about how you might find them) possible patters, we use them to predict what should happen if the pattern is also followed at all times and in places where we have yet to look. Then we check if we are right (there are strict rules about how you do this!). In this way, we can update our candidate patterns and improve the likelihood that it explains what we see. Sometimes a likelihood gets so low that we say the proposal is 'falsified', or so high that it is 'confirmed' or 'verified', although strictly speaking this is always provisional, none is ever possible with complete certainty. This is called the 'scientific method'.

The African science, rationalism and skepticism blogroll for December

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 08:56:00 +0000

The updated African science and skepticism blogroll for December... If you know of blogs not listed here, please let me know. Also: add it to your blog! Tweet it! Do a post like this one! (Email me, and I'll send you the HTML).

Note: I generally remove blogs that have been inactive for more than 6 months, so if you're no longer on the list and have resumed blogging, please email me.

A Modest Proposal: Take "News" out of "Science News"

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 08:48:00 +0000

While there are fantastic science journalists out there, unfortunately, science journalism as a whole is in a rather shocking state. Why this is so is endlessly debated, but my Modest Proposal is that there is far too much "news" in "science news".

Before we continue, I should say that I take it 'our' goal is to educate the public about both the findings and the methods of science. Of course, the mainstream media (MSM) is in the profit-making business, not in the education business. The science boosters among us (yours truly included), however, would like to square the MSM's profit motive with our educational goals, hence this post and many others like it.

In any case, here is the crux of my view that there is too much news in science news, expressed neatly as a slogan: Context Is King. It is an unfortunate fact, but the public is abysmally ignorant of science. (The data are best for the US, but there is no reason to think it's dramatically better elsewhere). Moreover, science is hard and often counterintuitive. So, to make any real sense of what's new - i.e. what's news - one needs to have at least some grip on what's already known, one needs background. If I don't know the first thing about human evolution, for example, it's going to do me no good to hear about the discovery of the Denisovans. If I don't know anything about the methods of science, a scientific controversy - the recent arsenic bacteria thing, for example - is going to baffle me. (Or I'm going to walk away with serious misconceptions at the very least). None of this should be particularly surprising, of course, nor is it unique to science. If I don't know the rules of American football (and I don't really), NFL news is going to make little sense to me.

The problem, though, is that often the MSM in effect assumes the public already has the necessary background knowledge to make sense of science news because their articles contain little or no context. The result is not merely a public that fails to learn about and appreciate new discoveries, it's a public that's positively misled about the findings and methods of science. My remedy is that science journalists change their focus: their aim shouldn't be to convey the newsy bit of science news, it's to convey the sciency bit of science news. And that means recognizing Context Is King: explain what we already know in the necessary detail in order to convey what we might just have found out. Obviously, this is hard. It takes work. And, whaddaya know?, it requires actually knowing something about science. (I'm looking at you, Richard Alleyne).

I should hasten to add, by the way, that there are already a bunch of science journalists who do exactly what I suggest. Ed Yong, Carl Zimmer, Malcolm Gladwell et. al. do not need advice from me about the importance of context. Indeed, any MSM journalist who would like to learn to do science journalism right can't do much better than reading the Yongs and Zimmers.

The African science, rationalism and skepticism blogroll for November

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 12:37:00 +0000

The updated African science and skepticism blogroll for November (a bit late)... If you know of blogs not listed here, please let me know. Also: add it to your blog! Tweet it! Do a post like this one! (Email me, and I'll send you the HTML).

Note: I generally remove blogs that have been inactive for more than 6 months, so if you're no longer on the list and have resumed blogging, please email me.

Lazy Linking

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 15:47:00 +0000

"Psychopathy seems to be caused by specific mental deficiencies"

The Economist reviews research that used the venerable Wason selection task to reveal psychopaths seem unable to understand social contracts. This suggests (albeit weakly) that psychopathy is a frequency-dependent adaptation.

