Through the Eyes of the Jackal

Cookie Crust Cheesecake

2011-10-23T13:07:00.001-04:00

I baked a batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, but they came out too sweet. I'll give most of them away, but meanwhile, how to salvage what's left... Mmm cheesecake... cheesecake with chocolate chip oatmeal cookie crust... The filling was based off of this recipe, cut in half. The cheesecake was a little less dense, more custard-like than I'm used to, and I had overcompensated when I cut the sugar. Next time I'll try 1/2 cup.

Cookie Crust Cheesecake
1-1/2 cups oatmeal chocolate chip cookie crumbs
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
~~3/8~~ 1/2 cup white sugar
3/8 cup milk
2 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoons maraschino liquor
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Press crumbs into 9 inch pie plate. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, mix cream cheese with sugar until smooth. Blend in milk, and then mix in the eggs one at a time, mixing just enough to incorporate. Mix in sour cream, vanilla, maraschino, and flour until smooth. Pour filling into prepared crust. Bake for 45 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

Dirty Rice (and Meat and Beans)

2011-08-09T12:31:00.000-04:00

1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 yellow onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 pound ground turkey
1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoons vegetable bouillon
2.25 cups water
1 cup uncooked brown rice
1 can pinto beans

Sear peppers in skillet with a bit of oil. Set aside. Sear onions until browning. Add garlic, and continue to cook for a minute. Add turkey and spices. Cook until turkey is done. Add water, rice, bouillon and beans. Cook ~40 min, stirring occasionally, until rice is almost done. Add seared peppers and finish cooking.

Quinoa Tabbouleh

2011-04-08T10:38:00.002-04:00

I adapted this recipe from the Wheat Berry Tabbouleh recipe in the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. I made a couple substitutions and changed the proportions to my liking.

Cook:
2/3 c quinoa
1 T olive oil
1 cloves garlic, minced
I rinse my quinoa and then heat it with olive oil and garlic until the garlic is starting to brown, then I add the 1 c water and simmer it like rice until it's done. Let it cool to room temperature.
---
Mix in:
1 cucumber, peeled and diced
1 large bunch parsley, washed and chopped
1/4 c diced sweet onion
1/2 lemon, juiced
1/4 c olive oil
1/8 c capers (optional)
salt, pepper to taste
---
When you're ready to serve, add:
2 cherry tomatoes, quartered, per 1 c serving

I don't like to refrigerate my tomatoes - they lose all of their flavor, so I just add tomato as I eat it. You might want to adjust the dressing. I didn't measure this, but I think it made around 6 cups. With these proportions, it's about half veggie, half grain.

Cream Cheese Brownies

2011-03-19T23:36:00.002-04:00

This recipe is based off of Fudgy Brownies from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. I've made a few changes to reduce sugar increase yumminess.

1 cup butter
12 oz. semi sweet chocolate chips (divided)
4 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup flour
1 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
8 oz. low fat cream cheese

Melt butter and 6 oz. chips in large bowl in microwave. (Don't let the chips burn. Stir once butter melts.)

Meanwhile, grease a 9 x 13 inch pan, and preheat oven to 350.

Stir chocolate butter mixture. Add eggs, one at a time, beating with a wooden spoon until just combined. Stir in vanilla and remaining chips.

In a small bowl, sift together flour, sugar, cocoa powder and baking soda. Combine wet and dry mixtures, mixing until just combined.

Spread half of batter into pan. Slice cream cheese onto batter, distributing evenly over the entire area. Spread rest of batter over the layer of cream cheese.

Bake at 350 for ~35 minutes.

My Atheist Deconversion

2011-03-18T16:05:00.001-04:00

The original intent of this blog was to foment philosophical discussion, not to talk about my personal life. I guess that's why I never posted about my own deconversion on a blog that is largely about atheism and the irrationality of religious belief. I've talked about it before in various places in various levels of detail, but I never put it out there for the general public, and never in a venue where I would be expected to answer for it. Here, perhaps overdue, is my deconversion story.

My mother brought us up in a pseudo-Christian new age belief system, but my father was agnostic, so the idea that my mom could be wrong was present from early on. Still, I generally believed in her spirituality until about the time I hit high school. By then, I was too keenly aware of the suffering around the world to be able believe in an all knowing, all loving god, all powerful god. It was the problem of evil - evidence weighted with emotion - that first shook my faith. If genocide, famine and torture in far off countries could way so heavily on my own happiness, then a god of infinite compassion and capacity would not stand idly by and allow it to continue. But I still believed in some sort of afterlife, a soul, a different plane of existence. I just didn’t know what it was.

I continued more or less as an agnostic with spiritual leanings until age 25, when personal trauma began to erode at my faith. The problem of evil was no longer abstract and distant, but personal and omnipresent. It was no longer possible to ignore the dissonance between what I wanted to believe and what I witnessed and experienced. I could no longer support any belief in compassionate force that interacted with the world. I spent the next couple of months desperately searching for conclusive evidence, one way or the other, for any god and any form of continued existence after death. I could find neither, and I eventually sunk in a life-consuming funk.

Several months into my funk, I was listening to Terry Gross interview some British guy about religion and non-belief. He pointed out that it isn’t reasonable to assume that something exists by default, and that it doesn’t default to a 50/50 chance of existence, either. In most of our lives and in science in general, we don’t believe in something until we find positive evidence. And there’s absolutely no reason to give the supernatural a special exemption from this rule. I gave it a couple hours to sink in and let my mind stew over what he had said, and by the end of the day, I realized he was right: in the absence of solid positive evidence, there was no reason to believe in any kind of god or life after death. I gave up my search and accepted atheism.

Since then, my time spent with the online atheist community has lead me to the realization that I have never been presented with a coherently defined god concept. The very idea of a disembodied intelligence, a mind without a physical brain, is nonsensical, and omnipotence is in itself self-contradictory. Atheists are sometimes asked what it would take for them to change their minds. For me, this would be positive, empirical evidence for a god. But until I am presented with a god concept that is logically coherent and consistent with our knowledge of the nature of the universe, it doesn’t make sense to talk about what the evidence for a poorly-defined, physically impossible entity would look like.

Gender Identity and Sexuality

2011-02-20T14:52:00.001-05:00

I'm turning 30 this spring and I'm still trying to figure out my sexual orientation. I'm like Ted Haggard, in that my sexuality doesn't fit in a little box. And I'm a mega church pastor who smokes meth with prostitutes. No, wait, only the first part.

I grew up on a small town in rural PA. I thought I might be bi, but no one was out in my school of ~500 students. I didn't date in high school anyway; I was unpopular, and the guys that I liked didn't like me.

Twelve years later, I've only had two serious relationships. Both involved men, and I'm still with the second one. Am I straight? I don't know. I've only ever had actual, heart-throbbing crushes on men, but as far as porn goes, I'm mainly interested in pictures of women. I think I would enjoy sex with a woman, and I don't see why I couldn't fall in love with one, especially if she were kind of androgynous or butch acting. The men I'm most attracted to also have a certain amount of androgyny to them: gays, bis, transvestites. I guess I'm attracted to gender benders. Is there a word for that?

As far as gender identity, I align myself with Team Woman, but I don't really identify too strongly as one. I feel more androgynous. I hate shopping - malls are obnoxious, and I can never find what I want. I'm more intellectual than intuitive. As far as clothing goes, comfort and functionality almost always trump style. When I put on makeup, it's like a costume. I have a very feminine body: small hands and feet, slight build, small waist-to-hip ratio, delicate facial features. I can pull off "woman" far easier than I could ever pull off "man," and sometimes it's fun to dress up like an attractive woman. I like the attention, sometimes. But just because I'm wearing a dress, that doesn't mean I want you to carry my bags or hold doors for me. That doesn't give me a sudden appreciation for musical theater or romance novels. It doesn't make me prefer a spa over a climbing wall. I am what I am.

Drawing Mohammad

2010-05-22T00:09:00.003-04:00

I drew Mohammed. I posted the picture to FaceBook on the appropriate day (May 21). I'm posting it here, too, because I want a link that is publicly accessible. Stand back in shock... and awe.

"Church warns cell scientists not to play God"

2010-05-21T23:36:00.003-04:00

Wow, there's a cliche for the century. But wait, that's just the news article headline covering the Catholic Church's response to Dr. J C Venter's recent creation of a synthetic cell. What did the Church actually say?

"It's a great scientific discovery. Now we have to understand how it will be implemented in the future," Monsignor Rino Fisichella, the Vatican's top bioethics official, told Associated Press Television News.

"If we ascertain that it is for the good of all, of the environment and man in it, we'll keep the same judgment," he said. "If, on the other hand, the use of this discovery should turn against the dignity of and respect for human life, then our judgment would change."

