Pro-science

Translations

2012-01-07T17:55:00.002+01:00

Sticker svin, a photo by Kristjan Wager on Flickr.

I am currently reading Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything by David Bellos, which is about translations (NY Times has a book review of it here).

While reading the book, I couldn't help think of this sticker which I took a picture of some months ago (the black one), since it is a good example of the problems with translations.

The sticker was in a Danish bar, and translated into English it would be "klistermærke swine" - yes the first word would be the Danish word, since the word sticker is not Danish, but English.

Of course, translating the text would make absolutely no sense, because the whole point is to make a linguistic joke. "Sticker" sounds similar to the Danish word for snitch ("stikker"). Snitches are often referred to as "stikker svin" which means "snitch swine".

As people can see, the brilliance of the sticker text looses a lot in translation (well, all of it, really), but trust me, I laughed out loud when I saw it.

Speaking ill of the dead

2011-11-27T18:41:00.002+01:00

Jerry Coyne has written a couple of posts about the death of Lynn Margulis over at his blog Why Evolution is True. The first one was rather respectful of her contributions to science and ignored her less than stellar contributions to science. The second post went into more details about her flaws.

In the comment section to the first post I dared to make the statement that Margulis was not a great scientist, but rather someone who made a great contribution to science, but otherwise promoted quackery such as HIV/AIDS-denial. Or as I put it:

I would think that great scientists as a minimum should be able to apply critical thinking to subjects, and be able to understand the scientific literature, even if outside their area of expertise.

Margulis was a HIV/AIDS-denier and a 9/11 conspiracy nut. She also frequently showed disregard towards the scientific method, and claimed that her ideas were dismissed because they flew against orthodoxy.

She did some great contributions to science, but as a scientists, she had deep, serious flaws, and promoted opinions which were not only wrong, but dangerous (e.g. HIV/AIDS-denial).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this wasn't taken too kindly by some of Margulis' friends and colleagues, who obviously felt that I was insulting the memory of their great friend. Or as one Michael J. Chapman put it:

I was Lynn’s friend and co-author for 20 years (look us up on Amazon). I also team-taught her courses on symbiogenesis, Gaia theory and protists. The comments here display a level of understanding of her work that might earn, at best, a C+ in one of her undergraduate courses. At worst, by contrast, are cowards who can’t even wait a while before slamming the departed. Yes I mean you, Kristjan Wager, so clearly envious of her fame, so clearly unworthy to lick the grime off her porch steps.

This comment speaks to the general idea of not speaking ill of the dead, and saying that if you do so, you have some kind of base motives for it. Well, fuck that - I don't play that game. If someone don't earn my respect during life, they certainly don't earn my respect by dying.

Personally I don't give a rat's ass about Lynn Margulis' contributions to science. I am not a scientist, and don't claim to be one. What I do care about is how she used her status, gained through her contributions to science, to promote dangerous ideas. She denied that there was such a thing as a HIV virus, using her reputation of "thinking outside the box" to indicate that other scientists were just dismissing her ideas because she flew against orthodoxy - something she had done before, and won.

I dislike all quacks, but if there is one sort of quacks I really hate, it's HIV/AIDS-deniers.

The family and friends of Lynn Margulis have lost someone close to them, but the rest of the world has just lost another quack. A quack who had contributed to the science in the past, but had gone on to endanger other people by promoting dangerous, and wrong, ideas, putting other people at risk.

I won't apologize for saying that.

How to hold a children's birthday party

2011-11-27T18:13:00.001+01:00

David Snowden uses the example of a children's birthday party as an example to explain complexity theory

Reversed roles

2011-10-14T12:49:00.005+02:00

Note: I should probably point out that in the following piece, I will follow the Danish tendency to not use peoples’ titles. For people not living in Denmark, this might seem disrespectful, and if it is perceived as such, I apologize, but the habit of not doing so is too ingrained in me, for me to start doing so now.

I was considering calling this piece “through the looking glass”, but that would have connotations of weirdness which I found inappropriate, since what I wanted to was to indicate that I had experienced the “other side” of the divide for once.

What divide you ask?

The gender divide. The gender divide in technology to be more specific.

People who have followed my blogs and twitter stream are probably aware that I am an out-and-open feminist, and that I regularly criticize my field (programming and IT consulting) for how women are marginalized, e.g. by the male dominance when speakers are picked for conferences.

This year I participated in such a conference; the GOTO conference in Aarhus, Denmark (the conference was formerly known as JAOO). Here the lineup of speakers was also heavily tilting towards men, but it is one of the conferences which actively tries to get female speakers, and they had managed to get some really great ones, including Linda Rising, Rebecca Parsons, and Telle Whitney.

Telle Whitney held a talk on women in IT, and all three of them participated in a meeting with the Ada Aarhus group, which was held after the talks on the second day of the conference.

I went to the talk, and participated in the Ada Aarhus meeting, and both of these things introduced me to the concept of being the outsider. Something which I understood, or at least thought I did, yet which I hadn’t really experienced before. I cant say I enjoyed the experience, but it was certainly enlightening, and it forced me to re-evaluate what I thought I understood on this subject.

Before going into how this happened, I want to back away a bit, and give a brief introduction to myself and that part of my background which is relevant.

First of all, as the sidebar says, I am a Danish IT consultant in my thirties. For those interested in the details, I am a .NET consultant, working mostly with large financial or public systems.

What the sidebar doesn’t mention, but which many people know, is that while I am Danish, I am also Australian. My mother was Australian, and while I grew up in Denmark, my childhood was a mixture of cultures - not only Danish and Australian, but also several others, since my childhood friends were also mostly of mixed backgrounds as well (though all with Western backgrounds).

This upbringing has left me unable to entirely relate to a typical Danish upbringing.

It is the small things that usually trips me up - the children's’ stories and songs that I haven’t heard, and the ones that I grew up with instead (would you believe that most Danish children don’t grow up with neither The Wizard of Oz nor Snugglepot and Cuddlepie?) - but it is also the inability of many to look beyond the borders, and think globally. The distrust of foreign things and multi-culturalism that people hold, thinking that anything foreign must be dangerous or less good.

This means that I am the outsider in some cases. But given that fact that I’ve grown up in Denmark not entirely so, and since I look Danish, I can always act in ways which allows me to fit in.

Going back to the woman in IT talk, Whitney talked about what companies and individuals could do to ensure women could advance in IT. A subject I feel strongly about. Yet when listening to the talk, I kept feeling that I was left out - that Whitney wasn’t talking neither to nor about me. The reason was that I am not in a position to make company decisions, and that the individuals that Whitney was talking to, about what they could do, was the women. Not the men. All the recommendations didn’t relate to me and daily life.

You know why? Because it wasn’t about me!

I knew this at an intellectual level. Yet I hadn’t realized the full impact until I experienced being left out. It bothered me more than I thought it would. My privilege kicked in, and I felt a bit of resentment at the gut level, while knowing fully well that this was how it ought to be, at the intellectual level.

If this was how I felt during a 50 minute talk, how must it not be for people who experience it day in and day out? E.g. women whose wishes and needs are ignored or LGBT people who live in a heteronormative society.

I cannot in any way pretend that I can relate to how they feel. But I can say that I understand it a little better now.

The Asa Aarhus group meeting, where both Linda Rising and Rebecca Parsons gave brilliant talks, just strengthening my understanding of this, and my realization of how little I can relate to how it would feel to experience this every day.

