Parity Violation

There’s an awful anti-evolution moving coming out, called Expelled. Click on the link to get the facts on the movie, which purports to be about how poor, Intelligent Design “scientists” can’t get a word in edgewise because the actual scientists don’t believe a word they say.

It’s a double whammy coming to NBC – reality TV and the pseudoscientific fraud of Uri Geller come together in a new show Phenomenon.

Geller is nothing more than a third-rate magician who, unlike most magicians, claims he has some sort of actual powers. His fraudulent act was exposed on the Tonight Show, and it’s a thing of beauty:

Check out this drivel from Slate. They actually wanted to get a graphology “expert” to analyze Clinton’s handwriting for personality.

Apparently Slate is unaware that graphology is a well-documented pseudoscience. I’m looking forward to see an astrological chart on John McCain or perhaps Mitt Romney’s biorhythms? Why not get a palm reader out too? Let no psesudoscience go unused.

Update I’m told this post was supposed to be in jest – I’m a little touchy about pseudoscience, I guess.

More Discovery Channel stuff, the BBC series “Planet Earth” on Discovery HD Theater looks amazing, as is fascinating. They used some sophisticated cameras and techniques to get some never-before-seen shots. Wired has a story on it that’s worth checking out.

It’s interesting that on Discovery HD there are far fewer commercial breaks… to the point that in between each hour tonight, HD viewers got to see little snippets on the making of the show – whereas low-def viewers did not. Not exactly sure why Discovery HD Theater sells less ads than the standard def Discovery channel, but I’m not complaining.

I’m not sure what was cooler, the artificial intelligence driven robotic probes that explored the surface of the hypothetical Alien Planet on Discovery and Discovery HD Theater or the strange Myst/Riven like planetscapes and the weird scenes and life forms. A pretty cool show.

so I bought a four-pack of compact fluorescent bulbs, 60 watt replacements. They use 1/4 the energy. I’ll reduce my carbon emissions. I’ll save money in the long run. It seemed like the right thing to do.

But, my dumb fan/light ceiling fixtures are too small. The light bulb cover thing won’t fit back onto the fixture because the compact fluorescents are like 1/2 inch longer than their standard counterparts and apparently that’s enough to make a difference.

So, I said phooey on the covers and the light bulbs are just bare. What do I care – the environment is more important than style. But, I may investigate finding replacement covers that will fit.

Also, I suppose the light that needs replacement is the 150 watt incandescent bulb on the torch lamp in my living room. That is still there.

An interesting article about science and religion appearing in Tuesday’s NY Times. A lot of secular scientists (specifically one Richard Dawkins) are growing fed-up with religious people, or even tolerance of believers and religions.

I think this is a backlash against religious ideology trumping sound rational arguments or scientific thought – especially here in the U.S. where we see things such as creationism and intelligent design trying to be put into schools. Or where our policy on research (stem cells) or public health (sex education, contraception) be manipulated by a small minority of people with religious-specific objections to these otherwise rational ideas.

However, I don’t think Dawkins and his kind are helpful in the long run. They simply crystallize a hostility towards religion that the religious right would have you believe motivates all scientists anyway. Bill O’Reilly goes on about “secular progressives” and well, that probably actually describes someone like Dawkins.

The fact of the matter is that the existence of God is not a testable hypothesis. It is rational to both believe and not believe in a supreme being. Now, when religious ideas are just wrong (ahem, Sun goes around the Earth anyone?), they should be rejected. But, the overall question – Does God Exist? will always be open for debate.

Certainly we should not let religious-ideas influence our public policy. (I think about my post on pro-life groups objecting to scientifically accurate information about birth control.)

But, these political / policy questions can be dealt with independently of attacking all believers. A tactic that won’t win Dawkins or any scientist many friends in a world where the vast majority of people still believe in God. (Myself included.)

Someone at The Onion took an astronomy class. I’m going to be a star is penned by “Protostellar Molecular Cloud Barnard 631″

An interesting review in Slate of a new book, The Trouble with Physics.

The basic premise? String theory is nonsense. I believe I have been saying similar things for years. Mainly, string theory has yet to make any predictions that can be tested experimentally. That’s not exactly a useful theory.

I don’t read a lot of non-fiction about science topics, but I may want to pick this one up and see what it has to say.