Oh, so this Vatican bioethicist, who thinks it's better to spread AIDS than to use condoms, and it's better for a pregnant woman to die than for her to get a life-saving abortion, wants a say in how this new technology is developed and used. What else did he say about science?

Fisichella, who heads Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life, stressed there is no necessary clash between science and faith.

...Except that science is the process of gaining knowledge through the study of empirical evidence, and faith is belief in absence (or direct contradiction) of evidence. Now back to that title cliche.

Another official with the Italian bishops' conference, Bishop Domenico Mogavero, expressed concern that scientists might be tempted to play God.

"Pretending to be God and parroting his power of creation is an enormous risk that can plunge men into a barbarity," Mogavero told newspaper La Stampa in an interview. Scientists "should never forget that there is only one creator: God."

OK, so they really did say that: don't pretend to be God. How about this? We won't pretend to be God, if you'll stop pretending to know that an all powerful god exists, and that it talks to you. OK? Oh forgetaboutit. The day I take ethical advice from an organization that aids and abets pedophiles, hiding them and putting off their dismissal for years, while immediately excommunicating a nun for allowing a woman to have a life-saving abortion, is the day I get baptized.

(Dark Chocolate) Rocky Road Puff Balls

2010-05-20T18:55:00.004-04:00

I was really bored yesterday, and I wanted chocolate, so I decided quicken the hardening of my arteries by making cookies. I got out the Better Homes & Gardens Dessert Cook Book circa 1960 (for reals!) and flipped to the only chocolate cookie recipe I knew: Chocolate Crinkles.

OK, cream together wet ingredients minus milk... so that's 1/2 cup shortening... I'll just use the rest of that stick of butter. 2 eggs, got those. 1 2/3 cup granulated sugar... hmm, sugar. Where is the damn sugar? I end up using one lump of the brown sugar that hardened into sand stone some time back. I put the lump in with the eggs to dissolve and sprinkle a little milk to help the process along. I'm whipping this stuff with my new mixer - it's way quieter than my old one, and the stainless steel beaters aren't gonna rust, but it doesn't seem to be whipping this stuff into a uniform consistency. Anyway, I add the chocolate. It calls for 2 1-ounce squares of unsweetened chocolate, melted. I don't have any unsweetened chocolate, and I want to use some of the Pound Plus dark chocolate bar I got from Trader Joes. A single strip of blocks ought to be about 2 ounces... that isn't going to be chocolaty enough. I end up throwing in another half strip... and then some left over chocolate chips, so I've basically doubled the chocolate. I whip that in with the eggs, butter and sugar and it's looking silky smooth. But now I'm thinking, I didn't used unsweetened chocolate... is there as much chocolate in sweetened chocolate as in unsweetened chocolate? Better add some coco powder to the dry ingredients.

I can't leave well enough alone. I substituted dry oatmeal, powdered in the food processer, for some of the flour, and also added 1/4 cup wheat bran. I try to mix in 1/4 cup coco powder, but the bowl I'm using is too small for proper whisking, and I'm making a mess.

I turn on the oven to 350 and alternately mix the dry ingredients and the milk into the whipped chocolate stuff. Since I added coco powder and decreased the amount of butter/shortening, I decide to dump a little corn oil into the mix. It's looking fairly solid by the time I add the chopped walnuts and mini marshmallows - they're over a year old and they've hardened up into a block so I have to pick them off one at a time. I grease the pans and start spooning out the dough, but when I double check the recipe, I see that I'm supposed to cool the dough for 3 hours and then form it into 1 inch balls. Sigh. I turn off the preheated oven and put the dough in the refrigerator. Three hours later, I find that the dough has hardened and become somewhat crumbly - all that extra melted chocolate will harden when it's cooled. Anyway, the dough warms in my hands. I form the balls and bake the cookies. When I take out the first sheet, I find that they haven't spread out at all, they're basically little mounds. I try flattening the dough balls that go on the last sheet, but then end up looking about the same.

Finally, time to taste my creation (and to make sure that they're done in the middles). I take a bite out of one of my little brown balls, and it crumbles in my hand and turns to chocolate powder in my mouth. So what I end up with is little, brown balls of chocolate, marshmallow and walnuts that disintegrate like a puff ball when you bite into them. I started out making Chocolate Crinkles and I ended up with (Dark Chocolate) Rocky Road Puff Balls.

Devil's in the Vatican

2010-03-11T17:20:00.005-05:00

I only skimmed this article: Chief exorcist says Devil is in Vatican. Sorry, Catholics, your beliefs are just as wacko as Mormons and their magic underwear and Scientologists with their soul volcanoes. Your leader is a man in a dress who says gays will go to hell, and crackers literally turn in to a 2000-year-dead Jew. You have a squad of special priests whose job is to perform "white magic" to combat the "black magic" of demonic possession. And the Catholic Church wants to tell the world who can marry, how to have sex, and what health care should and should not be allowed. Please, Catholics, keep your religion to yourselves.

Amazon on Ruse

2010-03-11T16:05:00.008-05:00

I just learned of Michale Ruse's new book In Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith in the Age of Science, via Why Evolution is True. I can't say much about the book itself, but I will pick apart the Amazon blurb.

According to Amazon.com,

In Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith in the Age of Science, Michael Ruse offers a new analysis of the often troubled relationship between science and religion. Arguing against both extremes – in one corner, the New Atheists; in the other, the Creationists and their offspring the Intelligent Designers – he asserts that science is undoubtedly the highest and most fruitful source of human inquiry. Yet, by its very nature and its deep reliance on metaphor, science restricts itself and is unable to answer basic, significant, and potent questions about the meaning of the universe and humankind’s place within it: Why is there something rather than nothing?

I'm pretty sure that's within the domain of astrophysics.

What is the ultimate source and foundation of morality?

You'll get a lot farther understanding human thought and behavior via sociology, psychology, and biology.

What is the nature of consciousness?

Sounds like a job for neuroscience!

What is the meaning of it all?

Assuming there is one... but actions only have meaning when they have sentient causers. We have no reason to believe the universe was created by a being, sentient or otherwise.

Ruse shows that one can legitimately be a skeptic about all of these questions, and yet why it is open for a Christian, or member of any faith, to offer answers. Scientists, he concludes, should be proud of their achievements but modest about their scope. Christians should be confident of their mission but respectful of the successes of science.

OK, so... basically they're saying that anything we don't know RIGHT NOW, stop working on it, because religion has already made up an answer. That god of the gaps gets smaller every day.

Impressions of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

2010-02-23T22:50:00.002-05:00

I just finished reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - the altered version of the Jane Austen classic. I never read the original, but I watched a 5-part miniseries version from the BBC. From what I gather, the miniseries was fairly faithful to the original book. I was greatly disappointed with the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. The second author, Graham-Smith, wrote with all the intelligence and wit of a 6th-grader. The areas in which he inserted his prose were cartoonish and gauche. I was expecting the additions to resemble Night of the Living Dead, rather than Ninjas versus Zombies! And if GS must conjure the campiest of blood-gushing, physics-defying anime, he should bother himself to learn that the Katana is from Japan and does not belong on Shaolin-trained warriors.

Don Yahweh

2010-01-03T20:27:00.003-05:00

God creates the universe, heaven, hell, and sin. God creates humanity with a propensity to sin. God damns humanity to eternal suffering for sinning before having the knowledge of right and wrong. Later, God has himself tortured and killed. God gives humanity a choice: accept the torture and murder of an innocent as payment for your God-determined sins, or suffer for eternity. Additionally, Got wants all of your money, time, devotion... etc - you're supposed to devote you're life to His worship - or you'll suffer for eternity. Sounds an awful lot like racketeering to me.

The Meaning of Christmas

2009-12-25T17:06:00.007-05:00

John and I were talking about the true meaning of Christmas this afternoon, and he shared with me this quote: Jeremiah 10:2-4

2 Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. 3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. 4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

I guess that's what's called being against it before being was for it, eh Ratzinger? For those of you who are interested in the history of the reason for the season, I recommend this documentary from the History channel. Hat tips to RD.net and WEIT. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a...

'A Universe From Nothing' by Lawrence Krauss

2009-11-16T19:46:00.002-05:00

Theoretical physicist Dr. Lawrence Krauss gave a talk at AAI 2009 titled "A Universe From Nothing." Lawrence summarizes much of what we know about the universe and how we know it. The lecture was engaging, entertaining, and accessible for the lay audience. If you're at all interested in where we came from and how it will end, you'll enjoy this talk.

Get Vaccinated!

2009-10-26T21:25:00.004-04:00

I'm planning on getting both of the flu vaccines this year - seasonal and swine. Because you know, I hate being sick, and getting inoculated will lower my chances of getting sick. It will also lower my chances of getting other people sick, which is why it's so important for people to (a) get vaccinated even if they are in low risk groups, and (b) STAY HOME IF YOU GET SICK! I don't mean you can't go to the store to buy food, but please, for the love of dogs, don't go to work or to class and give your viruses to everyone you know. Keep them to yourselves.