Internet lawyering

2011-08-13T17:51:00.002+02:00

If there is one type of behavior on the internet that drives me nuts, then it's internet lawyering. By this, I mean people making a big deal about the possibility of something or other being something else than it obviously is, trying to interpretet everything in the best light, and insisting that it's a valid approach, or rather that it's the only valid approach.

This is the sort of behavior where people try to convince others that inviting someone to your hotel room for coffee at 4AM could just be an offer for a caffeinated drink, and that we should ignore the whole cultural baggage (as shown in e.g. movies) associated with such an offer.

It's the same behavior which allows people to claim that people like Pat Condell isn't necessarily supporting a racist, xenophobic party when he endorses them, because it could be that he only supports some of their policies (ignoring the fact that their entire platform is based on racism and xenophobia).

Well, guess what? We don't have to buy into this bullshit. We are allowed to think for ourselves, putting things into the greater context. We are not participating in some fantasy courtroom, where we have to prove things, and where your "clever" evasions will save your client*.

Most of us happens to be reasonably intelligent people, and we have learned to read between the lines, so stop insulting our intelligence.

*Of course, in a real courtroom, this tactic wouldn't work neither. Judges are generally not stupid people, and while the e.g. US courts call for proving people guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, it doesn't mean that the judge and jury have to pretend that there can't be a non-literate meaning to what people say.

Repost: Nothing in Medicine Makes Sense in the Light of Homeopathy

2011-06-22T22:02:00.003+02:00

Note: Due to an upcoming job change, and a number of deadlines before then, I don't have time to do any blogging at the moment. Instead I will try to re-post some of my better posts from the past. The original post can be found here

I am not the first person to state this, but I think that it's important that we all keep up saying this: Testing of homeopathic medicine should end.

Why do I say this? Well, for a very simple reason: There is no evidence that homeopathy works. And what's more, the whole concept of homeopathy flies against everything we know about chemistry, physics, and physiology.

This blog post is triggered by a truly abysmal study where homeopathic medicine was compared to proper medicine used for treating moderate to severe depressions - there were numerous flaws in the study (which I plan to address in a later post), but the fundamental problem was that it was comparing medicine with remedies based on nonsense.

There is a famous essay by Theodosius Dobzhansky called "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution", which goes on to explain how our knowledge of biology wouldn't make sense except if evolution is true. One could write a similar essay, called say "Nothing in Medicine Makes Sense in the Light of Homeopathy", in which one explains how all our knowledge of medicine and physiology doesn't make sense if homeopathy is true.

I don't think this can be stressed enough.

It's not just a matter of science not understanding homeopathy. If homeopathy was true, it would mean that the basic building blocks upon which our knowledge is built would be wrong.

Given we know that this is not the case, homeopathy must be wrong. No, that's too mild; homeopathy must be absolute nonsense.

The basic concepts of homeopathy are things like "like cures like", miasms, and and the concept of "memory" in water, all of which is nonsense.

"Like cures like" (or law of similars) is the idea that medicine should be based upon things which gives the same symptoms as the original disease. This was perhaps plausible back when Hahnemann first proposed it two hundred years ago, but we now know that there is no truth to this idea. Sometimes the medicine will be based upon substances which gives similar symptoms, but mostly it won't.

Miasms are an old concept, in which diseases are caused by pollution or bad air. This idea was replaced by the germ theory of diseases, and is not taken serious by anyone except for certain branches of alternative "medicine" such as homeopathy, where they have added their own twists to the concept, but still stay largely true to the old Medieval concept.

The "memory" of water (or sugar for that matter) is the explanation used to explain how homeopathic medicine can have any effect. Homeopathic remedies are based upon the concept of diluting, in which the remedies are diluted to a degree where none of the original molecules are left (see this rather poor Wikipedia article for the numbers).

Oh, and the homeopaths also claim that the more diluted a remedy is, the more potent it is. Yes, this is really what they claim. No, it doesn't make any sense.

So, all in all, we know that homeopathy doesn't work. So, why the hell are we continuing to test it against proper medicine?

There are a lot of alternative "medicines" which might work, even if the concepts they are based upon are nonsense (e.g. acupuncture), and it makes sense to test these (so far, the effect of acupuncture seems to be placebo), but this is most certainly not the case with homeopathy. There is no way in which that can work.

Homeopaths might claim otherwise, but then it's up to them to explain how our basic understanding of chemistry, physics, physiology, and medicine is wrong in this matter, and yet works in every other case. In other words, it's up to the homeopaths to propose new theories in which homeopathy works, and which still supports our current state of knowledge, and until then, they should be ignored.

Not shunned, but ignored. Like we ignore perpetual motion machine builders, flat-earthers, and other weirdos.

Conventional medicine is not perfect, and our knowledge is expanding all the time, but theories like the germ theory of diseases are well established through science. We understand the mechanisms at play, and this knowledge enables us to fight diseases more efficiently. Much like our understanding of vira has helped us fighting other diseases more efficiently.

Why does claims of memory in water and strength through dilution bring to the table? In what ways are they expanding our knowledge? What diseases are we able to cure because of them? Nothing, none, and none are the answers. So stop bringing them to the table. Instead focus on the many valid ideas, which don't fly in the face of all the collective knowledge of the sciences.

Woos like to bring up Nobel Laureates Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, and their discovery that ulcers were caused by the bacterium Helicobacter pylori as an example of how outsiders can turn conventional knowledge on its head.

This is of course pure wishful thinking from their side. Marshall and Warren were very much part of the established scientific community, and while their proposal was received skeptically at first, it was not dismissed out of hand for some very simple reasons:

It was built upon evidence.

The mechanisms etc. all worked within conventional science and the mechanisms known at the time.

There seemed to be some problems with the prevalent hypothesis at the time.

In other words, not only did they work within the established science, they actually addressed some known issues and presented evidence for their claims.

Yes, it took some time (and a very drastic demonstration) to convince people, but the scientific and medical community was very willing to be convinced, and as soon as there were sufficient evidence, the new explanation was universally accepted in quite a short time.

This is how it is done.

So, in what way has proponents of homeopathy done any of this?

The truth is that most people with a basic understanding of science understands that homeopathy is nonsense of the worst order, yet money is still spent on testing this nonsense, demonstrating again and again that it doesn't work. Why? We know that it doesn't work, since we understand the fundamental flaws in the premises behind homeopathy, and we know that homeopathic remedies are nothing but water, alcohol, or sugar (depending on whether they are liquid or in pill form), so they cannot work any better than placebo - they ARE placebo.

Let's put an end to this.

All it does is to lend credibility to homeopathy in the eyes of observers who don't know any better. They think that since homeopathic remedies are continuously being tested, there must be something to them. Why do we let this misconception continue? Science wins nothing from these sham studies, and it only lends cranks an aura of respectability. Stop it.

Yes, I am very passionate about this - we are allowing a lie to continue perpetually. That's wrong. Homeopathy has been around for 200 years, providing no value to society as a whole, and generally decreasing the general level of health, and it's time to stand up and say so.

It goes without saying that I have only contempt for hospitals and doctors who provide homeopathic remedies to their patients. Homeopathic practitioners are usually acting in good faith, believing in their nonsense, but doctors and nurses should know better - they have an education behind them, which provides them with the knowledge necessary to understand what nonsense homeopathy is.

Copenhagen Skeptics in the Pub

2011-05-03T16:37:00.006+02:00

It is with some pride and happiness that I can announce that Copenhagen now has a 'Skeptics in the Pub' event. Skeptics in the Pub (or just SitP for short) is an informal event where skeptics can gather together and discuss subjects related to skepticism and science, while drinking beverages of their choice.