"Uganda: Debating God in a God-Fearing Country"

A Time magazine profile of the courageous James Onen, head of Freethought Kampala, an organization dedicated to science and reason in a highly superstitious country.

"The Shadow Scholar"

Disturbing Chronicle of Higher Education profile of an 'academic mercenary' paid to write essays and other academic work for students. Scary stuff.
It seems to me that there is little academics themselves can do about this problem. If I suspect a student has paid someone to do her work for her, then what? I... hack her email account? The only long-term solution, it seems to me, is to criminalize the companies that provide these services - after all, they're arguably committing (or at least abetting) fraud. When the companies' records are seized, guilty students should be tracked down and punished. Degrees should be withdrawn, etc. I'm not saying this will solve the problem completely, but it'll at least lessen it, and provide some deterrent.

"Freaks, Geeks, and Economists"

The subtitle says it all: "a study confirms every suspicion you ever had about high-school dating".

"Taxonomy of Logical Fallacies"

Fallacies categorized and their family relationships mapped. Good stuff.

"This Is Your Brain on Metaphors"

Robert Sapolsky does great work, and this piece is as good evidence of that as any. He reviews a bunch of research which demonstrates that the brain conflates the literal and metaphorical. That is, certain 'higher' mental functions (like morality) is simply bolted onto 'lower' mental functions (like disgust).
"Nelson Mandela was wrong when he advised, “Don’t talk to their minds; talk to their hearts.” He meant talk to their insulas and cingulate cortices and all those other confused brain regions, because that confusion could help make for a better world."

"Tanzania's first elected albino MP fears for life"

What's the harm? This. This is the harm.

"South African rhinos pay the price of new cancer myths"

Quacks + poachers = rhinos in trouble.

"Not so fast... What's so premature about premature ejaculation?"

Jesse Bering strikes again. Premature ejaculation from an evolutionary perspective... Be sure to read the incisive comments.

"SA's urban myth storyteller strikes again"

Profile of Arthur Goldstuck, premiere cataloger of South Africa's urban legends. I attended the book launch, and I've read his latest book (The Burglar in the Bin Bag). Very good stuff.
Arthur is on Twitter as @art2gee and blogs at Urban Legends.

"What’s In Placebos?"

Apparently placebos are not all alike. Steven Novella covers the fascinating details and discusses the consequences.

"Palestinian Blogger Angers West Bank Muslims"

It's not exactly surprising that an atheist is unwelcome in the West Bank, but (1) it's still lametable that he isn't but (2) heartening that he exists at all.

"10 Bizarre Medical Discoveries"

Sample: symptoms of asthma can be treated with a roller coaster ride...

"Kasparov versus the World"

The fascinating story of Gary Kasparov's epic game against the rest of the world (well, a huge number of chess players who collaborated online). Kasparov called it "the greatest game in the history of chess".

"The glorious mess of real scientific results"

This is written by Ben Goldacre. Go, read.

"Calculate the Effect of an Asteroid Impact on Earth"

Go on, what are you waiting for? You know you want to...

"Putting a Hex on Hitler, 1941"

Life covers a batty attempt to defeat Hitler... with witchcraft.

"There Are 5,000 Janitors in the U.S. with PhDs"

"Atheism and the Enlightenment: In the name of godlessness"

Another Economist piece, this time a review of the book A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment. According to the review, the book is the story of the salon presided over by the (unjustly forgotten - but not by me) Baron d'Holbach.

"The Fascinating Story of the Twins Who Share Brains, Thoughts, and Senses"

The most interesting conjoined twins since Chang and Eng Bunker. Truly remarkable story.

Pretty / WOW / heh

"'Dance Your Ph.D. 2010' Winner Announced"

This is just wonderful. Watch the video, srsly.

"National Geographic's Photography Contest 2010"

Must see gorgeousness from Big Picture.

"Wildlife through the lens"

Beautiful wildlife photography.

"The Difference Between Jesus and Zombies"

"What I Think About Atlas Shrugged"

Sci-fi author John Scalzi rips into Ayn Rand. Hilarity results.