Whenever I think of the war between viruses and humans, I get to thinking about evolution. Evolution is a fact of the universe, and viruses are an excellent example of how it works.

First, a little virus 101. A virus is a packet of DNA (or RNA) held together in a multi-purpose protein coat that both protects the genetic material and injects it into a host cell. Viruses are not considered living things because they cannot reproduce themselves. They need the machinery of the host cell to replicate both their genetic material and their protein coats.

Even though viruses are not technically living things, they still undergo evolution. Virus use the same kinds of genetic material that we do. (In fact, viruses work because they use the same genetic code that all living things use. If they used a different code, they wouldn't be able to use host cells to replicate.) DNA replication is not perfect. The process produces an error every million or so nucleotides. That isn't a whole lot, but when you're pumping out billions of viruses, you're guaranteed to have some with DNA errors. It's just a fact of how the biochemical processes of DNA replication work. Furthermore, after DNA has been replicated, the copies can be damaged by chemicals and radiation (viruses don't wear sunscreen) which can lead to mutations. So, out of the billions of viruses pumped out by a single infected person, some of them are going to be mutants. Most mutants will be less proliferate than their non-mutant siblings, but some will be as good as or better than their siblings at surviving and proliferating. Since viruses are under constant attack by our immune systems, the ones that are most effective against our immune systems will naturally come to dominate the virus population.

It isn't necessarily about traits that make the virus intrinsically better at survival inside a generic host. If a virus achieves a neutral change to the shape of its protein coat, that can help it to escape recognition by a host that has had that viruses ancestor in the past. You can get basically the same type of flu every year, so long as it has mutated enough that your immune system no-longer recognizes it. And there's nothing you can do to stop viruses from evolving. As long as there are hosts for the viruses to infect, and as long as there are mutagens and imperfect DNA replication, there will continue to be new variations of viruses, and the most prolific variants will spread. Random change + nonrandom reproductive success = evolution.

Unintelligent Design (Part II)

2009-10-06T21:23:00.010-04:00

I promised I'd tell you about the unintelligence of RNA transcription, so here it is. To understand just how stupid our cells are about this, we must again contrast our process with that of bacteria.

Most organisms store the bulk of their genome in DNA. The double helix is more stable than the single helix of RNA. DNA is a long list of genes, you can think of them as recipes in a cookbook. (It isn't set up like a logical cookbook. There are long spans of non-coding DNA interspersed between, and sometimes within, the recipes. Some of this is used in telling your cells when to make various recipes. Some of it is bits and pieces of genes that viruses have inserted into our chromosomes - enemy recipes that can sabotage your kitchen. Some of it is pieces of our own recipes that are accidentally duplicated when new copies of the cookbook are made. Eukaryotes like mammals, bugs and trees also have spans of non-coding DNA within their genes, which have to be edited out each time the gene is used.) DNA is the master copy of the cookbook. It's stored in the nucleus, away from all the ingredients, so the pages don't get torn, singed or spilled upon. In order to make the recipe, you have to copy it first. That's fine with the cells, because the machinery that uses the recipes can only take RNA anyway. That's the job of an enzyme called polymerase. In eukaryotes, the polymerase transcribes the gene into RNA in the nucleus, and the RNA is taken out of the nucleus to be put to further use. Bacteria don't have nuclei, but they still have to make the RNA copy of the gene in order for their machinery to put it to use.

Both bacteria and eukaryotes have promoters - sequences at the begining of the genes that basically say, "start here." Bacteria and eukaryotes also have sequences that signal the end of the gene, but they work differently. In bacteria the "end" signal is called a terminator. When the polymerase reads the terminator, it detaches from the DNA and releases the RNA copy to be used by the cell. Makes sense.

When eukaryote polymerase gets to the "end" signal, it transcribes it and keeps on going. The transcribed end signal causes proteins that have been monitoring RNA transcript to cut off the transcript and take it away for processing so it can be used by the cell. Meanwhile, polymerase keeps going like a runaway train, transcribing hundreds of nucleotides, whatever happens to follow the gene. Biologists haven't completely figured out what happens next, but here's what it looks like: An enzyme comes up and digests the trail of RNA gobbledygook that the polymerase is spewing out, recycling it back into unattached nucleotides. When that enzyme reaches polymerase, it knocks polymerase off the DNA, and transcription stops.

To summarize, bacteria have a system that works perfectly. Their polymerase starts at the start signal, copies the important information, and ends at the end signal. We organisms with nuclei have defective polymerases that no longer recognize the ends signals. Rather than fix the polymerases, evolution threw us some proteins to collect the RNA transcript and then another enzyme to clean up the mess and slide tackle the runaway enzyme off the DNA. That deserves a very special contraction: untelligent design. Keep in mind that every time polymerase attaches a nucleotide to the RNA strand, it's using energy - the equivalent to one ATP molecule. We don't get that energy back when we recycle the nucleotides. What kind of Intelligent Designer would have left such a mess?

Then again maybe there is some wisdom here. Bacteria are better at both DNA replication and RNA transcription. Maybe the Designer made the universe for the bacteria, and we're just here to be their hosts. After all, for every human cell in your body, you also have ten to twenty bacteria living in and on you - in a magnificent diversity of 500 - 1,000 different species. That's about 10¹², or 1 million × 1 million, bacteria living in and on each and every one of us. All hail our glorious Bacterial Creator?

I thought I had a "God-shaped hole" in my life...

2009-09-30T20:38:00.003-04:00

...but then I got a dildo.

Happy Blasphemy Day, everyone! The Center for Inquiry has designated September 30th International Blasphemy Day.

Blasphemy Day takes place September 30th to commemorate the publishing of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons. The purpose of Blasphemy Day is not to promote hate or violence; it is to support free speech, support the right to criticize and satirize religion, and to oppose any resolutions or laws, binding or otherwise, that discourage or inhibit free speech of any kind.

Unintelligent Design

2009-09-23T22:13:00.028-04:00

I'm taking some biology classes, thinking about applying to some grad programs. I'm learning a lot - mostly cellular biology right now. But the more I learn, the more obvious it becomes that life was not intelligently designed. It's really hard to believe anyone who has more than a tenuous grasp on basic biology can believe in ID, especially that the IDer was the all powerful, all omniscient God. Vestigial organs, vestigial genes, and tons of other obvious design flaws litter the biological landscape. I'll talk about RNA transcription next time. First, I'll tell you about the crazy hack embedded in our DNA replication.

(I've gotten kind of technical, and I've tried to keep it short, so please do email me if you don't understand something, and I'll try to update the post to make it more readable.)

Updates posted on Oct 6 follow the original post.

Telomeres are what is known in the software design world as a "hack" - a quick and dirty fix to a bug or design flaw. To understand telomeres, you have to know a little about DNA and DNA replication. (I've attempted a terse explanation here, but there's always Wikipedia for a more thorough description.) A single strand of the DNA double helix consists of a string of nucleotides. These nucleotides contain the familiar A, C, G and T bases that are held by 5-carbon sugar rings, and the rings are connected by phosphate groups. These sugars are not symmetrical. They have an oxygen atom in one part of the ring, and a carbon atom sticking off the side. Biologists have labeled the carbons 1 - 5. The 3' carbon and the 5' carbon are the two that bond to the phosphate group, and to make a strand of DNA, you have to keep all the nucleotide lined up the same way: 3' - 5' - phosphate - 3' - 5' - phosphate and so on.

The problem is, the enzymes that assemble new DNA strands can only add nucleotides to the 3' end, not the 5' end. I'm not going to go into it here, but that causes an ugly little work-around called Okazaki fragments during the normal part of DNA replication. Where the real problem happens is at the ends of the DNA strand. You end up with a little bit that's too close to the end of the template to code on. If you could add to the 5' end, it wouldn't be a problem because you could work backwards from that end, but since you can only add to the 3' end, and you don't have the room to work there, you end up losing a little bit of your DNA every time it replicates.

The hideous hack we use to get around this is, whenever you make a gamete (sperm or egg) a special enzyme adds telomeres - non-coding nonsense DNA - to the ends of all of your chromosomes, so that as they fall off, it won't eat into your genes... until your cells have replicated for a bunch of years. When humans were only living into their 40s, this wasn't so much of a problem. Now, this might be one of the causes of aging. Your cells are losing their instruction manuals page by page, each time they divide.