As the wikipedia article linked to above tells you, SitP has been around for quite a while, mostly in Anglo-Saxon countries. These events have strengthened the skeptic networks in the communities where they take place, and makes it easier for skeptics to connect to each other and share knowledge and views.

I have been aware of the event for a while, and have thought that Denmark would benefit from such an event, since pseudo-science and quackery is quite widespread here, while open skepticism is frowned upon as being impolite.

Then I visited Perth, Australia, a couple of years ago, and was lucky enough to be able to participate in two SitP events while being there (one of them was actually a 'Skeptics in the Park', with a nice BBQ in King´s Park), and this experience strengthened my resolve to start one up in Copenhagen.

During the 'Gods and Politics' conference in Copenhagen last year I overheard the head of the Danish atheistic society (Ateistisk Selskab), Stinus Lindgreen, talk with someone else about his next goal being to start up SitP in Copenhagen. Obviously I suggested we partner up in this venture, and we have now finally realized this goal. Along the way, we got TrineBM (who some of you will know from the comments at Pharyngula and Why Evolution is True) to help us.

The first instance of the Copenhagen SitP will be on June 8th at 7PM, where associate professor Mikael Rothstein, from the Univesity of Copenhagen, will talk about UFOs. Rothstein has written, among other things, a book on UFOs ('UFOer og rumvæsener').
The event will take place at Ørsted Ølbar.

The schedule so far (all are at 19:00 at Ørsted Ølbar):
June 8th: Mikael Rothstein
July 13th: No speaker, but socializing
August 10th: Lone Frank

Please note that all events will be in Danish

The facebook page for Copenhagen Skeptics in the Pub can be found here.

Knowing when to listen

2011-04-24T01:11:00.000+02:00

Anyone who have meet me can tell you that I'm not a quite person. I talk a lot, am opinionated, love to debate, and am probably slightly obnoxious in some peoples' opinion. People who know me better, can also tell you that I am generally a good conversationist, which is not the same.

Conversations are different from someone talking or from people debating. If someone just talks, the listeners are passive recipients. Debates on the other hand, are about convincing the other people involved about a given point. Conversations require something else - they require listening and thinking about what is being said, before responding. The listening and thinking part seems to be the hard part. Responding comes naturally.

So, what is the point of this post?

Well, the point is simply to point out that people in a position of privilege (e.g. me - a white, heterosexual man) need to learn to hold a conversation if they want to understand the challenges facing non-privileged people and/or to face their own privileges and the advantages they give.

When an organization, a group, or a conference wants to understand why there are so few participants from a given non-privileged group (women, ethnic minorities, LGBT people, physically challenged etc.), then they shouldn't have a debate within their own group, but instead try to seek out a conversation with people from said non-privileged group. During that conversation they should listen, and think, and ask for clarifications, and think some more. And then they should respond. Respond in a way that doesn't stop the conversation. Respond in a way that doesn't dismiss or diminish the challenges people from the non-privileged group face. Respond in a way which doesn't move the focus away from the subject. Respond in a way that demonstrates a genuine interest in understand, and in having a conversation.

If this is done, there can be a conversation. A conversation which will benefit all participants. A conversation which might lead to changes. A conversation which matters.

If you´re not interested in investing that effort into the conversation, then don't bother. Non-privileged people don't need to be told, again, by a privileged person that they are imagining things, too sensitive, or that they don't really have it as hard as the privileged person.

Homeopaths are dangerous for your health

2011-04-06T14:39:00.004+02:00

Let's be frank here - I have little love for pseudo-scientists and people promoting quackery of any type, but I reserve a special dislike for homeopaths.

Why you might ask?

Well, first of all, because of their ways of distorting scientific and medical research to support their ridiculous claims, even when their whole discipline flies against everything we know about science.

It's also because of their smugness, claiming that scientists (and science-literate people) are close-minded and unable to face the truth and/or in the pocket of "big pharma" (never mind the fact that homeopathy is a billion dollar business with practically no costs involved).

But mostly it's because of the danger they pose to the people they fool with their pseudo- and anti-scientific nonsense.

This danger comes not in the form of the so-called remedies they offer, but through convincing people that those remedies can cure things better than real medical remedies. Of course, homeopaths will claim that they are not saying that people shouldn't use those remedies, but that is bullshit. If you convince people that your remedy works better than normal remedies, without the side-effects that real medicine has, then obviously people will choose to use your remedies instead.

So, what set this rant off? Well, Edzard Ernst linked this page in a tweet. Warning: it takes you to natural news, which is a quack website of the worst order.

The title of the page is "Homeopathy may offer the best radiation treatment" - this is a dangerous claim, and hopefully no one who believes it will ever be in a position to make a decision based upon it.

As bad as the headline is, the content of the article might be even worse.

Homeopathy is a truly diverse and deeply effective natural health care system for every illness under the sun. Including radiation. How is this possible?

That's easy: it's not. One useful advice is that if someone make a claim that something can cure everything, don't believe them. It's simply not possible. Even anti-biotic, the life-safer with a wide range of uses, is useless against many things.

Homeopathic treatment doesn't treat the illness. It treats the person (or animal) with the illness. There is a subtle, but deeply important difference. And it means that the labeling of an illness is of little importance to homeopaths.

What exactly is the difference between treating an illness and a person? None of course. It's not like medicine makes the illness feel better, rather it either kills of the organisms responsible for the illness or it heps the body able to fight back.

So no, there is no difference, and to claim so, is bullshit.

But first it's important to realise that as we are all mortal, not every person can be curatively treated.

That's the only honest thing in the entire article.

Although much good can be done by experienced homeopathic home prescribing, protecting against radiation poisoning may not be one of them. This is much too serious.

"may not be one of them"? Radiation poisoning is the effect of exposure to ionizing radiation in too high doses - how the heck is sugar pills or water going to protect against that? The only protection is to avoid it (or to have some kind of barrier).

The best protection from this problem, which will probably be with us for many years,

Oh really - probably "for many years"? Yes, I'd think so - radiation exists in nature, and it's not like we humans haven't helped create more radioactive stuff.

is to ensure you improve on other areas of health care, such as

- a species specific, quality, natural diet
- a quality natural supplement, preferably a plant based superfood, which also has detoxing capabilities, such as blue-green algae, chlorella, spirulina
- exercise regularly
- if you are in the fast lane, slow down, perhaps learn to meditate
- make quality time for you (to smell the roses) or take up something you love to do, perhaps always wanted to do, but never had the time or money

Notice something about all these advices? None of them are any help in avoiding radiation poisoning. None. Some of them are quite sensible for avoiding stress and other lifestyle related disorders, but for radiation? You got to be kidding me.

With this healthy regime in place, the likelihood of suffering bad radiation poisoning will lessen, even in the worst affected areas.

No. You could probably argue that general health have an effect on how badly affected you will be, but in bad cases the poisoning will be fatal, no matter how healthy you are.

People who suffer from radiation sickness tend to have some symptoms which will be common to everyone (the early ones are nausea and vomiting, followed by headache and fever). Even these early signs are common to other illnesses, such as food poisoning and gastric flu.

These can then be followed by dizziness and weakness, symptoms that are still common to other less serious ailments. Finally you can experience blood in the vomit and stools, hair loss, chronic infections and poor healing capability.

All of these symptoms are only for milder radiation poisoning (with a fairly large survival chance). The more severe poisonings also includes things like purpura, cognitive impairment, and even ataxia.