15 Authors

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 09:26:00 +0000

There is a meme going round Facebook called "15 Authors" in which you list (you guessed it) 15 authors who have "influenced you and that will always stick with you". This is mine...

1. Joseph Heller -- Catch-22 is funniest book ever written - also: it's profound. Pity the fools who don't get it. [You know who you are].
2. Sophocles -- his plays are masterpieces. I've read Oedipus Rex five times, and it still gives me goose-bumps.
3. Dan Dennett -- too many brilliant books to count. Darwin's Dangerous Idea is arguably one of the best non-fiction books of the 90s. His "Postmodernism and Truth" shaped my thinking significantly.
4. Jorge Louis Borges -- author of innumerable mind-bending and beautiful short-stories. If you've not done so yet, listen to "The Library of Babel" (the mp3 is here).
5. John Stuart Mill -- On Liberty is his most important book, but his autobiography and A System of Logic are also very good.
6. Mancur Olson -- An economist actually worth reading. The Logic of Collective Action and Power and Prosperity are both must-reads. (The speculation about the origins of states in P&P is fantastic).
7. Vladimir Nabokov -- I've not read enough of his work, but Lolita is a disturbing, incisive study of obsession. His prose is sublime.
8. Simon Blackburn -- I actually like only one of his books - Think. The latter is the best single-volume introduction to philosophy. I read it at a pivotal time in my intellectual development.
9. Steven Pinker -- possibly the best popularizer of science around. Like Think, I read How the Mind Works at a pivotal time: it was really the start of my interest in science as a whole, and psychology and evolution in particular. The Blank Slate is also excellent.
10. Jared Diamond -- Guns, Germs and Steel is in my opinion THE best non-fiction book of the 90s. Must. Read. The Third Chimpanzee is also worth a read. (But avoid Why is Sex Fun?)
11. Cormac McCarthy -- The Road and Blood Meridian are wonderful both. I've decided to read his entire oeuvre over the next couple of years.
12. Paul Theroux -- his travel writing is something to behold. I'm not a huge fan of his fiction, other than The Mosquito Coast.
13. Richard Dawkins -- He's had a tremendous influence on me. The Selfish Gene first introduced modern theoretical biology to me, and it's had a lasting impact. The God Delusion inspired me to "come out" to my family as an atheist. His best book since The Blind Watchmaker is The Ancestor's Tale, if you haven't read it yet, do so.
14. Malcolm Gladwell -- my favorite science journalist. I've read all three of his books (Outliers is the best, followed by Blink, then The Tipping Point). He's actually on the list for his long-from New Yorker essays. Have a look at his archive.
15. John Rawls -- A Theory of Justice is the locus classicus of 20th century political philosophy. Reading it had an absolutely profound effect on me.

Light posting apology (again)...

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 17:14:00 +0000

Apologies about not posting much of late - I've been rather busy in the meatspace. I'm planning a couple of posts in the next week or so, so you won't be completely without your IE fix.

In the mean time, two bloggers who haven't been bloggily-unproductive are Ed Yong (of Not Exactly Rocket Science) and Vaughn Bell of Mind Hacks. So go there!

African science/skepticism/rationalist blogroll for October

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 10:34:00 +0000

The updated African science and skepticism blogroll for October... If you know of blogs not listed here, please let me know. Also: add it to your blog! Tweet it! Do a post like this one! (Email me, and I'll send you the HTML).

Note: I generally remove blogs that have been inactive for more than 6 months, so if you're no longer on the list and have resumed blogging, please email me.

Lazy Linking

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 13:53:00 +0000

"This is a news website article about a scientific finding"

Martin Robbins' absolutely wonderful parody of bad science reporting. I really can't recommend it enough.
Also: read the superb comments (well, some of them at least - there are over 500).