There are two obvious fixes that an intelligent designer could have used. As previously mentioned, she could have engineered an enzyme that could add to the 5' end of the DNA. This would solve two problems and make your DNA replication much more efficient, both in time and energy consumption. The second fix is already used by bacteria. She could have stored the DNA in long rings, or just connected the ends during the final steps of replication. Bacteria store parts of their DNA in little rings, and those rings don't have the problem because they can build the last part of their DNA off the place where they started. I don't know how making a ring out of our DNA would affect chromosome storage, but you wouldn't have to keep it in a ring all the time. We have enzymes in our cells that cut DNA apart and paste it back together, so the rings could just be connected during the last parts of DNA replication. An intelligent designer would have been able to see these options and make the choice. Evolution blindly fumbled around for whatever worked, and we ended up with telomeres.

Update: Check out this short video of DNA replication:

Update:
On Oct 5, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine was given to three scientists for their work finding telomeres and telomerase - the enzyme that creats them. From the press release

Elizabeth Blackburn and Jack Szostak discovered that a unique DNA sequence in the telomeres protects the chromosomes from degradation. Carol Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn identified telomerase, the enzyme that makes telomere DNA. These discoveries explained how the ends of the chromosomes are protected by the telomeres and that they are built by telomerase.

And to complete this amazing coincidence of my writing this post and telomeres turning up in the international press, at least one prominent ID promoter has claimed telomeres as support for ID. In an article DLH posted on Uncommon Descent:

These telomeres can probably be shown to be essential to survival, and are likely to be irreducibly complex. If so, how can macro evolution explain the origin of this marvelous preservation feature that appears to be an Intelligent Design?

Gonna do some research to show that they're irreducibly complex? Nope. Gonna do a little googling and find out that there are other, arguably better ways to solve the problem that telomeres fix? Nope. IDiot..

Go to Sandwalk for another explanation of what telomeres are, why we need them, etc. from a Professor of Biochemistry.

Book Recomendation

2009-08-05T23:06:00.005-04:00

I just finished Gerd Bantenberg's Egalia's Daughters^(amzn). Due to adult situations, (sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll) I'll limit my recomendations to readers over 16. Anyone who has any opinion on feminism and the feminist movement, good or bad, should read Egalia's Daughters.

An Open Letter to Catholic Churchgoers

2009-05-25T18:26:00.007-04:00

Dear Catholic Churchgoer,

How many children will need to be raped by priests before you stop giving your support to the Catholic Church? I would not want to be associated in the slightest with an organization that has for years hidden pedophiles within its ranks, never holding them accountable, but often enabling their vile sins. By not speaking out, by attending mass, by supporting the Catholic Church, you are condoning its actions. Shame on you.

For the sake of children everywhere, and for the sake of your own soul, I'm asking you to stop attending mass and to stop giving money to the Church until the Vatican makes a full apology and details a program to correct its actions. I am not asking you to give up your faith. Pray and read the Bible at home. Attend masses of other denominations. You can even start a Sunday morning worship group. Do anything but support the Catholic Church. After all, do you really want to take spiritual advice from an organization with a documented 60 year history of "endemic" child abuse? The current Catholic leadership cares more about its reputation than your children. How can you trust them with your soul?

Suspension of Disbelief

2009-05-19T11:33:00.005-04:00

Most movies require some level of suspension of disbelief (SoD), and I'm fine with that. Fiction is fiction, and I don't expect all fiction to look exactly like reality. Where's the escape in that? Sci Fi should have fantastic technology, fantasy deserves its magic, and we call all use a little extra serendipity once in a while. But relying on SoD to explain mundane situations that would never happen in those circumstances - that's just lazy.

This is a pet peeve of mine. I tend to think about the movie I'm watching, not just absorb the entertainment. Unfortunately, that makes it a bit harder to enjoy your average movie. I understand that SoD is a key part of most story telling, but there are some places where its use just makes the storyteller look stupid or lazy. I'll use the last two movies I watched to illustrate my point.

The directors cut of Kingdom of Heaven, released in 2005, runs just over 3 hours, and is split into two DVDs. Watching the first DVD convinced me not to watch the second. Orlando Bloom stars as a blacksmith (again) who goes off to Jerusalem during the crusades seeking redemption.

Body type isn't something I usually notice, but my spouse pointed it out, and I had to agree: Bloom is not built as a blacksmith. He doesn't look like someone who has spent his entire life in grueling manual labor. He made a fine elf, but he shouldn't be cast as a blacksmith.
Bloom's character, I forget his name, learned to wield a sword, and subsequently survived a gory battle, in about an hour. After that, he was pretty much an expert, besting many more experienced men in battle. This is common enough that I'm usually fairly forgiving, but it is annoying.
As a blacksmith that has never been a mile from his birth place, Bloom knows how to read... Latin. Please. Peasants can't read, peasants don't know Latin, and peasants certainly cannot read Latin.
Guess what else he knows how to do: run an estate, dig for wells and build an aqueduct system! Yea, that makes sense... kind of... if you don't think about it... at all.

So we didn't finish the movie. Instead, we watched Iron Man (2008). I've discussed the absurd portrayal of Stark's sex appeal elsewhere. Here, I'm just going to focus on two things: the situation with the war lords and Stark's glowing heart device. As usual, I wasn't bothered by most of the technology. The main driver of the story is a super-powerful suit, so that's a freebee. When they power their subplots on SoD, that's when it gets annoying.

Stark gets a soup-can-sized cylinder cut out of his chest. What happened to the vital organs and bones that were supposed to be there? How did a doctor manage to do this with little-to-no medical equipment, in a cave? How is Stark still alive? I understand there was supposed to be a magnet there to collect shrapnel and keep it away from vital organs. I don't understand why his heart was apparently removed, and how he was kept alive. Or was his heart underneath the cylinder? Then why did he collapse when the cylinder was removed? They didn't lead us to believe he had internal bleeding from shrapnel. And what was the device plugged into in his chest, anyway?

The war lords demand that Stark make them a state-of-the-art missile. They plan to take over unarmed villages with it. They could have accomplished their conquest with the ample AK47s that they already had. The movie could have made it a little bit more believable by saying these war lords were fighting other war lords, i.e. the Taliban. They didn't. It was just unarmed villagers.

These are little things, but they add up. They weren't vital to the story. They could have been explained, but they weren't. That's lazy storytelling abusing SoD.

Lechery is a Vice

2009-05-19T10:55:00.003-04:00

And it should be treated as such in popular media. Often it is not. Point in case: Iron Man.

I hope to see the day when promiscuity in men is treated the same as women, when sexism is as universally offensive as racism. Instead of the hallmark of dashing heroes, womanizing should be treated as a vice, like smoking, or beating a dog. In Iron Man, Stark is supposed to be irresistible to women, and he takes advantage of this trait at every chance. We've seen this before to a lesser extent in James Bond movies, and it was offensive there, too, but what really makes the lechery in Iron Man so revolting is the way it's portrayed. Stark treats every woman he meets as a sex object - and they like it! I'm sorry, no. If a man asks a woman for sex who is just trying to maintain a professional relationship, she's going to slap him, not screw him. There is the possible exception of groupies and their idols, but that's not what we saw in Iron Man. The reporter from Brown wasn't a fan, but she screwed Stark because... um... he's just that irresistible? Or maybe he paid her, but if so there's no hint in the movie. It's not just unrealistic, it's misogynistic. Stark screws them and throws them away. He doesn't even stick around to say "thanks," or "good bye," but has Pepper "take out the trash."

That brings me to Pepper Potts - the perfect little personal assistant. Feminine, dainty, obedient, submissive, and accommodating of Stark's exploitative lifestyle. She wears high heals and skirts - pretty, not practical, as she can barely run when it's her turn to be the damsel in distress. Oh, and when Stark comes on to her at the art benefit, it's not sexual harassment, it's just sexy. Even though she knows he's probably got more STDs than a crack whore in Tijuana, and that he'll just toss her out once he's had his fuck.

Allow me to put the bigotry of Iron Man in perspective. Suppose that instead of being a lecher, Stark had a reputation and flair for manipulating black executives into shining his shoes and calling him "Master." If the studio even had the gall to release the movie, it would have gotten protests and boycotts. Where were the protests? Where was the condemnation? What saddens me most about this movie is not that it was released in this form, but that no one even notices how misogynistic it is, or if they do, they don't care. Iron Man got rave reviews in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, and Variety. Of the three, only Rolling Stone even bothers to mention the fact that Stark is a lecher. I only found one mention of Iron Man and misogyny in mainstream media, and the purpose of the article is to point out the lack of women-driven films in 2008 and 2009.

Sexism is so pervasive in the country that we don't even notice it most of the time. I barely thought about it before taking a course in gender and media. Now that it's been pointed out to me, I can see it everywhere, which is one of the reasons I dislike so much of popular media. (Of course, sexism abounds in classical literature, as a reflection of attitudes of the time, but it wasn't discussed in any of my classes.) They say that the first step to recovery is to acknowledge the problem. Sexism in the USA is real. If we can't even see womanizing as a vice, then we have a very big problem indeed.