These are all common radiation sickness symptoms that you can see in people who are receiving radiation treatment.

Except much worse of course, as people receiving chemotherapy are getting radiation under much more controlled circumstances, and in smaller doses than what trigger radiation poisoning.

The more uncommon symptoms, which will point to your most appropriate homeopathic medicine may include any of the following:

- an enormous fear of death which prevents you sleeping
- an aversion to being on your own
- a desire or aversion for a particular food or drink, including its temperature
- worsening of the complaints during a specific time of day or night
- an increased intolerance to variations in environmental temperature
- if the complaints are more one sided
- the nature of your nausea (constant or intermittent)
- the nature of your vomit (saliva, undigested food, frothy, black, bloody, etc)
- how you feel after vomiting (better, no improvement)
- along with many others.

None of these symptoms have anything to do with radiation poisoning. None.

I think I have found the source of the confusion - the author of the article is confusing radiation poisoning with anxiety. Since anxiety can often be helped with placebo treatments, homeopathy could probably help there. Radiation poisoning on the other hand, can't be treated by placebo.

Because of the complex nature of health and the seriousness of radiation sickness, the best treatment may come from an experienced and knowledgeable homeopath. S/he will base your treatment on a variety of your personal symptoms and traits. It is targeted for you specifically. Ten different people who suffer from radiation sickness are each likely to receive a different medicine.

Let me make this very clear: radiation poisoning is extremely rare, and usually only occur under circumstances where the risk is well known. If you somehow happen to be unlucky enough to somehow be at risk of radiation poisoning seek medical help immediately. Don't go to a homeopathy quack who offers platitudes about targeting you specifically - if you really are poisoned you a) won't be helped by placebo, b) won't have much time to get proper help. Yes, you can survive milder forms of radiative poisoning without medical intervention, but your survival chance will rise drastically if you get proper treatment.

Whether your radiation sickness comes from the environment or from a medical treatment, you can lessen it or perhaps cure it completely, with good homeopathic treatment.

No, you can't. You really can't. Claiming otherwise is lying, and it is dangerous to the health of others.

Regrets

2011-03-26T09:16:00.000+01:00

This is a slightly more personal post than most I've written, but I was moved to writing it after listening to the radio last night. The Danish radio channel P3 has a program called "Unga Bunga", where the two hosts Le Gammeltoft and Kjeld Tolstrup played some brilliant music. During the past week, Kjeld Tolstrup passed away only 45 years old, and last night's show was one long tribute to him by Le Gammeltoft and a lot of friends. Kjeld Tolstrup was, apart from being a radio host, the grand old man of the Danish DJ scene, whose influence on other Danish DJs and musicians in and outside Denmark cannot be overestimated - his passing away will leave not only the Danish music scene, but the international music scene, much poorer.

I never met Kjeld Tolstrup, and I've only rarely listened to him play. Yet, even so, he was a presence in the music/DJ scene I was aware of, and which I was happy was there. Now, he isn't there any longer, and I am sorry that I didn't use more opportunities to listen to him.

Regret is not a word I use often, since I find regret to be nonconstructive. I am of the philosophy that one has to look at where one is now, and operate from that point, instead of focusing on what one wish to have done differently in the past. I have, of cause, made wrong decisions in the past, and now pay the debt for it (both literately and metaphorically). Past choices will of cause limit future choices, but unless you can undo those consequences, focusing on the mistakes/unwise decisions, will only drag you down a dark path.

Still, due to past mistakes, I have come slightly risk adverse - this means that I try to avoid limiting my future options. If I have the choice between two paths, I will most likely choose the one that limits my future choices least, even if the other one is more interesting.

So, how does this tie up with yesterday's radio program?

Well, Kjeld Tolstrup was less than 10 years older than me when he died, and he managed to do so much for so many people - many more than I could ever hope to mean anything for, even if I lived till I was twice as old as him.
I am sure he didn't do that by being risk adverse - when he went to Ministry of Sounds and played, it carried much large risks than staying in Denmark, yet because he managed it, it also carried much larger rewards than anything he could have pulled off in Denmark.

This makes me think: Perhaps being risk adverse is actually more limiting than going down the paths that cut of choices? And perhaps those paths only impose limits in my mind, or expand my choices in other directions?

Who knows?

I certainly don't. But I will try to find out. I will try to make sure that I don't just make my choices based on being risk adverse, but instead make my choices based on what I'd prefer to do. I am sure this will be an interesting journey - and one thing I can promise is, there will be no regrets.

Re-post: Prosopagnosia [slightly edited]

2011-01-22T12:02:00.003+01:00

Note: This was an early post on this blog, back when I only had a handful of readers. Given the fact that my readership has grown somewhat, I thought it might be a good idea to re-post it, as it's a fascinating subject.

I first came across the phenomenon of Prosopagnosia, or face blindness, back when I read an article in Wired about the subject.

Basically it's the phenomenon of not being able to recognize faces. Not in the sense of not being good at remembering faces, but in the sense of not being able to recognize faces, including those of your own family and yourself.

Until recently it was thought it was only a phenomenon among people who damaged their brain through some kind of accident (the first well know example was apparently a soldier who was hit in the head, and after that was unable to recognize even his own wife), but now scientists have realized that it's much more widespread than that, and that people can suffer from this from birth. Brad Duchaine, a scientist studying this subject, estimates that 2 percent of the population is face blind.

One of the reasons why face blindness has gone undetected for so long, is the fact that people who suffer from it, are not aware how other people percept faces. This is of course not the case for people who get it later in life.
Another reason could also be that people are good at compensating. When I started needing glasses (when I was about 13 or 14), I learned to compensate for the lack of them, by being able to recognize people in the distance by how they moved. Since I stated wearing glasses I've mostly lost that ability again.

A most fascinating aspect of prosopagnosia is that it's very specific to faces. People who suffer from it, can recognize (and remember) other things as well as everyone else. This is probably due to the fact that faces are much more complex than other things, and demands more from the brain.
However, based on this abstract, it seems that at least some of the brain is able to recognize the person, yet the end result doesn't reflect this.

The reason for face blindness is probably genetic, since the trait has a inheritance pattern that is consistent with the trait being carried by a single gene.

Some further reading:
Face Blind - the original Wired article that got me interested in this subject.

Face blindness not just skin deep - CNN article about the subject.

Living in a world without faces - New Scientist podcast.

I’m Strange, You’re A Stranger - a blogpost from a blogger who suffers from prosopagnosia. The post is quite interesting, and also makes it clear that the problem is not only with human faces, but also animal faces.

I was doing some closet-cleaning the other week, and came across my portfolio of projects from when I took Commercial Art classes some years ago. One picture was an assignment: “Abstraction, select a natural object, create an abstract of that object”, cat, done in ink (dip-pen & pot of ink). I remember thinking about cats, and what qualities of the body shape define them as having “cat-ness”, and decided that it was the tail, the angularity of the limb joints, the pointed ears and the whiskers. But as I said, I tend to perceive things primarily by the mass and outline and by specific traits.

Most everyone did animals for that abstraction assignment, although the instructor pointed out that my drawing was the only one showing the animal from the back side, without the eyes. Mine was the only picture without a face!

Facebling.org - website of the Prosopagnosia Research Center Harvard University and University College London.

A bad time for anti-vaxxers

2011-01-16T21:44:00.002+01:00

My, my - this is definitely a bad start of the year for the anti-vaxxers.