"An Ode to the Many Evolved Virtues of Human Semen"

Jesse Bering on the psychological effects of semen (mostly on women). He covers tons of fascinating research, including the finding that semen may have an anti-depressant effect. (Though, as this comment points out, there is a serious confound).
Best line: “I’m not a medical doctor, but my testicles are licensed pharmaceutical suppliers”. (Said in jest, by the way).

"There Is No Such Thing As Sexual Intercourse"

Anthropologist Pascal Boyer pwns lefty/po-mo academics.

"U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey"

Pew surveys Americans about their knowledge of religion. Shocking ignorance found. (You can take a quiz featuring some of the questions in the survey. FWIW, I got 13 out of 15...)
Amazingly, only 85% of the respondents knew that an atheist is a person who doesn't believe in God. A finding consistent with the existence of 'atheists' who believe in God. (Yes, that is a contradiction in terms, but there you go).

"I was wrong about veganism. Let them eat meat – but farm it properly"

I'm not linking to this for the content, but for George Monboit's wonderful demonstration that there is honor in saying "I was wrong". I've never been a fan of Monboit's, but his willingness to write this column certainly sways my opinion more to the positive side.

"Should science journalists take sides?"

Yes, says Ed Yong. They should (do their best to) side with truth.

"Power Leads Us to Dehumanize Others"

BPS Research Digest reviews research that vindicates Lord Acton. (Not that there was much doubt to begin with).

"Ratzinger is an Enemy of Humanity"

Richard Dawkins brilliantly responds to the Pope's deeply idiotic comment comparing atheists to Nazis. Read it.

"Confirmation Bias in Science: How to Avoid It"

Excellent piece at Ars Technica by Chris Lee on the evils of confirmation bias - our tendency to see only what we expect to see. Lee looks at the topic through the lens of various scientific controversies, including Jacques Benveniste's 'water memory' nonsense.

"'Science Cop' Mugged"

China's answer to Ben Goldacre, Fang Shimin, gets beaten up and threatened, apparently by plagiarists and/or charlatans who stand to lose from being exposed. Shocking.

"Religion causes a chronic biasing of visual attention"

Another fascinating study covered by BPS Research Digest.
The researchers compared 'global' vs. 'local' thinking among "Dutch Conservative Calvinists (a form of Protestantism), Liberal Calvinists (who aren't so strict), Conservative Calvinists turned atheist and life-long atheists."
The results were surprising: "the life-long atheists showed the strongest bias for the big picture, followed by the Liberal Calvinists, and then the Conservative Calvinists and the former Conservative Calvinists turned atheist. The latter two groups performed similarly suggesting that more than seven years without religious practice wasn't enough to remove the effects of the religion on a person's attentional mindset."

Heh / LOL / Wow

"The Real Stuff White People Like"

Absolutely fascinating analysis of 526,000 OkCupid profiles reveals the differences in tastes between White, Black and Asian males and females.
The sample is unlikely to be representative, but it's interesting nonetheless.

"The Data So Far"

Classic xkcd... (For xkcd n00bs: read the mouse-over text).

"2010 Astronomy Photographer of the Year"

Astronomy porn at its finest. #7 and #11 are especially good.

"The Future of the Universe"

...as an animated GIF.

"Orations of a Pre-Post Colonial Oompa Loompa to His Revolutionary Brothers-in-Arms"

Need I say more?

African science/skepticism/rationalist blogroll for September

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 09:59:00 +0000

The updated African science and skepticism blogroll for September... If you know of blogs not listed here, please let me know. Also: add it to your blog! Tweet it! Do a post like this one! (Email me, and I'll send you the HTML).

Note: I generally remove blogs that have been inactive for more than 6 months, so if you're no longer on the list and have resumed blogging, please email me.

SA Blog Awards: The End

noreply@blogger.com (Anony Mouse) — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 16:17:00 +0000

Alas... none of the skeptics I've been punting have made it to the top two of the South African Blog Awards. Congratulations to the all those who made it, and thank you very much to all of you who supported us!

Next year...