Your own Personal Prupose (Part III)

2009-04-09T22:55:00.011-04:00

If you don't believe in gods or some sort of higher power, and you don't want some mortal telling you how to spend your life, what do you do? What is your purpose? Whatever you want it to be.

If you want a driving purpose, you have to choose one - make one up. Most people are theists, so they have their supposed purpose shoved down their throats from an early age, i.e. "to serve God." But then they may spend years trying to figure out how to best serve their gods, so then end up at basically the same place as non-theists, without a definite direction or goal.

As a rationalist, you may want to use reason to derive your purpose, but even there, there will be personal decisions. You're going to have to lay down some axioms on which to build your reasoning. Just as you have to define what + and × mean in order to do math, you have to set down some subjective propositions so you can build up your philosophy. (The same goes for morality - if you want to base your moral code in reason, you still need basic propositions to build it on.) You can make general goals and extrapolate into specific, or you can just think about things that you want and figure out how best to achieve them. Hopefully an example will make the need for subjective propositions clear.

Picture Jen: a 29 year old atheist who has kids, a spouse, brothers and sisters, nieces, nephews, parents and friends. She cares deeply for her spouse, children, and family. She wants them to be happy even after she no-longer exists. Jen can build her axioms off of her deepest desires: to enjoy her life and to ensure a great future for her children and surviving loved ones once she is gone. Jen can build specific life goals from these desires, and achieving those goals becomes her purpose. To ensure a positive future for her children, Jen wants to make a positive contribution to the world while avoiding destructive behavior, and working to influence other people along the same lines. If Jen works for a living, she is going to want a profession that makes a positive contribution to society. Suppose Jen has a communications degree. She should avoid a career in marketing cheap, plastic crap, and try to work for an industry that provides a useful service or product. Otherwise, if Jen is a stay-at-home mom, she could contribute through volunteer work. And of course, she is going to want to be the best possible parent to her children.

Hopefully, it's clear that from a few general desires, Jen can make rational decision about how she should live her life in order to maximize the chances of fulfillment. Jen's purpose in life is to have a positive impact on her children and society through responsible parenting and work that she enjoys. What makes this purpose fulfilling is that it is already based in something that is deeply meaningful to Jen. To show that purpose depends on passion, let's look at passionless life.

Suppose Jane is a single, childless* atheist. She has a few friends and relatives, but she isn't close with any of them. When she looks at her fellow citizens, she sees people who are only kind when it is convenient, people who don't think about long-term consequences of their actions. She sees a society that is unsustainable, careening toward its own destruction. If Jane isn't emotionally invested in the rest of the world, then she isn't going to have much stake in the future beyond her life. Goals based in the long term future don't make sense. If Jane had some particularly compelling interests, she could build her goals around those interests, incorporating work if possible, but otherwise just working in such a way that she has enough free time to devote to her interests. Without compelling desires, Jane has little reason to work for her goals. Her purpose feels arbitrary and insignificant.

To make a meaningful and fulfilling subjective purpose built with logic and reason, one must build upon non-rational passions. To feel fulfillment, one must feel desire. If one does not have strong desires, one is unlikely to find meaningful purpose. That's one reason Vulcan society doesn't make sense to me. Once you've squelched all of your strongest desires, what is left to motivate you?

*I am not saying that you can only find fulfillment through marriage and children. Having children makes not caring about the future less likely, but not having children does not preclude developing strong emotional attachments or caring about the future.

Humanism and Atheism

2009-03-27T15:43:00.007-04:00

I keep seeing op ed.s about Humanists not standing for anything and the atheist world view. The reactions from Humanists and atheists don't always address the most common underlying misconceptions of the articles, that Humanist = atheist, and that atheism is supposed to contain a code of morality. Both are false.

I think theists have a hard time with this one because they think of atheism as a religion - complete with fully prescribed beliefs on metaphysics and morality. WRONG! There is only one factor that is shared by all atheists - they don't believe in gods. Some atheists go further to deny all supernatural things. Some don't. You can be a religious atheist. Buddhism is an atheistic religion - complete with rituals, metaphysical beliefs and moral proclamations, but without the assertation of the existence of any gods. (Why dont articles about the morality of atheists ever address this huge subset, I wonder.) Saying, "atheists believe in nothing" is like saying "plumbers believe in nothing." Atheists can only be categorized on one belief. The rest depends the individual.

You don't have to be an atheist to be a Humanist. Read the American Humanist Association's Humanist Manifesto. It doesn't mention gods at all. Unlike the religious, Humanists don't see their creed as infallible or unchanging. The AHA has revised its manifesto twice since the first was composed in 1933. Currently, the AHA's beliefs include: knowledge is gained through evidence and reason, serving others can give one purpose, and ethics are developed from human experience. Contrary to what certain op ed.s might claim, Humanist values are not centered on nihilism or hedonism, or even atheism. It's about humans trying to find happiness and meaning while remaining grounded in evidence-based, rationally determined beliefs.

To Recap: atheism != Humanism, atheism != a complete world view. If you want to know what Humanists stand for, try visiting a Humanism website.

Purpose in Existence (Part II)

2009-03-27T13:45:00.004-04:00

If we were created for a purpose by a sentient being, would that purpose make our lives more fulfilling? I suppose that would depend on the being and the purpose for which we were created.

When I was younger, I had a vague belief that God, the omnipotent, benevolent, disembodied being that existed everywhere but resided in some other dimension, had a Big Plan. God created humans and everything else as part of the Big Plan, and we all had a part to play. To fulfill our parts, all we had to do was to have faith that we were in the right place at the right time, and to go about our lives morally in ways that made us happy. And when we died, we'd be able to talk with other higher beings about what the Plan was and what we had done for it. In retrospect, even though these beliefs now seem absurd, the idea of working for someone infinitely wiser than I, to accomplish some infinitely great goal, would still make me feel better about my life. (It would make more sense if God was infinitely wise and good, but not omnipotent. Omnipotence is inherently contradictory, and an omnipotent being wouldn't need my help to accomplish any Plan, no matter how Big.)

Suppose I wasn't created by a higher being, but I was brought to life with a purpose. Suppose my parents chose to have me because they wanted someone to take care of them when they were older. Um, yeah. Sorry, I'm not interested in the hospitality/health care industry, so personally taking care of them is not a purpose that I'd be happy about. In fact, being brought to life to fulfill any specific goal of my parents - or any fellow human - that would seem rather presumptuous of them. For a person to think they could dictate someone else's life's purpose would require such arrogance that I would only expect it among fascists and egotists. I certainly wouldn't take satisfaction from knowing that someone else had a purpose for me.

I've addressed the extremes of the spectrum, but how about something in the middle. Suppose humanity had been created by a highly moral and intelligent race in order to accomplish... something. For me, it would seem utterly arrogant for a species to create another sentient species just to help it complete a task. I doubt the members of the created species would take much fulfillment from their designated task, and what happens once that task is completed? Furthermore, where to the creator species get their purpose? If they have no given purpose, then, ultimately, fulfilling the purpose they have us would also lack meaning in the larger context.

That's what it's all about - context. As far as we can tell, there was no sentient cause for the Big Bang. The universe is not here for a purpose. I'm here because of the universe, but there's no purpose behind my existence. What can my Earthly goals mean in the larger context of the purposeless universe? Can they matter? In the context of the universe, does anything matter? Next post: subjective purpose - whatever that is.

Purpose in Existence (Part I)

2009-03-05T14:05:00.013-05:00

I'm breaking this article up into at least three parts. Part II will address hypothetical given meanings, and Part III will concern subjective, individual purposes. Please keep that in mind when commenting, i.e. don't complain that I didn't address individual purposes here since they'll be in Part III.

Part I: Objective Meaning

What is the meaning of life?

Short answer: there is none.

In order to properly address this question, we have to understand what we mean by "meaning" and "life." By "life" I mean the existence of sentient beings like humans in general, and my own existence in particular. When we try to attach a meaning to life, we really mean, why do we exist? But this isn't a "why" as in, "what are the events that caused our existence?" We are typically more interested in a purpose behind our existence. But for there to be a purpose, there must be intent, and for there to be intent, there must be a sentient being to have that intent. I don't believe a sentient being purposely created the universe or life or humans. Therefore, I don't believe there is a purpose.

My definitions of "meaning" and "life" in this article are non-negotiable. If you want to discuss other meanings of the meaning of life, post it on your own blog.

My answer - that there is no meaning - relies on sentient beings not having a sentient creator. Is that a reasonable assumption? I would say yes. I don't believe in unicorns because there is no evidence for their existence. Same goes for gods. I may not be able to prove that gods and unicorns don't exist, but that doesn't mean I should believe in them or even be completely agnostic toward them. I have already discussed the existence of gods here. If anyone wishes to further any of those discussions, email me and I'll open a new thread for it. (Blogger comment notifications don't work for me, so if you comment on an old post, I will probably never see it.) I'd prefer to limit this one to the title question.