First Brian Deer's articles in the British Medical Journal (How the vaccine crisis was meant to make money and How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed, with more on the way), and the BMJ editorial, where they put themselves on the line by making clear accusations of fraud against Wakefield (Wakefield’s article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent).

Most of the media picked up on this, and for once didn't try to "balance" the story, but instead actually made clear that Wakefield had no credibility.

Now, Salon.com has decided to removed a 2005 article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. This article was one of the main reasons for me getting into the fight against anti-vaxxers (and more importantly, for Orac getting into the fight). It was co-published by Rolling Stones, which unfortunately hasn't removed the article.

Salon explains why they removed the article here

Words have consequences, part two

2011-01-09T11:29:00.005+01:00

Back when Dr. Tiller was murdered, I wrote a blogpost called Words have consequences, in which I wrote about Operation Rescue

Calling someone "America's Doctor of Death" is dehumanizing him to an extreme degree, allowing people to ignore the fact that he is a person, which again allows people to do things like murdering him. Operation Rescue might not have pulled the trigger on Dr. Tiller, but they created an environment, where someone could pull the trigger on him.

Now, after the Tucson schooting where several people, including a child and a federal judge, were killed, and a congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, was critically wounded, I want to revisit this theme.

Ever since the Obama election, the rhetorics on the right have been vitriolic, and used violent images. There have been cases where people carried weapons at events where the President spoke. There have been talks of "revolution" and sedition - heck, the Tea Party crowd takes their name from the very concept of an American revolution.

In this sort of environment, it is hardly surprising that someone will follow up on that rhetoric, and take violent action.

The choice of victim is not surprising either.

After all, a public supporter of the Tea Party, and a senior figure of the Republican Party, had used violent imagery targeted specifically at congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Before the midterm election, Palin posted the above map, showing which members of congress she wanted people to target, using cross-hairs to show the location of their districts.

After congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords managed to win over tea party favorite Jesse Kelly, Palin posted the following tweet

Combining the image of a cross-hair and using the word "RELOAD" sends a very violent message indeed, even if it is unintended - something which I don't believe it is for a second, given the general usage of such in the current US political environment. This imagery was meant to intimidate, to threaten even. Since the congresswoman didn't hide, someone took the rhetorics to its next logical level, and tried to murder her.

This is the sort of actions that the current US political environment breeds.

Yes, there were vitriolic, perhaps even violent, rhetorics under the George W. Bush presidency, but not as part of the mainstream debate, not from leading political figures. To try to make it seem so, is to make a false equivalent, and to let the people who created this political environment get away with it.

It is no coincidence that militias have been on a rise in the US since President Obama was elected.

At the moment, Sarah Palin and others of her irk are busy trying to distance themselves from the shootings, even to the degree of scrubbing the web from the sort of messages I've posted above. I don't for a second doubt that they are shocked, perhaps even horrified, over the fact that someone did the very thing that they have been implicitly advocating for two years. Yet this doesn't absolve them of their guilt, and we should not let them get away with having creating the environment where this sort of actions happens more easily. The people who uses violent imagery should be shunned by the rest of society, not get their own TV-shows.

Words do have consequences, and it is high time that Palin and her irk started to feel the consequences of their words.

Goodbye 2010 - or, the year of being social

2011-01-01T14:48:00.003+01:00

Jean-Paul Sartre famously told us "Hell is other people" (in his play No Exit), and while I am sure that we all agree with this sentiment from time to time, the reverse, "Paradise is other people", is also true. Think back on any great experience in your life, and I am willing to bet that other people played a major part in it.

Well, 2010 is now over, and looking back, it was certainly more a case of Paradise than Hell. And I contribute that to all the great people I had the pleasure of spending time with this year.

When 2010 started, I decided that I wanted to expand my social circles - not because I didn't have a number of great friends (I did, and still do), but because I think it's important for your personal growth to try to find new input, and to get different perspectives. I wasn't exactly sure how I would go around doing it, but it was definitely a goal for 2010.

In retro-perspective, I can only say that I've succeeded in that beyond my wildest expectations, and beyond any expectations anyone could reasonably have.

So, how did that happen?

Simply put: other people arranged stuff, and I turned up. Surprisingly how effective that can be, isn't it? Well, what kind of stuff did I turn up to?

1) Tech events of all sorts. Copenhagen is lucky enough to have several groups and companies willing to arrange free technical sessions of high quality, and it has been great to participate in those. Among the groups and companies whose arrangements I've participated in is CNUG, Microsoft Demark, Trifork, and Socialsquare.

2) Perth Skeptics. This might seem a bit weird, given I live across the world from them, but remember that I am half Australian. I spent January month in Perth, and during my stay there were two meetups - one in a park and one in a pub. During the later, the Perth Skeptics participated in the 10²³ homeopathy overdose campaign, and afterwards, I talked a bit about skepticism in Scandinavia (sadly lacking) and skeptic/science blogging (go on, do it!). Apart from meeting Kylie Sturgess I also got to meet a number of other Perth Skeptics, and definitely was happy that I took the time to participate.

3) Likemind Cph. A monthly coffee meeting open to everyone, allowing people to network and meet new people. Great crowd, and even if it might seem a bit intimidating, everybody there are friendly, and willing to meet new people (otherwise, what's the point?). Here is a short video of the February meeting (which I didn't participate in). Here is the facebook page of Likemind Cph.

4) The Atheist Alliance International conference in Copenhagen in June arranged together with Ateistisk Selskab. It was a great event with some great speakers, but it also gave me the chance to meet some fellow pharyngulites (people who comments at Pharyngula). I even had five of them staying at my place during the conference. Among the people I managed to meet were Robert Dobbs/Ye Olde Blacksmith, who does some great metal stuff, Jadehawk, and Martin/Rorschach.

5) Last, but definitely not least, Twitter events in Copenhagen. I've in the past explained what Twitter is to me, but since then, Twitter has become so much more. A simple way of illustrating this is to state the fact that just during the last week alone, I've spent 3 evenings, including New Years Eve, with people I've met through Twitter and who I didn't know a year ago.

So, how did this come around, and what Twitter events am I talking about?

Well, as far as I can tell, we have a pretty unique Twitter culture in Copenhagen, and much of it is due to the work of the two twitters @laurajul and @morgenthaler, who decided to arrange some bi-monthly Friday bars for the Copenhagen Twitterati. These Friday bars have been a great success, and people have started to not only follow each other on Twitter, but also to actually become friends outside Twitter.

So, what does 2011 hold in store for me? I have absolutely no clue, but I am looking forward to experiencing it together with my friends, old as new, and see what it brings.

Happy New Year everybody, and may 2011 bring great friendships and much joy.

The Omnivore's Hundred

2010-12-25T16:06:00.004+01:00

Seems like an interesting little meme, and since I have done one of those in a long while, I thought I'd do it.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred

Rules:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses [I presume this refers to the cheese, not the French village]
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes [Don't think so, at least]
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese [it's quite horrible]
26. ~~Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper~~ [I like hot stuff, but I'm not suicidal]
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda [No, but it sounds quite good]
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac ~~with a fat cigar~~
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. ~~Fugu~~ [I prefer food which you can eat without risk of death]
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel [They are endangered now, so people shouldn't eat them]
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut [Not impressed]
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear [Careful of thorns when you eat them]
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill [Not to my knowledge]
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

The list is a bit weird - some of the items on the list are quite common everywhere, and I wonder where the trully challenging dishes are (like Thousand-year eggs). Still, there were a few things on the list which I might just have to see if I can try.

CERN traps antimatter atoms

2010-11-21T17:49:00.005+01:00

It looks like the doomsday sayers were wrong - creating antimatter didn't destroy the planet (or was it the universe?). That's hardly surprising, as antimatter pops in and out of existence all the time, and both the universe and the planet seems to still be here.

CERN has created antimatter for nearly a decade, starting in 2002, but these particles have always been short-lived as the interact with the matter around them, and disappears.

This week, however, Nature published the news that scientists at CERN has managed to contain antimatter atoms, for more than 170 milliseconds, 38 times. This was done by using a "magnetic trap"

The ALPHA claim is the first major advance since the creation of thousands of antihydrogen atoms in 2002 by a forerunner experiment called ATHENA2 and by ATRAP3 [...]. Both experiments combined decelerated antiprotons with positrons at CERN to produce antihydrogen atoms. But, within several milliseconds, the atoms annihilated with the ordinary matter in the walls of their containers.

To prevent that from happening, the ALPHA team formed antihydrogen atoms in a magnetic trap. Although not electrically charged like antiprotons and positrons, antihydrogen — like hydrogen — has a more subtle magnetic character that arises from the spins of its constituent particles. The ALPHA researchers used an octupole magnet, produced by the current flowing in eight wires, to create a magnetic field that was strongest near the walls of the trap, falling to a minimum at the centre, causing the atoms to collect there.

Creating antimatter atoms this way has proven to be much more difficult than the "traditional" way

To trap just 38 atoms, the group had to run the experiment 335 times. "This was ten thousand times more difficult" than creating untrapped antihydrogen atoms, says Hangst — ATHENA made an estimated 50,000 of them in one go in 2002. To do spectroscopic measurements, Surko estimates that up to 100 antihydrogen atoms may need to be trapped at once.

Obviously, there is some work yet to be done before measurements can be made, but according to this National Geographic article, great advances have been made since the Nature article

Since the experiments covered in the Nature study, the researchers have created many more antihydrogen atoms and held them for much longer—fodder for a future report.

According to Fajans, "We're doing much better now."

If more antihydrogen atoms can be produced and trapped for longer periods, scientists might finally be able to study them in enough detail to explain their scarcity in our universe, he added.

That's a pretty big deal. Let's hope that the progress continues.

For the original paper, you can find it behind Nature's pay-wall here

Are skepticism and atheism non-overlapping magisteria?

2010-11-21T16:58:00.004+01:00

Ever so often a fight breaks out among skeptics and/or atheists about how to deal with religious people. This time it was started by Jeff Wagg who is criticizing the skeptic conference Skepticon3 for being too atheistic. The organizer of the conference, JT Eberhard has responded (pretty well in my opinion) as has PZ Myers, who is a speaker on the conference.

Now, I make no bones about being both a skeptic and an atheist, so it is easy for me to just side with Eberhard on this, and dismiss Wagg out of hand. But would it be right? Looking at the comments to Wagg's original post, you'll notice some fairly prominent skeptics siding with him. It might be one thing to dismiss Wagg, a person who has flirted with anthropogenic global warming denial in the past, but I'll be damned if I am going to dismiss Eugenie Scott without serious consideration.

So, is atheism and skepticism non-overlapping magisteria, as Gould famously said about science and religion?

The short answer to that is NO. The longer answer is, on the other hand, more complex. Skepticism can be said to be a method, while atheism is a position related to a specific subject (the belief in the existence of deities). Skeptics are people who apply skepticism to all subjects, while atheists are simply people who don't hold a belief in a deity.

The group of atheists and skeptics are overlapping, but neither is by any means a subset of the other. Many, probably even most, skeptics are also atheists, but there are many skeptics who are still religious - some by not applying skepticism on that particular part of their lives, others by accepting that their faith flies in the face of evidence. Atheists, on the other hand, are often not skeptics.

Personally, I think that atheism is a natural result of skepticism (and it is interesting to note that the skeptics involved in this conversation are, to the best of my knowledge, all atheists).

So, what's my point? Well, what I am getting around to, is that Wagg might be right that a skeptic conference focused overly much on skepticism towards religion might be off-putting to some skeptics. But so what? There are global warming deniers showing up in all skeptic groups that I've come across - should we pretend that they are right? Or should we avoid the subject? Or course not. For skepticism to make sense, we have to apply it to everything.

This doesn't mean that we have to do it all the time, so if Wagg wants a skeptic conference that doesn't touch the subject of religion, that's great - he should go ahead and create it. Then the rest of us will choose whether we want to participate or not. If it is about ghost hunting, UFOs and cryptozoology, I'll personally give it a pass, but if it, on the other hand, is about woo and alternative "medicine", I'd be interested.

What Wagg shouldn't do, however, is to tell other people how to run their conferences, nor should he try to exclude subjects from being covered by skepticism. All subjects must be open to skeptical inquiry. Otherwise, how will we expand out knowledge and understanding of the world?

Call for submissions - best skepticism of 2010

2010-11-04T07:42:00.002+01:00

I am planning on making a Skeptics' Circle style of post highlighting the best skepticism of 2010, but in order to do that I need some help - simply put, the skeptic presence on the internet has become too vast for one person to keep track of it all, and I would love to get some submissions for the post.

The scope of the post would be more broad than for the Skeptics' Circle - instead of just blog posts, I'd also welcome podcast episodes, videos and news articles of relevance. I'd also like links to new organizations, podcasts, and blogs started in 2010. Heck, even court rulings of relevance would be appreciated.

So, if you have something which you think might just fit into what I've described, please don't hesitate to send it to me (kriswager at gmail dot com), and I'll take a look at it. Please include the word "skeptic" somewhere in the mail title, so I can easily spot it if it gets caught by the spam filter.

The plan is that this post will be going up around Christmas, but please submit anything you already have as soon as possible. It will take some time to go through all the material, especially if there are many podcast episodes and YouTube videos.

Repost: Words have consequences

2010-10-24T21:29:00.004+02:00

Note: This is a repost of an earlier post, originally posted May 31st last year, shortly after Dr. Tiller had been murdered. The original post is the most widely linked post I've ever posted, and the most with most comments. I am reposting it now because of Rachel Maddow's documentary on The Assassination of Dr. Tiller, since that would again raise the issue of how the dangerous rhetorics of anti-choice organizations contributes to an environment where some people feel that it is acceptable to kill doctors who do their duty to women.

In my last post, I shared the news that Dr. George Tiller has been murdered. I have absolutely no doubt this happened because of his willingness to do his job as a doctor and provide late-term abortions to his patients.

Now I see that Operation Rescue, an anti-choice organization, which has tried to stop Dr. Tiller in the past through lawsuits, have put up a post denouncing the murder.

It has been learned today that George Tiller was shot and killed while entering his church on Sunday morning, May 31.

Operation Rescue releases the following statement:

We are shocked at this morning’s disturbing news that Mr. Tiller was gunned down. Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice. We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning. We pray for Mr. Tiller’s family that they will find comfort and healing that can only be found in Jesus Christ.

This is an understandable reaction, but it doesn't absolve Operation Rescue of guilt.

One of David Neiwert's points in the Eliminatorists is that dehumanizing of people allows other people to commit atrocities against them, and Operation Rescue has been very busy dehumanizing Dr. Tiller indeed.

I took a screenshot of their denouncing the murder, and posted it below (click on it to see a larger version).

If you look closely at the image, you might notice a image in the lower right corner saying "America's Doctor of Death" bearing an image of the face of a man wearing spectacles. That man is Dr. Tiller, and clicking on the image on their website brings you to a category under their website called "Tiller watch" (the URL is http://www.operationrescue.org/category/tiller-watch/).