Six Things 1, with The Dark Knight Review

2008-12-26T09:18:00.011-05:00

John tagged me with the Six Things meme. I don't usually do chain letters/memes. I think the concept is stupid. But I like John, so I'll do it for him. Someday. Maybe. On my own terms. I'm not sure if I'll come up with six unusual things about me that I feel like sharing, so I'm going to post them one at a time. If I get to six, I'll do the normal Six Things post.

Here's one: I hate movie theaters. They're too loud, and I have to sit through insufferable commercials, including previews for movies I would never watch, before I get to see my movie. That's why I waited until The Dark Knight came out on DVD to see it.

After listening to months of rave reviews of The Dark Knight, and Heath Ledger's performance, I had pretty high expectations. I was slightly disappointed. I enjoyed the movie. But I didn't poop myself every time The Joker came on screen, nor do I find it likely that I will someday run into someone like him in a dark alley.

I only have one complaint after the initial viewing (I usually find inconsistencies during later viewings). As in Batman Begins, I hate Christian Bale's Batman voice. He's just whispering. Come on. He's Batman. He has billions of dollars of technology in that suit, and he can't get a little voice modulator? Pah!

Now that that's out of the way, I loved the fact that there was no explicit gore other than Two Face's face. I don't like seeing that stuff, they did a fine job of implying it, and the lack of gore in the rest of the movie made Two Face all the more hideous. I also love that they didn't feel the need to throw in a sex scene. I don't need sex in movies, especially when it's obviously just there to sell the movie.

Despite my above lack of enthusiasm over The Joker, I thought the portrayal was very creative, if not faithful to the comic story. There are different kinds of evil. The most common evil is the choice to harm others for personal gains. Almost everyone will engage in this kind of evil from time to time. It's built into us - it's part of how we survive. That was not The Joker's evil. The Joker's evil is taking delight at harming others. It's a mean evil. He's not just being efficient, he enjoys torture and terror - he's a terrorist. And it's not just that he enjoys punishing specific people, like Two Face did, though there were certain people like Two Face and Batman that he wanted to watch suffer. No, The Joker's love of human suffering is a component that is uncommon to most human evil. That helped make him an interesting character.

Overall, I found the acting fairly convincing, which is unusual for a big, popular action movie. I agree with everyone else on Earth that Ledger did a fine job of making The Joker believable. But I would go beyond that to applaud Bale's portrayal of Bruce Wayne as the fop and as having a crush on Rachel. I'm thinking of two scenes in particular. Bruce the fop getting out of the Lamborghini after having wrecked it, saying he was just trying to catch the light, asking if he should go to a hospital. Bravo. Also, when Bruce tells Rachel he's going to give up Batman, and will she still be there for him. The kiss showed Bruce's lust for Rachel - not Rachel's body, but all of Rachel - while she loved him but with reservations. Their portrayal rang very true for someone who has had very similar experiences.

Overall I found the movie enjoyable and engaging, and am planning to watch it again. I found the use of terrorism creative and culturally relevant, with the safety of escapism possible in The Joker's unusual character. I'll be giving it 4 stars on my Netflix account.

Happenings

2008-09-02T15:19:00.011-04:00

Two things happened. I wrecked on my bike on the 29th. Don't worry, the bike is fine. It came away with only mildly dislocated breaks and seat. This was because I broke its fall. I ended up going to the ER that Sunday because my knee was still all swollen up, and I wasn't sure what to do with such deep abrasions. They x-rayed my knee, scrubbed out my wounds, and sent me home with a strap-on cast and crutches. They said I had a sprain, and they referred me to an orthopedic surgeon in case of ligament damage. The OS told me to get rid of the cast and to wean myself off the crutches - no ligament damage. Now, I don't think I even had a sprain. The swelling's gone down and I'm walking on my own. Once my knee has warmed up, I can even do stairs without assistance. The gashes on my knee, wrist and shoulder are still annoying, and I'm going to see a specialist tomorrow to learn how to avoid scarring.

In other news, K updated his resume and has been looking for work in New York, Boston and the DC area. We're generally tired of Pittsburgh, and incompetent management has ruined any satisfaction he would be taking from his job. Last Friday, the day I wrecked, K got an offer to work in Boston. He negotiated an acceptable salary that weekend and accepted the job. He starts Monday. They're sending him straight to Toronto for a programming training camp. Then they'll fly him back here, and we'll drive to Boston by way of Weisport PA to attend my niece's first birthday party. Things are moving fast, though not fast enough in some instances. K's new company is putting us up in a corporate apartment for our first month in Boston, but they haven't figured out where yet. The apartment will be furnished, but I need to know how furnished so I'll know what needs to come with us. We're having the movers leave our stuff in storage until we get the next apartment. We'll have to pack everything we need in the interim in our car, and I need to know what that is so the movers can give me the right quote. Not that the money is that crucial: K's company is paying for the move. Breathe in. Breathe out. Relax.

I'm moving to Boston in two weeks!

News

2008-08-21T17:46:00.010-04:00

Wake up, Ponce de Leon, FL. We're in 2008 now. You can't use religion to excuse your bigoted behavior in public schools.

When a high school senior ["Jane Doe"] told her principal that students were taunting her for being a lesbian, he told her homosexuality is wrong, outed her to her parents and ordered her to stay away from children.

He suspended some of her friends who expressed their outrage by wearing gay pride T-shirts and buttons at Ponce de Leon High School, according to court records. And he asked dozens of students whether they were gay or associated with gay students.

One of "Jane Doe's" friends, Heather Gillman, told her mother what was going on. Mrs. Gillman contacted the ACLU, and they sued.

"Davis embarked on what can only be characterized as a 'witch hunt' to identify students who were homosexual and their supporters, further adding fuel to the fire," U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak recounted in his ruling. "He went so far as to lift the shirts of female students to insure the letters 'GP' or the words 'Gay Pride' were not written on their bodies."

Gillman and the ACLU won their lawsuit. Davis was demoted to a teaching position, and the school district had to pay $325,000 in ACLU attorney fees. However, it was a hollow victory.

A Wal-Mart worker yelled at [Mrs. Gillman], accusing her of trying to "bankrupt" the school district... One of her friends has refused to talk to her because the lawsuit conflicted with the woman's religious beliefs.

Others flatly hail Davis as a hero.

"David Davis is a fine man and good principal, and we are a gentle, peaceful, Christian, family-oriented community," said Bill Griffin, 73 and a lifelong Ponce de Leon resident.

IMO, "Jane Doe" should sue the principal for discrimination, and every girl who's shirt was lifted by the principal should sue him for sexual assault. Perhaps then the citizens of Ponce de Leon will learn the difference between "God's Law" and civil law.

Oh Noes! Their History Conflicts with Our Dogma!

2008-07-23T16:37:00.004-04:00

On November 18, PBS is airing "The Bible's Buried Secrets," a history documentary which puts forth the following claims:

The Old Testament was written in the sixth century BC and hundreds of authors contributed.
Abraham, Sarah and their offspring didn't exist.
There is no archaeological evidence of the Exodus.
Monotheism was a process that took hundreds of years.
The Israelites were actually Canaanites.
The Israelites believed that God had a wife.

So, in true religious style, when told that history conflicts with their dogma, the AFA's response is to kill the messenger. They are compiling a petition urging congress into ending financial support of PBS. But why stop there? Why not beg their sky daddy to starts making evidence fit his stories? And throw in a little plague and pestilence for those nasty unbelievers.

My latest Hobby

2008-05-30T15:24:00.007-04:00

xkcd

Tastes Like Burning

2008-05-19T14:31:00.014-04:00

I just got back from the dentist. There is something very unpleasant about smelling - and tasting - your own burning flesh. And the right half of my lower face is numb. But lemme explain.

My stupid wisdom teeth - actually, they're pretty good compared to most. They came in straight, but the bottom two never quite finished poking through the gums. I had little flaps of gum covering the back end of the teeth, and that made them hard to clean. Also, little, hard bits of food would sometimes get stuck under the flap, and they would be a bitch to get out. And the gum flaps would get inflamed once in a while. So today, I had the smaller but more irritating of the two flaps removed.

It started promising enough: local anesthesia. Then we moved onto the dreaded needle. Why did he have to jam it in there so many times? Anyway, that just stung a little bit. Then, it was down to the twisty, curvy sharp things and the cauterizer. Imagine smoke raising out of your mouth and through your nose as little bits of burnt flesh splatter on your tongue. No, it did not taste like beef or chicken. Burning gum smells much like burning hair. And he was gagging me with mirror he was using to hold my tongue out of the way. It was getting very warm in there, and my gut was writhing in my belly.