Calling someone "America's Doctor of Death" is dehumanizing him to an extreme degree, allowing people to ignore the fact that he is a person, which again allows people to do things like murdering him. Operation Rescue might not have pulled the trigger on Dr. Tiller, but they created an environment, where someone could pull the trigger on him.

Update: Jill Filipovic has written a piece in the Guardian which explains my sentiment a lot better: Who killed George Tiller?

Foreigners moving to Denmark should be beware of church tax

2010-10-24T14:37:00.006+02:00

In Denmark members of the state church (Folkekirken) pays church tax, which is collected from their pay checks together with other tax. The church tax depends on what municipality you live in, but in 2008 it was on average 0.8756% of your income. Considered that the average income for people who received a wage in 2008 was 284,065 kr. (approx. $53000), this amounts to more than 2000 kr. per year (approx. $375).

That's a fairly large amount of money going to the churches (on top of the money getting channeled from other taxes), but it is presumable acceptable if you're a member of the state church.

But what if you're not?

Well, in Denmark, church membership is tracked by a central register, or rather the central register, so for most Danes that's not really an issue. People who are baptized are members of the state church (at least until they actively leaves the church), while those who are not baptized aren't members (even though mistakes have been known to happen).

But what if you're not born in Denmark?

Well, if you live in Denmark, you will be registered in the central registry, based upon information you have provided when moving to Denmark. Theoretically this would mean that you won't pay any church taxes if you don't indicate that you're a member of the Danish state church (a check box on the form).

But this is only theoretically the case. The truth is, that many, perhaps even most, foreigner gets registered as member of the state church, and thus pays church taxes. I know several people this has happened to - in my last job it had happened to both a Norwegian and an Indian colleague of mine, none of which are members of the Danish state church (or any other state church for that matter).

So, if you're a foreigner who has moved to Denmark, make sure to check that you're not registered as a member of the Danish states church. If you are, make sure to complain to the municipality straight away, so you don't end up paying church taxes. If you already have paid church taxes, make sure to complain to the tax department, so you can get the money refunded - this might not be easy, so the earlier you discover your unwilling membership, the better.

You don't get to redefine words just to make a political point

2010-09-28T17:46:00.003+02:00

Ever so often you come across some book, article, or blogpost where people try to redefine a word so it means something else than it originally did - e.g. Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism. This can be done either to taint someone by associating them with something bad (as in the example I just mentioned) or in order to take credit for other peoples' hard work.

An example of the later is Danielle Bean's column Sarah Palin does feminism better

Or maybe it is really an attempt to taint feminism by associating it with Palin. No, probably not. Oh, well, let's wade into the drivel, shall we?

Who gets to decide what a feminist is? Does one need a license to use the word or to wear the label?

Generally speaking, any group gets to decide who is part of their group. This means that feminists get to decide what a feminist is. There are many groupings within feminism, but they share some fundamental similar views which one should share in order to be considered part of the broader movement (and dissimilar views which one should share in order to be considered part of specific groupings).

Failing the ability or opportunity to engage with feminists about what one should believe in order to be considered part of the movement, one could of course start out by looking at the dictionary definition: the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.

An interesting consequence of Sarah Palin's enduring popularity has been the fact that liberal feminists have become increasingly irritated by her use of the word "feminist" to describe herself. She shouldn't be allowed to do that, they say.

Yes, it interesting that the fact that people who belong to a movement get increasingly annoyed when someone, who goes against what that movement stands for, claims membership of said movement. No, not really. It's quite understandable.

What exactly is it that disqualifies Palin as a feminist? Why, it's her stubborn insistence that women deserve better than abortion, of course.

If she was really insisting that women deserve better than abortion, that would be fine. That would indicate that she believed that abortion was the bare minimum of rights that women should have. No, the fact is that Palin insists on much less than abortion - she insists that women shouldn't have control over their own bodies, and that they should be reduced to being breeding machines.

Much to old school feminists' dismay, Palin's brand of "new feminism" -- one that truly respects women and celebrates the differences and equality between the sexes -- appears to be catching on. Especially in politics.

It's to the dismay of all feminists, not just "old school feminists", whatever that might mean.

Trying to take away women's right to their own bodies does not in a way respect women, and while it is true that Palin probably celebrates the fact that women are still suffering from systematic sexism, it's hardly something to brag about.

Though there are currently no pro-life women in the Senate, the recent primaries produced no fewer than four pro-life female nominees: California's Carly Fiorina, Nevada's Sharron Angle, New Hampshire's Kelly Ayotte, and Delaware's Christine O'Donnell, all endorsed by Sarah Palin.

There are many pro-life women in the Senate. There are just no anti-choice women. The current women in the Senate understands that the right to choose is a fundamental right, while at the same time, they often also work for making life better for children living below the poverty line. A much more pro-life stance than the politics espoused by Palin and her irk.

While the rise of pro-life women in politics and Sarah Palin's popularity in particular have left some scratching their heads and others donning bear costumes and acting out their frustrations on camera (see video below), this trend doesn't surprise the rest of us at all.

Palin's popularity among the demented right (such as the tea-party morons) doesn't surprise me. So far, her ideological allies have scored some victories, but only among the Republicans - judging from the up-tick for the Democratic side recently, Palin is actually doing more harm to the Republican party in the long run. Something I, personally, is quite happy about.

Palin is both widely popular and widely despised for the same reasons. Those of us who recognize, respect, and celebrate the unique God-given strengths of women -- as nurturers, as relationship-builders, and as fierce protectors of children and other vulnerable human beings -- find an inspiring role model in Sarah Palin. She is a strong woman who finds joy in motherhood and a traditional family life, and yet she has managed to achieve professional success in the traditionally male-dominated field of American politics.

First of all, it's good that she acknowledges the inherent sexism in her religious view. Most people try to hide it, but Danielle Bean doesn't.

Second of all, there are so many things wrong with the paragraph that it's amazing.

Basically, it's a load of bunk. Women have traditionally been nurturers, but as we have progressed (say within the last couple of thousands of years), there are many of possibilities for women, so there is no need for them to be only nurturers (or for men not to be).

And seriously, where and when has Palin managed to achieve professional success? She was a failure as a vice presidential candidate (doing more damage than good), and she gave up midway through her governorship. Not exactly an impressive resume.

It is these same things that make old school feminists want to spit nails. They've spent lifetimes fighting nature's plan for their bodies and standing strong for every woman's right to destroy any human life that threatens to grow within her. Traditional family life? Why they've fought long and hard to deny the differences between men and women and to afford every woman the "right" to separate sex from the natural consequences of bringing forth new life.

I think she should stick to invoking God, rather than Nature. There is nothing unnatural about women not wanting to be breeding machines, and abortions happen all the time, naturally

Never mind that old feminists' plan for women's liberation, including the right to premarital sex without consequences and easy access to abortion, leaves women in a strikingly vulnerable position -- to be used by men as sexual objects and abandoned when the fun is over.

Because abortions, rape and extra-material affairs didn't happen before abortion became legal. Have she read the Bible? Plenty of examples there.

Never mind that God has specifically designed women to be mothers -- physical or spiritual mothers of all kinds -- and that those of us who reject this notion do so at the peril of our own happiness.

Never mind that you don't have any evidence for this, let alone the existence of any gods.