By then it was over. The dentist asked me how I felt, and I said I was hot and a little nauseous. So he gave me smelling salts - ammonia. Pure, wholesome ammonia. What was he thinking!?! OK, I didn't puke, but it was awful. Next time, if there is a next time, I'll avoid the evil, little ammonia capsule.

It's Like Poll Crashing, only it Matters.

2008-05-07T12:05:00.008-04:00

I've got a new hobby. Four days ago I heard that the AFA (American Family Assn or Abhorrent Fundy Asses, I can never remember which) had waged a letter-writing campaign against Proctor and Gamble for including gays in one of their soap operas. My response was to use the AFA's email mechanism to thank P&G for the positive portrayal of gays in their soap opera. That put me on the AFA mailing list, so now they're keeping me informed of all of their maligned activities. My new hobby: AFA crashing. Every time they campaign to force Bronze Age morality on America, I will oppose them by using their mechanisms to distribute my message to the appropriate parties, and I will spread the word to like-minded individuals. It's like poll crashing, except that when I make my opinion known to my senators or to P&G or whoever else the AFA targets, those opinions could have real effects on their actions.

Last night I read the AFA's latest call to action: they want to protect employers' rights to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) has passed in the house and is moving onto the senate. According to the AFA, "The proposed legislation would prohibit employers from taking their deeply held [religious] beliefs into account when making personnel decisions." In the same way that a Jew or Muslim may want to fire or bar employment from eaters of bacon, the AFA wants to ensure employers' rights to discriminate against people for what they do in their private lives. Because (to them) it's icky. And their book says it's bad. In two places.

It is important that our senators get a representative sample of opinions on this legislation. To email/mail your senators, you can follow this AFA link. Enter your zip code and click "Go." It takes you to a page with a form letter addressed to your state's senators. Simply delete the AFA form letter and insert your own message. Here's what I said:

I urge you to support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). The personal lives of law-abiding citizens should not be grounds for employment discrimination. A Jew can't fire me for eating pork. A Muslim can't bar me from employment for not wearing a burka. No one should be able to discriminate against a homosexual for loving his or her chosen partner. We're all counting on you to support equality. Support America. Support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

Gays have Broken into the Soap Opera Venue

2008-05-03T22:35:00.007-04:00

Proctor & Gamble owned As the World Turns now features a gay couple... [brace yourself for this]... KISSING! And the American Family Association* wont stand for it. They have called upon their herd to send P&G disapproving emails. The template email contains the claim that homosexuality is an "unhealthy lifestyle" and accuse P&G of "pushing the radical homosexual agenda." To be fair, portraying a caring, sensitive display of affection between to adult males is pretty radical, so I used AFA's email mechanism to let P&G know just how I feel, and I suggest you do the same.

*The American Family Association is not affiliated with America or families, but they are asses.

A Challenge to PZ

2008-04-16T09:32:00.012-04:00

I've been bringing Cara Mel and her kittens downstairs into the kitchen during the daytime to give them a change of scenery and to give Cara Mel the chance to spend more time with me and less with the furry hoard. Then this happened: I was, of course, shocked. I hadn't thought she had used the computer at all, let alone enough to have declared herself the Voice of Science. At least she's got a better grasp of the English language than those LOL Cats. Anyway, she has identified PZ Myers as the recipient of this challenge, and has issued the following threat: PZ, if you're reading this, I'd watch out. Sure, I can control Cara's movements now, but once she and the hoard are adopted out, there's no telling how far they will go.

Expelling Lies

2008-04-15T12:33:00.012-04:00

Theists could do a lot for their image by expelling the hypocrites and con-artists from their ranks. I guess the 5 or so theists left would feel pretty lonely.

The con-artist I'm thinking about right now are those behind the Expelled, movie. You can see a thorough debunking of their lies at Expelled Exposed, but why take their word for it*? Why not find out for yourself? Go to your local public library, wander over to the QH section and look at the biology books in the 331s. I recommend About Life, by Agutter and Wheatley. It's a short read - 200 pages - written at a level that a middel school student could understand. No previous knowledge of biology is required. What you'll find is that life in incredibly complex, and the natural processes that created it and make it work are far more exciting than faeries or ghosts.

*Expelled Exposed was created by the National Center for Science Education. The goal of science is to expand our knowledge of the universe, and scientific method is the only reliable way humans have found to determine what is true. Don't believe me? How are you reading this, through clairvoyance or a computer screen? Science works, bitches.

A Sonnet

2008-04-08T21:42:00.008-04:00

"For They Might Be Giants"

We took a short trek north, over the bridge
Rout PA-28, under the ridge
Twenty five bucks a piece at Mr. Smalls
To see TMBG give it their alls.

We filled that hollowed out church to the brim
With fat old dorks and geeks pale and slim.
They smoked their incense in packs of twenty,
Taking their communion of Wild Turkey.

There was Marty on drums and Dans on strings.
John plays guitar while John keyboards and sings,
"I'm your only friend" and we sing along
With all the words to each and ev'ry song.

I grabbed my ear plugs when my ears got sore.
My hubby wished I had brought one pair more.
Istanbul replaced Constantinople;
Confetti flew blue, yellow and purple.

Where triangles prowled and Gilgimesh walked
I palindromed I, and the cyclops rocked.

BRILLIANT DISCOVERY!1!!1!11

2008-04-08T21:33:00.007-04:00

MARTHA STEWART is the ONE TRUE DAUGHTER of GOD!!! PROOF: compare the lives of MARTHA and JESUS: UNLIKELY CONSEQUENCE: STEWART’s MOTHER sues GOD for unpaid child support!!!

Infused with Humor

2008-04-08T21:13:00.003-04:00

I've decided to merge my humor blog with this blog. Get ready for some Brilliant Discoveries!1!!1!11

BRILLIANT DISCOVERY!1!!1!11

2008-04-08T21:06:00.009-04:00

FACTS: (1) many salads contain boiled potatoes and eggs (2) you can boil them together!

AMAZING RESULTS: potatoes and eggs are done at the same time! COINCIDENCE? NO! STARTLING CONCLUSION: GOD exists, and GOD likes HOT SPINACH SALAD!

TUNE in next time for another AMAZING REVELATION: MARTHA STEWART is the ONE TRUE DAUGHTER of GOD!!!

To Mock or not to Mock...

2008-03-21T13:22:00.009-04:00

I've been toying with the idea of doing Zombie Jesus re-enactments in the park on Sunday. Is that crossing the line? Should we refrain from mocking the Christian holiday that worships the raising of their undead savior? I want to know what you think. I'm also interested in suggestions for how the re-enactments should be carried out. My K-bot has a Jesus costume from when we both went as gods last Halloween (I was the IPU). We could have a blood (wine) and brains (spaghetti) feast... I think I'm liking that one... Anyone else got an idea?

This is one of the responses I got after publishing this post on Rational Responders.

Through the Gates of Hell

2007-12-25T22:07:00.006-05:00

I was bored today. Fortunately, John posted a bunch of quizzes on his blog. I didn't like the questions or answers on the philosophy one, so I didn't finish it. The others were ok. My inner child is 6 years old, and I got a B in 8th grade science. Here's how I measured up in the hell test: The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis! Here is how I matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Very High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very High
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very High

Take the Dante's" Inferno Hell Test I've been Dissed by Dante. I read some of the descriptions of Dante's levels of hell. They weren't actually that bad. There are worse things on Earth. Hell's only edge is eternity, and if you think about it, an eternity of any one thing would become wretched.

I wasn't going to bore you with tidbits from my personal life, but I just don't have that much to say about current affairs or philosophy, and I figured some of my relatives would enjoy my quiz results.

Save US from the "Spineless" Telecoms

2007-11-14T14:57:00.001-05:00

Eight days ago Congress held hearings in which they condemned Yahoo's CEO and top lawyer for their companies cooperation with the Chinese government's domestic spying activities. Representative Tom Lantos called Yahoo's actions "spineless and irresponsible." Yahoo has since settled a lawsuit brought on by the families of a blogger and a journalist, both of which have become political prisoners as a result of Yahoo's actions. Congress has spoken. There will be no forgiveness for companies that break the U.S. laws in order to comply with government spying activities.

Tomorrow, the senate will vote whether to hold several American phone/Internet companies accountable for helping the US government to spy on US citizens. For a little perspective, consider this: in the Yahoo-China case, Yahoo disclosed the names and private emails of two pro-democracy activists. According to retired AT&T technician Mark Klein, the NSA was getting "an exact copy of all... Internet traffic that flowed through critical AT&T cables - emails, documents, pictures, web browsing, voice-over Internet-phone conversations - everything... every second of every day." AT&T was making it possible for the NSA to data-mine the Internet activities of ordinary U.S. citizens, and all of this without a warrant. Let's hold our legislators to the precedent they set last Tuesday: call your senators and ask them to give their constituents as much protection from US company-enabled domestic spying as they gave to the citizens of China.