I find it beyond ironic that after decades of fighting for a woman's right to be heard and to determine her own destiny, pro-abortion rights feminists are now eager to put limits on what pro-life women are allowed to call themselves, the kinds of questions they are allowed to ask, and debate the legitimacy of pro-life women's meaningful participation in politics. All because strong women such as these give voice to the unpopular truth that women deserve better than abortion.

Nobody is, to my knowledge, trying to introduce laws prohibiting people from neither calling themselves feminists nor to not have abortions. So their choices are unaffected. Palin and her irk is, on the other hand, actively trying to remove the choices of others.

And again, they don't think that women "deserve better than abortion" - they think they deserve much less. If they really thought that women deserved better, they would work for helping supporting e.g. single women, so they could afford living a reasonable life with their children.

Palin's detractors are eager to declare that Sarah Palin does not speak for them, but I am proud to stand beside any pro-life woman and say: This woman does speak for me. She speaks for and defends the well-being of all women, whether they want her to or not. She speaks for children too -- both born and unborn. She speaks for true equality between the sexes and every woman's right to dignity and respect.

Well, it's always good when idiots stand up to be counted. So, consider yourself counted. Oh, and there is no such thing as an unborn child. The very definition of a child, is that it is born. Otherwise you might as well call yourself a "pre-dead corpse".

Even if it ruffles some old feminist feathers, it's about time someone said that.

No it was. Really. And it is not like it is something new and original. The anti-choice crowd has been sprouting the same kind of bullshit for decades.

For a more coherent take on Palin's fake feminism, read Jessica Valenti's May 30th column in the Washington Post.

Lazy linking - catching up edition

2010-09-28T17:12:00.002+02:00

Wow. It has been a while since I've last blogged. My excuse is that work is pretty crazy for me right now - as usually is the case when I'm not blogging.

To make up for it, here is a few links that I've come across the last few weeks

First of all, I bring you a letter from Simon Singh, Ben Goldacre and Peter Wilmshurst calling for support for libel reform. All of the letter writers have been targets of lawsuits under English libel laws. Singh and Goldacre have both won theirs, at some personal cost, while Wilmshurst's case is ongoing.

Also from the UK: NHS 'should pull homeopathic hospital cash'

The British Medical Association (BMA) has told a BBC Scotland investigation that NHS Scotland should pull the plug on Glasgow's Homeopathic Hospital.

It's great to see the medical associations around the world starting to come out against wasting money on ~~placebo~~homeopathy (there is also a facebook group and petition trying to het the NHS to stop funding quackery - details here)

The New Yorker takes on Rhonda Byrne in Power lines

From something much closer to my field of work: Vast Majority Of Software Patents In Lawsuits Lose. I might write more on this at a later stage, but let's just say that I am not surprised.

The Union of Concerned Scientists have a great website on Global warming

Related to this, is the Resource Institute's Summary of Developed Country ‘Fast-Start’ Climate Finance Pledges where one can keep track on how well the developed countries are doing on keeping their pledges from Copenhagen.

Why protest votes are counter-productive

2010-09-12T09:36:00.004+02:00

Before starting on this post, I should probably make clear that it's only relevant in relation to the US political system, not in relationship with the other, more democratic political systems, which many of us live under (where it is actually possible for more than two parties to exist on a national level).

It is getting close to the midway elections in the US, where a number of members of congress are going to get elected, rather than the president. Still, the president's popularity traditionally has a lot of effect on the midway election, which is often considered a referendum on his (so far, it is always a he) policies.

A lot of people who voted for President Obama has become disillusioned by him and indeed the whole Democratic party, and are now talking about either not voting or to vote for a 3rd party or even for the Republican candidates.

I would strongly recommend against this.

As the current US electional system works, voting for a 3rd party is basically throwing your vote away. Not logging a protest, but wasting the vote, and in the process harming your side.

Why?

Well, two reasons:
1) You can be sure that Republicans are going to vote for their candidate, even if they dislike him or her. Yes, there will be some Libertarians who are going to vote 3rd party, but they are a very small minority. The rest vote party line.

2) Paradoxically, the US politicians pander for those voters who have proven that they will support them, rather than those voters they feel they might get to support them. When the moderates left the Republican party during the Bush years (and under the Palin candidacy), it didn't make the Republicans stop up and try to win them back. No, instead they went full in for the Christian right.

This would mean that if all the left-leaning Democratic voters would abandon the party, the Democratic party would not try to win them back, but instead they would rather try to keep the right-leaning Democrats, and perhaps even win more from among the Republican ranks.

In other words, it would be a counter-productive move for those who left the party because they didn't feel their voices were heard. They might not have been heard, but they definitely won't be in the future.

So, should the Democratic Party just be able to take the progressive voters' votes for granted? Well, if the alternative is the Republican Party, then yes. Hell, yes. Progressives might say that there really is not difference between the two parties, but if they really believe that, they need to have their heads examined.

Yes, the current administration is not as progressive on many issues as many of us would like, but they are noting like the Bush administration. We are complaining about how slow Obama is in rolling back the mess from the Bush administration - that's completely different from creating the mess in the first place.

Some Democratic candidates are so far right that it is hard to see the differences between them and some Republicans, but if you look at the voting record, almost all Democrats have a much better track record on progressive issues than their Republican counterparts. What's more, in those races where those democrats run, the race is not between a right-wing Democrat and a moderate Republican, but rather between a right-wing Democrat and a so-far-right-it's-not-funny Republican.

In the end, it might sound like I am arguing for progressives just rolling over and surrendering their votes to the Democratic part en bloc. I don't. I think progressives should participate in the primaries, and get progressive candidates selected for the election. This is the strategy the Tea Baggers have chosen, and it has made the Republican Party give them much more attention that they are really due, if one takes a look at the numbers. Also, 3rd party alternatives are also great on the local level.

It seems to be the attitude in the US that parties are build top-down - first you run for president, then you try to gain access to congress, but in the rest of the democratic world, parties are built from the bottom-up. Locals get together and form a party which get elected to local political organs (or even national organs), and then they demonstrate their policies, gaining a reputation for the next election, which they might cash in on, gaining more votes etc. It's not a short-term strategy, but it works. Even in countries where there has traditionally been a political system very similar to the US (e.g. the Green Party in Australia and the Liberal Democrats in the UK).

Book review: Smile Or Die

2010-09-04T08:48:00.002+02:00

Smile Or Die - How Positive Thinking Fooled America & The World by Barbara Ehrenreich

Smile Or Die is the European title of Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, which is a more clever title in my opinion (given the clear references to "Blind-sided"), but not necessarily a better title.

In her book, Ehrenreich takes on the positive thinking industry, explaining the history behind "positive thinking", how it is used, and how it is harmful.

Ehrenreich first got into contact with the positive thinking movement when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, or at least, first got really aware of it. This lead her to investigate the movement, or industry as it really is, and try to understand its effect on society.

Living outside the US, I haven't felt the full blunt of the positive thinking movement, but even in Europe, it has gained some foothold, and I definitely enjoyed Ehrenreich's take on it, especially the chapters on the historical background and how it is used (e.g. as a way for the companies to get rid of fired employees without guilt). Her chapters on the movement's effect on society, was on the other hand, a bit weak, though they still gave food for thought.

One part of the book I found really interesting was the part where she explained how the megachurches in the US were based upon the positive thinking movement. I hadn't thought about it that way before, but it definitely makes sense. The whole concept of the prosperity gospel definitely plays into all that.

For a good introduction to the content of the book, I recommend RSA Animate - Smile or Die, which is an animated (and abbreviated) version of a speech by Barbara Ehrenreich.