Alan Chambers: Ex-Gay Extraordinaire

2007-06-26T23:17:00.003-04:00

Today NPR's "Day to Day" aired a short interview with Exodus International president Alan Chambers. Exodus International's mission is to convert homosexuals into heterosexuals. The organization's founder, Michael Bussey, fell in love with another male counselor and now condemns all de-gaying programs. Oops.

As for Alan Chambers, he's not only the president: he's also a member. He says he's a completely reformed "ex-gay." Does he still feel the occasional lust for members of the same sex? Yes, he says, but "that's just being a human being." No, that's just being gay. Being human covers having sexual urges, but if those urges are for members of the same sex, then you are at least partially gay. Similarly, adults who are not currently sexually active still have sexual orientations.

Chambers goes on to say that EI is there for people who "chose to decide something different than what the world says is best for their life." He "categorically" denies that "the world is anti-homosexual." I guess his world doesn't include countries like Algeria, Mozambique or Zimbabwe, where simply being homosexual is illegal. Rather, Chambers said that in this society, "homosexuality is celebrated, it's something that is taught in the schools as good." Where do you live? San Francisco? Only in the '60s or current times? In the middle of a Gay Pride parade? I guess that as an anti-gay activist he likes to pretend to be the bottom dog... I mean underdog.

The "Problem of Evil" in Context of my Proofs

2007-06-05T13:08:00.009-04:00

The proofs in the previous post assert that Phil and Judy should not exist if there is suffering in the world. This argument is similar to the philosophical Problem of Evil. The distinction is that evil is usually linked to some sort of intention, whereas suffering - physical, mental and emotional pain - has no such link. Reading Daggerclaw’s comments, it is apparent that a more direct discussion of the Problem of Evil, or in this case, suffering, is in order. I’m addressing the usual justifications for evil, but as justifications for suffering, and in the context of the existence of Phil or Judy.

Evil is an illusion - what we perceive to be evil is not really evil.

This argument usually posits that what we see as evil is not actually evil because bad things can have good long-term effects and because natural evils like hurricanes and disease are not connected to nefarious intentions. This argument really doesn’t work for suffering. Suffering does not have to have intentions. It doesn’t matter if suffering has good long-term effects. It's still suffering, so this argument has no impact on my proofs.

Perhaps the reader wishes to pursue the stance that all suffering really is an illusion. Perhaps our entire lives are no more than illusions. Nonetheless, the idea that Phil or Judy would deceive us into believing we are suffering is still inconsistent with the notion of omnibenevolence.

God cannot be judged because God is infinitely wiser/more complex than us.

A lowly being like myself can think of a way for an Abrahamic god like Judy to achieve what it wants without the use of any suffering (Proof II part 3). Thus, I find it ridiculous to believe that a such a god would have a goal that it, in its infinite wisdom, cannot achieve without the use of Holocaust-scale suffering.

Suffering for the greater good

This is basically the same as the previous. What could a god possibly want that it can’t get without Holocaust-scale suffering? Such an idea is inconsistent with an omniscient, omnipotent god.

Evil exists to test humanity

Judy/Phil already know what we will do, so testing is unnecessary.

Free will

The system constructed in Proof II part 3 circumvents the need for free will to create suffering. Even with free will, Judy already knows what people will do, what they will choose, etc., and who would go to heaven if they were to live on Earth. Thus, she creates the heaven-bound souls in heaven. Funny how free will doesn’t create suffering in heaven…

Suffering for the purpose of building character

Phil/Judy can create souls with built-in character, making character-building suffering unnecessary.

Evil is the lack of God’s compassion

If there is ever a lack of Phil/Judy’s compassion, it is because Phil/Judy wanted it to be so. Thus, by removing its compassion, Phil/Judy is still responsible all evil in the world. Thus, Phil/Judy is responsible for suffering.

I think a lot of these justifications were formulated with the unstated assumption that God had to create a physical world like the Earth. However, there is no basis for that assumption. Without it, we have Proof I in which no souls are created and Proof II in which no physical world is created. Any questions?

Proofs that Gods DNE

2007-06-04T08:53:00.007-04:00

I wish to prove that the philosopher's god does not exist. To avoid confusion, I will call that god Phil. Define Phil as omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and the creator of the universe. This is consistent with the Merriam Webster definition. Proof I:

Assume Phil exists.
An omnibenevolent entity dislikes suffering.
There is suffering in this universe.
An omnipotent being does not have to do anything it would not want to do.
From 2 and 3 we have that Phil does not like the suffering in this universe.
From 4 we have that Phil did not have to create any universe with suffering.
An omniscient entity would know the results of all of its actions before taking them.
Thus, from 5 and 7, Phil would not want to create this universe.
From 6 and 8, Phil would not create this universe.
This universe exists.
9 and 10 form a contradiction. Therefore, our assumption must be wrong. Phil does not exist.

Discussion I: If an omnibenevolent god were to create a universe, it would not want there to be suffering in it. If it were omnipotent, it would have the power to create a universe without suffering, and if it were omniscient, it would know how to do this. But since the universe we live in contains suffering, Phil would not have created it. Since I defined Phil as the creator of the universe, my only assumption - that Phil exists - must be wrong.

Next I'll take on a god that has the same ultimate goal as that of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Define Judy as having the same traits as Phil, with the addition that Judy has created a heaven, and Judy wants to populate it with people who would chose to do certain things in their lives, i.e. worship and obey Judy.

Proof II:

Assume Judy exists.
As shown in Proof I step 9, Judy would not wish to create a universe with suffering if she could avoid it.
Judy could populate heaven as follows:
- create a computer model of the universe. (Judy creates an unimaginably powerful computer, and Judy writes an incomprehensibly complex simulation program.)
- simulate the souls and lives in the program.
- use the model to find out which souls would meet all criteria to go to heaven.
- create only the souls that would go to heaven.
- skip living. Place souls in heaven exactly as they would be as if they had lived.
In this way, heaven is populated exactly as if this universe had existed, but without the creation of real suffering.
From 3 we see that Judy can have what she wants without creating suffering, and we know she doesn't want suffering from 2.
From 4, Judy would not create this universe.
This universe exists.
5 and 6 form a contradiction. Therefore, our assumption must be wrong. Judy does not exist.

Discussion II: It should be evident that an all-knowing and all-powerful god could create the model in step 3, complete with simulated souls. I am asserting that free will could be simulated by an omnipotent, omniscient being. Unless someone has some very special definitions of souls or free will, there should be no argument on those points. I am not saying that the step 3 model is the only way Judy could accomplish her goal. It doesn't have to be. All I need to do is show that Judy could have what she wants without creating human suffering. Since she is benevolent, she would choose simulated suffering over actual suffering. Thus, she wouldn't create this universe. The ungrounded assumption in this discussion is that Judy exists, and since we found a contradiction, it means that that assumption must be wrong. Judy does not exist.

If you still believe in a god by the end of these two proofs, then either (1) they haven't sunk in yet, (2) you don't believe them because you don't understand logic, (3) you don't think they apply to your god, or (4) see below. If (3) is the case, then your god cannot have all four of the traits: omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, creator of the universe. It can have some of these, but not all four. If you think your god has these traits, but didn't do what was described in Proof II step 3 because of some special limitations/circumstances/whims, then these limitations mean your god isn't omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent, or your god didn't create the universe.

On the other hand, if (2) is the case, then I highly recommend that you learn logic. It is indispensable if things like the existence of god or problem-solving interest you. If you don't know which of these three categories you fit into, it's probably a mix of (1) and (2). Take a break, read up on logic, and then go back over these proofs in a few days.

(4) I have complete confidence in the truth and validity of these arguments. If you take issue with any of the premises or the logical steps, and you can demonstrate that you know the difference between truth and validity, then I encourage you to leave a comment.

You can also see a discussion of these proofs here.

Why do you believe?

2007-05-24T13:48:00.006-04:00

Think about why you hold your religious beliefs. List out the kinds of evidence.

Personal experience: Muslims and Christians both point to personal experience as proof of their religions. Islam and Christianity are mutually exclusive. Therefore, although some personal experiences may be true, we cannot use them as evidence for validity of belief.
Literature: If being published written with the claim of validity were proof of truth, then the Koran, the Bible, and the book of Mormon would all be true. Since they are mutually exclusive, we need a better standard. In academia, that standard is being published in a peer-reviewed academic journal. Remove everything that has not been published or supported in a peer-reviewed academic journal.
Personal accounts of others: If written, see Literature. Otherwise, we have no way of holding people accountable for what they say. Therefore, we cannot base our beliefs on them.

Now look at the evidence you have left. Does it still convince you that your beliefs are true? If so, please describe your beliefs and share your evidence. Be sure to cite all sources.